5 Things I Like About Having The Beetus

Despite what you may think, having The Beetus comes with a lot of perks!

Perk Number One: Unsolicited Compliments! 
The vast majority of diabetics are Type 2's, and all the news ever talks about is the Type 2 Diabetes epidemic. Type 2's tend to be middle-age or older have a bunch of co-morbidity factors like obesity, heart disease, etc. So when people find out I'm diabetic I usually get one of the following reactions:

"Diabetic? But you're so skinny!"

or

"Diabetic? But you're so young!"

or

"Diabetic? But you're in such great shape!"

Compliments compliments! I'm all, "Why thanks! I workout."

Perk Number Two: Being Movie Theater Royalty

One of the things that can get you kicked out of a movie theater is getting busted sneaking in your own snacks. Movie theaters make a killing on their overpriced snacks and they do not like people cheating by bringing in their own food! However, if you have The Beetus you can carry in whatever you want. When you are asked about your purse bursting at the seams with food you just flash your insulin and say, "I've gots The Beetus!" and suddenly theater staffers can't move fast enough to help you. "Oh, okay ma'am. No problem. Can I get you anything?" And I'm like, "Nah, I've got a hot dog, some Twizzlers, Sun Chips, Thin Mints and a whole bag of popcorn in here. I just need a Coke...actually, make that a DIET Coke...gotta cut back somewhere, you know?"

Perk Number Three: Technology!

By now you know I am obsessed with my Dexcom. My HOT PINK SPARKLY Dexcom in it's rainbow polkadot case! I'm not the only one who is obsessed with it. During my weekend of blindness, my Mom had to check my glucose for me so she became familiar with my Dexcom. Now she checks it just for the heck of it. 

PAT: "How is your blood sugar. Want me to check your Dexcom?"

ME: "Nah, I'm fine. Thanks."

PAT: (Checks it anyway) "NINETY-SEVEN!"

ME: "Sigh. Thanks mom."

Skeeter likes to check it too because he is so proud that he can read the numbers. Although he sometimes reads them wrong and nearly gives me a heart attack.

SKEETER: "Look Tates, it says three-hundred and one!" (Smiles proudly)

ME: "WHAT!? 301!?" (Check Dexcom) "That's one hundred and three dude. You are reading it upside down."

Perk Number Four: Snacks!

Before a few years ago, rapid acting insulin (you just shoot up right before you eat and then chow down!) didn't exist. So PWB's (People with The Beetus) would have to take a massive dose of long-acting insulin that would just continually drop their blood sugar all day. So if they didn't eat regularly they would pass out! That doesn't really happen any more, but most people don't know that...so I get offered snacks ALL THE TIME. And as previously discussed, in detail, I love me some snacks! People are like, "Sweetie, do you need a snack?" and I'm like, "Uh, "need?" No. Want? Absolutely!" 

Perk Number Five: Skinny Jeans!

If you aren't careful with your insulin, it can make you gain weight. BUT, a lot of the oral medications they give 1.5 diabetics like me can make you LOSE weight. After a recent trip to the doctor, my endocrinologist put me on a new medication, and real life his warning was, "Just pay attention and make sure you eat enough. This medication tends to cause loss of appetite and weight loss, so don't forget to eat a little something, even if you don't feel hungry." I was like, "Sorry, what did you say? I completely stopped listening after "loss of appetite and weight loss." I couldn't hear you over the sound of my own euphoria! Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get home and dust off my skinny jeans! BAM!"

Perk Number Six: A Puppy!

So, there are these dogs called "DADs" which is short for Diabetes Alert Dog. Real life. When my friend Heidi first told me about them I thought she'd lost her mind, but they exist! Dogs can smell the changes in blood sugar, so they can train dogs to basically work like my Dexcom. The dog will alert you if your blood sugar is getting too high or too low. MIND BLOWN! Unfortunately, since my cheap-skate insurance company wouldn't even pay for my Dexcom, I highly doubt I'm going to convince them to buy me a puppy. I can only imagine how horribly that conversation would go. "Um, hi. I am ensured by your company and I was wondering if my insurance policy covers dogs? Like, a medical alert dog to monitor my blood? No, I'm not drunk. Why do you ask?"

