The Eye of the Needle in a Haystack

That is what I felt like in January of 2012.  The summer before that, I had had some rogue bloodwork that led me to a phenomenal hematologist.  He very quickly diagnosed me with a severe iron deficiency of unknown cause, but only after testing me for a myriad of bone marrow mutations that might result in similar symptoms:  general lethargy, severe muscle aches, depression, weight gain... with none of the obvious signs in regular labwork.  Fortunately, it was "just" anemia.

After the first couple of weeks of treatment with iron pills, I felt GREAT!  Better than I had felt in many years.  I guess when you find out your ferritin level (stores of usable iron) are 9 when they should be well over 50 and you begin to treat that, of course you feel like you could run 10 marathons consecutively with a smile on your face.  As a treat to myself, I hired a personal trainer, got back into the gym and into the pool.  I no longer needed a recovery day for flu-like symptoms after only an hour of laps.  I just felt amazing and I was learning to train my large and small muscle groups, doing cardio 5 times a week and adjusting my diet to accommodate a surprising 10 pound weight loss in a couple of months.  I had virtually given up hope of being able to do that on my own.

Looking back, those four months were a gift to me in so many ways.  I had made nearly all the lifestyle changes, aside from cutting out carbs completely, that would make me a successful diabetic and I had done that on my own terms, by my own initiative and was feeling like I was heading in the right direction emotionally, physically and even spiritually.  And then... peppermint bark happened.  It seemed harmless, was honestly just a taste.  We were celebrating with our good friends like we do each Christmas and I was being extra careful about what I ate.  But, you just can't have Christmas dinner without Bonnie's famous creamy chocolate peppermint bark.  After indulging in a small piece, we settled down to sing our annual Christmas Carols with Don and I felt something in my mouth that was not peppermint - it was a chunk of my tooth.  Darn... I was going to have to finally make that dreaded dentist appointment I'd been putting off.

The next morning I called and made an appointment for the next day to have that tooth repaired.  Sadly, the repair was much more involved than I  had anticipated.  I ended having my first ever root canal.  It was not nearly as scary or painful as I'd imagined, but the dentist was unable to complete it all in that one visit, so we scheduled a return visit for the end of the week and I left with instructions to call if I got a fever... which is exactly what I ended up doing the very next day.  On the seventh day of antibiotics, upon the successful completion of my root canal, which went smoothly considering, we were off to Savannah to join my family for Christmas.  Again... I felt great, enjoyed daily beach walks on Tybee Island in beautiful weather and had a blast with my family.  Nothing at all seemed out of the ordinary, except that my allergies were the bomb.  Each day I began to feel a bit more stuffy, had a night time cough that required Robitussin and forced myself to drink at least one, if not two, bottles of water each day.  We had picked up 24 bottles when we arrived and left Savannah a week later with 1/2 of them in our car.

Why do I even mention that?  Because on the day we left, I woke up, jumped in the shower, got out to towel off and noticed in the mirror that the pictures on the wall behind me were blurry.  It was a strange thing, but I chalked it up to foggy mirrors.  Until I stepped outside the bathroom and realized that although I could see family milling around, I could not make out exactly who that was standing across the room.  It was just plain strange.  I mean, I've heard of people needing glasses overnight, but this was super weird.  Needless to say, I informed my husband that I didn't trust my vision enough to help him drive home that day so he'd be driving solo.  10 hours!!  We set off to say goodbye to my sister and her family and hit the road.

As the day progressed, I started experiencing double vision for object far away and this, of course, was very unsettling to me.  I found myself staring down at my lap for most of the trip because everything a hand's length away was crystal clear and in focus, but looking beyond that just gave me a headache!  We stopped a couple times on the way home, nothing out of the ordinary.  I don't recall being super thirsty, nor do I recall needing to go to the bathroom constantly.  I just didn't have anything strange going on except that I felt like I was going blind!

We arrived home that Saturday, December 31st, and stopped in at our neighbor's annual New Year's Eve party.  Walking down to her house made me really begin to worry because I felt like I was squinting to make sure I didn't fall and to figure out who I was saying hi to!!  I was disturbed by this, but decided I would take all those allergy remedies I had forgotten to take along to Savannah now that I was home - Singulair and my nose spray.  I took both and went to bed, certain that by morning I'd be good as new.

Sadly, that was not the case.  I awoke the same obscured vision I had gone to sleep with and I decided this condition could not be ignored another day.

