Little Prick
No, it's not what you think. I didn't sleep with a guy who was, as Stern says, "hung like a pimple." Hm. I didn't sleep with anyone at all, actually. No, this entry is really about blood, and love.
Every day I stab my fingers with a lancet, multiple times, to check my blood sugar. A Type 2 diabetic, the recent diagnosis stunned me. I denied - the tests must just be wrong - and got angry - why me?! - and then I mourned.
The day I got my glucometer was very representative of a lot of things for me. It was like I was picking up a machine that transformed me into a responsible adult. I suddenly had this task, this chore, this responsibility that I had to live up to. It would have been easy if it was a responsibility to someone else. But it wasn't. It was a responsibility to myself. I'd never been very good at investing in myself. Everyone else, yeah. Me? Not so much.
At the time of my diagnosis, as I said, I didn't take it very well. It felt like one more indicator that I was a pretty crappy and incapable person. I was so out of control that I gave myself diabetes, was my thinking. Well, that may or may not be true. What I didn't think of until more recently is that the glucometer is like a lifeometer. If I misbehave - I eat improperly or don't exercise enough - it shows up in my blood. The number flashes like judgment.
132 post meal. YAY, you did well! Good portion size and selection!
57 at 11am. Boo. You aren't caring for yourself enough. You aren't eating enough.
When I am right in range, I feel fabulous. It's physical and psychological. Not only that, but being in range means I'm losing weight. I had a few weeks where I was just not up to putting in the extra work to eat well, my numbers were off, I felt like hell, and my weight loss ground to a halt. Ordinarily, this would have thrown me into a downward spiral. I would have abandoned hope and just turned to Ben and Jerry for comfort. But now, something is different.
Instead of giving up, I hop back up on the wagon and do better. I keep pricking my finger, I keep holding myself accountable, I keep seeing that judgment flash on the little screen. So far, diet and exercise have kept me off medicine. That might not always be so, I don't know. Either way, that little machine is training me to care about myself more and more, helping me figure out my own physiology, teaching me to slow down and listen to what my body is telling me. And that can only be a good thing.