Perk Number Seven: Excuses, Excuses 

When PWB's get low blood sugar they often get cranky. When PWB's get high blood sugar we often feel tired and lethargic. So, pretty much whatever bad mood I'm in can be covered by using The Beetus as an excuse. "Sorry I snapped at you earlier my blood sugar was a little low." Um, but not really, you just annoy me...

"Sorry I didn't get the yard mowed today. My blood sugar was high so I was pretty tired." Um, but not really, I was just in the middle of a Vampire Diaries marathon.

I'm not saying I ever do that...I'm just saying I COULD. Mwahahaha!

Perk Number Eight: Teacher's Pet

Every three months I go to see my endocrinologist for a check up. I love making people proud of me, and my endo is no exception. He's all, "Your A1C level looks great! All your numbers are great! You're healthier than most non-diabetic people!" On the outside I'm like, "Oh great. That's really good. Thanks." But on the inside I'm like, "BAM! Rooooooocked it! I am the smartest woman aliiiiiiiiive! I'm a freaking DIABETES NINJA!" 

Perk Number Nine: Fearlessness!

Nobody likes getting shots and I was no exception...until I got The Beetus. Now I take at least one shot a day, sometimes two or three if I decide to eat lots of high-carb delicious treats. So now, I laugh in the face of shots! Everyone else is like, "Eeek! I have to go get my flu shot today!" or "Ugh. I have to go to the doctor and he is going to poke my finger. I hate it!" or "Oh no. I have to go get that new vaccine. I hate needles!" But I am so comfortable with needles at this point it doesn't even phase me. It is literally such a common part of my routine that it is on my "Need to do it but do it on autopilot" list, like brushing my teeth and combing my hair. By the time my morning coffee kicks in and I become self-aware, I've already done my shot. Boom. 

Perk Number Ten: Healthy Eating

I have always been a healthy eater, but now I am even better. Partly because having The Beetus has made me more aware of what I am ingesting, but let's be honest, it's mostly because I am lazy. If PWB's want to eat something high carb we totally can, but we have to calculate it so we know how much insulin to use to compensate. I HATE math, and I am just too lazy most of the time. So trips to restaurants lately have been going a lot like this, "Yes, I'll have the chili-cheese fries please. Let me just calculate the carbs in that. Let's see, I need to divide the number of carbs by 15 and then multiply that by...er...uh...does anyone have a pen? I can't do math in my head...uh, let's see...uh...oh, forget it. I'll have the grilled chicken."

 VS. 

The Blonde Leading the Blind

After an allergic reaction to some contact solution left me completely blind Friday night, I found myself at the mercy of my mom, dad, and Skeeter. With eyes swollen completely shut, I could not see a thing. After a trip to the emergency room for eye drops, antibiotics, antihistamines, and pain meds (the pain was excruciating!), I came home with mom and dad to be cared for. It is interesting to me how different my "treatment" was from each of my family members.

MOM- My mom played the perfect nurse. She held my hand and walked me from room to room, she helped me with my eye drops and made sure I ate and took my medicine. She was unendingly patient in meeting my every need. She even learned to work my Dexcom so she could read my blood sugar numbers to me, in fact, she is kind of obsessed with it now. She's all, "eat some cheesecake and then I'll tell you your number!" Because I was completely blind, I had to teach her to work my iPhone so that she could respond to my emails and texts, and despite her protests, she did really well!

DAD- Dad's idea of "taking care" of me consisted of parking me on the couch next to him while he watched his favorite tv shows, and occasionally describing what was happening on the show. "That noise was the semi-truck blowing up." "The main guy just fell down a flight of stairs, but he got back up." Etc. When I would get up to feel my way to the bathroom or the kitchen, he wouldn't even warn me about objects in my way. He would just watch me smack face first into them and then say, "Wall!" or "Table!" After the ER doctor had assured him I wouldn't be permanently blind, he found the entire "blindness" situation quite humorous. Clearly he will be winning no awards for his nursing skills. 

