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I was also given a bottle of test strips and taught about blood sugar testing. No meter. Just test strips. These strips had a big square box on them (about the size of a Chicklet) that had to be covered with blood, blotted, then timed before matching the color of the box to the color chart on the bottle. Pale blue meant you were 40 -70mg/dl. Light blue 70 – 100. Ocean blue, 100 – 125. Aqua-blue 125-150. Just plain aqua, 150 – 200. Aqua-green, 200-250. Sea green, 250 – 350. Green, 350-450. Brownish green, look out. In other words, determining your precise blood sugar level required an advanced degree in fine arts with a major in color differentiation.

The bottle of test strips came with a medieval torture device called an “Auto-Let.” The Auto-Let had a small disposable platform with a hole, where you placed the victim… er…I mean, your finger. A disposable 25-guage lancet was placed in the firing mechanism, which swung around at high speed like a pendulum to stab your finger and make it bleed. I called it “The Guillotine.”

Then I met with a dietitian – a tiny middle-aged woman who taught me the fine art of the “exchange” diet.
“You really don’t have to change what you eat that much,” she told me. “You just have to be careful not to eat too any concentrated sweets, fats, or very large portions of anything.” Not change what I eat? Apparently she had no idea who she was talking to.

I can still remember the “generous” 2,500 calorie exchange diet – chock-full of fruits, vegetables, meats and starches. Oh, how I hated that piece of paper. I was hungry constantly. The exchange system meant that everything I ate had to be placed in a category and that I could only eat so many things from each category at each meal and snack. Talk about sapping the fun out of eating.

My first “exchange diet” meal looked so puny on the plate. And there were no seconds, thirds, fourths etc. I was hungry all day long.
The first week or two were really rough. Even after starving myself and doing everything I was asked to do, the stupid test strips kept turning aqua-blue instead of sea green, or maybe it was the other way around. Who cares? I cried a bit those first couple of weeks. My mom told me that my dad, normally an unemotional guy, had cried, too, and that he wished that it was him, and not me, who got diabetes.

The insulin program I was placed on didn’t make things any easier: NPH and Regular, at breakfast and dinner. The regular would peak in about 2 hours and last about 6; the NPH would peak in 6 hours and last about 12. Everyone at the endocrinologist’s office kept telling me the same thing: “you can live a normal life, as long as you do things according to your insulin.” Basically, that meant that I would have to eat certain things at certain times of day; exercise (with caution) at certain times of the day; sleep only at certain times because of the need to take shots at specific times; and test my blood sugar at certain times. What could be more normal that that?

Back in 1985, two shots a day was the norm. So was making your life conform to your insulin program. But things did improve over time. I was given a “sliding scale” for my insulin, which was a good thing, because I was rarely “ocean blue”. I probably had as many lows as I had highs, so my glycosylated hemoglobin levels showed a decent average; usually in the 6-7% range. But the low blood sugars were becoming more frequent and more severe, especially during the night. My doctor at college suggested I move my dinnertime NPH to bedtime. While that helped cut down on the nighttime lows, I started having more lows before lunch. Oy vey.

Soon after my diagnosis, I purchased my first blood glucose meter – a Glucometer, to be exact. It weighed about a pound and was the size of a sandwich (but without the onion smell). The testing procedure is still etched in my brain: Guillotine, then squeeze out a big “hanging” drop of blood, dab the big box on the strip, start the counter, wait 1 minute, blot the strip and insert it in the meter, press the button again, and wait 90 seconds for that 58 or 314mg/dl to appear. (Just once, wouldn’t you like to see a meter advertisement where the reading on the screen wasn’t so perfect?).

That meter lasted about a year. Then Lifescan came out with its One Touch meters, and I jumped to get one. Imagine – no blotting, a round test area, and only 45 seconds from stick to result! I was in hypoglycemic heaven. It didn’t do much for my control, but I did have an extra five minutes a day to spend doing things other than waiting for my test results.

That meter for a lot of use though college (I went to Washington University in St. Louis). Before dinner, my roommates used to gather in the common room to wager on my blood sugar level. Everyone threw a dollar in the table; closest guess took the loot. Some of them became pretty adept at the whole diabetes thing: they would ask questions like “What did you eat for lunch?” and “Did you work out this afternoon?” Talk about “getting by with a little help from my friends.” It was lighthearted stuff like that that kept me from getting down about my diabetes.

Despite the technological improvements, I was still plagued by the frequent high and low readings. Anyone with diabetes knows how those blood sugar swings make you feel – chronically fatigued and frustrated. Exercise was one thing that helped me keep a positive attitude. I had always been into sports, but after being diagnosed with diabetes, my passion and commitment to fitness soared to a whole new level. Every day, I would be getting dome form of exercise. If there wasn’t anybody to play basketball or racquetball with, I would be riding my bike around the park, or jumping rope in the lounge to the beat of Motown music. Exercising made me feel like I was still strong, fit, and in control of my own health, despite having diabetes.

Unfortunately, the emotional “high” I got from exercise was often followed by a serious low blood sugar. One month into my first job out of college, I showed up for work in a complete mental stupor. Some days, I couldn’t remember getting dressed or driving to work. It’s amazing that I never crashed into a tree buck-naked. To make matters worse, I was no longer getting the symptoms that a low blood sugar was coming. Gone were the “good old days” of shakes and sweats. Now, mental confusion was the first noticeable sign that my blood sugar was dropping. And sometimes, it was too late for me to handle it on my own.

Thank God for my wife, Debbie. She’s one of those rare people who knows just when to let me do my own thing and when to get involved. I met her at college and knew would marry her after our first Valentine’s Day together. She learned a few things about diabetes and went out of her way to prepare a huge heart-shaped box filled with popcorn and cashew nuts. You know what they say… The way to a man’s heart is though his pancreas.