Yes, it's a thing. You can google search it. Four years ago tonight I was diagnosed with Type 1.
How did I celebrate? With my favorite breakfast, a 30 mile training ride with Daryl (including 2 flat tires), and homemade coconut ice cream with fresh marionberries.
But why, you might ask, would someone celebrate this hideous disease?
Daryl asked me that very thing. So let me share with you.
- I was diagnosed. Which means I am alive. And it really could have gone either way - taking Harold with me since he was unborn at the time. So that's worth celebrating.
- I am alive. And let me tell you - some days it takes everything I have to stay that way. Like this past Wednesday, when my insulin pump inset catheter bent and I was over 450 for several hours, in a car, with no hospital nearby. (Glad that worked out, even though it took 36 hours to normalize.)
- With a disease like this, you get kicked in the pants about every other day. Sometimes you just need to celebrate. So we do.
We don't celebrate the disease, but the survival. The achievements and the deserving something to be happy about.
My Diagnosis
I had been at the midwife earlier in the day complaining of my symptoms and how no matter how much I ate (and I ate A LOT), I kept losing weight. I was 5 months pregnant and had lost 18 lbs in 4 weeks. My body had burned all my fat and muscle to stay alive, and I was nearing skin and bones (and baby bump).
At 7:30 p.m. they called and told me to go straight to the hospital. My blood sugar had come back over 600 and my A1c (a 3-month reading of blood glucose saturation) was 13.1% (a non-diabetic won't go over 5.5%). We spent the next 5 days in the hospital.
We had some "shit's getting real" conversations with the doctors in that first hour: do I want to be resuscitated? If the baby is delivered early (he was 25 weeks gestation) did we want to take measures to save him? If he was life-flighted to St. Vincent's, did we want to be transferred with him, assuming I could be moved? Would Daryl stay with me or go with the baby? And many more.
And once I was admitted, and they decided Harold wouldn't need to be delivered early, and they hooked me up to a bunch of machines - I took a breath, and slept. For what seemed like my first real sleep in weeks. I had been sleepless for a month, feeling like I was dying but having no idea what was wrong with me, and so I had been terrified of going to sleep. But now (then), scary as it was, there was an answer. And I could sleep.
I am glad I slept a lot in the hospital, because I have learned since then, that Type 1s do not really sleep. It's part of monitoring your body every few hours 24/7 - you just never really sleep the way other people do. You are just always tired.
So that's my diaversary. It's not something most people get excited about - but for Type 1s it's a special way to reflect on all you go through and celebrate how hard you work to stay alive. So bolus up and eat some cake and ice cream!
