Tuesday - More History

   So here I am, a geeky looking 12 year old with few friends, and not really headed anywhere all too fast. In June (1983) I come down with what seems like a late season cold. By the time school starts back up in September I still have slight symptoms of the cold, but even weirder are the other things I have going on now. I'm losing a lot of weight (during a teenagers growth stage - not good) and peeing like a thousand times a day. I'm drinking water like a water truck with a hole in it that you're desperately trying to fill. I'm eating like a Sumo wrestler, but i look like a pale boy with Bulimia Nervosa. Unknown to me (hey I'm only 12) I'm also pitting badly on the calves. So, my school kindly asks my parents when I last saw a doctor. Hmmm, it's been some years they say. Unknown to me, my folks couldn't necessarily afford to get me to our family doctor (or at least this is what I believe is the main issue). So they waited....until December, and finally gave in as I was not getting any better and took me to good old Dr. Buchanan (the man who delivered me). The wise man he was told my parents they either needed to return tomorrow (he was awaiting some blood work results) or take me to the hospital that night. They talked in his office, of what I will never know, but that's when my folks realized their son was really sick. That's when Leukemia crossed their minds in a bad way. So, off to Hurley Medical Center I went that night. I didn't see home for another three weeks. They took more blood from me. Heck I didn't have a clue as to what was happening. My folks weren't much better off (though by the time I was 20 I knew then that my parents should have known better). That night I was diagnosed with Juvenile Diabetes with a blood glucose level, not to be matched for some years, of about 1200 mg/dL. I was lucky I had no kidney damage. It was at this point that my internist told me, rather bluntly, "No Sugar, No Salt, No Life" (today I know that I have a life, but that's how I felt when he said that). So I get a room, a nurse, and some diabetes education. That CDE was the first person I ever remember showing me how important it was, let a lone how serious this was, to take very good care of myself. She was very self-empowering. That was VERY important to me. Even at the age of 12 I felt I had more control over my diabetes then my folks. I think back on this and even today wonder if that women knew that I would have been better off taking full control, even at such a young age, than to have let my parents control it for me to start out. Dawn of day one, I get an orange and a syringe (huge compared to what we have for syringes today) and I get to start practice sticking. I think they're kidding when I first start and still remember taking it half-heartedly. Then they gave me a plastic doll, and I realized this was no joke. I could never laugh at this. I never did again. So, Christmas morning roles around and my folks stop in to my room. This was my first Christmas away from home. I felt a little alienated. My folks, I think brought a gift up for me, but what will always stick out in my mind is what I know they brought me....the contents of my stocking. I don't know what they were smoking before they came up to see me, but man that action upset me for years. I could care less today, but it was a rather thoughtless action on their part. I have to admit I resented them doing that for some years afterward. I still remember breaking down shortly after this when Easter had rolled around and my four siblings got chocolate and the likes, but there really wasn't anything for Mikey. Oh, I snapped. That's when my dear mother introduced me to angel food cake. I can't stand the stuff today, but back then it was as good as it gets, so I loved the stuff. That became my personal, private, Mike only treat. After leaving the hospital we had one or two in-home nurse visits to make sure things had been applied as they were taught to both my folks and myself. I was given an Accu-Chek meter for in-home glucose monitoring. These, I did not know for several years, were fairly new. Monsters compared to our Ultra Mini's of today. Of course most of our hardware has shrunk and become far more functional, thank goodness. And so began some years of acceptance and denial.