When I was a senior in college, I lived many American women\u2019s dream: I ate whatever I wanted to and lost weight. Not only that, but the more I ate, the more weight came off. Clothing was loose that had fit snugly just months before, and I had to use a belt to keep my favorite pair of pants from sliding off my waist.<\/p>\n
Of course, other strange things were happening as well. I was tired all the time, my head felt like it had been stuffed with cotton, I was ravenously hungry but nauseated after meals, and I kept finding tickets in my pockets for performances that I\u2019d forgotten that I\u2019d gone to.<\/p>\n
I attributed my symptoms to having just been dumped.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t believe he broke up with me!\u201d I said one night to Marie, my best friend and college roommate, as I gnawed on an oversized chocolate chip cookie. \u201cI was supposed to be the one who hurt him<\/em>.\u201d I wiped a crumb off my chin, then ripped off a piece from a loaf of bread and smothered it with butter. \u201cDo we have anything else to eat?\u201d<\/p>\n It was as if I were on heavyweight crew. After waking up to a breakfast of two bananas covered in peanut butter, I ate a scone as a mid-morning snack before devouring three slices of bread with Muenster cheese, a cup and a half of chickpeas and yogurt with raisins, a plate of pasta and an ice cream sundae. And then only a cup of tea and a plateful of cookies stood between me and dinner, after which I could have my before-bed snack.<\/p>\n I also couldn\u2019t stop drinking. Not alcohol, but water. Cups and cups of it. I drank upwards of a gallon a day and went to sleep fantasizing about the glasses that would await me when I woke up, ice cubes sparkling in the morning light. As a result, I constantly had to pee. I surreptitiously disappeared into the bathroom after every meal, a habit which, when added to my binge eating and weight loss, made it seem that I was bulimic. Lectures now necessitated an aisle seat; conversations could last no more than twenty minutes. Even sleep was not a refuge. Sabotaged by the four glasses I had drunk at dinner, I woke up upwards of three times a night on the verge of wetting my bed, and made up for the liquid I\u2019d lost by lapping water from the bathroom faucet on my way back to my room.<\/p>\n Wondering if I were the only one suffering, I casually brought up my thirst in conversation, as if I were at a party trying to subtly gauge whether the host also did cocaine.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know, it\u2019s the funniest thing,\u201d I\u2019d say at lunch, wolfing down a turkey club with extra mayonnaise. \u201cI\u2019m feeling a little thirsty. Is anyone else feeling, you know, a little thirstier <\/em>than normal?\u201d\u00a0 When no one responded, I\u2019d have to act like I wasn\u2019t into water, either, and come up with another excuse for why I kept sneaking into the kitchen, where I\u2019d duck behind the soda machine and chug another sixteen-ounce glass.<\/p>\n When it became clear that none of my other friends were falling asleep with visions of Italian sodas in their heads, I chalked my thirst up to my appetite (surely I needed liquid to balance out my food), and my appetite to my depression. The fact that I was losing weight while eating 7,000 calories a day was a bit harder to explain, but as I lost first five, then ten, then fifteen pounds, I hypothesized that I had found dieting\u2019s holy grail: if you stopped worrying about your weight, it would go away on its own.<\/p>\n One afternoon, after weighing in at my lowest weight since eighth grade, I decided to reward my (lack of) efforts with a plate of cookies, as if I were on some bastardized carbohydrate version of the Atkins plan. I had started dating a new guy, I looked good in a bikini\u2014I obviously deserved nine mint Milanos and seven chocolate-dipped grahams. Forget the fact that my vision was so blurry that I couldn\u2019t see, and waves of nausea rippled through my body. I gave my new boyfriend what he called a \u201csweet kiss,\u201d tottered back up to my room, vomited into our communal toilet, and collapsed into bed. As I lay on my back, staring up at the ceiling, I thought to myself, \u201cWow, I actually just tossed my cookies.\u201d Then I needed to pee.<\/p>\n *\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *<\/p>\n Doctors don\u2019t know what causes Type 1 diabetes, but the disease\u2019s basic effects on the body are well-understood. When a non-diabetic\u2019s body releases glucose into the blood stream (from either food or energy stored in the body), the pancreas secretes a hormone called insulin. Insulin acts like a key, unlocking the body\u2019s cells so that they can take the glucose out of the blood stream and use it for energy. The pancreas, working in conjunction with the liver, maintains a consistent concentration of glucose in the blood regardless of what the person eats.