793

Hand to God, I Googled the symptoms of diabetes four days prior to being diagnosed because I recalled Dr. Turk, of the hit TV sitcom Scrubs, peeing every thirty minutes due to his untreated diabetes. Shout out WebMd. Bless you guys.

I went down the tell tale signs of untreated type 1 diabetes. Unquenchable thirst? Yup. Frequent urination? Peed my pants twice recently… Weight loss? 30 or so pounds shed at this point. Extreme fatigue? Mhmmm. Without reading much further into the gravity of untreated diabetic ketoacidosis (aka your body is fucked), I went on with my life for a few days. My wife had a work conference planned for the coming weekend and I had big plans to revel in the bougie resort life of free food, free margs, and free time with our good friends. The unfortunate reality is that I spent the majority of that weekend either purging my insides or napping rather than working on my sunburn at the pool. Letting Ash know what I had discovered by playing computer doctor, we both agreed on my imminent visit to the clinic doc the following Monday.

Monday came and I walked into the doc-in-a-box clinic run by the big boy hospital next door to it. I described the endless water drinking and water disposing my body was doing. You know, peeing a lot. The constant need for a nap or two, hunger, weight loss, yada yada. The nurse promptly knew that she should check my blood sugar. We did all the necessary pricking into my cardiovascular system, queued up the little hand-held machine she had and the result made sense to only what I can assume are aliens or Star Trek characters: ErR-H. We tried again. Same message. She called the doctor in and they both agreed I should be moved to the emergence room at the hospital adjacent to the clinic I was in. Dr. Whatever His Name Is commiserate with me and assured me they would take great care of me next door. I thought to myself, are they about to murder me??

The sweet, sweet nurse from the clinic, who I am pretty sure was alive when the wheelchair was invented, raced me through the maze of double doors that led to the next door emergency room. For the record, I walked into the clinic and I felt as though I could walk my happy ass to the next building, although, it was kind of fun to be pushed around in the wheelchair.

The emergency room doctor came in and asked me the same questions the other doctor did. To this day I think it was the same guy just wearing one of those ‘fake glasses, mustache, and big nose’ kits that they offer at your local pizza buffet joints for minimum 1,000,000 tickets. Who knows though.

This ER had a far superior blood glucose meter that told the room of orderlies, nurses, and doctors alike that my blood sugar was at roughly 793. I asserted that I had enjoyed a very sugary coffee flavored shake from the promised land of Texas -- God bless you Whataburger -- earlier that day and that I am sure the number was skewed because of my sweet tooth’s endeavors.

Disregarding my blatant ignorance, and what I can assume was a very courteous staff of medical professionals, the doctor asserted that we should talk about the chance that I might have diabetes. I came to learn that a healthy blood sugar hovers around 120. The doctor went on to explain the role that insulin (a very dope thing your body usually makes) has on the way we break down sugars, and that my pancreas had stopped making any in say, a few months or so. F my pancreas.

So there it was. I was diagnosed with diabetes mellitus on May 1st, 2017. My world was flipped upside down. I was upset and confused.

And it was a bit drafty in that hospital.

A year and some change later, I rounded out 2018 with a consistent A1C (3 month blood sugar average) of 6.5. At face value this is a bad-ass number in the diabetic community. Really and truly though, the A1C metabolic measurement isn’t a great barometer of how well my sugars are being taken care of. Numbers like 212, 302, 306, 200, 48, 246, 48 again, 59, 232, 230 were hidden under my 6.5 figure. Wild numbers like the ones just listed are disguised behind the glory of a 6.5 surface level evaluation, and what ultimately inspired me to tell this story. I hope my experience is real as shit, maybe painful to endure, and at the end of the day a true picture of my story.

So here we go, I’m Spencer. I teach high school English, I emphatically supper Liverpool Football Club, I am slowly convincing my taste buds to enjoy whiskey neat, I am thankful to be married to a girl way hotter than me, and now I deal with an autoimmune disease 365 days a year. Just like the volatility of my blood sugar graph, life maintaining T1D has its own inherent high peaks and low lows. A valley etched into my brain forever is coming home ala a Drake-like-emotional state of utter despair and frustration dealing with the perfect storm of insurance debacles, my insulin pump being a dingus, and running out of medical supplies. At 25 years old my glorious 5’2 wife held me as I wept into her arms. A type of intimacy I had never experienced. Conversely, hosting family dinners and celebrating with all our loved ones as we join in fundraising for a cure are the type of mountain top moments that don’t get talked about enough. My hope with this narrative is to educate, encourage, entertain, and engage with my community in a raw way.