Sick Days

For most of March I laid in bed. Counting down the days until my 24th birthday and watching the crack in my ceiling get longer…. And longer….

Rolling over in bed seemed hard.

Getting up to pee seemed like an extensive excursion.

Out of 20 days of work I missed 18 that month.

I had the flu.

And we all know what happens when we have the flu. Blood sugars sky rocket. Uncontrollably. Which in turn keeps us sick and makes it hard to recover.

Which keeps our blood sugars uncontrollably high.

And ‘round and ‘round we go…

I didn’t go to the doctor right away. I mean, who goes running to the doctor the minute they get a sniffle? No, we wait until we realize that it’s not getting better on it’s own. Right? Plus there was the added difficulty that I was so tired and sick and out of breath that making it down the hall to the bathroom was near impossible, never mind all the way to my doctor’s office.

But I wasn’t getting any better. So eventually I did go to the doctor. Because I had to.

My GP is very good. He was the one who initially realized I was diabetic. He’s intuitive. His administration girls are very nice. He always gives me what I need.

But I hate going there.

It’s the way he makes me feel when he comes into the “little” room. Like he is the parent and I am the naughty child. I have always done something wrong.

Very tall and intimidating, he looks down his nose and asks me how my blood sugars have been.

“Fine!” I squeak

He gives me the Eye.

“Good, in fact!” I lie.

He looks at me like he knows darn well I’m not being truthful but can’t very well sit there and argue with me. Not very doctorly.

If I had a tail, it would be between my legs.

On this particular visit I am once again in trouble. Apparently I should have come in right away instead of waiting two and a half weeks of illness to go to the doctor. He might as well be wagging a finger at me. I tried shamefaced to explain about not wanting to come in for every little cold… but that weak argument was silenced when he told me that the reason for this was because since I had waited so long I had now developed an infection (infections again!!) in my lungs.

Pneumonia!

I was floored. I mean, I’d know I was sick but pneumonia?! I had no idea I was that sick.

I left the doctor’s that day with 2 prescriptions and a lecture on pneumonia prevention.

Now whenever I sneeze or cough my family jokes about how I should call the doctor right away or I’ll be in trouble. (oh so funny. Everybody’s a comedian.)

Actually my throat is feeling a bit dry right now.

It might be strep.

Maybe I’d better leave a message for my doctor just in case…..