Showing posts with label diabetes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label diabetes. Show all posts


It's been nearly two months. I wrote this the day after she passed, but I was unable to open or read it until now. Unfortunately this only scratches the surface, but I think it will help people understand what she meant to me.

And how amazing she was from her curled tale to the tuffs of fur between her paws (my favorite thing to play with, her least favorite).

A beautiful blog was written by one of my best friends, it's certainly more eloquently written than mine: Click here

We still don't know what happened, it's a mystery, but here is her story:


This is Nox’s story.

I wanted to write it out before I forget any of it. I hate to think I will forget anything with her, but memories are a fickle thing. This is more for me than you, but I know some people are curious so this will let you know. But let me preface with anything I write will not break the surface of how much love this dog had for me and how much I had for her.

She was the best dog ever, and I know that everyone says that about their dogs: but she actually was.

To tell her story, I have to tell a little of mine. I started looking into getting a dog for the purpose of training said dog to be a service dog. Nox simply fell into my lap. I found her and contacted her owner, and we talked and soon enough she was mine. They were so thankful of the home she was going to that I didn’t have to pay for an adoption fee. It was perfect. We couldn’t believe it.

I was so nervous the night before meeting her. I was so worried that she wouldn’t like me. Let me preface this: I grew up with dogs, but I was never a ‘dog person’. I was selective about the dogs I loved. Not any dog would make me happy. In fact, very few did. The ones I grew up with I loved but I never saw myself getting a dog.

And then, suddenly I was getting a dog and I was so nervous. I met her precious little self and she immediately came over and kissed me. It relaxed my nerves for that day, but only for that day. I was a nervous wreck of a mother. Nox and I traveled to Auburn the next day and I learned how to be a parent. It was stressful but this girl was so sweet. She just followed me everywhere.

We grew inseparable, we went to obedience training and she was easily the most improved in the class and got on top rather quickly. She had an extreme love of squirrels and often would try to jump through the car window to chase them. She never meant any harm, but she loved little creatures.

She got along well with my cat, they both just wanted to play. Isabelle pretended not to like my dog, but she was always put out when I would take Nox away from her.

Training went well and I socialized her. My friends fell in love. Every person I met who wasn’t a dog person, became one for her. When I asked people what dog they wanted they would just point to her. She was so happy and loving and sweet. But her loyalty was exceptionally strong. Someone would love on her or pet her and she would come back to me, remind me that I am her favorite and then go back to the person. Often times she would stop loving them and look at me to make sure I was okay with it. It was adorable.

She liked to give you kisses, but not just any kisses. She would jump up high and lick your lips. I had to turn it into a command so I could limit the amount of black eyes received. She was so fast too, she could run and be gone in a blink of an eye. She could have done agility.

Nox became attached to me, and I to her. She never left my side and I am not exaggerating. She followed me everywhere, sat under my feet, her eyes were always on me. It made my friends laugh because all she wanted was to be next to me. We snuggled and watched movies and she helped me cook by sitting on my feet in the kitchen. She had a natural knack for being close. Everyone noticed it, this dog was the most attentive and loving that they’d ever seen. If I went into a room without her, I would always hear her sniff under the door. When I opened it she would be leaning against it, waiting for me and looking up at me with big brown eyes.

She had huge expressive brown eyes, and she knew how to work them. Her eyelashes were perfect, they looked drawn. Her ears crimped when they got wet, and they became lighter the closer to her body they came. Her fur was so soft, though her skin was sometimes dry. She had cute white socks, a white couple of hairs on her tail that shined when she shook it and curled up over her back. The fur on her back cow-licked in the summer, sticking straight up. She had a white star on her chest. She would often times lick her lips and it looked so damn cute. She would rest her head on the ground and just look up at me. I miss her gaze so much.

When I went to the lake and jumped in the water, Nox would wait approximately three seconds and if I didn’t reemerge from the water she would come in after me. She then wouldn’t know what to do once she got to me. We ended up putting her on a floating device so that I could swim and she could be next to me.

And then service training began. She was the best in her class, she finished in one session when it normally took two. She was so fast and so excited to get the scent correctly. She was good at her job, alerting me at a party with her cute paws and telling eyes.