<\/p>\n Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which the body attacks and kills its insulin-producing cells. Without insulin, the glucose can’t get from the blood stream to the cells. Blood sugar concentrations rise but since the body can\u2019t absorb any of the energy, it literally begins to starve\u2014hence my weight loss. As blood sugar levels get higher, the body flushes out the excess sugar in the urine (diabetes\u2019 full name, \u201cdiabetes mellitus,\u201d literally means \u201csweet siphon\u201d). The result of all this flushing? Excessive thirst. High glucose concentrations affect tiny blood vessels in the eyes\u2014and, therefore, your sight\u2014and make undiagnosed diabetics\u2019 breath smell like juicy fruit (when he referred to my \u201csweet kisses,\u201d my boyfriend was speaking literally).<\/p>\n Untreated high blood sugar, or hyperglycemia, damages all parts of the body, with complications that range from blindness to stroke to kidney failure to heart disease to amputation. Hypoglycemia (or low blood sugar), on the other hand, is caused when excess insulin in the blood pulls too much glucose out of the blood stream. Going too far in this direction can quickly lead to seizures, coma, and even death.<\/p>\n *\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *<\/p>\n DUH, or the Department of University Health, is a six-storey cinderblock building built during the glory days of the 1970s that delivers health care to students, faculty, and members of the community. Among undergraduates, DUH is both an acronym and an exclamation\u2014as in, \u201cDuh, I know I need my stomach pumped, so why did you give me a pregnancy test?\u201d<\/p>\n Apparently, a diagnosis of diabetes freed me from suspected sexual promiscuity, because as far as I know, my blood work did not involve my reproductive hormones. Instead, I found out that my glucose levels were five times what they should have been and that I\u2019d almost passed out in a hyperglycemic coma. A friendly doctor apologized for having to diagnose me, and sent me upstairs to the inpatient ward.<\/p>\n My hospital room was bright and smelled like spring, thanks to an arrangement of hydrangeas from a friend\u2019s mother that arrived less than a day after I checked in. A television dangled from the ceiling, and an IV stand stood at the head of the bed, dripping a bag of saline into my arm as I lay on the plastic-covered mattress. In the bathroom, a white, plastic contraption called a \u201chat\u201d hung from the toilet bowl, collecting my urine so that it could be tested for sugar and ketones.<\/p>\n Up to the moment of my diagnosis, I had always been exceptionally healthy. I had never broken a bone or had surgery; I wasn\u2019t allergic to anything except ragweed; my cholesterol was notably low. I hardly even got colds. Sickness\u2014let alone disease\u2014was an abstract concept, something for me to worry about in the distant future. And yet here I was, 22 years old, diagnosed with a disease that I didn\u2019t know anything about, but which I realized had no cure. Marie insisted on staying with me that night, curled up on a cot next to my hissing radiator as I lay in the darkness, trying to cry but too confused about what was happening to actually produce tears.<\/p>\n On my second day in the hospital, I was still in shock\u2014both about having a disease and about the fact that reality didn\u2019t match up with the soap-opera \u201cGetting a Disease\u201d fantasy I apparently had tucked away in my subconscious, along with \u201cMarrying Jon Stewart\u201d and \u201cWinning an Oscar.\u201d Where was the dramatic music? Where was my ex-boyfriend, arriving on bended knee to tell me he\u2019d made a mistake?<\/p>\n And where were the cute interns? Perhaps they\u2019d been whisked away to fulfill someone else\u2019s \u201cVisit to the Emergency Room\u201d dreams, since they certainly weren\u2019t on my floor. Instead, I had Laurie, a plump middle-aged nurse who wore teddy bear-printed scrubs and gave me frequent, much-needed hugs. Since all the diabetes specialists were off duty for the weekend, Laurie taught me how to give myself insulin shots.<\/p>\n \u201cSo you want to try to get rid of the bubbles,\u201d she said as we both pulled insulin out of small vials and into disposable syringes, flicking our fingernails against the bottles to drive out the air. It looked like we were about to shoot up.\u00a0 \u201cThen pinch a bit of skin between your fingers, and stick it in.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s something disconcerting about realizing that your stomach has the same consistency as a Jell-O mold. Despite the fact that I didn\u2019t have much body fat, I still felt like if I had just embedded some canned fruit into my abdomen, it could have doubled as dessert.