Author Archives: Tracy Gnadinger

Food Junkie

Posted in Body Image, Diabetes, Food, Type 1 by

For the first time in 16 years, binging hasn’t been an issue. In my book Sugarcoated, I refer to myself as a “food junkie.” I love late night snacks such as peanut butter ice cream, sweet potato cinnamon crackers, pumpkin flax seed granola, etc.

Ever since college, I’ve conditioned myself to eat less during the day so I can binge for dinner or later. I grew up with the rule “if you finish dinner, you can have dessert.” I’ve never been able to break this. Even when binging got out of control to the point where I stuffed myself until I felt pain, I would throw it all up, refuse to take insulin, or starve myself the next day so I wouldn’t gain weight (for more insight, check out “Half Empty” in Sugarcoated).

I no longer practice these nasty habits, but I still can’t help overeating at night, whether it is summer or winter … until now. So what has changed? Suddenly, I’m not interested in food? I forget to eat lunch or can’t even finish my dinner much less make it to dessert. Usually when I stop eating, it’s because I’m depressed.

But I recently started a new job, which I love, and moved in with my boyfriend of three years (we were doing long distance before then). I have my own place, financial security (minus thousands in student loan debt), and maintain a healthy lifestyle (although I wish I exercised more but with a 1.5 to 2.5 hour commute each way, it’s a challenge).

Could it be I stopped binging because I’m happy? Researchers from the University of Central Florida (2003) found a positive relationship between happiness and these aspects of body esteem: sexual attractiveness, weight concern, and physical condition.

Furthermore, eating disorders such as binging are more common among women with diabetes than women without diabetes. For those with Type 1 (like me), this is referred to as “diabulimia.” I admit even before I was diagnosed with diabetes at 22, I had issues with body image and eating disorders. Diabetes just added an extra element including increased health risks (Joslin Diabetes Center) such as: Continue reading →

The DC Metro: It’s Not Baltimore (Baltimore has a metro?)

Posted in Diabetes, Travel, Type 1 by

After kicking and screaming along the DC beltway, I decided to try my commute with the MARC train and DC metro. I’m not new to public transportation. When I moved to Baltimore for graduate school, I sold my Honda Civic and navigated Baltimore’s best and worst neighborhoods using the local bus system (sometimes I pretended to be a Hopkins student and caught a free ride on their shuttle), Light Rail, Metro Subway, and the Charm City Circulator.

More often than not, however, walking was more reliable than public transportation, but either way, I survived without ever being stabbed, robbed, or raped (although I was often harassed by men).  But that’s because I had a series of rules, which I rarely broke:

  1. Do not look anyone in the eye
  2. Do not talk to strangers
  3. Do not respond even to a “hello” – you do not want to initiate dialogue or let your guard down
  4. Always walk like you know where you’re going
  5. Always wear a frown (what I like to call the “don’t fuck with me; I’ll kill you” face)
  6. Never accept help
  7. Always be aware of your surroundings and stay away from “suspicious” characters
  8. Always leave yourself extra time and have a back-up plan – public transportation is anything but “reliable”

What do I consider suspicious? Am I too dependent on stereotypes? When it comes to my safety, I don’t care. If anything makes me uncomfortable, I remove myself from the situation. For example, one time an older gentleman sat next to me on the Baltimore metro and started talking to me even though I had my headphones on and every other seat was empty. He wasn’t threatening me, but I didn’t want to be bothered, and he was making me uncomfortable. I simply acknowledged him, stood up, and walked to another train. He didn’t follow me. Continue reading →

Kicking and Screaming: The DC Beltway

Posted in Diabetes, Travel, Type 1 by

Stop and go. Stop and go.

One lane moves. The other three don’t. Change lanes. Now the other lanes move, and mine doesn’t.

This describes the epic battle on the DC beltway during rush hour. Yes, I’ve somehow convinced myself this new job is worth the 3 hour commute from Baltimore to Bethesda and back again.

I’ve tried 29. I’ve tried local traffic. Nothing changes. No time is saved. So far, my best bet has been to travel among the lost and forsaken on 495.

I’m in the process of looking for a carpool. I feel bad being a sole traveler in one vehicle, but when I look around, I am not alone. Not to mention the added gas expense, wear and tear on my car, and the increased carbon emissions.

And then there’s the train. I’m also trying this option out, but this requires waking up at 5:30 a.m. to catch a bus to the train station, which takes me to Union Station in DC, and then the metro to Bethesda. It’s a roundabout way to commute, but it would save me $50 per month and the hassle of driving in rush hour traffic.

