“No. I have Type 1. It’s different. It’s an autoimmune thing. My pancreas just suddenly stopped doing what it was meant to do.”
“And getting sick caused it?”
“Yeah. Crazy. I didn’t even know that could happen.”
“Am I wrong in thinking Type 1 usually happens in kids?”
“Kind of, yeah. The term ‘juvenile diabetes’ was thrown around a lot and a lot of people—even a lot of doctors—thought it was more common in kids. But about half of cases occur in adulthood.”
“Lucky you, huh?”
“Right?” I asked, shaking my head.
“Is Type 1 harder to manage than Type 2?”
“I mean, they’re completely different diseases. But Type 1 basically means my body produces no insulin at all. Type 2 people are still usually making some insulin, but their bodies are not using it effectively. So Type 2 is kind of less… volatile. With Type 1, we’re basically thinking about it all day, every day. Because we have to for survival.”
“But it is manageable, right? With the correct medication, math, and testing?”
“It is. My doctor kept assuring me that I would get better at managing it. That it was expected for me to have a lot more issues at first since I was still getting to know the disease and the way my body functions now.”
“Do you think it’s gotten easier?”
Sugar took that moment to sniff hard at a spot of grass, making us both pause.
“That’s complicated. I think it’s easier now to do some things.”
“Like prick your fingers and stab yourself with a needle?”
“Exactly. I used to have to psych myself up to inject for like twenty minutes. That kind of thing has gotten easier. And I know what I should, and probably shouldn’t eat now. But I still fluctuate a bit more than I like.”
“Like yesterday?”
“Yeah. But there are highs, too.”
“How’s that? Isn’t it that you don’t have sugar?”
“Yeah, but the… damn math,” I said, shaking my head. “It was never my best subject. And everything is calculations now. How much insulin to how many carbs. So sometimes I can overcorrect. And sometimes my body just seems to react differently to foods, even if I took the right amount.”
“The high feels different?”
“Yeah, the highs usually mean I’m super thirsty, have dry mouth, fatigue, headache, blurry vision, mental fog, and sometimes… I’m a raging bitch. And it takes me a bit to realize the agitation is the sugar issue, not me.”
“The low is the shakiness?”
“And sweating, hunger, racing heart, dizziness, tingling, or something that feels like anxiety, but it’s just an adrenaline rush from my body trying to correct.”
“That’s a lot, babe,” he said, making me turn to find him watching me with something in his eyes that had my heart feel like it squeezed.
Like he was seeing me.
Like he was understanding.
As much as he could, anyway.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But I’m figuring it out.”
“Yeah, but it’s still a lot if you have it all figured out. I take my body for granted.”