A relationship with a service dog is so much more intense than a normal dog, and our relationship before the life saving actions came into play was unusual and deep. I don’t know how to explain... that this was different. We were different. She was one in a million. We were soul mates.

I thought 2015 was going to be the worst year of my life. I was trying to find my place in the world; trying to find a job, trying not to feel like a failure. It turned out to be the best year of my life. I met the love of my life and she made the world a better place. Everyone loved her, everyone threatened to steal her away. She would pout when I left her at home, not being social with anyone else.

She was simple the most loving dog. Everyone saw how special she was, and how unique our relationship was. She went everywhere with me, on planes, buses, trains, to work and home, to the grocery store or to go fix my car. She even went to Disney World and man she was a champ. She rode rides with me, she traveled more than some humans will in their entire life.

Nox had a special growl and bark that she administered if you came home and waited a second too long to pay attention to her. She would sneak onto the couch, one leg at a time. She was clumsy and awkward and adorable.

When I put her service vest on she would get very proud. She’d puff her chest up and prance as she walked. Every so often she would just lift her nose and give me a little kiss on my hand as we walked around in public. It surprised me every time, and always made me smile.

She changed my life. She made me fall in love with her and I couldn’t image my life without her. I had this conversation with a tow truck driver at the beginning of this road trip. I told him I’d only had her for ten months but I couldn’t imagine my life without her.

I feel that moment is when I jinxed it all.

Nox was a happy dog, she was widely loved and spoiled. She was able to go everywhere with her mom, got treats and love from family and friends and always made people smile. I know I made her extremely happy, and she made me stronger. Moving to LA had never scared me, because I knew she would be there.

I won’t tell you everything that went wrong on this road trip; that is a whole other story. But I can tell you what happened to Nox.

It started on Wednesday, January 6th. She woke us up, super happy and slowly inching her way from our feet to our faces, licking us the whole time. Nox and I had spooned the whole night. I got up to give her breakfast and she always sits and waits patiently. I put the food down and tell her to wait, and she would slowly lift her head higher and higher until I told her to 'feast'. She ate everything and we went on our way to the Caverns we had driven to. I left Nox inside the car, as it would just be a lot to bring her on this little hike. When we got back, she had thrown up her breakfast. We didn’t think much of it, we’ve been driving nonstop and living in a camper. Perhaps she got nervous or perhaps she was just a little car sick. We cleaned it up and I took her out to go to the bathroom and she had diarrhea. It still had some solid so I wasn’t too worried. We started our drive to the next area in New Mexico; driving through the middle of nowhere when she vomited again. We stopped the car and she vomited four more times and had diarrhea, this time mostly liquid and looked like dark ketchup. I called my parents and the vet. They told me to wait it out, it could be a stomach virus or she could be sick. Nerves didn’t quite fit but they said wait 12 hours, and definitely take her in if she wasn’t better in 24.

The next four hour drive turned to be six as we frequently stopped to clean the car and help Nox out. She still walked with her tail up and seemed like she didn’t feel well, but nothing too serious. That evening she was exhausted, she didn’t stand for long and just wanted to lay down. Her vomiting and diarrhea had calmed down significantly, but I called my family worried again. They told me a good point that settled my nerves a bit: if I had been vomiting all day, wouldn’t I be tired?

Wait until the morning, if she’s still not better take her to a vet. That is what I was told, over and over. And it is what I told myself. I hoped she’d sleep it off. We weren’t anywhere near a vet at the moment and it was ten at night. There wasn't much of an option for us, anyway.

Nox slept in her crate that night, and I woke up early because I heard her moving around. I went to check on her and there was blood everywhere and she wouldn’t get out of her crate. She couldn't move. I called my mom, woke up Paul and raced to the nearest vet, forty miles away.

By the time I arrived, Nox was dead weight. She couldn’t stand and couldn’t get out of the crate; using Paul’s help I rushed her into the vet. Her head lolled to the side, she wasn’t breathing.

They revived her three times.

The vet was a husband and wife duo, and the wife came out to talk to me. Asking me questions about her and what she could have gotten into. We wracked our brains around for an answer, but we got nothing. She was by me the whole time, always on her leash and her food hadn’t changed. A new bag, but same brand. We checked it for mold, we looked to see if there was something in the RV she could have eaten and then we thought about every walk I took her on. Nothing.