The catch? I have to get up an hour earlier only to get home an hour later. But you can be so productive on the train, they tell me. Except with such long days, all I want to do is zone out or sleep, but I’m too paranoid to sleep in public. Continue reading →

Gizmo aka My Insulin Pump Comes Back

Posted in Diabetes, Medical Supplies, Type 1 by

It wasn’t a weekend of firsts. It wasn’t a weekend of lasts. But it was a weekend that changed my outlook on this whole “diabetes” situation.

I did more than survive a weekend without Gizmo, my insulin pump. I re-learned the challenges associated with counting carbs and calculating insulin dosages and how to listen to my body.

Sunday and Monday were good examples.

On Sunday night, my blood sugar felt high (159), but not high enough to warrant a correction dosage of one unit (the lowest increment my flex pen will allow). I had a vague recollection my syringes were divided into 0.5 increments. I only needed a 0.4 unit correction dosage.

I looked at the needle on the syringe – not much longer than my flex pen; I could do this. Now how do I get insulin from the vial to the syringe without breaking the needle? The last time I used a syringe was four and a half years ago, right after I was diagnosed.

Apparently, I needed to unscrew the bottom of the syringe to access the plastic extension that would allow me to fill the syringe. I couldn’t fill it to the 0.5 mark. How would I get out the air bubbles? I used the same method I use for the plastic vial I attach to my pump. I overfilled it and then used the extra space to rid of the bubbles.

Now I will just inject myself with the 0.5 increment and dump the rest back into the insulin vial, I thought. However, as soon as I inserted the needle into my skin, I realized how stupid this was, how easily I could accidentally inject myself with all 15 units of insulin. That means I would need to eat 300 grams of carbs to make up for it, which would totally defeat the purpose of this. Continue reading →

My Weekend Without Gizmo: Day 2

Posted in Diabetes, Medical Supplies, Type 1 by

8 a.m.

I contemplated getting up even earlier this morning to drive to work and pick up my pump supplies, but then I decided it would be more worth it to stick to my original plan and live a weekend with pens and needles.

Today would be a true test, too. It wasn’t like any other Saturday. I had volunteered to plant trees at Farring Baybrook Park with the National Aquarium and TreeBaltimore. The event was supposed to last five hours – that meant five hours in the cold, doing hard, physical labor.

I would need to make sure my blood sugar didn’t drop, but I also didn’t want it to remain high – I didn’t want to feel constantly thirsty and have to pee every 10 minutes. I checked my blood sugar. It read 83.

Wow, I was impressed it stayed stable overnight. I shouldn’t be. After all, I had taken Lantus (long-lasting insulin) injections nightly before the pump to keep my blood sugars stable over a 24-hour period.

I drank half of cup of “green” juice. I didn’t feel like eating. The event organizers promised granola bars, but they would be full of carbs and sugar. How would I take insulin? Wouldn’t I have to take too much insulin depending on the carb ratio? Maybe I would just wait to eat the hard boiled eggs (devoid of carbs and full of protein) I had packed when I felt hungry?

They encouraged us to bring lunch, but I was out of any “to-go” options so I brought a hodge podge of snacks: granola, crackers, hummus, and Gatorade. Continue reading →

My Weekend Without An Insulin Pump

Posted in Diabetes, Medical Supplies, Type 1 by

When did I become afraid of needles? As a diabetic, this seems like a silly question.

But this past weekend, I decided to put Gizmo (my insulin pump) on the shelf and attempt to live off insulin injections via needles. It wasn’t my initial plan, but after a mishap involving leaving vital pump supplies at work, I decided to test it out.

Gizmo’s been by my side for the past two years. What would a day be like without it?

Day 1

When I twist my needle onto a flex pen I still happen to own after two years that still happens to have effective insulin in it, I feel nervous. I wet the skin around my belly button with an alcohol swab and wait for it to dry. The needle seems longer than I remember. At least it is shorter than my other back-up method – the syringe.

I used to do this for two years before I had Gizmo. Was it really this hard? I’ve never been afraid of needles. In fact, I was the kid who wanted to look when the nurse injected me with my annual shots so I knew when the pain was coming.

I know I’m less likely to feel pain if I inject into the fat around my stomach rather than my muscled thighs, skinny arms, or butt. Yes, but doesn’t my butt have the most fat, you may ask? That’s not something you need to know, but really the reason I don’t attempt this area is because it’s too difficult. Continue reading →

What Do You See?