<\/p>\n Between trying to learn how to gauge how much insulin to take for every meal, getting used to pricking my fingers to test my sugar levels, and learning everything I could about diabetes, I felt overwhelmed. While at first I\u2019d rebelled against the idea of staying in the hospital, by the third day, I didn\u2019t want to leave\u2014my room became a refuge from everything else I was supposed to do. I had an art history exam. But how important was Kandinsky\u2019s use of color when I didn\u2019t know if I could eat pasta? I was supposed to write a screenplay within the next two months. But you can\u2019t write a screenplay without a computer, I told myself, sinking back onto my plastic sheathed pillows and flipping on a rerun of \u201cThe Golden Girls.\u201d<\/p>\n Besides, why leave when you get to feel so special? Friends visited daily, dropping by on their way to and from class.<\/p>\n \u201cCome in, sit down,\u201d I directed from my bed, waving my hand toward the two pleather chairs that sat by the window looking out onto the unforgiving New Haven gray, my hospital wrist tag taking the place of a society woman\u2019s golden bracelets. \u201cMake yourselves at home!\u201d I wrapped my hospital dressing gown around me like a satin robe.<\/p>\n I could offer my guests conversation and syringes, but food and drink were tough\u2014alcohol obviously wasn\u2019t allowed in the building and the water faucet in my bathroom was off-limits, thanks to the hat full of my urine that dangled appetizingly from the toilet\u2019s edge. Instead, I stockpiled saltine crackers and plastic cups of orange juice, remedies for low blood sugar that I decided could double as finger food.<\/p>\n \u201cAnother cracker?\u201d I\u2019d ask friends as they sat curled up next to the radiator. \u201cI\u2019m sorry I don\u2019t have any cheese to go with it. But I think you\u2019ll like this juice.\u201d<\/p>\n By the fourth day after my diagnosis, I had established something of an afternoon salon, a \u201ccatch-up-and-chat\u201d session attended by some of my closest friends.<\/p>\n \u201cI brought you a book!\u201d said my friend Marc one afternoon, walking into a room full of people nibbling on Saltines. We gathered eagerly on the bed and chairs to hear the story. An illustrated children\u2019s book, it was called I Have Diabetes. <\/em>It didn\u2019t look particularly captivating, but another friend had just finished demonstrating a game in which he stuck his hand down his pants and fished for pubic hair, and we were up for something new.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you get diabetes,\u201d Marc read in a slight sing-song, as if addressing a room full of second graders. \u201cYour whole world changes. Nothing will ever be the same again.\u201d<\/p>\n The accompanying illustration showed a small child laying on a hospital bed, looking confused, a nurse with a crisp white hat standing beside the bed, brandishing a needle.<\/p>\n \u201cNow you will need to test your blood sugar every day,\u201d read Marc. \u201cAnd take shots of something called insulin, to keep you alive.\u201d He showed us a drawing of the same child wincing as the nurse jabbed a needle into his upper arm. The room was silent.<\/p>\n Marc quickly flipped to the next page. \u201cPeople will tell you that diabetes can do very bad things to you,\u201d he read. \u201cThey might talk about your heart, or your eyes, or about losing your legs.\u201d He began to show us the accompanying picture and thought better of it, but not before I\u2019d gotten a glimpse of the little boy in bed, dream bubbles above his head imagining himself with a missing foot. \u201cSome might even mention your kidneys.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou know,\u201d said Marc. \u201cMaybe we should do something else.\u201d For the first time that afternoon, the room fell awkwardly quiet. I tried not to cry.<\/p>\n The best things about diabetes\u2014that it isn\u2019t immediately terminal, that you can avoid many complications by carefully monitoring your blood sugar and watching what you eat\u2014are also the worst. Every misstep means potential problems down the road\u2014numb feet leading to amputations, leaking capillaries in your eyes stealing your sight\u2014and every blood sugar reading can, if you hold yourself to high standards, potentially be blamed on something you did. This is somewhat irrational since blood sugar can be affected by things out of your control\u2014stress, hormones, fatigue, illness, time of day. But I quickly began to base my moods on the numbers on my glucometer, the small machine I now carried with me to test my blood sugar. If it was in a safe range, I was happy. If it wasn\u2019t, my fears about diabetes translated into frustration with myself. Where was my willpower? Why couldn\u2019t I do a perfect job? Succumbing to a cookie began to feel like a kind of suicide\u2014and I certainly didn\u2019t want to kill myself.