If you dont laugh you will cry...

Diabetes doesnt make me laugh.   Nope its not even remotely funny.   But if I dont find something to laugh about, laugh at, people to laugh with...I may well explode.

I had a rotten day.   Not just a stinky rotten-egg-type day.   Not a peeeeew, did you forget to take out the trash a-few-days-in-a-row-type-of-day.   Not even a cloth-nappy-got-left-in-the-back-of-the-car-and-sat- in-the-hot-sun-all-freaking-day, type of day.

It officially sucked ass.

I was anxious all night, my alarm hadnt gone off for the 3am test as my mobile phone went f l a t.  YESSS flat.    I awoke desperate to pee at 3am anyway, I had a creepy nightmare about hospitals and some tumor I was supposed to have, with no mobile phone, no car, no money, no idea where I was and evidently nobody who loved me.   Argh.   Nasty dream.    I test Reuben and try to go back to sleep.  Felt like I shut my lids for a milllllllisecond and it was time to get my eldest son off to school.   I proceeded to spend the rest of the morning packing to get to our endo appointment.  

We had to be at the endos office at 10am.    We did well getting out by 9.15am, I think I had my obligatory 3 coffees in a world record breaking 15 minute time period.   Coffee is like liquid crack.   Well, Im pretty sure I havent had crack, but I imagine coffee is BETTER.   Smugly I pat myself on the back.   Got my handbag with phone, purse, keys.  Yup.   Got the insulin bag, food supplies, testers and strips, drinks? Yup.   Got toys and daughters DS.  Yup.  Got my water bottle. Yup.   Got 2 kids. Yup.   Got husband.  Yup.  We are all wearing shoes.  Yup.

Buckled up and on the road, with time to spare.

We chat a little, mostly diabetes talk.  B o r i n g.    The scenery is whizzing by as we head along the freeway.    We hear a cough from the back seat.    There it is again. 

Oh no Reuben's a little chesty.    Lets give him some water.   Hubby deploys the little cup off the bottom of my water bottle to the back seat, thinking Reuben just wanted a little sip of water.   You know, clear his throat.  Wrong, what followed was the niagara falls of vomit - into - the  -  cup.   Onto - his - pants.  Down - his -shirt.    My husband is a very sympatheic vomitter.   Its a perilous trip into town.  

We are freaking out.   Reubs now has no shirt on ..  Im scraping the vomit off his shirt and waving it in the air like a mad lady trying to dry this thing off, so he has something to wear to the appointment.   Its so smelly we hunt around the hospital but theres no place to buy another shirt.   Dried smelly vomit shirt it is.   When we finally arrive,  they are running a routine fire drill.   We were late anyhow.   Why not wait another half hour?

Out we go again. Into the hot sun with two cranky kids, a sea sick Daddy, very tired and grumpy Mummy who wished she'd had another coffee and remembered a hair tie!    The whole time Im worried.  Not about the fire drill, I knew there wasnt a fire or bomb scare, but about Reuben.   Hes gotten his injection of basal and a big brekkie bolus and just vomitted all his breakfast.   Darn.   Im so distracted and hoping its nothing serious, I cannot deal with another round of viruses or gastro right now.  Nope, NOT able.

Finally the pretend crime scene is okayed by the fire warden and we are ushered back inside.    My kids run around, they scream, they manage to fight over one book.  My daughter manages to insult a lady by saying shes fat and has a bunny tooth sticking out of her mouth.  I wished I had a shovel in my bag so I could dig a great big hole and jump right on in there.

Time to see the endo.   I have serious brain farts.   I cant recall what the numbers in his book mean.   I mean, I know he had breakfast yesterday, but cannot remember WHAT THAT WAS.  I mean really, I dont have a sieve for a brain, but I sure couldnt answer most of his questions in any intelligent way. Duh.  Yeah, maybe that test result was AFTER eating.   But I cant be sure.   It was last week.   Ummm.   And so was the tone for the rest of the appointment.   So the A1c has room for improvement.  Like usual.   Toddlers on MDI's can be tricky because of the kerfuffle around food.  The unpredictable activity.   The penchant for sticking bits and bobs in the gob, and thus catching colds and flus and stomach bugs :(  Oh and teething.   

I made excuses all the way to lunch.   I ranted and raved and felt miserable.  For me, for all the work we put in.   Even with a crappy A1C theres alot of thought and planning that goes into diabetes.   For Reubs who deserves the best care in the world.   For the stress of changing insulin regime again.   I cried in grief, and pity.   For him.   For me.   For my strained marriage.   For my messy house.   For never getting a break, or a holiday.   For not being able to go back to work.  For the time diabetes takes away from my other kids.   I sobbed in an embarrassingly loud and ugly way at the Chinese Restaurant where Danger Dad bought me a cold chardonnay and nodded understandingly while he pushed his rice around on the plate.   Think my hysterics ruined his appetite.  I have to laugh when the waitress brings me some napkins to blow my nose.

This isnt easy.   Especially when you are learning on the job.   Theres text book, then theres reality.     Technically his insulin should hold him steady through the night so we can get some sleep.    But will I be brave enough to switch off the alarm and do that?  

Diabetes isnt a text book, it has a human side.   Reuben isnt diabetes, he has diabetes.  But hes a toddler.   My precious son.    A little boy who loves balls and drums, and Thomas the tank engine.  A boy who loves playing with his dog and reading books.  A boy who looks up to his big brother and sister as the source of all things fun.   A boy who eats an apple one day, and loudly protests it the next.    

Gotta keep laughing.    You know what Im saying.