How Low Can You Go?

My husband is diabetic.

My husband has diabetes.

My husband is sick.

I think hubs and I both like to pretend like having diabetes is no big deal. We have, unfortunately, done everything humanly possible to act like it doesn’t really matter. And in doing so, we have only made it worse.

When Art was first diagnosed, we went along with the game. Art tested, took meds, fought the sickness that the meds brought on. And then one day I think he decided he could just outrun it. And I, at a tender age of 22, decided that was a great idea. Diabetes affects obese people and Wilfred Brimley—people who can’t outrun it, right?
And so there we were for two years, wallowing in our denial—happy and oblivious. And when Art had no energy or drive to do anything but work and eat and sometimes read, I stayed under the cover of my denial and didn’t lend a hand (something I was castrated for later, by numerous doctors).

Last year, Art started suffering the true effects of unchecked diabetes. He slept constantly; he looked sick, he felt awful. One day he came home and checked his sugar to find it had reached 600. He couldn’t get off the couch. The true effect of our denial sank in then, and I cursed myself for not noticing sooner. My hubs is no sloth—but as a slave to an untreated disease, that is what he had become.

We went to the doctor. And then to another. They checked his feet, his kidneys, his eyes. The damage we had done was not irreversible. He was going to keep all those things—as long as we never tapped the drug of denial again. As long as we signed up for the fight—for a battle that would never end as long as he lived.

Hubs has been amazing about watching his sugar. He takes his meds even though he hates them. Medication is against what he fundamentally stands for but I guess, then again, so is death. He finds it within himself to put a shot in his stomach three times a day, and take six medications.

And with this medication comes another scare. Before, our only worry was that his sugar would go too high, that he would sleep a Saturday away or feel sick. Now, we have to worry about it dropping. I was in a movie Sunday when it dropped below 70—to a whopping 55. I didn’t receive his call, but I did get the heartbreaking voicemail an hour or so later, as I stood in the lobby of the theater. He couldn’t find his glucose-- no doubt too disoriented and panicked to think straight. And I wasn’t there. And I didn’t check my phone.

Last night we went to the book store—our favorite outing. We were sitting on a bench in front of the magazines when his sugar dropped.

“We have to go.” He told me.

He booked it for the door, and I noticed he was walking in a sort of subtle zig-zag fashion. His balance was off. I had things to pay for so I ran to the shorter line at the café and hastily ordered a coffee because I couldn’t pay for my things there if I wasn’t a starbucks customer. When I made it back to the car, he was in the passenger seat which gave me a scare; he almost always drives and finding the driver seat empty was heart stopping. He had taken his glucose and was doing better. He drank my entire force purchased coffee in three sips—he hates coffee—and then apologized for the event. I was just glad I was there.

My husband has diabetes. He is sick. and I signed up for the fight to keep him well.