Today on Michael’s Medical Misadventures : Doctor Caswell.

She’s my new endocrinologist and sleep specialist, and I adore her already.

Why? Because she’s a sweet older lady with grey hair who asked me a lot of questions that were both thorough and sensitive and who seemed to genuinely care about me and my answers and who understood the foibles that led me to being such a poor diabetic.

And sleep apnic. And depressive. And…. sigh.

Anyhoo, had an appointment with her today and it went well until the demon of technical SNAFUs reared its ugly head.

See, she wanted to give me a free sample of the FreeStyle Libre blood glucose monitor system, and I was super stoked because the reader alone is $300 and I was going to be getting two sensors and that’s like $150^[2] on top of that.

All was going well. She implanted the sensor^[1] in the back part of my upper arm and broke out the reader and went to sync them up and the reader said “This sensor is not compatible with this reader. ”

Wat dafuq? Turns out, it was a Version One reader and a Version Two sensor. D’oh!

So then the rep had to be called, and I had to wait in the waiting room for him to show up. Luckily, he was already in the building so it only took ten minutes or so.

He didn’t have any Reader Version Twos (they’re on back order, apparently), but he had plenty of Sensor Version Ones, so Doctor Caswell took the Two out, and put in a One (hurt a little this time), and now we’re cookin’ with gas.

For some reason, there is a sixty minute waiting period between mating the sensor and the reader and being able to take a reading (???), so I have not gotten to play with my brand new nerd toy yet, but soon I will be able to actually know what my god damned glucose level is and inject insulin accordingly.

I’m going to get my goddamned blood glucose level down to normal come hell or high water or high water in hell.

And that’s just the start. I can hook this new reader up to my PC via USB and download the data and seriously crunch some numbers and analyze the data.

And that has me so excited! I am going to have so much fun.

I am going to compile a personal glycemic index so I will know how much various foods boost my glucose level and can make choices (and injections) accordingly.

The ultimate reward will be when I know enough and become comfortable enough with the tech to allow myself the occasional naughty treat, knowing that I will be able to take a reading after and take extra insulin accordingly.

So things are looking up for me and my diabetes. This could quite honestly make an enormous difference in my health.

Now about my sleep apnea….

More after the break.

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Fee(l/d)ing the flames

Otherwise known as the Will to Burn.

Been pondering passion and fiery emotions lately. I know that I have a raging fire in my heart – quite literally, in astrological terms. ^[3]

But for the most part, depression and its attendant maladaptive patterns have kept that fire banked, buried, and suppressed. My retreat into icy intellectualism was inherently hostile to all hot (or even warm) emotions, and my vaunted detachment came at far, far too high a cost.

The view is great from atop this mountain, but it’s way too fucking cold.

I think what truly keeps my flames locked away is an overwhelming overcorrection for anxiety. I want so badly to keep the anxiety away that I developed an actively hostile reaction to my own adrenaline that manifests as “shut that shit down NOW” instinct to bury even the tiniest spark in a mountain of ice and snow.

And man does that suck.

Closer to the bone is my fanatical need to be “in control” at all times. Hot emotions make me feel like I am losing control, and in a sense I am because those emotions lead to acting without thinking everything through first.

And gee, that can’t possibly be right, can it? Asks my vastly over-rational mind. Surely, the only way to insure good outcomes is to do absolutely everything, from writing this blog to taking a crap, with the kind of deep contemplation of every possible outcome that would make a chess computer tell me to chill the fuck out.

Oh trust me. I’m chill. I’m very chill. I’m Kelvin Zero, baby.

And it’s fucking killing me.

There is no balance. Everything goes only one way : colder. If I want to strengthen and grow, a very big part of that has to be learning to suppress or at least sidetrack my ice cold instincts and make room in my heart and my mind for hot passion and warm emotions and all the other lovely products of the sunlit world.

I know that warmth is what I crave the most for a long time.

Shame it took me this long to realize that I was the one denying it to myself.

Not a cold and unfeeling world. Not various people in my life who “failed” me by not being able to crawl through the thousands of miles of midnight tundra I protect myself with. Not the parents who ignored me just because I did my best to disappear.

It’s been me all this time. My damage, my depression, my overactive fire suppression. If anyone had tried to truly reach me, I would have frozen the marrow from their bones.

In fact, they did. And I did.

I’m so sorry folks. I didn’t know what I was doing, or why.

I must have hurt some people pretty bad.

I will try to do better in the future.

And I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

[[3]] In that my Moon, which is the planet of your deepest emotions (your “heart”) is in Saggitarius, which is a Fire sign. QED.