Author Archives: Tracy Gnadinger

Thanks for the job. By the way, I have diabetes.

Posted in Diabetes, Professional, Type 1 by

I never say in job interviews or on my first day that I’m diabetic. Legally I cannot be fired or reprimanded for my medical condition, but I make a conscious choice to pretend it doesn’t exist, like I’m “normal.”

Of course people warn me that I should tell at least someone I work with about my disease. Even though I manage it well, anything can happen and someone should know what to do in that situation.

Eventually, I do. I make a friend or someone asks about my pump or my glucometer, and then that follows with 10 million more questions about diabetes: what’s the difference between type 1 and type 2, can I eat sugar, do I have to take injections, does it hurt, etc., etc.

I’m happy to answer these questions. When I was diagnosed at age 22, I didn’t know what diabetes was much less how it would change my life. Why would I? I studied psychology in college. I was more familiar with the symptoms and repercussions of bipolar disorder than what a normal blood sugar range was. So I’m always happy to share my first hand experience with others. Well, almost always.

Continue reading →

Diabetes Breakdown

Posted in Diabetes, Mental Health, Type 1 by

Not every day is easy with diabetes. Not that it should be. My pancreas doesn’t work so technically I can’t properly digest food so technically, five years after my diagnosis, I shouldn’t be alive.

I should be thankful for technology, thankful that even though these medical supplies cost me a ridiculous copay, they keep me alive – they help me maintain an overall good quality of life.

I should be thankful, but there are days when I come home from my two-hour commute from DC and I stand in my walk-in closet debating what outfit I should wear tomorrow and then I lose it. I just sink to the dilapidated hardwood floor and start sobbing.

Okay maybe there’s more to it than that? Maybe it’s been a rough day? Maybe I’ve been having highs all day for no apparent reason other than my hormones started going crazy? Or maybe I’ve spent half the day going back and forth from the insurance company to the pharmacy to the doctor’s office trying to get my 90-day supply of test strips covered? Continue reading →

Say Hello To Cosmo, My New CGM

Posted in Diabetes, Medical Supplies, Type 1 by

The vibrating wakes me up for the third time this night. It’s 3 a.m., and my new continuous glucose monitoring system (CGM) says my blood sugar reads 55. I know it’s a lie. I recently checked my blood sugar, and it was stable at 93. I have no active insulin in my system, but I just started this CGM, which I have decided to call “Cosmo,” and the nurse said it may take a few days to reflect my actual blood sugar. It’s a shame, but in the few weeks that I’ve had Cosmo, I still won’t give it up.

In the almost five years that I’ve had Type 1 diabetes, I’ve thought about investing in a CGM, which uses a sensor to monitor my blood sugar 24/7, but there can be a 20-minute delay since it’s reading my glucose levels from the interstitial fluid (a thin layer of fluid that surrounds the body’s cells), as opposed to a glucometer that reads it from a blood sample. I’ve always erred on the hypoglycemic side – two seizures in my short history as a result.

But in addition to the added expense of a CGM (my health insurance history has not been very consistent), I didn’t know if I wanted a 24/7 reminder of my diabetes. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know how much two pieces of bread or pasta or ice cream affected my blood sugar in the three hours I didn’t check it with my glucometer. Even though by the time that three-hour period had passed, my blood sugar returned to a normal state of 80-120, it didn’t mean that in that time, it hadn’t spiked to 300 and come back down. Did I really want to know that? Continue reading →

The Ups and Downs of Lows

Posted in Diabetes, Exercise, Food, Type 1 by

I’m driving my grandma’s formerly owned 1993 Geo Prizm down Taylorsville Road in the suburbs of Louisville, KY. My boyfriend at the time sits in the passenger seat rocking out to Blue October. We’ve seen them twice in concert, once at Louisville’s Fourth Street Live. We’re visiting my family for the weekend, just a few weeks after I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. I will be the first in my family to graduate from college in Cincinnati in a few weeks.

I start to feel shaky and weak, but I don’t tell Reed. He recently shaved his head to mask his receding hairline at 22. His former football player fingers tap on his torn jeans. I focus on the yellow lines of the road. We’re only a mile from home – no reason to pull over. I can beat this. Come on Tracy, focus.

My peripheral vision goes fuzzy. Only half a mile now. I stop at the red light at the four-lane intersection of Taylorsville and Hurstbourne Lane. One moment of reprieve.

“Are you okay?” Reed asks, no longer whistling.

“I’m fine,” I say, still focused on the hazy yellow lines.

“You just seem really tense.”

“Let’s get back to my parents’ house, and I’ll explain.”

I pull into the three-car driveway, off to the side, in front of the rose bushes. I run into the one-level brick house. I am as much curious about the state of my blood sugar as I am worried. Reed finds me in my old bedroom, painted a faded blue.

“Whoa, 51,” I say, more out of amazement than concern.