They said they’d never seen a dog go from being perfectly normal the day before to where she was at. They said it wasn’t looking good.

I asked if I could see her and they let me. She was freezing cold and they had hot water bottles and blankets to keep her warm. I started to pet her and talk to her. She heard me. Her breathing got stronger. I stayed with her until the vets politely kicked me out as they had other surgeries to preform that morning.

We left and played the waiting game. I called back in around two and asked about her and they said she was sitting up and looking around. She still had blood in her stomach and they had a stomach tube in to get it out. They don’t know where all of this was coming from, they said it looked kind of maybe like salmonella but it didn’t quite fit. Every theory was debunked by the fact that she wasn’t even two years old. They suggested that I move her to the animal hospital in Alburquerque, they were more specialized and could perhaps find out what was wrong. I was on my way back to figure out how to move her when she had a seizure. She was gone for two to three minutes this time. But they brought her back, again.

The husband told me brain damage was a likely issue at this point, and I should be prepared. They still don’t know what caused everything.

I went to see her again and I stayed with her for an hour, this time her eyes were open and she was starting to focus but it wasn’t quite right. I stayed, told her how beautiful she was and strong and how she was going to take care of me in LA. I talked to her for hours until it was five and they were closing. She nearly had a seizure while I was there, but they stopped it and stabilized it.

My aunt happened to be working in Albuquerque and came down to help deal with everything. She got us a hotel room, we made it there when we got another phone call. I already knew what it was before Jen told me.
She had had another seizure, she died for the fifth time and she was no longer breathing on her own.

She was brain dead.

My beautiful, smart, healthy, young, loving best friend was gone.

The anger I felt in that moment was more intense and more real than anything I've ever felt in my life. But the moment Jen walked back around to tell me what the phone call had meant, I pulled back the anger. And then it was gone. And all I felt was empty, and helpless.

I preferred the anger.

We went back to the vet and you could see that she was gone. She had started to breathe on her own by the time we arrived, but there wasn’t any saving her. I said goodbye from my family, friends, the people she loved most. And I told her goodbye. I apologized for not being able to save her. I told her it was okay to go. I kissed her and I watched her go.

The husband turned to me with tears in his eyes, he told me he had never brought a dog back this many times. In his 20+ years of being a vet, he had never seen a dog fight so hard.

She came back from the dead five times to be with me. She fought so bravely. She was so incredibly loyal.

Losing her is the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with. She was the world’s greatest dog, and she will be incredibly missed and never forgotten.


(This story was Nox’s and not mine, so I haven’t mentioned the incredible support system my friends and family, blood and not blood have given me. I wouldn’t have survived this without my best friend, Paul being by my side and certainly not without my Aunt’s help that day. I couldn’t have survived this without my family only a phone call away, even at three in the morning, just to listen to me cry. Thank you to everyone who Nox touched. I’m glad she will live on in all of your hearts.)



Hello!



First of all, this is about The Walking Dead's newest episode, the one that aired November 15th, 2015. It will also contain MINIMUM SPOILERS. I hate spoiling things, so I will not tell any of the main plot and will give warnings before spoilers from this episode are mentioned. However, the biggest one is just about one character who comes in.


Spoiler Alert:




She's diabetic.





As most of you know, I was diagnosed with type one diabetes nearly four years ago. I was in college and normal and then I wasn't. When I was diagnosed, it wasn't the idea of taking five shots a day, always aware of my plans, being prepared for eating and not eating, knowing what I was ordering at restaurants and having to fill in everyone else about my life that got me upset. Honestly, those were all things I could learn to do. The hardest part for me was knowing that had I been born a hundred years ago: I'd be dead.

I would have been dead at twenty. And that was a sucky thought. What was even worse was knowing if the Doctor came and picked me up to go traveling through time and space with him: I probably wouldn't be able to do it. Not easily, at least. Falling Skies: I would have wanted to be harnessed just so I could be lucky enough to be rescued, get it off without killing me and no longer be diabetic. If the world ended: I would have even more chances to die than the rest, and I am a survivor and a fighter. I even had a plan on keeping my blood sugar in range if I was stranded on an island. (Which would have involved intensive running). This was the hardest thing for me to comprehend-- that in all the books I read, shows I watch and movies I love: I would be dead without so much as a fighting chance.

