Another Day in Paradise

Two days before Christmas, my family and I had a little diabetes-related encounter.

We were at my in-laws', which is always slightly awkward for me. They eat at odd times (or not at all) and managing my blood sugars had been a challenge all day. No meals all day had left me wondering how or if to dial back my basal rate. And my husband had left hours ago with the car keys on an errand with his dad, so I was a little stuck.

The baby was napping in my arms, my blood sugar had plummeted, and I was in an environment where I feel neither comfortable nor welcome, to be honest. It was almost 4:00.  I was low and growing angrier with my absent husband by the second.

When he came back (with a candy bar for me), I was ready to give him a piece of my mind. But he had a sense of urgency about him.

He'd seen a man on the corner at a nearby intersection with a cardboard sign that said that he was a Type 1 Diabetic and needed money for insulin.

"I had less than a dollar in my pocket," he said, frustrated.

I grabbed my bag and pulled out my spare bottle of insulin and a few syringes and we left the house. We cased the area, but we couldn't find him. The corner was empty. The sign was gone. So we returned to the house and finished our visit, feeling disappointed and a little lost.

Hours later, as we were setting off for home, I was fussing at my husband once again because he had to drive out of our way to search for the lowest gas price in the neighborhood.

And there he was. The man with the sign. We flagged him down and met him in a nearby parking lot.

23 years, he'd had Type 1. Just 3 years longer than me. He'd had a heart attack, needed to begin dialysis, he said. His teeth were crooked and his hands were rough. He couldn't have been that much older than us.

Before I sent him off alone with a fancy, expensive, fast-acting insulin, I quizzed him about what he currently took, how soon before meals he injected, etc. He was used to Reli-on Regular from Wal-Mart, but he had some experience with Humalog, so I felt like it was safe to offer the Apidra. I explained the short tail and quick peak and was confident in his understanding of what I said.

He told us about how a woman had recently driven him to Wal-Mart and gone in to buy him a bottle. I can't imagine managing this disease relying on the kindness of strangers.

As we drove away, warm in our nice coats, in our nice car, I felt a sense of injustice that I was so comfortable. Type 1 Diabetes has no prejudice. It strikes indiscriminately - the poor and afflicted, the happy and comfortable. But my experience with it was not his. My gaggle of medical professionals on speed dial in my phone, my reasonable pharmacy co-pay that keeps my refrigerator stocked with three months of insulin, my husband's job...

It could have been any of us on that corner.

Whatever the circumstances that lead someone to that level of desperation, ours is the only country where that man would be begging for insulin first, instead of for food or drugs or alcohol or money for his children. We just don't take care of our own.

Twinkle Fingers

It's the little baby sign we do any time she hears the tune to "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."  She loves that song.  And I love to sing it to her.  I also LOVE this little video version of it.

Every night at bedtime, her twilight ladybug scatters a handful of stars across the ceiling and we always have to point to the stars.

The other night, I was singing her to sleep with every song I could think of with the word "star" in it.  After "Swinging on a Star, " when I was fairly sure she was out cold, I switched to "Second Star to the Right." She seemed peacefully nestled next to me and I was just enjoying my little serenade.

When I reached the song's bridge, which starts with the words "Twinkle, Twinkle, little star, so I'll know where you are," her little hands went straight into the air and began to open and close rhythmically.

Twinkle Fingers.

As a music teacher, I'm impressed that she's made a connection between the lyrics of a song to a different tune and the corresponding gesture from the other song.

As a mommy though, I'm undone.

We forget how magical it once was. Nearly every baby I know has learned to twinkle along with the song, but it slides away with thumb-sucking and pattycake and potty training.

What a beautiful little melody that we become numb to after the ninety thousandth time we've heard the ABCs. The little French tune has been around 250 years, spun into nursery rhymes, variations done by Mozart...and yet, when my daughter hears it, it's the most lovely song she knows.

She bends her fingers to her palms and presses them firmly, reveling in the pulse of the repeated motion. She checks our hands, searching for confirmation that we, too, feel twinkly.

She stood straight up in bed tonight, arms stretched toward the blue stars sprinkled above her, a dimply grin spreading across her face. Magical was the only word I could think of.

May your 2011 be that full of wonder.  I'm pretty sure ours will be.