My hands finally healed...

....but now sometimes they continue to bleed.

When a diabetic is hospitalized, the prick your fingers every hour on the hour to test your blood sugar.

Luckily when it's been that bad, I've been in a coma.

However, my small pretty girly dainty OMG her ring finger is a size 4 how cute hands are the size of pro baseball player's catcher mitts when I wake up. And on top of that, they're black and blue, and yellow, and orange, and red, and pretty much any color but flesh colored, bruised to kingdom come. And I'll be honest, I've cried over these monster monstrousity looking hands praying to god they will go back to their normal delicate size. It usually takes about 2 - 3 weeks before I can where my wedding ring again.

While out of the coma, they would check my blood sugar 3 - 5 times a day. Usually it was before I ate and went to bed unless there was low blood sugar..When there was low blood sugar it became a waiting game of here drink or/and eat this and we will be back in an hour. Turns out if my blood sugar doesn't go over 90, I can't take my nighttime. And they would pick whichever finger to thier liking and squeeze the beejeebus out of the finger. I couldn't feel the tip of my left pointer finger for months because one of the nurses squeezed it to death just to get a sufficient amount of blood. And what's worse is that they start running out of spots.

Then you would come home, and you couldn't find a spot. Error reading, a ton of them. You get stressed out because blood won't come up and if you do get blood, it would be miniscule. (Yes, I'm starting to use bigger words, although I have to spell check which is frustrating, that will be another post) I would have to prick three different areas hoping for the best 4 times a day. It's frustrating, overly frustrating to the point that you want to scream at your finger, "Come bloody on!" One day I errored three times in a row and started crying. And it's all for a stupid number. A number! A number that influences the next 4 hour of your life. Sometimes as I wait for the meter to calculate I find myself rocking back and forth thinking, "Come on 99!" like I'm at a bingo hall and need that one number to scream out Bingo and win $500. It's the bane of my existence, that number. Grrrrr....

I suppose I could have upped the level of my lancet to a 2 so it penetrates deeper, but I'm stubborn like that. The fact that I've been a diabetic for over three years, use only my fingers for testing and am still a 1 is amazing. I heal at a remotely rapid rate. So I'm not exactly ready to move my dial. I'm stubborn and proud and I know it.

Also, I only use three fingers - my middle, ring, and pinky. I don't know why I don't like using my pointer, must be a personal preference. I also fear using my thumb due to the whole vein thing being inside there. I cut it open with an exacto knife when I was in 8th grade working on a stupid science experiment where you have to create a house and hope to death it's sturdy to stay up during natural distasters that the two science teachers created. The guy whose house stood next to mine was flattened due an unfortunate landslide (the teacher pretty much dropped a huge rock on his house). Back to the thumb, it bled for about 3 hours straight and at the young age of 14, I was pretty sure I was going to bleed to death. I vaguely remember being in the kitchen screaming that I was going to die and asked Mumika why we weren't going to ER to save me. So yeah, I don't prick my thumb at all, but the nurses do.

Four months with stress and about 30 error readings later, my hands have healed! I'm still on the first setting and boom, blood pops out with hardly any effort. Now the only problem is, some spots tend to continue bleeding after I'm done with the testing. While I was in the hospital, I was very proud at the fact that my fingers hadn't started doing that.....until now. Right now its only the left side of a pinky and the right side of a ring. And I always know when it will decide to continue to bleed because I can feel the pain of the lancet in my phalanges. It goes *ping* radiate.

So yay for healing, non yay for bleeding. Maybe I pricked that spot too much and it's worn down. Is that even possible? Must be. Is this how calluses start on the fingers? It better not, that would suck. Poor fingers, they have gone through so much.

Diabetes, first it takes your pancreas, then it goes after your hands. Oh and it likes to try and kill you every now and then. Diabetes, it keeps you on your toes.

The statistics

Diabetes is the 7th leading cause of death. The likelihood of me dying is doubled compared to someone that is my age and healthy.

Type 1 diabetes accounts for $14.9 billion in health care costs in the US.

Roughly 1 million Americans have type 1 diabetes. Only 5-10% of diabetic cases are type 1.

Type 1 diabetes is more prevalent in Americans of European decent. (Thanks Mumika and Dad)

If your father has type 1 diabetes, your odds are 1 in 17.
If your mother has type 1 diabetes and you were born before she turned 25, your odds are 1 in 25. If your mother had you after she turned 25, your odds are 1 in 100.
If you have a sibling that has type 1 diabetes, you are 15 times more likely to develop the disease than the general population.

Out of 100 people with type 1 diabetes, 80 have no family history. Recent studies have shown that type 1 is caused by a combination of genetic mutation and enviromental triggers.

Everyday is a fight

A few months ago my mum told me about this girl who started rebeling with her diabetes treatment. Mum couldn't understand why someone would do that, put thier life and health at risk.

"She's tired." I told Mum.
"Tired?"
"There are days where you want it all to stop."

I'll be honest. I've rebelled quite a bit since diagnosis. It's why I've been hospitalized twice. I hate needles, but I play with them 7 times a day.

