Yesterday I met with the diabeetus clinic to talk to a dietitian and receive my very own little finger-sticky blood-testing torture device. They tested my blood sugar in the office and it was fine, then they asked me what a typical day of eating looked like for me.
I don’t know what they were looking for (Milkshakes for breakfast? A KFC Double down for mid-afternoon snack?) but my answers were pretty boring and generic for a health-conscious vegetarian. They told me I needed to be eating more carbs and that I needed to be planning regular meals, instead of my current method of just grazing and munching throughout the day.They armed me with handouts and charts and a helpful little food diary to record every morsel I cram into my face, as well as a complicated system of recording carbs that involves portions and grams and cups and MATH.
If my grade 12 math teacher was reading this he would be laughing hysterically and shaking his head, while repeating “Oh man, she’s screwed.” And then he’d give me a 54% and tell me to try harder next time.
So, after the appointment, I returned home and began my foray into the fascinating world of DIABEETUS.
First of all I think I might be dead. Or dehydrated. Or a zombie. OR ALL THREE! Because when I tried to squeeze one paltry drop of blood out of my finger to test my blood sugar before going out to dinner, I had to stick myself EIGHT times before getting anything.
Eight.
Eight times. Eight times I had to jab that evil little needle into my tender fingertips and try and massage a singly drop onto the test strip. The baby obviously found this hilaaaaarious because as I was jabbing myself and contaminating test strips with my angry tears, my belly was a jumble of kicks and somersaults and happy little hiccups.
I’m glad at least one of us was enjoying themselves.
Anyway my levels yesterday were all well within guidelines. I’m hoping they will remain this way for the entire week until I meet with the clinicians again. I’m REALLY hoping that at that point they’ll look at my neatly completed little chart and exclaim, “Why Madeleine- Clearly you don’t have diabeetus. There must have been a terrible mistake. I’m going to go ahead and shred your file to erase any record of you being here, and hey, take this hammer and smash your evil little finger poking machine to bits on your way out, would you?”
Seriously. This is my plan. I am going to ROCK this blood sugar level testing thing.
Of course nothing would make Adam more sad than to see my little machine get returned, because he is fascinated by it. This was our conversation on the way home from the hospital:
Adam: Can I test my blood with that thing?
Me: No.
Adam: What? Why?
Me: Because then I have to waste a whole different needle on you.
Adam: What do you mean?
Me: Well I have to switch the needle, I’m not going to share needles with you, you weirdo.
Adam: You’re not going to share a needle with me?
Me: No.
Adam: We’ve been together 10 years. You use my toothbrush.
Madeleine: Okay that was once. And that’s different. I don’t know what weird blood diseases you have!
Adam: Madeleine whatever I have, you have by now.
Me: Well I haven’t gotten the results from my chlamydia and gonorrhea tests back yet, so we’ll see about that.
After further negotiations and more than a little pouting on his part, he won. (Have you ever seen a 31 year old man pout? It’s surprisingly cute. How could I refuse to jab him in the finger with a needle after that?)
We designated him a special needle (or LANCET as the manual helpfully refers to it, making us both feel like medieval knights instead of a weirdo married couple fascinated by their respective blood sugar levels). He was overjoyed and tested his blood so many times yesterday that I had to cut him off because he’s wasting too many strips.
Then the pouting resumed and he had the balls to say the following sentence: “I wish I had diabeetus. You get to do all the fun stuff.”
What what what what?!
WHAT?
For seven months I’ve been poked and prodded and jabbed and had more needles stuck in me than I can count. I’ve peed into cups (and not peed into cups) and had strangers inspect my legs, my belly, my lady parts. I’ve gone to appointment after appointment after appointment, I gave up drinking coffee and diet coke, (I GAVE UP DRINKING DIET COKE). Sleep is becoming impossible, my belly is an inside out punching bag. I pee all the time, I grunt from the exertion of getting up, bending over, sitting down, and sometimes just because. SOMETIMES I GRUNT AND DON’T KNOW WHY!
Meanwhile, Chuckles here just gets to stand back and watch me balloon into a beach-ball behemoth and make helpful comments like, “You shouldn’t (stress so much/eat that/lift that/do that/drink that/lie like that). It’s not good for the baby.”
You know what’s not good for the baby? GROWING UP WITHOUT A FATHER.
Internets, I miss abusing my body. I miss poisoning it with aspartame every once in a while. I miss being lazy and not feeling like I’m providing an inadequate vessel for a developing babe. I miss being able to dress like a slob and not feel like I’ve let myself go. I miss throwing my chiropractor’s warnings to the wind and sleeping on my stomach. I miss gorging myself on junk every so often without worrying that one of the thousand ingredients in salsa con queso will result in the baby being born a peculiar shade of traffic-cone orange.
And all of this stuff? All of this stuff is so small in the grand scheme of things, and honestly although I really truly DO miss all of it, I don’t mind doing it. It’s worth it. I’m enjoying myself. But, hear me Adam, you do not get to look at me poking myself with a needle eight times and say I get to do all the fun stuff. NO.
I wrote a whole 28 Week update yesterday which was actually sort of boring so I’m not too upset that it was all suddenly deleted due to an errant keystroke on my part. When that happened I just sort of stared at the screen and then said “Ah, who cares.” and just posted the picture by itself instead.
I really doubt anyone missed me talking about how 4 weeks doesn’t equate to a month, so I’m really 6.52 weeks instead of 7 months if you want to get technical about it, then blathering on about how I can’t sleep anymore because my hips keep going go numb and I have to roll over every half hour.
I mean there, I just gave you a three sentence Cliff’s notes version that was probably better than the original.
Where was I going with this? I have no idea. Diabeetus. My idiot husband. Poisoning my body.
FIN.
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