Autoimmunity

It’s hard to live when you don’t trust your body, and no matter what you do, it continues to disappoint you.

Today I found out I may have another autoimmune disease. I was notified by email of my recent lab results. And a short note from my doctor: you have ______. Here are my medication and dosage recommendations.

No call. No explanation. No consultation. All I had was one abnormal test result and potentially another incurable disease that meant I would have to take a pill every day for the rest of my life.

It’s not so bad. It’s manageable. They all said the same thing when I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes six years ago. Is this how I’m rewarded? Continue reading

Advertisement

‘The Fault In Our Stars’: Diabetes Edition

Diabetes is hard, but I won’t die from it. At least, not right away. I believe that I will eventually die of a heart attack. With the constant ups and downs of my blood sugar levels, I am sure even if I was given a decent heart, it would not be able to last years with this kind of stress. But at least it didn’t have to endure it for the first 22 years of my life.

It’s possible I may die from something else entirely, unrelated to my health, like a car accident, an injury sustained from rock climbing, food poisoning, etc. Okay, I’m being dramatic, but it doesn’t make sense to spend my days thinking about death, something I learned while reading The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. I love the title, by the way, but when I saw previews for the movie, it looked kind of cheesy and unrealistic, one of those “feel-good cancer movies,” if there can even be such a thing.

Then I read a review of the book and thought I might like it. After all, even though I’ve only been to one funeral in my life, I think about death a lot. I used to worry about receiving a call in the middle of the day that one of my grandparents or siblings had passed. I used to worry my friends would be one of those statistics for teenagers killed by drunk driving. When I wrote stories, one of my characters always, inevitably died (many times the main character because I’m that author). Continue reading