Author Archives: Tracy Gnadinger

Bye Bye Baltimore (Part 1)

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After six months of a five-hour daily commute (sometimes six), I am finally making the move to DC (well technically downtown Bethesda but close enough). I will be a 10-minute walk from work.

Of course, my Baltimore friends are sad and don’t understand why I’d want to move to DC when Baltimore is so hip and has that small town charm for a city.

But after three years of graduate school and another year working in my field, it’s time to cut my ties with a city that was a stepping stone for my career and an escape from the Midwest.

So before I make my exodus at the end of June, I’d like to reflect on things I’ll miss and things I won’t. This blog post constitutes the “won’t.”

I Won’t Miss …

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Writing Blog Tour

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Thanks to Danielle Ariano for inviting me to be a part of this writing blog tour. What does writing mean to me? Why do I write? Here are the cliff notes:

What am I working on?

This blog. I know, seems silly, but this blog actually keeps me writing. Even if they aren’t Pulitzer Prize-winning pieces, I’m still writing, experimenting with voice and style, and all in the hopes that one day I’ll have enough material to write another book.

So that’s the second thing. I originally set out this spring to publish an ebook of my recent book, Sugarcoated, only to discover I had so much more material to cover. I didn’t think I could do Sugarcoated justice by repurposing it for the Kindle and Nook so I decided to expand on its premise of my diagnosis with Type 1 diabetes and write a more fulfilling manuscript. But first, I have some personal growth to do, and maybe when I land on my feet again, I’ll have a frame for my story. We’ll see.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I like to think I have a very unique, witty, and sarcastic voice that draws readers from every walk of life and only adds to my popularity and respect as a profound writer. And I like to think no one has ever written about diabetes before (minus the numerous blogs and social media followings out there).

But in the end, I am a writer like anyone else. I read a lot. I learn from observation. I’m a sucker for bittersweet endings and raw character development. I’m currently pursuing the “creative nonfiction” avenue because I like telling true stories, and I never like writing about myself so I see this as a challenge.

Maybe that’s my contribution? In my mind, I live in other worlds, often imaginary and unrealistic, but I am grounded on Earth. I attempt to interesect the two, if only to make sense of random chaos. I am not a believer in “everything happens for a reason,” but I love ironies and coincidences. Continue reading →

Diabetes Coverage: The Never Ending Battle

Posted in Cost, Diabetes, Mental Health, Type 1 by

Just when I think I’ve overcome one hurdle (in this case, the elimination of the pre-existing condition clause with the Affordable Care Act), 10 more appear. I don’t know if I would have experienced the health insurance hang-ups that make me want to bite my nails off and tuck my head underneath my desk at the end of the day, had I not been diagnosed with diabetes at 22.

But in those five years, fighting for diabetes coverage, even something as benign as a 90-day supply for supplies I use every day, has only added to my mental and emotional stress, and in a sense, depleted my overall health and quality of life. I’ve won battles and lost others. But at the end of the day, I still feel beaten.

No matter what I say, no matter how hard I push, no one will see my condition the way I do. They see me as a price tag – an expensive one at that. It doesn’t matter that these supplies or that amount of insulin or that sensor help me live. What matters is that in their predetermined rulebook, it says they do not cover it, and that’s that. Continue reading →

Lying to My Endocrinologist

Posted in Diabetes, Type 1 by

This week, I’m responding to a blog post on lying to your endocrinologist from Kerri Sparling at Six Until Me. Sadly, the truth is I almost always lie to my endocrinologist. Every few months, I cringe when the nurse brings in the downloaded blood sugar readings from my glucometer (even more so now that I have a CGM and cannot pretend to hide those unexplained highs or lows). But every few months, my doctor looks at my readings and says, “These look good.”

I’m surprised, relieved, and jumping up for joy on the inside. I succeeded! I DID NOT FAIL in the eyes of my doctor! But then, I feel immediately guilty because I know I’m not telling her the whole truth. I don’t tell her about the late-night peanut butter ice cream binges or the fact that I haven’t regularly exercised in the past five months (mostly due to my commute and the awful winter weather we had this year, which made me want to crawl under my bed sheets and hibernate until spring). Instead, I say, “Well, that’s good,” with a slight smile. Play it casual, like I’ve got it under control.

But as Sparling pointed out in her blog post, my doctor knows it’s not me that’s “noncompliant.” It’s my pancreas that doesn’t work like it should, and I’m just trying to deal. But I’m a perfectionist. I admit this much to my doctor. She’s concerned about the lows; she’s always concerned about the lows. But this last visit, she surprised me. She said research now says that regular low blood sugar levels can lead to worse long-term complications than highs. Really?  Continue reading →

It’s Just a Piece of Bread

Posted in Diabetes, Food, Type 1 by

Last night, I went out to dinner with a friend of mine from graduate school. We were walking down Cross Street towards the market when we saw the hoard of college students and post-college wannabes standing along the strip of bars that make up Fed Hill’s night scene.

Even though we had plans to walk through that hoard towards the restaurant, we were both like “Uh, nooo,” and diverted to the right. We settled on an American bistro neither one of us had been to.