I hate pricking my finger in the morning, before lunch and dinner, and again before I sleep. I hate hearing the snap of the lancet as it pricks a tiny hole in my epidermis where I then have to squeeze out an efficient amount of blood to get a reading. Sometimes, no blood comes out and I have to find another spot. Sometimes, I don't get enough blood so I get an error reading. I hate error readings with a mad passion. Why? I have to start over. Then you have you scoop the blood up with the test strip and if you do this wrong or take too long, *boom*, another error. I do this four times a day, everyday, for the rest of my life.

Then there's the insulin shots. I hate shots. I've hated shots since I was a baby. Yet, here I am shooting up 3 times a day. Sometimes I feel like God has a warped sense of humour or loves irony a wee bit too much. I hate the insulin shots. I can't eat until I take it. I hate trying to make sure there aren't any air bubbles. I hate trying to find a new spot on my hip to inject. I hate how sometimes I hit a vein and I start bleeding. I hate when my skin is to tender and the injection site hurts. I hate how I have to plump my skin and then have a horrible divet as I try to inject myself. I hate looking for fat. I hate the tight squeeze in my skin that I feel when the insulin first comes in contact with my body. I hate that when I'm too cold my body shivers making it impossible to inject pain free. I hate when people talk to me while I'm injecting. I hate it when people are to close to me when I inject. I hate it when my huband or someone watches me while I inject. I hate it when I'm having trouble finding a spot and the next thing I know I'm sweating from the sheer antcipation of pain. I hate how my friends and family members sometimes forget I have diabetes and ask why I'm going to the bathroom before I eat. I do this three times a day, everyday, for the rest of my life.

Just those two things alone, makes me tired. There are days where I don't want to take insulin. There are days where I don't want to check my blood sugar. I just want to be normal again. And then I'm frustrated because those days of normalcy are far from over.

I hate having to watch what I eat. I want a donut, but I can't have a donut. I want cookies, cake, and ice cream. All of which I can't really have unless I sacrifice something else. I have to eyeball how much rice or pasta I'm eating. Is there enough protein in this meal? Am I getting the right amount of carbs? What will this food do to my blood sugar? Can I eat this piece of fruit or will I pay for it later? There are days where all I want is a Dr. Pepper. But I can't. Is there aspertame in this? It's not about eating anymore, it's about how this food will effect my numbers. I can't drink. Alcohol, what's that? I have two weddings this year, and I'll probably only be allowed to have a sip of champagne and two bites of wedding cake. When I eat somewhere, the menu becomes more of a pain than a oh that sounds lovely. I get scared at functions when I have no clue what the menu will look like in fear that I won't be able to eat. Food and yumminess is out the door. There are days where all I want to do is eat a bear claw and sip on Dr. Pepper like I used to when I was little. To amke matters worse, Mum forgets about the diabetes and offers ice cream or pie when I'm at her house. I just look at her and say, "Diabetes." "Oh, right." She replies.


Then there's the numbers. Everything revolves around these stupid numbers. Too high, more insulin and cut back on carbs. Too low and we're looking at find Michelle the most sugary thing. I recently had a fight with Mum about letting my blood sugar go down to 55 because I didn't know what I could eat to raise it in her house. Atleast, at my place we have a stock pile of cookies, juice, and ice cream to make sure I never collapse again. When I told her I had no clue what to eat, she says, "Eat turkey!" To which I reply, "I need carbs not protein!"

It makes the disease a little harder when the people around you aren't sure what you need and at the same time you never want to put them in any sort of diabetic emergency predicament. I am a grown ass woman yet, I'll be out somewhere feel off, check my blood sugar and it's low. Then I have to tell the people I'm with I need food pronto. It's so beguiling.

Sometimes I wonder if it is better to struggle with this disease all your life, or be like me where you go a quater of a century healthy as a horse and then all of a sudden diabetes comes out of no where changing your life forever. Either way, there are days where you want it to go away. There are days where you want to be normal and not have to worry, not have to inject or prick, not have to think about food choices. Sometimes I jealous of the people around me ordering soft drinks when all I can really drink is water. And then I wonder what I did to deserve this. Everyday is frustrating as I drag my feet to measure the dose, get my meter ready, and figure out what I'm eating. Everyday is a fight and normalcy is no where in sight.

Tylenol PM helps

I went to the endo last week and complained about being in so much pain that I can't sleep. My endo's reply was simple, tylenol. Turns out tylenol is diabetic friendly. How is it different from advil or aleve? I have no clue.

So I got tylenol extra strength, and it sort of worked.
Then I got tylenol pm, and even though I'm still remotely in pain, I sleep.

But it gets better.

Maybe it's from actually being able to sleep. Although right now I hardly sleep because I tend to cough throughout the night. But, it keeps my blood sugar low despite waking up late.

This is major because now I don't have to wake up at 8 - 9AM to have breakfast. I can wake up at 9:30 or 9:45 instead. And yes, 30 - 45 minutes makes all the difference in the world when everything is pretty much scheduled.

On non-tylenol days, waking up that late would mean a higher blood sugar reading. Why? The nighttime insulin would already be wearing off. However, tylenol pm is lowering my blood sugar a little allowing me to sleep in and feel remotely normal.

That's the goal, to feel a little normal.