I don't accept it. So, in my own time, I've figured out plans to survive a zombie apocalypse and being stranded on a deserted island, how to survive being thrown into a dystopian universe or even flying around with the Doctor. And not just survive like normal people (shelter, weapons, food every other day and water), but ways to get sugar and insulin and where to store it and how to keep it close incase my pack gets stolen. I've thought of it all, because I refuse to let this life threatening disease be the death of me.

But today, four years after I started to think about these things: I watched an episode where there was a girl who was diabetic. And she had lived. Even thinking back on this episode I want to cry because that was simply: amazing.



A few spoilers on the diabetic girl's backstory:





She was in DC. Her family went up to find her. That was refreshing as I want to travel. Her family still found her and she lived. She was diabetic and she LIVED. 

Also, she looked even more like Peter Pan than I do which is the biggest compliment ever. GO FORTH PIXIE GIRL AND BE AWESOME.



She survived, like everyone else in the world. It was harder for her, but she did it. As a diabetic it was one of the most refreshing things I could see on television. There are no heroes who have chronic illnesses. It's something I would really like to see change in the world. Just because I am diabetic does not mean I can't kick a zombie's ass in the apocalypse. 




SPOILERS FROM THIS EPISODE & A CHALLENGE
do not read if you want this character's fate to be ruined.






This is your last chance. Scroll right on back up!





Okay, I warned you.







She died. And I was upset, not because she was diabetic but because she was got startled and fell. Lame way to go. I really, really, REALLY wish that she would have lived to become an epic character. She has every chance to die, like everyone else in the show. But as a diabetic, I would have been amazing to see how she lived a little longer. How she survived day to day in this world, how she forced people to see her for herself and not her disease. I would have loved to see how she pushed forward despite her chronic disease that is NOT brought on by eating too many sweets. I would have absolutely loved to see a strong female character with the same disease that affects me every day.


Thus here is my challenge, to any movie producer, book writer or TV show host:

Make a strong character with a chronic disease. Make them known, make them loved and give them every chance to die as any other character but first--
Let them live.






I thought I would write a blog as to why I decided to cut all my hair off. If you guys are interested, read on. If not, enjoy the pictures (:

I've always had nice hair, it was the one thing I remember being complimented on from when I was young to now. It was my fall back, I loved my hair. However I wasn't against short hair, I've wanted a short hair cut probably since middle school, though when my friend was going to cut her hair in eighth grade I spent the entire day following her around, holding onto her pony tail begging her not to cut it. So maybe I wasn't sold, I just figured in an alternate universe I'd have short hair but I wouldn't cut mine until something big happened. A huge change in my life, when I was mentally ready for it. Well- that came, and I was not mentally ready for it at first haha.


So, over the past few months I started to notice things, the first being that my hair wasn't growing very much. I'd let it grow, it would become scraggly and get to a certain length, I'd have to get a trim and it would go back to where it started. It literally got no where. I started googling things that help hair grow, (flipping your head upside for two minutes was an example.) And I did it.
The next thing I noticed was the amount of hair that fell out. I went back to my trusty google search and found out that people lost 200 pieces of hair a day. That's a lot! So- I was losing that much and I suddenly was just realizing this. Like when you notice a certian car and then you suddenly see it everywhere, I figure it was the same thing with me and my hair. My bathroom floor and room would be covered in it, as gross as that is. I would pull out clumps in the shower, have to wash my towels after every other shower because there would be hair in it. After the shower, I would put mouse in my hair and for the next few hours while it dried I'd run my hand through my hair and pull out hair and throw it away. I thought this was normal.


Several other comments had been made, about my hair not growing or how thin my hair actually was. My hair never looks thin, thanks to the curls. But I don't have particularly thick hair. Now, all of these things were noticed at different times and never put together until I went home a few weeks ago and my mom noticed the amount of hair in the shower drain and she nearly had a heart attack.

My hair was thin- she noticed it. I noticed it. It wasn't noticeable to a lot of other people, but it was blatantly obvious to me and her. We finally did some more research.

Turns out, diabetes makes your hair fall out. Who knew. What happens is once you get on insulin, your hormones are going crazy and a third of your hair just doesn't grow for two or three months. Then, when your hair starts to grow again. That third that didn't grow just falls out because it's now being replaced. So you hair just comes out in chunks and thins out.



After a minor break down and lots of talking with my mom, I decided that I would cut my hair off in two weeks. I've always wanted a short hair cut, and at the point my hair would have to be cut right above my shoulders for it to look full again, so why not go all the way?
Needless to say, I was stoked. For about 24 hours before the freak out came in which went something like this:

Yeah! Yeah! This'll be awesome! I can do it....I- I can do it. Mhmm, -shakes head- My hair won't fall over my shoulders, I won't be able to braid it, if I'm having a bad hair day I can't stick it into a ponytail- I like my hair. It'll get full again, I don't need to cut it. Can I cut it? XD This went on for about a week and I was actually stressed about cutting my hair.
But then one day I was just okay with it. Just- was fine, was find for the remaining week and got excited when I showed up to get my hair cut last Tuesday.

I went from this:

To this: (this shoot didn't have a lot of great photos. It didn't last long as I got attacked by several swarms of different bugs.) Those bugs were out to get me. I swear it.



I've officially had diabetes for a week and three days! So, ten days total. Woo! And the things I've learned....
This post is purely diabetes related. I need to update on my photography. Maybe later today or tomorrow I'll do a post about updated photos and such. (:

But for this post, Diabetes only! Here are a few things that I've encountered and learned from:

1. Low fat does not mean less carbs, actually, most of the time it's more carbs. So when you go to Starbucks, just get regular whip. It's not as many carbs as low fat whip.
2. When my blood sugar is low I can have an apple juice, or crackers to bring it up. Not both. (opps)
3. Just because it's low fat fro yo, does not mean you can have three bowls and expect your blood sugar /not/ to spike to the 300's.
4. Coffee has no carbs! THANK THE GODS! It's the creamer. Watch out for the creamer *imagine that said in a spooky voice* Sugar free has less carbs than low fat.
5. When you're dehydrated for three plus months, keep in mind you'll gain some water weight back. You do not look swollen to anyone but yourself. No matter how many times you look at your calfs and swear they were never that big.
6. Dwelling on the fact you can't just indulge yourself in an entire package of oreos will make you cry.
7. You can eat what you want, just remember to take insulin to counteract it. Don't secretly snack and hope your blood sugar won't spike. (Took me most of the week to figure that one out, despite how obvious.)
8. Pancreas jokes will follow you around for the rest of your life. Just accept it. Although, you can always get the play the pity card by telling everyone you have a dying pancreas.
9. I can not take normal medicine. I have to find sugar free diabetes medicine. I can also not take anything that will make me drowsy (benedryl, nyquil <- the world is going to end for me.) Because if I fall asleep and get low, I won't wake up to eat sugar.
10. These are becoming harder to think about, but they shouldn't. There are plenty, I know it.
11. Cheese and meats have almost zero carbohydrates, which is really exciting. Sirloin steak and a whole bunch of french fries meets my 75g of carbs per meal diet!
12. I hate this number
13. I'm still on the look out for crunchy munchies I can pig out on.
14. My hair has red streaks in it!
15. Umm, umm, umm, I've been on a mission to find free diabetes supplies. Quite a lot of companies give out free meters and test strips and such, I'll have a blog post about that once I figure more out about it. These supplies aren't cheap, so I'm happy to try and help anyone who is looking for them too.
16. When your fingers are cold, they don't bleed.
17. I need to watch what I'm saying in public, telling some one 'I'm high' tends to give me lots of strange looks.

Alright, I'm stopping at seventeen. A good, solid odd number. I'm also failing at more tips to remember so that's it for today! Short and sweet, kind of.