The place looked deserted. Apparently the Cinco de Mayo festivities had already trampled through and left. In the back dining area, one of the servers sat us between two other tables, one replete of the 5pm dinner crowd and another of a middle-aged couple.

The woman of the couple kept giving our server dirty looks, while a man behind us kept grumbling because they were out of his favorite wine. Continue reading →

The Opposite of Loneliness: Keegan’s Voice for a Generation

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I just finished reading Marina Keegan’s The Opposite of Loneliness, a collection of essays and short stories from a Yale graduate who died shortly after graduation in a car crash in 2012.

I don’t know if I would have picked up the book had I not known that the author had died at such a young age – that and she wanted to be a writer. In fact, she already was, with a job lined up at the New Yorker, and a play about to be produced at the New York International Fringe Festival. Her last essay for the Yale Daily News, “The Opposite of Loneliness,” had received more than four million hits, mostly when others heard of her passing.

While I was on Scribner’s website, looking up a contact for work, it was this title that actually drew me to the posthumous book. She was only two years younger than me when she died. From the introduction, I didn’t think I would like the author’s voice. She seemed over eager, privileged, and too innocent, but I wanted to give her a chance. If I died and somebody published my essays postmortem, I would want someone to give me that chance so I added it to my Kindle queue.  Continue reading →

Peanut Butter Bait

Posted in Animals, Mental Health, Personal by

Briston set up the traps months ago, baiting the mice with pinches of peanut butter.

“It’s best to leave the peanut butter on before setting the trap,” he said, “that way the mouse gets use to it and doesn’t expect the snap.”

We had just moved into a two-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a rowhouse in downtown Baltimore. Even though we’d been dating for two and a half years, more than half of that was long distance. Once I graduated with my MFA, Briston made the move from Orlando to Baltimore to give the relationship a real shot.

“That’s fine,” I told him, referring to the mouse trap, “as long as I don’t have to clean it up.”

Two years prior when I lived in a basement apartment north of the city, I had my first encounter with a mouse. He scared me when I turned on my bedroom light, and he ran out from under my bed.

A few days later I was sitting in the living area on the flower-printed couch, donated by a previous tenant, reading a book. I had set a similar peanut butter trap, at the suggestion of my roommate.

It was 9pm, and he scurried out from behind my bookcase against the wall across from me. He sniffed around my TV stand and ignored the peanut butter. Then disappeared down the hall. I didn’t scream or fret. As much as I don’t like living with other things, I live under the philosophy, “if you don’t bother me, I won’t bother you.” Continue reading →

A Purse Full of Diabetes Supplies

Posted in Diabetes, Medical Supplies, Travel, Type 1 by

I don’t like to carry much. I used to avoid carrying a purse or bag. But I also like to be prepared. And with diabetes in tow, it’s hard to do both.

Like today, my blood sugar started dropping once I left the office even though I had corrected the last low two hours ago. I couldn’t for the life of me find my glucose tablets, but I did have Gatorade on hand, so for now, my blood sugar stabilizes.

Here’s what I always carry with me:

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The Same Route Twice

Posted in Personal, Travel by

Sometimes, I wonder how much more my body can take. At some point, I’m just on auto-pilot, and at the end of my 16-hour day, I’m surprised I’m still functioning, considering I’m one of those people who tries not to take the same route twice (for safety reasons and to mix it up a bit).

Today is one of those days. In addition to physical stress, I am overwhelmed by a whirl of emotions, a reaction to pending changes in my life. I’m preparing to move (again); helping other friends prepare to move; finding new friends and some desperately needed R&R while working for a promotion at the first job I’ve ever cared for. Some may say I’m 27 – this is normal.

But with the additional management of a chronic disease, changes in insurance status, filing claims, switching doctors, acquiring new scripts for that coveted 90-day supply, it’s a wonder I accomplish anything. And as a side note, what’s the point in having an FSA debit card if I have to submit receipts, explanation of benefits, etc. every time I use it?

Rewind 10 years…

I sit on the swing set of a small park near my best friend’s apartment in Louisville, Kentucky. As the sun fades, the crickets come out. I love their sound as long as I don’t have to step near their ugly brown spotted bodies that used to roam our basement and give me daymares.

My best friend Maria and I agreed to meet here one evening in June, the summer before we left for college. She would stay in Louisville. I was destined two hours north for Cincinnati.

We met freshman year of high school waiting for our moms to pick us up outside the new building to our all-girls school. We started talking about politics and cultural events. We philosophized about life and love and by the end of the year, we had become best friends. Continue reading →

Things I Wish I’d Known

Posted in Cost, Diabetes, Type 1 by

A few months ago I retweeted a quote from Elizabeth Gilbert that went something like “things I wish I knew at 25…”

My five year anniversary with diabetes is coming up in a few days, something I was reminded of this morning during a visit with my new primary care physician.

“You said you were diagnosed at 22?” she asked in a bubbly voice, an endearing tone like that of a child’s rather than a bratty teen.

“Yep, April of 2009.” I said with a smile, swinging my legs against the edge of the exam bed. Why should that make me proud?

And that got me thinking about what I would tell my 22-year-old self now. What words of wisdom could I share with a young woman, driven by education and a career yet hungry for young love and adventure?

Things I wish I’d known:

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