Going to Confession

This has nothing to do with research, but I need a moment to express how not excited I am about my Friday. I have a checkup with my endocrinologist, an appointment that I dread since, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me, I always leave his office in tears. Since I live about an hour and a half on public transportation from his office and he’s often running late, these checkups usually end up being a half-day affair. We talk about diabetes, he listens to my heart, he says vaguely reassuring things, and then I leave his office and cry. It’s awesome. Making it even more awkward is that the diabetes center is directly across the hall from Oncology, which means that I leave the office feeling not only upset, but guilty about crying: at least I don’t have cancer.

Anyway, this appointment is going to be even worse than normal because in addition to meeting with my actual doctor, I’m scheduled for a session with a nutritionist and a pump educator. I’m annoyed by this first because they’re spaced out by an hour apiece, guaranteeing at least a three hour stint in the hospital, but also because I don’t really know why I’m seeing any of these people. When I go to the nutritionist, this is what I tell her: I eat the same goddamn thing for breakfast every day (2 percent Fage yogurt with splenda and strawberries). I have a weakness for dark chocolate. I exercise compulsively. And I eat a shitload of eggs. And cheese. Then she pulls out those stupid plastic foods that all nutritionists seem to have on hand to show you the size of a three-ounce steak, and I have an urge to throw a rubber chicken thigh at her face.

That all would be okay, except there always comes a moment where the situation switches in my head and I’m no longer in a doctor’s office; I’m in a confessional. I am diabetic, and by having one and a half rolls with dinner last night (resulting in high blood sugar till 1 am), I have sinned. I think that’s why I start getting emotional — I try so hard, every day, every meal, to not do things to fuck up my blood sugar. But I’m not perfect. And, even worse, I don’t think I ever could be.

It’s the worst part of diabetes, the constant pressure to be perfect — and the feeling that you’ve failed if you succumb to the butternut squash soup. I had a teacher who once commented that the problem with being a perfectionist is that your only option is to be let down. It’s true. But the problem with diabetes, as I see it, is that you have to be a perfectionist. If you aren’t perfect, the only person you hurt is yourself. And I don’t want to go blind. But I also have to eat.

Catherine Price

Catherine Price (www.catherine-price.com) was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 22 years old. She has written for publications including The Best American Science Catherine Price is a professional journalist who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 22 years old. Her work has been featured in publications including The Best American Science Writing, The New York Times, Popular Science, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post Magazine, Salon, Slate, Men’s Journal, Health Magazine, The Oprah Magazine, and Outside, among others. A graduate of Yale and UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism

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Catherine Price

Catherine Price was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 22 years old. She has written for publications including The Best American Science Catherine Price is a professional journalist who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 22 years old. Her work has been featured in publications including The Best American Science Writing, The New York Times, Popular Science, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post Magazine, Salon, Slate, Men’s Journal, Health Magazine, The Oprah Magazine, and Outside, among others. A graduate of Yale and UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism