"It's life Jim, but not as we know it..."

I'm pretty confident that Commander Spock said that line more times than I'll ever be able to count... I never thought it would apply to my life... But, it is what it is.

Tonight I had an interesting experience with one of my oldest son's friends. This friend was diagnosed about nine months ago as a Type 1 Diabetic. With as much as he's over at my house his father recently joked that we were going to have to figure out who gets to claim him on our taxes. So I guess you could say he is more family than friend...

Anyway, we were driving to pick up some "take and bake" pizzas from a local business and I was having a hard time coming up with simple words in normal everyday conversation. I jokingly told him that he needed to pull out his sugar tester and check my blood to see if I was going low as I couldn't even complete the simplest of sentences without struggling for the words. The boy freaked on me... He honestly thought that I was in the process of having a low and was going to kill us both if I didn't get some sugar into me right then and there. I told him that I was joking and was fine.

The experience got me thinking a little bit more about our diabetic plight, though. My son's friend and I suffer from two significantly different diseases. So far I haven't experienced a sugar low. I actually don't think I will with my current treatment plan either - I'm not on insulin to control my blood sugar, just medication. My meds prevent the liver from dumping lots of extra sugar into the bloodstream to compensate for my body's inability to effectively use what is already in the blood. Thus, no lows yet... My son's friend, however, has to account for EVERY gram of carbohydrates. One misstep in his math or estimation of carb quantity in his food and he could seriously over or under medicate. When the ONLY insulin in your body comes from a syringe after a finger prick and math problem there is some serious potential for error. Lows are a real and potentially deadly reality for him - thus the freakout in the car...

I guess that's the reality of life as we now know it...


Please note: These observations have been true for me and in no way should be taken as medical advice from me. It's really sad that we live in a world where I actually have to spell hat out because common sense seems to have been thrown out with the bath water. (Five bonus points to anyone who gets that obscure, turn of the century reference...)