BROTHER- He sent me a text saying, "Heard you were blind for a while. That sucks! Love ya." No nursing awards for him either.

SKEETER- LIfe with a four-year-old is already interesting. Being BLIND with a four-year-old is down right horrifying. For starters, anyone with kids knows that when kids are making noise everything is fine, it's when they go QUIET that you have to worry. So the entire weekend became a 36 hour-long game of Marco/Polo. Anytime he was being quiet I'd yell, "Marco!" So that he would yell, "Polo!" and I would know what vicinity he was in. After the first few hours of my blindness, he had an epiphany and turned to my parents and said, "You guys! Since Tates can't see us it means we can sneak up on her ALL THE TIME!" After that I would be sitting quietly by myself when I would suddenly feel breathing on my neck, or a little hand creeping around by my foot, or hot breath on my face. Then Skeeter would yell "I SNEEKED UP ON YOU AND YOU DIDN'T SEE ME! Mwahahaha!" 

Aside from the sneakiness, he was actually a really good nurse. He would take my hand in his little hand and walk me from place to place. He would bring me water bottles from the fridge, and he would describe everything with lots of details while walking me around. "That breeze you are feeling is the fan. We are in the living room." "That sound you are hearing is me eating a granola bar." However, we apparently need to nail down the difference between left and right. Several times he would be holding my hand and would say, "Okay Tates, now turn left." WHACK! "Oops. I meant right." 

Now that I have my vision back, I can see all of the bruises I have accumulated from a weekend of blundering blindly around my parents' house.  

The only other issue that occurred during my blindness was that I was not available to ensure that Ot didn't:

1. Survive only on chocolate milk, provided by his grandpa while I couldn't see it.

2. Make sure his teeth were brushed properly and that he didn't just wet his toothbrush.

3. Dress him for church Sunday morning. 

I always dress him in cutesy "preppy" outfits. Yes, I have been known to occasionally send him out in a sweater-vest and dockers. I like preppy boy clothes. This morning after church when I had regained the majority of my vision in my left eye and partial vision in my right eye, I saw that he had attended church in THIS:

That's right, in the 90+ degree weather, he attended church camo boots, jeans, and a "Naps are the enemy" t-shirt. I guess I should just be thankful that he did not sneak by me in a cape and his Spiderman rainboots. 

New Baby

My friend crush, Diabetic Danica,

 

once mentioned that having a CGM was like having a baby monitor for your diabetes. At the time I was like, "That is a super weird analogy Danica (I refer to her on a first name basis, because in my head we are already besties)." 

But now that I have my very own CGM, I realize it is the perfect analogy! I feel like a new mom. My baby is Baby Diabetes, and my baby monitor is my CGM. 

Most of the time my baby is very well behaved. As long as I eat right, exercise, and take my shot at night I am good to go. But occasionally Baby Di can get a little needy. If she is ever going to misbehave, it is guaranteed to be during the middle of the night. 

For instance, last night I spent the night at my parents' house with Skeeter. My "baby monitor" started beeping at midnight telling me I was low.

The upside of having The Beetus is that it gives you the right to do some midnight snacking, and I LOVE a good snack! 

So I popped out of bed and went to the kitchen where I helped myself to a few crackers and some peanut butter. Then I went back to bed. A mere 15 minutes later, Baby Di woke me up AGAIN to tell me I was too low. Now, I like to eat, but I also need my beauty sleep. I am not a nice person without sleep. So this time I was like, "Come on Baby Di! Pull yourself together. Mommy needs her rest!" Back to the kitchen I went for snack number 2. This time the sound of my crunching woke my mom. A good mom would stay up with her diabetic kid while she snacks, but a GREAT mom joins in on the snacking. So there we were at 12:15am, eating peanut butter and vanilla wafers with 2 big glasses of milk. Finally, my baby monitor told me Baby Di was good to go and back to bed we went.

