Intermission

The nurse sent me out of the triage room with a small plastic cup in a small plastic bag. I was to give my "sample" to the woman at registration. The bathroom was off to the left. I'm a germaphobe and I was at the emergency room in the middle of a pandemic, so let's just say the process of getting that sample prepared took a while, with a lot of hand-washing involved.

I went to the registration counter, carefully holding the plastic bag so my cup of pee remained upright (who knows how tight that seal is) and waited for the older couple in front of me to finish checking in. I walk up and say, "Hey the nurse told me to give this to you?"

The woman looked at my pee, clearly grossed out, and said, "Yeah I don't do that. Just wait for them to call you back and hand it to the nurse when they do."

I went back to the chair I'd occupied earlier and discreetly set my bag of pee on the floor and put my purse in front of it. I was exhausted. I hadn't eaten anything in two days. I'd been having bouts of nausea for about a month and this past week they'd become intolerable. I'd found that I preferred to just be starving than to experience the stomach cramps that came with my body's attempt to digest anything that wasn't liquid. I kept thinking it was a bug and it would go away but it hadn't so here I was. Masked up, during a pandemic, in the emergency room. Trying to hide my bag of pee.

Most of the people around me looked how I felt: like shit. But there were two women well enough to be chatting near me and in spite of my complete lack of energy, I found myself joining the conversation. We didn't talk about anything interesting or important, but it was one of the more cathartic experiences I'd had in a while. The entire world has been shut down for about a year now and I rarely even leave the house. I was enjoying just talking to humans, in person, even if it was because I was in the E.R. The older of the two women seemed to hear me think this and said, "God, I miss this. Just chatting. With people. This is nice."

Her musings were interrupted by the doctor, who called her back for an update on her husband. I have no idea how their visit turned out. A few minutes later I was called back. A room had opened.

They took my pee, they took some blood. I sat in the chair, listening to doctors and patients around me. I heard them diagnose a woman I had seen in the waiting room with a panic attack, and was relieved. I had been able to tell that's what she was going through when I saw her yelling she couldn't breathe, but it hadn't been my place to say anything so I was glad she was being treated now. The doc came in a few minutes later and asked me some questions about my symptoms. I shared about the nausea, the cramps, the extreme thirst. I said, "And I checked my blood sugar because I know thirst can be a sign of diabetes but my BG was 198 and that's in range."

The doctor, clearly having skipped the class in doctor school about bedside manners, laughed at me. She said, "198 isn't in range. It's bad."

I said, "Oh, ok I didn't know that. I know that my stepdaughter, who has Type One Diabetes, when she's 198 we don't worry too much so I thought it was ok."

She looked at me like I was an idiot and said, "No, that's not good. Anyway, another doctor will be coming to take care of you. I'll pass this along." Then she abruptly left.

I sat for a half hour or so, listening to doctors and patients. I heard a number of diagnoses being thrown around and discussion about patients, to whom they referred by room number. I had no idea which number I was so I wasn't sure when they were talking about me. I heard, anxiety disorder (the woman from the waiting room), diabetes (the person to the right of me whose BG was 30 something and they were suggesting juice) and "alcoholic pancreatitis," and started to hyperventilate. I didn't drink that much did I? Then I heard the woman who had come in briefing the incoming doc. "So then she tells me," she says, mocking my high pitched voice, with mirth just dripping from her mouth and through the curtain in my room, "'well I checked with my daughter's glucometer and I was 198,' and I tell her well that's not good. Then look at her chart."

So it was diabetes. Of course. My mom had been diagnosed a few months earlier and I remembered thinking, "Her mom was diagnosed around that age too. I'll just set my alarm for mid-fifties and prepare for my own diagnosis." I was expecting it, just not at 31.