Later!
I'm not really sure where to begin. I guess I can start with the fact I'm typing in word because the hospital internet wont let me sign into my blog account or the fact that the iv in my right hand makes typing (or using my right hand for anything ) nearly impossible.
I guess I can start with this past semester. I was very stressed, very tired, very hungry and thirsty and very thin. I lost nearly twenty pounds. I figured, hey- its the only perk I got from stress, not bad! But I knew something was off, especially when I found that I had lost not ten but seventeen pounds. I was eating, all the time and drinking roughly: 2 cups of coffee, 4 diet cokes, 3 glasses of milk, 2 cups of juice and 8 cups of water a day. I was drinking constantly, and chugging my drinks too. I was never not thirsty and never not tired.
This past Wednesday I finally made it to the doctors office. I explained my situation and they took some blood telling me to come back Friday when the results were in and we would reconvene. Peachy keen, no issues there. Thursday rolls around and I was woken up by a phone call from a private number. It was my doctor informing me my blood sugar was very high and needed to come in that day instead. He also said I should bring my mother. It cant be good news If a doctor wants you to bring a parent. So you know how I responded? Retail therapy. I bought six wonderful hardback books for under fifty and used my gift-card from Christmas and felt better.
I didn't just feel better because of the books (but they helped a lot), but I felt good because I thought of my best friend in Arizona who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when I was in school with her at 18 (Rare but not un heard of). She got it at 18, strange. But its even stranger for a 20 year old to get it, nonetheless a 20 year old who's friend was an odd ball too, right? The universe only lets those weird things happen in fiction. So I was counting on just having a small problem and went on with my day.
I brought lunch to my mom, went to get my hair dyed and then went to the doctors. I was told I had diabetes. Okay, no big deal, keep calm. And I did, until he mentioned the words 'for the rest of your life' and then breathing became difficult. I sent my friend a message saying I was diabetic too, she thought it was a mean joke. Once she realized I wasn't just trying to get her attention she became my personal mentor. She called me, told me tips and was even trying to fly out that day to come be with me which meant the world to me.
The doctor went on explaining that yesterday my blood sugar was at 655, and today it was most likely higher. (Normal humans have between 80-120). It was really, really high and they wanted me to go to the hospital for the night at least so they could monitor and lower my sugar slowly because to quickly could kill me. They also wanted me to learn how to do all the necessary and extremely tedious tasks I'm stuck with preforming for the rest of my life.
For those of you reading and have wiki-ed type 1 diabetes, let me give you a short description of what my body is failing to do. My immune system attacked my pancreas basically, and its now not working right. I have a lazy pancreas that has decided it isn't going to produce anymore insulin to counteract my blood sugar. You eat, blood sugar rises, a non-lazy pancreas produces insulin to counteract and keep your blood sugar normal. Since my pancreas has gone on strike I have to inject myself with insulin. I am now charged with my pancreas' job. And I'm pretty sure that thing was better at math than me.
Before every meal I have a carb intake amount and using a formula I give myself the appropiate amount of insulin to counteract it. Not to bad, honestly. But my stomach is already sore from the amount of insulin injections and my fingers from how many times they got pricked.
Anyway, back to going to the hospital. I finally got there and got a private room luckily although there was an overflow and I was put in the Oncology ward. Funny story- one of my nurses thought I had cancer. She walked in and her eyes got wide, she was shocked. My family had just mentioned muffins so I was in tears freaking out about food I will or will not be able to eat. She came over and I mention I was diagnosed today and her eyes got even wider. Eventually we cleared things up, but the poor lady was horrified. I thought it was funny. I could have worse, right?
She came to put the IV in. I. Hate. IV's. This needle was apparently thicker and deeper than most which even now I'm not sure if I preferred knowing that information before getting injected or not. Eitherway, it hurt. It was the worst part about being in the hospital, and they put it in my right hand so I couldn't draw (not that I was feeling up to it) or write, or text, or type. I ate left handed, did everything left handed. It was a great motivation to become ambidexterious! (I got pretty good at eating with my left hand, let me tell you.)
Once the IV was in which was full of fluids and potassium, despite how much I had been drinking I was extremly dehydrated. And then the fun began. Every thirty minutes I had my blood pressure checked or blood sugar or insulin given. It wasn't that big of a deal until I tried to sleep. My mom stayed with me and slept on the chair next to my bed. But every hour a nurse would come in and do all of the above. I didn't get any sleep at all. Ontop of it, we were right by the helicopter landing. So we got to see it take off and land! But it also kept us from sleeping, it was pretty loud. I coudln't get comfortable with my IV and it was miserable, not to mention my blood sugar dropped down to 80. That caused my head to feel like it was getting pounded by a mallet for three hours. It went away around three am when I took more insulin but came back at seven and lasted most of the morning. I felt like shit to put it lightly. I couldn't focus on anything, my eyes were so tired and my head hurt to much. I ended up watching/listening to Peter Pan.
One of my friends stopped by a little bit later and brought me flowers! (They smell awesome!) I was feeling better then and at one point had my IV disconnected so I could change shirts (I luckily didn't have to wear a gown). She left after a bit and I had lunch, the food was surprisingly good, especially since it was diabetic food haha. I had full meals and I scarfed them down, I was so hungry. I even got ice cream at one point! And it tasted wonderful! And banana cream pudding with vanilla wafers, I have found a new love.
My blood sugar was tested and it was back up to 300, so they weren't going to let me go home and that brought me to tears. I didn't think I could handle another night like the one before. Thankfully I was only woken up every three hours and I was so tired I slept through any distractions. But anyway, before that my aunts came over a bit later and brought me a bamboo instead of flowers (which everytime I'm with them at a store and see it I want to get one ) and a Harry Potter baloon. Ontop of that they brought sticks as 'wants' and wrote a spell for my pancreas. I hadn't laughed so hard, they chanted and waved the wantds over my bed. It was priceless. The spell went like this:
Pancreas
We demand your attention...step up and do your job
Do your duty!!!
We the poweful Aunties of the Lake
Command this of you now!
Failure to comply will not be tolerated!
We wave our wants in order of the winds
To blow the power of the water to your side...
Diabetes away and empower the pancreas
We command and order this
We are the bosses
We have the power
Nothing messes with our Avenley
And survives our wrath
We are the all knowing, all seeing, all powerful
Aunties of the Lake!!!

