Friday - Juice Box Jungle
Sep. 29th, 2006 03:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermoreToday on my drive into work, I was thinking about boxes of apple juice and the politics around them in my household. I buy them in two sizes; 8-once boxes for my toddler son, who can drink his weight in apple juice, and 4-once boxes for myself to treat when my blood sugar level gets too low because of my diabetes. The politics of apple juice comes up because my son knows that both sizes of container have apple juice in them. Loving juice the way that he does, he considers himself to have dibs on any juice in the house. This leads to disagreements between us.
We had just such a disagreement on Tuesday, when I woke up sick that morning from a stomach virus that my son brought home from his daycare.
I should give a little bit of technical background. The type of diabetes that I have means my body makes absolutely no insulin, and therefore has no automatic ability to regulate the level of sugar (glucose) in my bloodstream. With my automatic out of commission, I use shots of insulin as a manual overdrive to accomplish this task. At any given time, a normal person's glucose level is somewhere between 90 and 120 mg/dL. If I undershoot with the insulin, my glucose level rises dangerously high - usually between 2 and 3 times the normal level. This damages my eyes, kidneys and nerves (among other things) and makes me feel lethargic and depressed. Every time this happens, my expected life span gets a little shorter.
If I overshoot with the insulin, it causes my glucose level to drop too low. At anywhere under 75 mg/dL, I feel and act drunk. At around 20 mg/dL, I lose consciousness. Conceivably, it could drop low enough to kill me. Before this happens, though, the fight-or-flight mechanism kicks in and a rush of adrenalin will cause my liver into release stores of emergency glucose that will pull me back to the world of the living. I will come to awareness drenched in cold sweat, my heart racing and my mind trying to make sense of where I am. When this happens, I get seriously annoyed. I don't feel angry or helpless, just annoyed. I've lived with this condition for almost 29 years now. This is my world.
On Tuesday morning I woke up with both the stomach virus and a low glucose level. Four ounces of juice will usually revive me, but because of the stomach flu I couldn't digest the juice. It just sat in my stomach, and my blood sugar refused to rise to the point of sobriety.
My son, who turns 2 the Sunday after next, woke up crying. Jeff, who works nights, was asleep. I was for all intents and purposes drunk, with a screaming toddler to deal with. Not wanting to wake up Jeff, I got my son out of his crib and he followed me into the kitchen. I checked my blood sugar again; 70 mg/dL. This meant I was buzzed, but not falling down drunk. Still, before I could take care of my son I had to take care of myself.
I grabbed another 4 ounces of juice out of the pantry. My son reached for it. I handed him one of his boxes instead and proceeded to drink the entire small box in front of him. He considered this an outrage and refused the other container of juice. I tossed the empty carton in the trash, where I saw it was the 4th one (I could barely remember drinking numbers 1 through 3). My son sat in front of the trashcan and screamed. I offered him his own juice container again and then a cup of milk, but he would have neither. He wanted the juice I had drank. I didn't feel steady enough to pick him up and comfort him, so I sat on the couch and let him howl. After a few minutes, the screams brought a bleary-eyed Jeff out of the bedroom.
I think I remember telling him what the matter was. He picked up our crying son and took him to the nursery to get him changed and dressed for daycare, and I fixed the little man his breakfast. I didn't trust myself to pick up my son in that quasi-intoxicated state, but for some reason I figured I could scramble an egg. After he ate, Jeff drove the still-pouting little guy to his daycare center, where people who weren't too incapacitated or sleep deprived could take care of him. Jeff put me back to bed and called his work to let him know he wouldn't be in that evening.
It all turned out all right in the end. I spent the day in bed and I felt better by that evening. Still, the image of my son sitting on the kitchen floor crying bothers me. When he gets older, we can explain to him that when Mommy drinks juice it is because she is sick and the juice will make her well. For now, he is too small to understand this.
I've always believed parents should act in control in front of their children. I've never respected people who get falling-down drunk or stoned with their kids around them. I believe that children should know that if something goes wrong, their Mom and Dad will be able to handle it and take care of them. No child, while still a child, should have to be the one in control, the one who has to take care of a parent.
