Showing posts with label stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stories. Show all posts
One Last Story For November
Once upon a time there was a girl with diabetes who survived the whole month of November!
She ate some leftover Halloween candy but not too much.
She took an airplane trip to Florida where she celebrated her 16th birthday in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. In Orlando she figured out how to bolus insulin to cover Butterbeer. She ate at restaurants and guessed the carbohydrate content of every meal, sometimes more successfully than others.
She had some long, busy days in November, including one when she ate dinner in the car on the way from a piano lesson to jazz band rehearsal. And another when she took two difficult and stressful tests.
She had a couple fun but out-of-the-ordinary evenings, like one which found her eating Nutella pancakes at a diner at 10 p.m. after working backstage for the school play. And another spent at the last Friday night football game of the marching band season, when she ate dinner on a school bus before spending 3 hours playing the clarinet in the freezing cold.
She thoroughly enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner, especially the stuffing, the cranberry bread, and the pumpkin pie. And the turkey sandwiches with cranberry sauce on white bread the next day. And Thanksgiving dinner round 2 (a.k.a. leftovers) on Saturday.
All through November, she checked her blood sugar, changed her pump sites, used her Dexcom, explained her diabetes needs to TSA agents and teachers, carried her supply bag wherever she went, counted her carbohydrates, corrected her highs and drank juice boxes for her lows. But those aren't the parts of November she'll remember.
Gringotts
One last story from our Universal Studios vacation:
We arrived at Gringotts, the goblin-operated bank frequented by the characters in Harry Potter. We stored our belongings in the lockers provided. No bags were permitted on the ride. Before a similar ride that morning we'd stuffed our pockets with airheads candy before stashing the rest of the supplies in the locker. This time we forgot.
Ten minutes into what was reported to be a 35 minute line to board the ride, the Dexcom alarmed.
"70 with a down arrow," my daughter reported. I had one airhead left in my pocket from the morning, which I handed over.
Three minutes later, the Dexcom alarmed again.
"It's double down now and says I'm 55."
"Do you feel low?"
"Yeah- I can't wait here."
There was a staff member nearby.
"My daughter is having a medical issue," my husband explained." What's the best way to exit?"
"Just walk up this ramp and you'll get out."
"Is there any way we can skip some of the line when we come back- it'll be about 10 minutes we think."
"Yes- absolutely- just tell the person at the entrance that Maya said you can come in through the express pass entrance. It shouldn't be a problem."
"Awesome- thank you so much."
So we went out and emptied our locker. We sat on the ground near a statue of a goblin holding a stack of gold while my daughter checked with her glucometer (55) and drank a juice.
We waited there a few minutes, people-watching.
"You feeling a little better?"
"Yeah- I'm definitely coming up."
A recheck showed 68. She ate another airhead for good measure, and we stuffed our pockets full of them before getting another locker.
The staff member at the entrance allowed our reentry through the express line, and with an elapsed time of under 15 minutes, we were soon standing next to the people who had been ahead of us in line before we exited.
The ride was great.
It's November...Diabetes Awareness Month! My plan for this month involves stories. Simple, everyday, real-life stories about living with diabetes. I plan to tell them here as narratives, like this one, just snippets of a day with diabetes, and I plan to tell them, or stories like them, more often in the 'real world' this month when friends ask, 'How's it going,' or relatives ask what I've been up to.
We arrived at Gringotts, the goblin-operated bank frequented by the characters in Harry Potter. We stored our belongings in the lockers provided. No bags were permitted on the ride. Before a similar ride that morning we'd stuffed our pockets with airheads candy before stashing the rest of the supplies in the locker. This time we forgot.
Ten minutes into what was reported to be a 35 minute line to board the ride, the Dexcom alarmed.
"70 with a down arrow," my daughter reported. I had one airhead left in my pocket from the morning, which I handed over.
Three minutes later, the Dexcom alarmed again.
"It's double down now and says I'm 55."
"Do you feel low?"
"Yeah- I can't wait here."
There was a staff member nearby.
"My daughter is having a medical issue," my husband explained." What's the best way to exit?"
"Just walk up this ramp and you'll get out."
"Is there any way we can skip some of the line when we come back- it'll be about 10 minutes we think."
"Yes- absolutely- just tell the person at the entrance that Maya said you can come in through the express pass entrance. It shouldn't be a problem."
"Awesome- thank you so much."
So we went out and emptied our locker. We sat on the ground near a statue of a goblin holding a stack of gold while my daughter checked with her glucometer (55) and drank a juice.
We waited there a few minutes, people-watching.
"You feeling a little better?"
"Yeah- I'm definitely coming up."
A recheck showed 68. She ate another airhead for good measure, and we stuffed our pockets full of them before getting another locker.
The staff member at the entrance allowed our reentry through the express line, and with an elapsed time of under 15 minutes, we were soon standing next to the people who had been ahead of us in line before we exited.
The ride was great.
It's November...Diabetes Awareness Month! My plan for this month involves stories. Simple, everyday, real-life stories about living with diabetes. I plan to tell them here as narratives, like this one, just snippets of a day with diabetes, and I plan to tell them, or stories like them, more often in the 'real world' this month when friends ask, 'How's it going,' or relatives ask what I've been up to.
The Unconcerned Hostage
'I'm high and won't come down in the nurse going to change the site,' the text read, belying the fact that she's takes Honors English.
My daughter changed her pump site on her own, no problem, and we texted a bit about dosing insulin afterwards to bring the high blood sugar down.
As it turned out the nurse was at lunch and a favorite teacher was covering the nurse's office until her return.
Then this text: 'She wants me to stay until I come down more what should I do??'
After a little more (still unpunctuated) communication, we clarified that the nurse would be back in about 15 minutes and wanted to see my daughter before she returned to class.
We chose not to negotiate an early release. We might have argued if she'd been missing Chemistry instead of Driver's Ed, or if there hadn't been a favorite teacher to chat with.
It's November...Diabetes Awareness Month! My plan for this month involves stories. Simple, everyday, real-life stories about living with diabetes. I plan to tell them here as narratives, like this one, just snippets of a day with diabetes, and I plan to tell them, or stories like them, more often in the 'real world' this month when friends ask, 'How's it going,' or relatives ask what I've been up to.
#November
It's November...Diabetes Awareness Month! My plan for this month involves stories...simple, everyday, real-life stories about living with diabetes. I plan to tell them here as narratives, just snippets of a day with diabetes, with as little context or editorializing as possible. And I plan to tell them, or stories like them, more often in the 'real world' this month when friends ask, 'How's it going,' or relatives ask what I've been up to.
I think everyday stories have an incredible power to educate, break down stereotypes and stigma, and create energy for change in ways that straight facts do not.
Great minds think alike, I guess, since I learned this morning that JDRF and ADA are both encouraging storytelling this month as well. We're encouraged to make this invisible illness a bit more visible; using hashtags, of course.
The American Diabetes Association has introduced the hashtags #DearDiabetes and #thisisdiabetes.
JDRF encourages continued use of their current go-to, #T1DLooksLikeMe and has added #T1DYouDon'tSee for this month's festivities.
So stay tuned for some stories this month. I hope they encourage you to tell your own.
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