Don't you dare take away my chocolate and ice cream...

There is a store about 15 minutes away from my house which sells homemade, handmade chocolates.  There’s a reason why they’d just been featured on the food network…they are just amazing.  As you open the door a breeze of sweet chocolate floats you inside.  The view is of endless cases of rich chocolate confections and jewel-like candies, in a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes.  As if all of this isn’t enough, they also offer ice creams during the summer including an apple-cranberry sorbet that is my particular favorite.  The flavor is like a first snow of sweet-tart apple cider melting on your tongue.  It’s remarkable.  

            Yes, I have diabetes.  But as long as I’m breathing I will find a way to keep that sorbet (and chocolate) in my life.  Having diabetes and wanting to live a long healthy life means that I can’t get a huge dish and eat it with abandon – like I want to.  And maybe I can’t get a box of their fabulous dark chocolates along with the sorbet and indulge in a sugar fest all in one night - like the old days.  But I can pick out a few chocolates and space them out over the next week, and I can bring home a small ½ cup portion of sorbet to enjoy tonight after dinner.   Planning for that sorbet, figuring out how to incorporate it into my meal plan and anticipating every ethereal spoonful is a pleasure that I give myself without guilt or reservation.

Periodically through the winter I think about that particular sorbet and anticipate the joy of that first spoonful on a sunny summer day.  A pale blush color scooped into its paper cup, translucent and icy, it’s unlike any other ice cream or sherbet I’ve ever had.   The stuff dreams are made of…literally.  A dream that effortlessly survives the long, cold New England winters.

 And finally today was that day.  The first day of summer, sunny and beautiful, it was the perfect day for a drive to Richardson’s.   I called ahead to be sure that they would have the sorbet.  If they didn’t I knew I’d be disappointed, but not as badly as arriving with that taste-memory in my mouth and finding in that moment that it had run out.  Better to know ahead of time.

You can probably imagine my dismay when the woman who answered explained that they no longer served apple-cranberry sorbet.  She explained that it just wasn’t popular enough.  Are people insane?  What’s wrong with everyone?  How could a flavor like that not jump off the shelves?  When I sighed regretfully she lowered her voice and whispered into the phone “have you tried Herrel’s in Northampton”?

“Why?” I asked. “Do they have that flavor too?”  Hope surged in my chest as I latched onto the possibility that the sorbet wasn’t an impossible dream.  “That’s where WE always got it from” she said in a low voice. 

It took a moment for this new information to sink in.  Oh wow.  Not only was the sorbet available to me, but I could go to the source, the original creator and get it there.  I quickly went on line for directions and a phone number for the store.  I called and was told that they had the apple-cranberry sorbet in stock today along with over 100 other ice cream choices.

Feeling like I’d just discovered King Tut’s treasure, I jumped in the car with an ice chest full of ice and drove to Northampton with Sharon.  As we drove I thought about the ice cream TV special I’d recorded on the DVR and we anticipated how much fun it would be to watch the show and taste a number of different flavors along with the beloved sorbet. 

I remember 30 years ago when we first met we’d go to Friendly’s and get giant banana splits called Jim Dandy’s.  Four scoops of ice cream with hot fudge, strawberry topping, marshmallow crème, bananas, nuts, whipped crème, sprinkles and a cherry on top.  They were decadent and delicious and one of our favorite indulgences.

There’s no way I can eat a Jim Dandy anymore.  I don’t even want to imagine how many carbs there are in such a giant and toxic dessert.  Thinking about it fills me with nostalgia and a wild blast of anger.  How can we as a society justify creating such self-destructive time bombs wrapped in Norman Rockwell innocence?   I feel like I’ve spent a lifetime being tricked and trapped and seduced, all the while being told that I’m massively guilty and responsible and the one to blame. 

But underneath, around and beyond the swirl of conflicted feelings, the untainted desire for ice cream lives on.  And finding a way to eat a small amount, as a planned part of my healthy meal plan successfully restores the purity, innocence and pleasure without any self-doubt or recrimination.  I can claim the right to ice cream pleasure as well as virtue and a feeling of self-control.  A win-win situation.