“I don’t think I should have been driving,” I add, heading down the black and white tile hallway to the kitchen for some juice. I’m almost proud that I didn’t have an accident rather than regretful.

“Probably not,” Reed says, his eyebrows raised. Continue reading →

Diabetes on Birth Control

Posted in Diabetes, Type 1, Women's Health by

One of the biggest fears of any single young woman is getting pregnant. I feel this is tenfold now that I have Type 1 diabetes. The stress of affording my own health care is enough – I don’t want the added physical and emotional burden of surviving pregnancy with diabetes much less affording my child’s coverage (given the possibility that the child will also have diabetes). No one can yet prove that my diagnosis was a result of genetics, but they cannot disprove it, either. I’d rather not take the chance.

In the past five years, I have attempted different types of birth control. The pill was always the easiest and most reliable option, but low and behold, no matter how many different types I tried, it always had a negative impact on my blood sugar readings and insulin resistance. What does this mean?

Well, while on the pill, my blood sugar skyrocketed, and I needed to take more insulin to keep it stable, but then, during the week of my period when I wasn’t on the pill, my blood sugar plummeted so that I would experience severe lows and have to readjust my insulin to carb ratio. You would think I could account for this every month, and believe me, I tried, but there was no telling when that initial plummet would happen. Sometimes, it was a few days before my period; sometimes, a few days after. The following week when I started taking the pill again, my blood sugar would rise so that I would constantly be adjusting my insulin to carbohydrate ratio until I got it right. It seemed to vary month to month.

Because I was tired of the constant ups and downs and the effect the pill had on my hormones and my emotional sanity, a few months ago, I stopped taking it. Cold turkey. I knew my body before I started the pill and relied on its natural cycle, but that was before I committed myself to long-term relationships. Now it was time to trust it again. It certainly improved my blood sugar readings. Continue reading →

Emotional Reasoning

Posted in Mental Health, Women's Health by

I haven’t always listened to my emotions. In fact, there was a time I suppressed them.

I grew up in a household of boys, my poor mother and I alone in the chaos of male destruction. But as much as I revere my mother, I was a daddy’s girl. Besides the whole Oedipus complex, I’m starting to understand why. My mom was rational, and my dad, like me, was emotional. But since he was a man’s man, he never showed it except when he became angry. My dad was the type of man to have teary eyes at the end of movies like It’s a Wonderful Life and Armageddon, but only if he was alone.

The first time I saw my dad cry was when I was ten. I followed him into the basement. We had just returned from vacation, and we came home to a dead dog. The Yorkshire Terrier was 12 years old and had gotten his collar stuck in the holes of our picnic table in the backyard and choked himself to death. His name was Tiger, and he had been my dad’s wedding gift to my mom. My mom had wanted to put the dog in a kennel while we went camping, but my dad decided to keep him at home and have a friend come by after work each day and take care of him. When we came home to a funeral (the dog was rather loved among our extended family), my dad felt responsible.

So when I went downstairs and saw Tiger’s motionless body in a cardboard box, I couldn’t make the connection. This wasn’t Tiger. It was just a stuffed animal that looked like Tiger. But when my dad saw the dog, his guilt overcame him, and he started choking on his own sobs. I ran back up the stairs then, terrified. I’d never seen my dad lose it like that, and I vowed I would never do the same. Continue reading →

Rising Health Care Costs: The T1D Label

Posted in Cost, Diabetes, Insurance, Medical Supplies, Type 1 by

I’m nervous about the future of health care in this country, especially for type 1 diabetics like myself. I was diagnosed almost five years ago at the age of 22. I have no family history, and there was no evidence of an autoimmune attack so the doctors do not know why my pancreas just stopped making insulin. But it did.

Many researchers point to a combination of genetic susceptibility and environmental triggers. With the amount of chemicals plaguing our food and our household products, that’s not so surprising. But then why, among my two brothers and a mother and father, was I the only one that contracted diabetes? When I was diagnosed, my parents were surprised, mostly because out of everyone in our family, I was the only one who made a daily, concerted effort to eat right and exercise. What was it for?

This is a question I no longer ask, and I am thankful I have employer-sponsored health insurance that will cover the cost of my expensive disease. But when it comes to health care, I am one of “those” who potentially costs the system. I fall into the “high-risk pool.” From an evolutionary perspective, I should have been weeded out of the population five years ago. But here I am.

Even though I am no longer considered “young and healthy,” I still consider myself “young and healthy.” I manage my diabetes well with an insulin pump. I maintain an A1C of 5.6 (average blood sugar readings over the last 90 days). My average daily blood sugar readings range from 70 to 160. I still have bad days, and if I had a continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) system, I’m sure it would show a higher range, but when you have to survive on animal insulin injections and carb estimations, how much do people really expect you to get it perfect?