(on the back of the paper/spell sheet)

P.S. And we love you very much so if our spell fails,
we have sugar free candy at our house

They made my night, I proceeded to play cards and hang out with family and some good family friends stopped by and then two friends came that night and they proceeded to say the spell as well but changed the words on the 'aunties of the lake' part. It was hilarious, all of that made my night. I managed to convince them to let me walk around with my little IV friend in tow. We just did laps around the seventh floor and talked. It was nice to get up and move my legs. Eventually they left and I got ready for bed (had a bed snack of ice cream! Fat free, but still delicous) and managed to fall asleep. I slept much better and felt so much better when I woke up in the morning. My blood sugar had gone down to the 150's so I was cleared to leave at ten in the morning. My favorite nurse was back and she took my IV out, which makes my right wrist soar now and I have to re-learn to use my right hand. (While writing this blog I was dismissed, so I am finishing it with use of my right hadn finally!) We were out of the hospital by eleven.
I just got out of the shower and gave myself my first insulin shot and counted carbs for lunch. It took me a bit but I think I can get the hang of it pretty quickly, and I actually had quite a lot of food to eat! I can't have a lot of sugar and I need low fat things so I can eat more of it. It isn't what I can't eat as much as portions of what I can eat. If I want cake, I can have cake. (: But I need to calculate insulin and things, though so far it isn't bad. I even found some coffee that is in my snack range so I don't have ot take insulin! And it tastes good! (thank goodness, I need coffee.) So now I just have to get back down to school, stash snacks around the house incase my blood sugar gets to low and educate my roomates and friends how to give me a shot if I pass out and can't wake up. Easy stuff, right? It'll be a challenge, but right now I'm super over joyed to be out of the hospital that I'm not that worried about it.
I guess my blog will now become a mixture of writing, photography, thoughts (that are hopefully interesting) and diabetes related. I may post some attempts at cooking diabetic food, although I can't cook normal food so it might now be very appetizing haha.

Anyway, that's how my life has changed. Great way to start the year, don't you think? Diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. (I do get a cool medical ID bracelet though!). This past New Years I guess I should have wished for a working pancreas, but I wished the same wish as I do every year. Maybe this was the bad, like the earthquake last year, and my wish will be the good and actually come true this year. One can hope, right?

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