Yet I know that as my son gets older, he will be aware of my condition and will know when something about me seems off kilter. Like his father does already, he will be the one to ask me if I am okay when I say something that doesn't make sense or a look of confusion comes over my face for no obvious reason. I hate that the occasions may arise when my son may have to help me, may have to be the one who brings me juice or candy or sugar or, God forbid, call an ambulance if he can't wake me up. I'll try very hard to keep this from happening, but plans fall through and my condition does not always act in a predictable way.
It's a catch-22 situation. I could let my blood sugar levels stay higher than normal and spare him having to deal with me when it is low, but doing so would mean possibly not living to see him grow up. By keeping my glucose level as close to normal as I can, the side effect is that I risk having low-glucose episodes from time to time.
Self pity is a luxury I don't allow myself. I'm happy medical science makes it possible for me to be alive. But I can't get my son's crying face out of my mind, remembering that I dared not pick him up because I didn't trust myself not to drop him. For the first time in years, I feel a little bit angry and helpless. This was just my world, but now my child has to live in it with me. I know children are amazingly resilient. I know that as time goes by, he will learn to cope my disease just as I learned to cope with it in myself when I was still only a child. I just wish he didn't have to.
I find it annoying.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
We had just such a disagreement on Tuesday, when I woke up sick that morning from a stomach virus that my son brought home from his daycare.
I should give a little bit of technical background. The type of diabetes that I have means my body makes absolutely no insulin, and therefore has no automatic ability to regulate the level of sugar (glucose) in my bloodstream. With my automatic out of commission, I use shots of insulin as a manual overdrive to accomplish this task. At any given time, a normal person's glucose level is somewhere between 90 and 120 mg/dL. If I undershoot with the insulin, my glucose level rises dangerously high - usually between 2 and 3 times the normal level. This damages my eyes, kidneys and nerves (among other things) and makes me feel lethargic and depressed. Every time this happens, my expected life span gets a little shorter.
If I overshoot with the insulin, it causes my glucose level to drop too low. At anywhere under 75 mg/dL, I feel and act drunk. At around 20 mg/dL, I lose consciousness. Conceivably, it could drop low enough to kill me. Before this happens, though, the fight-or-flight mechanism kicks in and a rush of adrenalin will cause my liver into release stores of emergency glucose that will pull me back to the world of the living. I will come to awareness drenched in cold sweat, my heart racing and my mind trying to make sense of where I am. When this happens, I get seriously annoyed. I don't feel angry or helpless, just annoyed. I've lived with this condition for almost 29 years now. This is my world.
On Tuesday morning I woke up with both the stomach virus and a low glucose level. Four ounces of juice will usually revive me, but because of the stomach flu I couldn't digest the juice. It just sat in my stomach, and my blood sugar refused to rise to the point of sobriety.
My son, who turns 2 the Sunday after next, woke up crying. Jeff, who works nights, was asleep. I was for all intents and purposes drunk, with a screaming toddler to deal with. Not wanting to wake up Jeff, I got my son out of his crib and he followed me into the kitchen. I checked my blood sugar again; 70 mg/dL. This meant I was buzzed, but not falling down drunk. Still, before I could take care of my son I had to take care of myself.
I grabbed another 4 ounces of juice out of the pantry. My son reached for it. I handed him one of his boxes instead and proceeded to drink the entire small box in front of him. He considered this an outrage and refused the other container of juice. I tossed the empty carton in the trash, where I saw it was the 4th one (I could barely remember drinking numbers 1 through 3). My son sat in front of the trashcan and screamed. I offered him his own juice container again and then a cup of milk, but he would have neither. He wanted the juice I had drank. I didn't feel steady enough to pick him up and comfort him, so I sat on the couch and let him howl. After a few minutes, the screams brought a bleary-eyed Jeff out of the bedroom.
I think I remember telling him what the matter was. He picked up our crying son and took him to the nursery to get him changed and dressed for daycare, and I fixed the little man his breakfast. I didn't trust myself to pick up my son in that quasi-intoxicated state, but for some reason I figured I could scramble an egg. After he ate, Jeff drove the still-pouting little guy to his daycare center, where people who weren't too incapacitated or sleep deprived could take care of him. Jeff put me back to bed and called his work to let him know he wouldn't be in that evening.
It all turned out all right in the end. I spent the day in bed and I felt better by that evening. Still, the image of my son sitting on the kitchen floor crying bothers me. When he gets older, we can explain to him that when Mommy drinks juice it is because she is sick and the juice will make her well. For now, he is too small to understand this.
