Normal

Alright, so I fell off the band wagon and disappeared for a while. What’s the big deal? My life got flipped, turned upside down, I guess you can say. Life completely changed on me and I took off on yet another journey that has taken me up to this very moment. And this—this is an important moment.

I came home from the hospital yesterday. I was there for a few days. DKA again. Second time in the past 6 months. I believe that to be the fourth time overall since being diagnosed in 2009. This last time, the Diabetes nurse came to my room telling me I was her top priority because my A1c was a 15. Completely off her chart (Something around a 400 average blood sugar over the last 3 months). She said it was the highest A1c she had ever seen. After talking for a brief time, it began to dawn on me more and more what the underlying issue was. 

It was my depression that was killing me.

After I got home yesterday, I thought more about it. I thought back to every doctor, nurse, family member and friend who lectured me over and over again to take care of myself. That if I continue like this, I will end up—well, let’s just say, it won’t be good. I would matter-of-factly explain to them that I knew what to do. I knew how to take care of myself. That I probably knew more about Type 1 Diabetes than they did. And honestly, this was all true, although no one would ever believe me. I would tell them all this and then explain to them that I just wouldn’t. Needless to say, they got angry and frustrated with me. They couldn’t understand why. No one ever really bothered to dig a little deeper and figure it out with me. I barely knew why.

I believe I have figured it out now. It isn’t that I want to die. It isn’t that I want to be sick. And I certainly don’t want to end up in the hospital all the time. 

I just want to be normal again.

Normal to me is not having it all together. Normal is not testing my blood sugar all the time. Normal is not shooting myself up with insulin every time I want to eat. Normal people don’t do that. I pushed it aside. I made myself sick day after day until I couldn’t take it anymore and finally gave in. But the thing with giving in—it was me admitting that I wasn’t normal. When I finally stuck myself with a needle, it was almost like me punishing myself for having it.

I would cry when I did it.

I know how backwards that sounds. I understand I am nuts. But now that I have realized this, it has given me a new outlook. Normal is being healthy and living as well as you can by doing whatever it is that you have to do to do so. Everyone has their ailments. Some minor, some major. People with horrible vision don’t walk around without their glasses just because “normal” people don’t wear them. They put them on so that they can live normally. People don’t walk around making themselves suffer—at least they shouldn’t. And I shouldn’t. 

I do want to live a healthy life. I don’t want to punish myself anymore. I’m done with the hospital. I am done with DKA. I am going to finally start working on me again. It’s about time.

Ciao.