Today in church my mom could barely hold her head up. Her sermon notes kept devolving into little squiggles. It wasn't because Pastor Greg's message was boring, it was because she'd been up in the night snacking with her kid! 

My dad and Skeeter slept through this entire event. Because, while I am the world's lightest sleeper (like, if a mouse toots within a five mile radius of me the noise will wake me up), my dad and Skeeter could sleep through a Riverdance performance. Or a hurricane. Or a stampede of elephants wearing tap shoes and walking on tin foil. 

Pin Fails

Fantasy Football is to men what Pinterest is to women. It allows women to "shop" without spending any money, "do crafts" without ever having to touch fabric or glue, and plan everything from a dream vacation to their dream home. Sure, 99% of the things we pin will NEVER happen. But in the unlikely event I ever become a millionaire, I already have my pin boards prepped and ready! That way I can show my architect, personal trainer, personal shopper, and personal chef exactly what I want.

Aside from the fun of planning imaginary futures, Pinterest is also a fabulous place for recipes and DIY project ideas. Many of the Pinterest ideas are great!..but there are some that I think mean women put on there just so they can sit back and laugh at we goobs at home foolish enough to try them. Below are some of my most recent Pinterest fails.

1. "Spray wet nails with Pam and they will instantly be dry!"

I tried this at a girl's night we were having at a friend's house. I had just painted my toenails. So I took pam and sprayed the nails. Not only were they not "instantly dry", I got Pam all over the floor that I then had to clean. Then I smudged my (still wet!) nails checking to see if they were dry. As if that wasn't cringe-worthy enough, my toes were so greasy I couldn't even put my shoes back on. I slipped and slid on one slick foot and one dry foot all the way to the car. I'm sure her neighbor's thought I was trying to pimp walk. FAIL.

2. "Put coconut oil in your hair. When you wash it out your hair will be silky smooth and shiny."

After standing in my living room for half an hour, afraid to touch anything for fear of getting coconut oil on it, I took a shower and washed my hair just like the instructions said. First, my hair was NOT silky and shiny. Even after shampooing it twice it still felt kind of waxy. I thought maybe if I dried it the "silky and shiny" would kick in, so I blowed dried my hair straight. When I turned off the dryer and looked in the mirror, it looked like I'd stuck my finger in a light socket. My hair was waxy, dull, and smelled like crayons. I not only had to wear my hair up for a week, but even after 3 more washes I could not get the crayon smell out of my hair. FAIL.

3. "If you are trying to eat low-carb or if you have diabetes, try using sheets of toasted Sushi Nori as a yummy, low-carb alternative to bread. You can also eat it as a snack on its own and it will not spike blood sugar."

I should have known as soon as I pulled it out of the package that it was not going to be good. For starters, it smells like fish food. Literally, fish food. Second, no food that is that color green is ever "yummy." I convinced myself that Nori must be like broccoli. It doesn't look good or smell good, but with a little salt, pepper and cheese it's a great snack. So I took a tentative bite...there are no words to describe how quickly my gag reflex kicked in. Every instinct in my body was like, "THIS ISN'T FOOOOOOOD! GET IT OUUUUUT!" In the words of Skeeter, "It made my tongue cry." FAIL.

4. "Rub mustard oil on your legs. They will be touchably soft and the oil prevents scarring and spider veins." 

Since I trip and injure myself pretty much daily, my legs have an impressive number of scars. Plus, who doesn't want to prevent spider veins? Following Pinterest's directions, after my evening shower I cracked open my newly purchased bottle of mustard oil and rubbed it all over my legs. This seems obvious, but my first reaction was, "Wow. This is really oily." Deciding it probably took a bit for the oil to absorb, I went about my nightly routine. Annoyingly, everything I touched or bumped into got marked with a greasy streak. After de-streaking my house, I decided to sit at the kitchen table and catch up on some work emails while I waited for the rest of the oil to "absorb." I hopped up in my bar-height chair and literally slid straight across and landed butt-first on the floor. It looked like I had just pulled a Bo Duke hood slide. 

