Because Mondays are never hard enough on their own...

Those who know me would probably not be surprised by the statement, “before noon today I was on the kitchen floor, crying over a yogurt.”

The therapist I saw in high school made the seemingly innocuous statement, “you’re not really a crier, are you?” while I sobbed over the pressure of managing my diabetes. I never went back. partially because at 17 I wasn’t exactly responsible enough to make my own regular appointments, and partially because she was right. With the gaping exception of movies, the number of people who had seen me cry before the end of college was limited to what I could count on one hand. I could pinpoint the day in October of 2012 that I became a crier but that’s another classroom story for another time. Couple with the new birth control combo I was trying, I became the crier my therapist told me I wasn’t. Bathroom breaks, lunch, anytime NPR was on, the wine aisle of the grocery store, Chipotle, I burst into tears just about anywhere. In fact, I’m pretty sure most of Saint Louis has seen me fighting back tears, or not fighting them at all, somewhere.

So there’s a portion of you, not at all surprised by the statement, “before noon today I was on the kitchen floor crying over a yogurt.”

Let me tell you, there is nothing worse, as someone who does cry over spilled milk, to cry over dairy products because you have low blood sugar. Waking up cranky with high blood sugar ranks among the worst experiences ever. Even with the careful control and management I don’t regularly practice blood sugar can spike because it feels like it, because you didn’t count the carbs in your chinese food right, or you forgot that MSG sends your blood sugar through the roof. When you manage it less well high spikes are not uncommon. Really bad ones make me feel like Bruce Banner, seconds before he bursts out of those sweet purple shorts he seems to have an infinite supply of. The fact that my spell check lights up like a christmas tree on emails is enough to make me want to hurl the nearest object straight through the screen on my computer.

Fixing a high generally leads to a low, especially when you are impatient and cranky and up your insulin dose in an effort to make it fall faster (pro tip - this never works). This is how you end up standing in your kitchen, trying to find something to up the low blood sugar you have inadvertently given yourself. Low blood sugar, much like airports and hearing other people passive aggressively bicker, makes me anxious, indecisive, whiny, incapable, and utterly useless. Given the carte blanche to eat anything in the kitchen in an effort to raise said low blood sugar the choices are overwhelming. I spend more time worrying about what to eat, while my heart races, and I feel like I just want to lie in a fetal position on the floor until everything is fixed.

Sensing that this was about to happen today around 11:30, I thought I would head this off at the pass, and just eat right away, avoiding the low that was sure to happen. As a low is wont to do, it made me mopey and indecisive. Literally nothing, not even the discount halloween Peeps nesting in my pantry looked edible. Oscillating between fridge and pantry for a full 10 minutes, I finally decided on yogurt and granola. Every minute spent deciding on a snack renders closer to a useless puddle of tears. Since I am pretty much always 5 minutes away from bursting into a useless puddle of tears, lows are basically my nemesis. The struggle to get the yogurt lid off, then open the new package of granola took another 3 full minutes - in the incompetence produced my my quickly falling sugar. Finally securing a spoon, and the yogurt, and the granola, I faced the next dilemma - the granola chunks were too big to fit into the small mouth of the yogurt container. This was how I ended up sitting on the floor, holding a spoon full of yogurt, and a bag of granola. Low blood sugar has the added effect of reducing what ever brain cells are still firing to half speed. Moments away from tears I looked from the spoon to the granola thinking I had to find a way. Inspiration struck with neurons firing on half capacity, I decided that, yes, I COULD put the spoon in the granola! Surely the granola would stick to the yogurt and I would get a perfect spoonful of both yogurt and granola. For those of you who didn’t see that coming, let me tell you, that is not at all how it worked. The yogurt quickly spilled into the granola, leaving me with a bag now growing soggy and unusable with berry cheesecake yogurt. This, being the metaphorical straw to break the camels back, I did what any reasonable diabetic  would do, I sobbed into my already soggy granola and reached for the orange juice.

Boots is an incredibly judgemental roommate.