I've always believed parents should act in control in front of their children. I've never respected people who get falling-down drunk or stoned with their kids around them. I believe that children should know that if something goes wrong, their Mom and Dad will be able to handle it and take care of them. No child, while still a child, should have to be the one in control, the one who has to take care of a parent.
Yet I know that as my son gets older, he will be aware of my condition and will know when something about me seems off kilter. Like his father does already, he will be the one to ask me if I am okay when I say something that doesn't make sense or a look of confusion comes over my face for no obvious reason. I hate that the occasions may arise when my son may have to help me, may have to be the one who brings me juice or candy or sugar or, God forbid, call an ambulance if he can't wake me up. I'll try very hard to keep this from happening, but plans fall through and my condition does not always act in a predictable way.
It's a catch-22 situation. I could let my blood sugar levels stay higher than normal and spare him having to deal with me when it is low, but doing so would mean possibly not living to see him grow up. By keeping my glucose level as close to normal as I can, the side effect is that I risk having low-glucose episodes from time to time.
Self pity is a luxury I don't allow myself. I'm happy medical science makes it possible for me to be alive. But I can't get my son's crying face out of my mind, remembering that I dared not pick him up because I didn't trust myself not to drop him. For the first time in years, I feel a little bit angry and helpless. This was just my world, but now my child has to live in it with me. I know children are amazingly resilient. I know that as time goes by, he will learn to cope my disease just as I learned to cope with it in myself when I was still only a child. I just wish he didn't have to.
I find it annoying.
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no subject
Date: 2006-09-29 08:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-29 09:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-29 09:03 pm (UTC)It sucks that we can't raise our children in a Fairy Tale, but the sooner they learn about reality, the easier they'll learn to accept it... and then work to change it for the better! :)
no subject
Date: 2006-09-29 09:47 pm (UTC)He'll cope. I coped with giving myself shots, he can cope with me taking them. I just hate losing control and having him see it. Hell, I don't even like Jeff to see it. It's the only time I feel less than normal.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-30 04:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-30 01:32 am (UTC)Much like being pissed about juice that is already gone. It's a great guilt inducer because it renders the parent unable to change things. Doesn't make it feel any better on either end though.
Take care.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-30 06:47 pm (UTC)I tend to set high goals for myself, and hate when I can't meet my own expectations. I guess it's because I've seen "healthy" mothers ignore and neglect their children in public, and it's humbling to feel like I was doing that sort of thing, even though most of the time I don't. I enjoy riding my high horse; falling off it is irritating. My ego feels bruised. ;P
no subject
Date: 2006-09-30 07:36 am (UTC)Speaking from a child, with a mom who had diabetes (type 1), point of veiw. Its unnerving to have mommy pass out every time she makes fried chicken (cause it takes so long to cook and mommy wouldnt eat enough to not pass out :o/ ). Then as I got old it became LESS unnerving and way more ANNOYING. Because she KNEW what she had to do to prevent this from happening. I never really thought of her as being out of control or like a drunk. I always was told that she was sick and this is what happens and how we fix it. I understood it very early on. I think, as long as you keep your son in the know he will get it sooner than you'd think. I'd honestly start telling him now (if you dont already) "mommy is not feeling well and this is like mommy's medicine." He will catch on. He may even start to recognize it and bring you juice! I know I used to bring my mom orange juice when I'd see those signs :o)
Everyone deserves to have a "whaaaaaaaambulance" day!!! Dont be so hard on yourself :o)
no subject
Date: 2006-09-30 07:00 pm (UTC)I don't lose control often; I guess I'm too proud. I usually notice something is wrong and take care of it before anyone else sees it. I work hard to avoid anyone getting the impression that I am "sick" or need special treatment. I want to be seen as a person and not a disease; you have no idea how much that means to me.
The only person who can see the signs before I feel them is my husband. I've never passed out from low sugar and I'm even sure how that happens. My body, at least, gives me plenty of warnings that something isn't right. A bigger problem for me is failing to wake up, because I have slept through the warnings and couldn't heed them.
I tell my son that Mommy needs the juice because I'm sick, I'm just not sure how much he understands. I know he'll understand more and more as he gets older.
I suppose I have a hard time admitting vulnerability, even with my own family. It's just part of who I am.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-30 07:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-02 08:46 pm (UTC)