This afternoon, I cooked myself lunch. I scrambled an egg with melted leek, split a whole wheat-millet muffin and popped it in the toaster, plated it all, garnished the egg with a bit of matcha sea salt and a basil leaf, filled a glass with water, then walked to my living room. I balanced the glass and the plate on the sofa and ate while reading The Glass Castle. When I finished lunch, I closed my book, took my plate back to the kitchen and put it in the sink to wash later, then went back to my desk to pick up some writing I’ve been working on.
Fifteen minutes later, my dog and my Dexcom alerted me to a critical missed step in this otherwise fairly standard daily activity.
I didn’t take insulin.
As of today, I have had diabetes for one thousand, five hundred and sixty seven days. 1,567 times three meals a day (not even counting snacks here) is 4,701 occasions that I’ve had since diagnosis to learn that, you know, taking insulin before eating is now an essential step of my day-to-day life.
Don’t they say it takes 21 days to form a habit?
I’m sitting here, waiting for the late insulin I took to kick in and feeling lightheaded and nauseous as my blood sugar continues to spike, and I’m struck by the absolute absurdity of this disease.
Every. Single. Time. that I eat, I have to inject myself with medication. Or else I could die. Isn’t that the most insane thing you’ve ever heard?
No conclusions here, today, just an observation about this totally insane, whack job thing that is life.
Type What Now 