<\/p>\n One morning, Laurie walked into my room with a huge smile on her face. \u201cWe have a special treat for you today,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n I looked up from my breakfast tray, where I had finished the eggs, sausage and bacon and was hard at work buttering my toast. Now that I was getting insulin and my body didn\u2019t need to flush excess sugar out through my urine, I was no longer thirsty\u2014but my hearty appetite stuck around.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is it?\u201d I asked. I had spent the morning examining a gift from one of my friends\u2014a pink dishcloth from a Korean deli that featured an elephant standing in a green pool of liquid with the enigmatic caption, \u201cContented Golf.\u201d I was ready for a distraction.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s another diabetic here.\u201d<\/p>\n Now she had my attention. \u201cRight here? On this floor right now?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d she said. \u201cHis name\u2019s Jeff. Would you like to meet him?\u201d<\/p>\n I enthusiastically agreed, and ten minutes later I walked out toward the nurses\u2019 station. A man was waiting for me, his greasy brown hair pulled back in a ponytail.\u00a0 He wore a white t-shirt with a picture of a motorcycle, an ironic choice, since he was in a wheelchair.<\/p>\n \u201cYou must be Catherine,\u201d he said, reaching up to shake my hand.<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d I said, reluctantly. \u201cYou\u2019re Jeff?\u201d I was hoping that there had been some misunderstanding. Not only was Jeff in a wheelchair, but he had a large bandage wrapped around his right thigh.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat happened to your leg?\u201d I asked him, once he had wheeled over to a couch so that I could sit down, too.<\/p>\n \u201cSkin graft,\u201d he said. \u201cFucking painful.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut that\u2019s not because of diabetes, is it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, for sure,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve got nerve damage in my feet, so I can\u2019t feel it when I step on things. Got a big infection. Doctors said it could turn to gangrene.\u201d<\/p>\n Gangrene? I looked around to try to find Laurie, but she had disappeared to take care of the flu patients down the hall.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, I\u2019ve got trouble with my eyes, too,\u201d said Jeff, as if commenting on the weather. \u201cI\u2019m just hoping my kidneys don\u2019t go. My father\u2019s on dialysis and let me tell you, it\u2019s a bitch.\u201d<\/p>\n But these are the stories that people like to share, tragic anecdotes that somehow you, as a sufferer yourself, are supposed to help them deal with.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mother had diabetes,\u201d said one family friend, sitting in a chair by my window on a rainy afternoon.<\/p>\n \u201cShe did?\u201d I said, hoping that he was going to follow this up with an enlightening tale about how she was now ninety five and going strong, with no complications and a newfound love for life.<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d he said. \u201cShe died from it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh.\u201d I wrapped my gown closer around me and cultivated feelings of guilt and self-hate for having just eaten an apple, which had raised my blood sugar out of my target range. \u201cThat\u2019s really too bad.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe had a tough time,\u201d he continued. \u201cShe lost her leg before it killed her.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHuh.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt took twenty two operations.\u201d He gazed at my hydrangeas. I wondered why they hadn\u2019t just taken off her leg to begin with. Skin grafts, dead amputees\u2014what was next? A blind amputated heart attack survivor on dialysis?<\/p>\n Diabetic pets, as it turned out. My friend Brian\u2019s family had a cat that, despite twice-daily insulin injections, kept peeing on the couch.<\/p>\n \u201cAt first we thought the injections would help,\u201d said Brian, sipping some apple juice. \u201cBut that didn\u2019t work and my aunt suggested that we put the cat to sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJust for peeing on the couch?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, she was peeing everywhere. That was just the most obvious spot.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat happened?