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When I was little, I spent my days playing dress up and detective and imagining that my bicycle was indeed a car. I've always had an active imagination. In one of our former houses, I consistently imagined that we remodeled my room to include an endless hallway of bookshelves so that I could store all my books and stuffed animals. I loved thinking of new stories, new things to do, just anything new.

A major part of that imagination was thinking of all the things that I wanted to be when I grew up. Mostly, I dreamed of being a mother. I'd carry around my dolls, and even my cats, and pretend that they were my children. I couldn't wait to be pregnant, have kids of my own, and be the best mom in the world.

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I sat on the bathroom floor. A world of cold, white surrounded me. My hands gripped the edge of the toilet. My stomach turned. My body ached. Chills ripped through me. I moved closer to the toilet and he stood a little closer behind me. Standing, ready and waiting. To hold my hair back. To do whatever I needed him to do.

This is what dating looks like. A pinpoint moment in an array of events. The responsibility of caring. The desperation of having chronic health issues. The pain of having your body so enveloped by its own detrimental mechanisms.

Wednesday, I found out some bad news. I didn't want to be alone. So I called the guy I'm seeing (recall, we call him Marvin for no good reason). Marvin told me to come over and greeted me with a hug. Just the kind of thing a broken heart needs.

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When you're writing about your diabetes life for a living, it can be hard to remember that there is a life outside of this disease. When you're daily racking your brain for blog topics, diabetes fundraising ideas, and how to market a diabetes network to the world, it's tough to keep track of yourself. But I've desperately been wanting to know myself more, better, wholly.

I've done just that in the past three years. Being out on my "own" here at college has made it much easier to find that true person that lies beneath all the health conditions. Sometimes I still get lost in the mix...like am I truly against large groups of new people or was my self-esteem just beaten down by the PCOS? But mostly, I've learned myself in more detail than I ever knew before.

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It's my time...to remind myself that every caregiver needs a break.

I've been my own diabetes caregiver since about the age of 13. I remember the day quite vividly that changed it all. TCH (my pediatric endos at the time) made the switch from "sugar abstinence" to "carb counting." Otherwise known as Intensive Insulin Management.

I had to attend a class about carb counting, A1c goals, and overall "intensive management." My mom usually went to every diabetes-related doctor's visit or informational. But this time, the class was on a Saturday. Her job at the time didn't allow Saturdays off, so my dad took me instead.

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"This is the most sick I’ve ever felt," Charlie said last night, hugging the "puke bucket" so tightly you would have thought it was keeping him afloat.

He looked miserable, wanting so badly to just throw up and get the awful feeling out of his stomach. Get it over with. These are some of the most difficult times of being a parent of a child with diabetes.

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No matter how commonplace diabetes has become, I still react the same way when I see a person with diabetes in the wild. I still feel a special connection despite the fact that I don’t physically share the disease. I get excited, like I’ve just spotted a rare plant species or a member of a secret underground society - whose cover is only blown with the slightest hint of pump-tubing. I feel like there should be a unique handshake or some sort of enigmatic hand gesture.

I walked by an all-glass conference room at work the other day and saw two guys sitting at a long spruce-colored table and glancing up at the large flat-panel monitor on the wall. As I walked by, I saw one guy begin to unzip a small black pouch.

"Hmm," I thought. "I think I just saw a diabetic."

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From the second I saw the hand shake, I thought, "He's low. He's acting like he's low. Get the man some orange juice; he's about to pass out."

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I didn't sleep enough Wednesday night, so by Thursday afternoon my eyelids were heavy and my body was screaming out "Sleep! Sleep!" So a little after five in the afternoon, I decided to take a quick nap. A little power nap to recharge my batteries before diving into study and cleaning mode to prepare for the coming weekend.

My blood sugar was at 222 with only a little active insulin. I'd been high in the early afternoon and hadn't accurately bolused for a late lunch. I decided to leave it alone until after my nap though...giving my body an hour or two to use that remaining insulin and peak out.

I curled up in bed with my cat and a good book...falling asleep within a few minutes. It was a dreamless sleep...too deep to notice the world around me or the world inside me. A limitless fatigue overwhelming every inch of my body and soul. The effects of ineffective sleeping and the recent change in medications.

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