I have two eyes. 

I have ten fingers. 

I have two legs.  And two thighs. 

I have one insulin pump.   

I have about fifteen blood glucose meters.  

When I was a little kid, my mother used to tell my brothers and me to stop counting.  What she meant was to stop looking at how many cookies someone else got, or how many toys someone else had, or how much money someone else got in their allowance - and comparing it to what we had.  She would say "when you count what others have, and compare, it's easy to forget what YOU DO have."  

Sound advice.

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If nothing else, diabetes has provided me with stories to tell.

Like the time before diagnosis when I peed my pants.  Or the time I told a classmate if they weren't careful, I'd put insulin in their milk and make them diabetic.  Or the time I socked a kid who called a diabetic friend of mine "sugar-freak."  Or the times I've made a donkey of myself during a low.  

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There are some days when a person ought to just stay in bed. 

Under the covers.

Cuddled with the cat.

Warm and safe and happy and comfortable.

There are some days when staying in bed is the best possible option.  Of course, those days are often realized in hindsight.  When the proverbial ball is already rolling in the absolute wrong direction.

Today has been, without a doubt, one of those days.

I got up this morning feeling alright.  Fairly well-rested, actually, and not fighting - as I'm wont to do - the inevitable reality that another day has dawned and it can't be spent in the paradise of slumber.

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I spent Saturday at the Providence Convention Center.  Getting tattooed.  The product of my inking can be seen in the photo attached to this post.  The picture, I can assure you, doesn't do it justice.  It's really beautiful.  And it means a lot to me.  The script says "I don't need sleep to dream" and I think the winged goddess looks like something out of a daydream - and like a daydreamer herself.  

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Did you ever have one of those days at work when you just couldn't make time for a break?  One of those days when you didn't stop to eat, drink, or go to the restroom?  One of those days when you were fully aware of the need to take a break, but you just couldn't stop for one?

Right about now, that's how life with diabetes is feeling for me. 

I just need a minute to breathe.  A minute to not think about this.  A minute wherein my mind isn't  consumed with my last inexplicable, frustrating number - or with the next test and the mystery and aggravation it could hold.  A minute to not think about the destruction this disease causes - the destruction that it is causing in me. 

And I know that I'm not going to get that minute. 

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His hands move over my waist to my hips.  He brushes by my insulin pump, which feels to me about fifty times its actual size.  I wonder, does he notice it there beneath my clothes, beneath his hand? 

My bloodsugar is 355 mg/dl.  I feel yucky.  I know I'm spilling ketones.  When he kisses me, do I taste like fruit, like wine, like the acetone that's eating away at me?  Does he see the awful dry feeling behind my eyes; is he thinking I look as horrible as I feel? 

He takes my hand, lacing his fingers through mine.  I trace his palm with my fingertips.  Why do these calluses feel so obvious, so hard and unfeminine? 

We are heated and intense.  I am lost in this embrace. My head is floating somewhere in a passionate, dizzy ether. Or am I low?  And if I am, how can I stop and ask for time at this particular moment?  (READ MORE)