I’m thankful for the insurance I have, which allows me to afford my insulin pump supplies, my test strips and insulin doses. There was a time when I didn’t have coverage, when I had to pay for my “life source” out-of-pocket, and suffered the consequences (financial and physical). I’ve endured a health insurance roller coaster in the past four years. Continue reading →

I Am a Rose of Sharon

Posted in Body Image, Diabetes, Type 1 by

I can’t stop my leg from shaking. The needle hasn’t even pricked my skin, and even though the tattoo artist in front of me is probably annoyed, he smiles.

“This is never going to look like a fleur de lis if you keep that up,” he jokes. My friend Britteny from work sits on the other side of me. She smiles, trying to reassure me. Everyone’s nervous their first time, she tells me with her pale blue eyes. It shouldn’t be natural to want to permanently imprint an image onto my body for the sake of art and beauty, for the sake of remembering where I came from.

I always wanted a tattoo, but because of its permanent effect, it took me four years to figure out where and what I wanted. I decided on a fleur de lis, a symbol of my hometown, Louisville, KY, named after the French King Louis XVI. Britteny encouraged me to use color so I chose my two favorite colors: blue and purple.

I finally calm down enough so that the tattoo artist can begin his work. He’s big with a short, gray beard, but a gentle touch. He outlines the French symbol on my ankle; I wince every time he nears the bone, but I do not cry. I never cry in public. I refuse to show weakness. It takes longer than I expect, but time passes quickly as Britteny tries to keep me calm, and I watch mesmerized by the needle. Continue reading →

Drinking to Undo Diabetes

Posted in Diabetes, Type 1, Women's Health by

I hadn’t been drinking that long before I was diagnosed with diabetes. Suffice it to say I was a good girl who usually followed the rules. But upon turning 21, my friends started winning late-night happy hours at downtown Cincinnati bars. I attended many of these happy hours, and with the first two drinks being free, it didn’t take long to make it to five.

Two weeks before I was diagnosed at 22, I was at a downtown bar with my boyfriend at the time, Reed. It was crowded for a Thursday night, mainly due to these happy hours. Reed and I had just returned from attending church with his family – it was the Thursday before Easter, and even though I no longer practiced Catholicism, I adored his family, calling them my own, and willingly subjugated myself to the torture of mass to spend time with them. I even wore purple (the color of lent, a season of repentance for Catholics).

I was nursing my second beer when Reed returned from the bar with two White Russians (he was a huge Big Lebowski fan) and two Bud Lights in hand.

“Thirsty?” I said, raising my eyebrows.

“Happy hour ends in 10 minutes, had to make the most of it,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. I wasn’t planning on getting drunk that night, but you know how the story goes …

Two weeks later, on April 24, I was admitted to the hospital for a severely high blood sugar (690). I was supposed to spend the evening with my boyfriend and his aunt and uncle. Instead, I was alone in a cold hospital bed with a dead cell phone and a disease. Within 24 hours, the doctor and nurses got my blood sugar down to 200. Although I was advised to stay another night, I pleaded with them to let me go, promising them that I was responsible and would take care of myself. Continue reading →

Sister, Sister

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

It seems to be staring at me, although I don’t see a face. I only see its black rectangular body and a few mechanical buttons that I suppose could be eyes – they are my life source. It’s buzzing at me, but I ignore its demand for attention.

There was a time I didn’t need you.

It doesn’t hear me. It doesn’t seem to respond, but it moves across my desk, as if inching closer to my exhausted body.

You are gray and ugly, and I don’t want you … but I need you.

I have a weird relationship with my insulin pump. If we were on Facebook, it would read, “It’s complicated with Gizmo.” Yes, I’ve named it Gizmo. I figure if it’s going to share my bed, it should have a name.

In approaching the holidays, I realize even though Gizmo has only been with me for two years, diabetes has been in my life for almost five. That’s not a lot considering most people with Type 1 were diagnosed when they were seven. What was I doing when I was seven? Oh yeah, playing beneath the Maple trees of Kentucky and going to church with my family every Sunday.

When I was in college and realized the brain doesn’t fully develop until we’re 20 or 25, I considered this might be why childhood seemed like the happiest years of my short life. I hadn’t met reason yet. I didn’t think about the horrible atrocities happening in the world or feel stressed about how quickly my next paycheck would disappear.

No, I lived in the present – my only concern was what fun things I could do with my day. My brother, two years younger than me, and I used to make lists during the summertime and then vote on the items on that list, planning out our free time and deducing what activities we would engage in that day.

We built Lego cities in the basement, played “house” in the church parking lot across the street, and pretended to be sisters. One time my father came home and found my brother dressed in a witch costume, answering to the name of “Susan.” I don’t know why he liked that name so much, but when we played “Sister, Sister,” I always let him choose his female name. To be fair, we also played “Brother, Brother,” but after my dad found my brother wearing a dress, we never played sisters again. Continue reading →