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

I squinted at the Word document on my laptop while I drowned out the noise of Xavier University’s campus center. I sat back in my cushioned chair within the study area of the third floor. It was my last finals week as a senior in college.

I increased the document size to 200 percent. There. I could finally make out the words of my American Literature class essay. Had this diabetes diagnosis changed my vision forever? I had somewhat poor eyesight before being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes a week prior, but I wore contacts on a daily basis. It never interfered with everyday tasks.

Second to my father, I am the only one in my family who needs glasses. Now that my mom is older, she’s turned to reading glasses, but both my younger brothers have perfect vision. I started wearing glasses at 16, just so I could see the white board in class. When I competed in cross-country races, I ran blindly (well not really, I could see in front of me just not at a distance).

In college, I made the switch to contacts. My pupils are so large it is impossible to drive without sunglasses, and the frames I propped over my regular glasses to shield the sun weren’t doing the trick. What a difference contacts made! But then four years later, they didn’t help at all. Continue reading →

Numb

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

It happened again. The numbness in my feet. First my right foot went, then it crept past my ankle to the lower part of my calf and repeated with the left leg.

I was almost home, just made the ninety degree turn around Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. The rich condos of Key Highway approached me on the right. The sunset illuminated the green water to my left. I wondered if I could finish the rest of my run on numb feet.

This was the second time in a month, the first time in 10 years.

It first happened in high school at the end of cross-country season. I was training for the next season, running on ice and snow in the Highland neighborhoods of Louisville, KY. It only happened when I ran on pavement as opposed to the green grass of cross-country. But there was no bluegrass to run on when winter arrived.

I managed the winter season on numb feet. But with track season approaching and my problem ceasing to disappear, I approached my coach. I was far from the fastest runner on the team, but that season I had trained harder in the hopes of surpassing my goal of a nine-minute mile.

My coach didn’t care that I wasn’t the fastest, that I would not contribute to the team’s ranking come state finals. He cared that I did well. That’s why after each race when he announced who he thought the MVP’s were, sometimes they would be slower runners who had shown determination and major improvement even if that improvement was the difference between a 30 minute and 28 minute 5K. We loved and respected him for it.

I hated running before I started cross-country in high school. So why did I join? Peer pressure. My friend at the time asked me to. But being a part of that team changed my perception of running. I love it till this day no matter how many injuries I sustain. I don’t know what I would do if I ever tore my ACL. Knock on wood. Continue reading →

Memory Loss

Posted in Diabetes, Research, Type 1 by

A correlation between long-term high blood sugars and memory loss?

A new study from Germany looks at the effects of diabetes on the hippocampus. The verdict: maintain a healthy diet and exercise to regulate blood sugars and keep a healthy brain.

This sounds like a no-brainer, but what about those who feel less able to control their blood sugars?

When something goes wrong with the body’s ability to regulate glucose levels in the blood, the brain is not able work as well as it should, says Keith Fargo of the Alzheimer’s Association.

Almost makes me wonder what kind of impact those hypoglycemic seizures really had. Will I forever be paying for one lapse in judgment, for overestimating my insulin to carb ratio and suffering a concussion as a result? I hope not, and the neurologist didn’t notice any changes in brain function, but who’s to say that won’t change down the line.

Researchers noticed that the size of the hippocampus was smaller for those participants with higher blood sugars. Continue reading →

Falling Like Flies

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

Sometimes, I look at everything I worry about, and I laugh.

Sometimes, I want to be happy for the sake of being happy so that if I died tomorrow, I would enjoy this one moment of life.

Sometimes, I wish people bothered me less. Why do you need to say “hello” every time I pass you on the street? Why do you feel the need to smile and call me “gorgeous” and when I don’t respond, keep talking like it’s my loss.

Sometimes, I wish people bothered me more.

Just yesterday, a friend of mine found out her landlord passed away from cancer. She was diagnosed a few months ago, complaining of stomach pains, but by then, the cancer was already at an advanced stage.

Just this past week, a colleague of mine doubled over in stomach pain and made it to the hospital. He’s been on bedrest ever since and has lost 10 pounds in the past week. He’s over 90 so the stakes aren’t looking good.

On this day, four and a half years ago, I was admitted to the hospital, having seen the doctor for a severe yeast infection. I came out with diabetes. Continue reading →