After my Dukes of Hazzard moment I decided to give up on having silky, scarless, spider veinless legs and take another shower. FAIL.

5. "Mix 1/4 cup of blue Listerine, 1/4 cup of vinegar, and 1/2 cup of warm water. Soak feet for 10 minutes, and when you take them out they will be soft and flip-flop ready!"

My mom is anti-pedicure. She doesn't like people touching her feet. When I saw this on Pinterest I was like, "Oh perfect! Mom could do this to get her feet summer-ready without having to get a pedicure." So I sent her the directions. Tonight I got a text from her that said, "Pinterest is wack. Blue Listerine plus vinegar plus water equals two blue feet! I'm an idiot. This worked like Easter egg dye." Sure enough, it looked like she'd been out kicking Smurfs. Whoopsie! I guess I won't be receiving that "Daughter of the Year" award this year. Sorry mom!

No Cure for The Beetus

Almost every day I have a friend or family member tell me about a new medical advance for diabetes. Most recently it was a call from my mom. For those of you who know Pat, you know that she is a brilliant woman, but she has a fear of technology. Her cell phone gives her hives, just looking at her laptop makes her palms sweaty, and her photography skills with a digital camera...well, there's room for improvement. The day she learned to do email attachments we literally threw a mini-celebration.

So imagine my dear, sweet mom trying to explain about the new science behind nano particle injections to cure diabetes. I knew things were going to get interesting when our conversation started with, "You know those nano-cite things like they have on Revolution?" "Uh, yes." "Well they are using those same types of things to cure diabetes! It already works in mice! It should be ready for humans in 1-2 years! Don't worry, I took notes." She really did take notes. GOOD notes may I add! Thanks mom!

In other news, I can tell you who will NOT be curing diabetes. This kid:

For a long while now he has said he wanted to be a baker when he grew up. I have no idea where he got the idea to become a baker. More recently however, he announced that he did not want to be a baker anymore, he wanted to be a scientist so he could do experiments. The first time he ever mentioned becoming a scientist I said, "You SHOULD become a scientist. You can cure The Beetus!" His response, "Nah. I like you having The Beetus 'cuz love getting to watch you poke your finger, and if you didn't have The Beetus I wouldn't get to tell you where to do your shots!" I often let him pick my injection site (stomach, thigh, booty, arm). While most people cringe at watching someone take a blood glucose reading or do a shot, Skeeter is FASCINATED. He literally gets so close to wherever I am doing the shot that I can feel his breath. His eyes are like saucers and when I poke in the needle he says "Whoo hoo!" like it is Christmas morning. What a poot.

He has remained adamant that, while he would become a scientist, he would NOT be curing The Beetus. Most recently, when I asked him to please grow up and invent a cure, he said, "Ugh. Tates. You act like your Beetus is such a big deal." Then he rolled his eyes as if to say, "Sheesh. Drama queen!" So, while we may be on the precipice for a cure for The Beetus, it will NOT becoming from our house. 

In other Beetus news, I got my CGM today! As anyone who knows me knows, I am a hugger. I was so pumped when the Fed Ex lady knocked on the door that I did a "Woot! Woot!" Followed by a hug. Whatevs. I have no shame. I hug everyone. If the Fed Ex lady wasn't prepared for it, I am not to blame. For those of you confused about a CGM, it is a continuous glucose monitor. It means I don't have to poke my finger to test my blood sugar a zillion times a day. Plus, it comes in PINK! With just the perfect hint of sparkles. 

Admit it, there is just this teeny part of you that thinks, "I want a teeny sparkly glucose monitor!" I know, I know. I make The Beetus look good!

Skinny Santa in Brown Shorts

I love my UPS guy. Which is convenient, because I also love shopping online. I think as kids we are programmed to love opening boxes because of Christmas. A box holds a mystery, and the mystery is probably the greatest toy in the universe!

Not much has changed since I was a kid. I still LOVE opening boxes. Of course, now I usually know what is in the box because I have ordered it from Amazon myself...and paid for it myself...and I have been tracking it online. Still, when I hear the UPS truck screech to a stop in front of my house, I'm all "PRESENTS!!!"