Small caveat:  if you are going to be diagnosed with a life altering condition, try to do that on a regular business day!!

Here we were, Sunday, January 1.  Nobody was at work.  I called our on-call doctor, who promptly called me back.  I explained what I was experiencing and he very quickly pulled up my chart.  It's extensive.  I have been hypothyroid and hypertensive since the age of 24, I have tachycardia and am on several daily medications for all those conditions, as well as newly put on Lipitor for high cholesterol.  Because my sister has been a type 1 diabetic since the age of 20, I was regularly tested for diabetes, including a fasting glucose and A1C each year.  Seriously, the thought had crossed my mind that this might be diabetes because I had been diagnosed three years previously as "pre-diabetic" but my last A1C and bg had been normal.  So the oncall doctor had concluded that while it didn't look like diabetes, he was recommending I try to find an ophthalmologist at the ER.  Off we went....

Big caveat:  don't assume that because someone in your family is a diabetic and you have been regularly tested for it that your diabetes will present in the same way everyone else's does.  You might actually be unique. ;-)

At the ER things progressed as usual.  I was not experiencing any symptoms other than the vision disturbance.  I did not have excessive thirst, frequent urination, I was likely a bit dehydrated from the travel and my eyes appears to be fine.  There was no eye doctor in sight as it was a holiday and my CT scan came back perfectly clear.  I was good to go... except for that CBC they ordered.  My blood glucose level came back 400.  THAT, my friends, is diabetes.  Like, overnight.  Being just shy of my 42nd birthday, having been diagnosed with pre-diabetes, being overweight at 179 pounds and having a father who was a type 2 diabetic, all signs pointed to Type 2 diabetes.  But you know, sometimes the lemons are pink, not yellow like you're expecting.

As it would turn out, I responded quite rapidly to the insulin they gave me, not a type 2 kind of response.  The 4 units of insulin they injected brought my blood glucose down to 311 within the hour, and then the 2 more units down to 200.  I was showing no insulin resistance, which is the hallmark of type 2 diabetes.  The next morning, I met the endocrinologist who said exactly this to me... "So, there's this other type of diabetes."  And it was then that I began to pray fervently that I was normal, that was not "this other kind" and that God would just heal this crazy thing that just happened to me.  Overnight.  I did not want to be a needle in a haystack, let alone the eye of that needle.  But sometimes God has to make a point of letting wayward children know just how uniquely created they are - sometimes that's the only way they do not feel forsaken, even when I might have felt for the first time in my life truly forsaken.

Making Stuff with Lemons... Letting Lemons Make Me!

After a little break from blogging, I'm going to attempt this once more.  It's actually more difficult the second and third time around I think!  I started something a few weeks ago on Wordpress but was dismayed that my guests were viewing ads I had no control over.  So here I am, back at blogger.

In short, I've thought a lot about the saying, "When life gives you lemons, make _____."  The  past couple of years have been full of lemons and since my favorite drink way back then was lemonade this was one of my favorites.  Now, after 18 months of basically H2O only, I'm not thinking much about lemonade.  But, I have made something out of all those lemons.  It's simple.  It's complicated.  It's uniquely created.  It's me.  Lemons can be transformed and they can transform.  That's what my lemons did.  The reminded me who I am in relation to the One who made me.

My lemons came in all shapes, sizes, origins - some were big, health-related lemons, others were smaller lemons that grew from seeds planted long ago.  Each one seemed unrelated at first, but in the end I realized they were actually all lemons.  They were sour, bitter, and they shone brightly, like that big yellow glowing pile in the middle of the produce aisle.  They sometimes had the appearance of something pleasant, but the insides would make my face contort into a squeamish, hideous show of discomfort.  The lemons were just plain gross.

After more than year of lemons piling up, with the occasional sweet strawberry to remind me of better days, I finally made the choice to make something of them.  Seeing as lemonade was no longer an option for me, I chose to make a rootbeer float.  Even more of a no-no, but a miracle nonetheless.  I'm so glad miracles still happen.

My story is simple - I am a mom, teacher, wife, and I became a diabetic.  My story is complicated - I was depressed, sick, bitter, and God handed me something bigger than I could deal with in that condition.  My story is unique - only probably 1% of people diagnosed with diabetes have it the way I do.  I am created - God made me to be just this.  And believe it or not, I'm glad He did.  'Cause I'm a little crazy like that.  If you want to join my craziness, sit back and imagine a rootbeer float.  Here we go!