Here's the thing about a disease like Type 2 Diabetes. It's one of those things, like heart disease, that has a lot to do with genetics but people like to focus on what the patient did wrong in order to deserve the disease. After my diagnosis I looked up "celebrities who have Type 2 diabetes." There were about ten on the list, some fat, some with average bodies. And then there was Halle Barry. Her little spiel about her diagnosis mentions her genetics-no one else's did. It's assumed, because she is thin, that her diagnosis was due to fate and nothing more. Where everyone on the list who was less thin than her had a whole bit in there about what they had been eating before diagnosis, implying fault; none of their genetics were mentioned.

As the nurse in the E.R. went over my take-home paperwork, he starts into a lecture on how my diet needs to change. He points at my water bottle, which I had told him earlier was Gatorade. He says, "You need to lay off the sugary drinks." I looked at him, too hungry and exhausted to explain that I was only drinking Gatorade because I had assumed I had the flu and I was trying to replenish the shit I'd been losing from he weeks of diarrhea. He told me about portion control. He said I need to limit sweets. He mentioned I should stop drinking soda.

I got home and told my partner about this conversation and he got that look on his face that he gets when people describe workplace abuse to him and he, a labor organizer by trade, is about to start asking if they have union representation yet. "But you never drink soda."

"I know. And basically the only time I eat sweets is if you are eating them."

"I know! I can't believe him. What a jerk." His hands were twitching, like he wanted to make a call to the E.R. and chew this guy out.

"The thing is, Honey, I'm pretty sure this is the tip of the iceberg," I said, the first of many tears that week to start welling up in my eyes. "Diabetes, and Type 2, not Type 1 like April, is a disease where people start thinking they can have an opinion about your body. You see how people are with April, always asking us, 'Can she have this,' or assuming she can't eat something because it has sugar in it or acting like we're participating in child abuse when we let her have a treat. But this is Type 2. This is a fat person disease," I say as the tears start rolling down my cheeks. "You know I always said to myself I know I'm fat, but at least I'm healthy. And now I'm not," I'm sobbing at this point. "I'm fat and I have Diabetes. I failed. I got the-the-the fat disease!"

It's been a week and a day since my diagnosis. Just like with anything, it gets easier every day. My best friend is a registered dietician. The poor thing has spent hours this week walking me though everything I can/should eat and how to balance diabetes and being vegetarian. I have some concrete guidelines to go by now, carb limits for meals and things. She's also helped me with self-love. She keeps reminding me it's a process and I can't do everything all at once. This sentiment is echoed by the seven of cups I keep pulling from my Tarot deck, telling me to stop trying to do it all, and just focus on one thing at a time.

Jim has watched me cry nearly every time I tried to eat something for the first few days. The nausea hasn't gone away, just improved. And I kept hearing a voice in my head saying I wasn't allowed to eat carbs any longer, which is simply untrue. The other day, my nausea was so bad I asked him to eat in the car and the poor bastard actually said, "Of course, anything to help." (He ended up eating a sandwich, which I could tolerate just fine because it didn't smell. But still. He was willing to eat in the car. Poor guy.)

I texted my older sister, who was also diagnosed with T2D recently (though she doesn't share my mom's genes). I told her I was sorry for not being more supportive when she was diagnosed. That this all sucks and it's a huge life change and how could I not have been more aware of what she was going through. She was gracious and said I had done what I could at the time. I've talked to aunts on my dad's side saying we have genes for the disease all over that half of the pool as well. So basically we were screwed from birth.

I know in a few months, I will feel at peace. I'll look at this like my diagnosis of panic disorder: it will make me stronger, more empathetic and more knowledgeable. It will sort of force-feed some diet changes that will be good for me (I don't drink soda but I'm not perfect). I might even get thinner, which will be nice. I'm getting used to the finger pricks. The carb counts are old hat from dealing with April's Type One, and so I only need to get used to doing them for myself as well as her. And today I put on makeup. I wrote. And I'm feeling ok. But it's a lot. And it's hard. And this week I have let myself grieve the life I left behind last Thursday and just do what I need to do to get through the days.

In a couple weeks I'll be back to conquering the world. Right now I'm just going to be.