I usually rush out to meet my UPS guy, Charles, who is like a skinny Santa in brown shorts. He's always formal like, "Hello Ms. Harris. Can I get you to sign here?" And I'm like, "Ugh. Charles! Don't bother me with that. Hand me your pocket knife so I cut this baby open and get my goodiiiiies!" Sometimes when I order things online I decide to get wild and I don't use the tracking information. That way I am extra-excited when I hear the UPS truck stop. It really is like Santa! There I am, typing a work email or making a cup of coffee, and BAM! Presents!

Whatever is in the box is irrelevant. It doesn't even have to be exciting. Diabetic test strips, a box of envelopes for work, new shoes for Ottis, whatever. It is simply the fact that UPS Santa is delivering a box that I get to open. I loooove it.

So yesterday, I was expecting a package. I'd been hovering by my open front door waiting for Charles to arrive for ages. Earlier that day I had picked up my birthday cake (a REAL cake, not a soybean flour cake). It has been a LONG time since I have eaten something sugary and delicious like a birthday cake.

In my distracted "I can't wait to eat this!" state, I did not hear Charles' truck stop. Nor did I hear him walk up to my front door. So when he looked in what he saw was me, with my cake on the cabinet hovering over it like:

In case he didn't think I was a total weirdo before, now he definitely does. I was all, "Oh! Hi! Um, I'm not about to eat this whole thing myself. It is my birthday tomorrow. I have The Beetus and I don't eat cake often and I love cake and I am just really excited about getting to eat this tomorrow!" His response? "...Uh, huh. Sign here please Ms. Harris." Oh Charles.

Sugar Shuffle

"What happened in here?" It was the question my very confused father posed after waking from his Sunday nap to discover my mother and me in the kitchen.

It began innocently. Because I have The Beetus, birthday cake is not a good thing for me to eat. But with my 27th birthday looming, I have been on the lookout for a diabetes-friendly cake recipe. I found a recipe for a soybean flour cake and decided to make a test cake at my parents' house on Sunday. The cake itself was fine...nothing award winning, but definitely edible if it had a little real frosting on top. I found a container of vanilla frosting in the cabinet, only to open it and discover that SOMEONE had been eating it with a spoon. Sigh.

My mom and I sat there staring at the almost empty frosting container and my naked little soybean cake. Since I cook MAYBE twice a year, the fact that I had used a blender and the oven all in one day was kind of a big deal. We could not let my efforts end in frostingless tragedy! So a mad dash began. We opened every cabinet in the kitchen looking for something we could use to top the cake. In our enthusiasm, we completely forgot about the fact that this was supposed to be a "healthy" cake. Mom was yelling things like, "Ugh! No whip cream!" and "I know we've got some powdered sugar around here somewhere!"In the end, our cake topping options came down to a bag of dark chocolate chocolate chips, a package of white chocolate almond bark, and a bottle of Sugar Free Hershey's Syrup. Mom decided the the almond bark was the way to go and broke off several bars to put in a bowl in the microwave. The good news? The soybean cake was DELICIOUS covered in melted white chocolate! The bad news? I'm pretty sure cake stops being diabetic-friendly when you pour two pounds of almond bark over it. 

Between the two of us, one slice at a time, we ate the ENTIRE CAKE (It was small! It was small!). So when my dad wandered into the kitchen after his nap, the scene he saw was:

The kitchen in a complete mess from our icing search/baking the cake.

An empty cake pan covered in crumbs.

A cabinet covered in the remnants of melted white chocolate.

Mom and me, holding our stomachs and groaning. Clearly two people suffering from eater's remorse. Eater's remorse is like buyer's remorse, but with food. Pretty much we looked like this kid:

The awkward part is that when people ask me how my soybean cake turned out I say "Delicious!" But I'm not really sure if the cake was actually good, or if the almond bark is what made it good. I'm pretty sure you could pour melted almond bark over stale bread and it would still be delicious.