Wednesday, May 11, 2011

A Bloody Friendship

I met my best friend when we were in high school. I was 13, and diabetes, as far as I knew, was something like an allergy to sugar.

Nevertheless, I knew some things about blood. I was ALWAYS bleeding. Between chapped lips, fingers, and feet, nosebleeds, menstruation, and the blood inevitably showed up in my phlegm when I got sick, I saw blood every day. My friend thought it was pretty gross.
We'd be talking about something, the war that was breaking out in Iraq perhaps, and he'd interrupt to tell me that I was bleeding and I'd tell him he was being soft and that it was no big deal.

Although I was overall bleeding less by 17, diabetes gave me a new reason to bleed.

I was impressed a few months after my diagnosis, when he asked to see how I checked my blood sugar.

I took out a strip and put it in the meter. I took out my lancing device, changed the needle, poked my finger, told him it was no big deal, just a little blood, squeezed- and the blood went squirting! To add insult to injury, it continued to bleed for about five minutes. Argh!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

One of Joe's best friends becomes faint when he sees blood. We cannot let him see Joe get a check or he may pass out. Nice.