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy uncle\u2019s diabetic, too, and he refused to let her do it. He said, \u2018I\u2019m diabetic and you\u2019re not putting me to sleep.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019d she say?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, but you\u2019re not peeing on the upholstery.\u201d<\/p>\n One afternoon, Marie arrived in my room carrying an oversized card she had made, signed by everyone she could find in the dining hall. As she sat perched next to me on the bed, I got misty-eyed as I read people\u2019s get-well wishes. It was as if I were witnessing eulogies at my own funeral\u2014I felt like Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer when they fake their own deaths.<\/p>\n Except, of course, I wasn\u2019t dead. I was just diabetic, whatever that meant. Everything was so new that the reality\u2014and permanence\u2014of the disease had not yet fully hit me. I didn\u2019t know that from then on my life would be punctuated by ten finger pricks a day and injections every time I took a bite of food, injections that would eventually be replaced by a small blue machine called an insulin pump that I have to keep attached to me in order to stay alive. I didn\u2019t know that one of the other good things about diabetes\u2014it\u2019s not obvious from the outside\u2014was also one of the most frustrating;\u00a0 looking normal means that people treat you as if you\u2019re normal, even if you\u2019re constantly counting carbohydrates, trying to guess insulin dosages, worrying about complications, and blaming yourself every time your blood sugar is high. My therapist once called diabetes an invisible disability, pointing out that if I were to, say, lose a limb, at least people would give me credit for everything I managed to accomplish.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know, they\u2019d be like, \u2018Wow,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201c\u2019Look at all that Catherine accomplishes, despite her missing arm.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 Feeling antagonistic, I pointed out that, if I didn\u2019t control my blood sugars, I could <\/em>lose a limb. But even then, I still wouldn\u2019t be able to eat baklava.<\/p>\n Ten days after I\u2019d entered the hospital, I finally decided to leave. I could have checked out earlier, but I didn\u2019t want to\u2014in the hospital, my disease and I were special. We got gifts. We had breakfast in bed. Once I left, I knew that I would be forced to reenter my old life, to act as if things were normal, even though they weren\u2019t at all.<\/p>\n The worst part was putting on my pants.<\/p>\n \u201cWere these hanging on the radiator?\u201d I asked Laurie, as I slipped out of my hospital gown on my last morning at DUH. By this point in our relationship, I felt completely comfortable changing clothes in front of her;\u00a0 we were practically blood sisters, after all.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, sweetie, why?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n \u201cNothing. They\u2019re just a little tight,\u201d I said, struggling to force the zipper. I thought that perhaps, inspired by the room\u2019s climate control, they might have shrunk two sizes.\u00a0 \u201cDo you have a scale around here?\u201d<\/p>\n I knew I\u2019d been eating a lot in the hospital, but eleven pounds in ten days still felt like a bit much.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is water weight, right?\u201d I asked her, squatting to try to loosen the waist of my pants.<\/p>\n \u201cProbably not,\u201d she said, looking at me with genuine concern. \u201cSorry.\u201d<\/p>\n It was a bright February morning when I finally left the campus hospital, clutching my basket of hydrangeas, tight pants clinging to my thighs. Marie had pulled her car around to the front of DUH, and her Toyota Previa sat idling outside, its exhaust steaming in the cold air.<\/p>\n Laurie had come downstairs with me. Handing me my \u201cContented Golf\u201d towel, she gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re going to be okay,\u201d she said, clutching me to her chest. \u201cIt\u2019s all going to be all right.\u201d<\/p>\n Students scurried past us on their way to class; in the distance, bells in the clock tower struck ten. Marie put my bag in the trunk and I climbed into the front seat.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cYou know, it\u2019s the funniest thing,\u201d I\u2019d say at lunch, wolfing down a turkey club with extra mayonnaise. \u201cI\u2019m feeling a little thirsty. Is anyone else feeling, you know, a little thirstier than normal?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":41122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1435],"tags":[126],"yoast_head":"\n