March 23, 2009

I Am NOT Making Fun of Amy Tenderich…

… much.

I always pick up something from Diabetes Mine.

So there I am reading away and wondering why Amy is talking about ugly. Ugly-cemia to be exact.

I am all like - What the heck is that?

…is that when TV’s Betty has diabetes?

…is that what all the holes on you fingers are called?

…is that when the meter number is so bad you have to turn away from the screen for fear of being tuned into an Old Testament pillar of salt, well maybe sugar in this case.

I am a little dyslexic, ok I am a lot dyslexic, and somehow my brain wasn’t coming close to processing the “e” in the beginning of eUGLYcemia.

Through some miraculous process the “e” magically appeared and I was still all – What the heck is that? Amy went on to explain that is blood sugar at the goal. Like all diabetes terms this one falls into the “Did they intentionally make these words up to be confusing?” category. (Yes.)

Are not our live sufficiently messed up with type 1 care that we could just skate by with “goal” and maybe “target” in our vocabulary?

Nope.

But you have to remember that this "e u" word is brought to you by the people who.. (wow Sesame Street flash back - and what is up with Cookie Monster eating vegetables? Cookie was cool because even little kids got the irony that he was on PBS and wasn't PC.) ...coined hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia. They thought it was funny to try to teach those words to us within the first 36 hours after diagnosis when we were seriously sleep deprived.

I swear the diabetes educator and doctor went back to the break room and laughed hysterically after trying to teach me the words: "Gladis you should have seen this dad when I hit him with hyperglycemia. I thought his head was gonna explode. The timing was perfect he was trying to get a nap in that hard little chair next to his kid's bed. I don't think he has slept in days and let me tell you this one is the most needle phobic guy I have ever seen, so I whip out the needle, watch him turn a nice pasty white and bamb hit'm with the "H" words, Ha ha ha Priceless."

We need another weird word from these so called medical professionals like we need more holes in our fingers.

Delaney calls euglycemia, the Magic number. When the school nurse gave her some little stuffed animal doodad for hitting the Magic Number she, being a resourceful little twerp, diversified the portfolio of Magic numbers so as to provide more opportunities to cash in; 100, 101, 111, 123 and I think she was lobbing for 119 as the opposite of 911 too.

So anyway I nominate UGLYcemia as the word that describes all those numbers out there that aren’t magic. Those numbers that in their May Varry-ness make us need to look at the meter in the first place and wonder if our kids are going to turn into a pillar of sugar.

UGLYcemia is everything that isn’t euglycmia.

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