So we set off for Herrel’s with our ice chest and big smiles.  How many flavors will we get?  Can we get them to put them into individual cups so the flavors are separated for perfect tasting conditions?!  When we arrived we made a list of the flavors we wanted and happily they agreed to package them separately.   While I waited for our ice cream, Sharon went to get the car so we could get them into the cooler as quickly as possible.

I stood by the cash register while they scooped.  Looking around I watched the busy store and customers ordering their various mix-ins and sundaes.  As my gaze swung around I settled on a glass case up front.  Looking more closely I saw some specialty products available for sale.  A whole line of hot fudge sauces with various flavors.  Small bags of specialty chocolate designer sprinkles.  Oh my.  The sprinkles looked delicious.  The fudge sauces sounded decadent and luscious.  Coconut dark fudge?  Mmmm. 

Then I noticed the baked goods.  A nine-layer dark chocolate ganache torte cake.  Moist, fudgy and huge, it was like some sort of utopian cake of the Gods.  Next to it was a platter of gooey, dense, dark chocolate brownies covered with a soft, thick blanket of rich frosting.  In the front was a half of a chocolate chip cookie pie.  Made entirely of cookie dough, studded with large chunks of dark chocolate and topped with a shimmering sugar crust, it screamed “eat me”, “eat me now!”  My mouth watered as I studied the cake, the cookie pie, the brownies.  I could feel my heart beating faster and I could almost taste the chocolate melting in my mouth, the chewy cookie as I slowly bit down on its caramel, chocolaty goodness.  The melting explosion of flavor as the gooey brownie filled my mouth.  I could smell the sugar, the chocolate; feel the ganache coating my lips, tongue, and mouth.  

As I stood at the cash register, riveted by the treasure in that case, the sounds around me dulled into the background, the motions in the store slowed into a dream-like slow motion, and all that mattered was me and that case filled with the seductive promise of bliss.  To say that I wanted to bring it all home can’t ever capture the depth of my fascination, hunger, or fierce desire to immerse myself inside all of that creamy heaven so it was covering my face, my hands, filling my mouth, breathing it, tasting it, thrilling to it, becoming it.

With a jerk, I pulled away from the fantasy and paid for my order.  As I walked to the car outside I was a little dazed from balancing on that jagged edge.  Not that I would have bought anything.  Not that I would have actually thrown my health and caution away and actually indulged my darkest desire.   But just the intensity of that desire clawing inside me – the trembling depth of it – shook me up.  Where does that come from?

            It wasn’t the covering up of feelings that drove me to that wild, bestial, craven place.  It wasn’t a natural human appreciation of sugar that resulted in that walking dream sequence.  It was complicated, layered, and confusing.  And mostly…what I’m left with is the sheer force of it.  Like the power of a thousand suns exploding in my chest.

           

            So here I am now.  Trying to make sense of what just happened.  The ice cream sits safely in my freezer waiting for this evenings treat.  I will eat an appropriate amount and enjoy it appropriately.  I will feel proud of myself control and impressed with my adult, sane, measured choices.  As I have a right to be.  As a food addict, as someone who lives with the growling beast of excess inside, it’s nothing short of miraculous that I can harness the clawing compulsion for wild abandon and live safely on the sharp edge.

            But I’m still left with the shaken memory of that compelling dark thrill calling to me like an (almost) irresistible siren.  And left feeling unsatisfied, denied and cheated out of something I can never have.  Flames still licking around my suicidal fantasizing.  I don’t want to be someone who can have such a dark need for excess.  I don’t want to be someone who can feel so much for food.  I see the pathetic horror of my obsession and am mortified by myself.  Addiction is ugly, even when coated in chocolate and covered with sprinkles.   And no matter how many years I live in control, make good choices, get healthier physically and emotionally, that churning chaos inside will always lurk…dark and dangerous and hungry.

            I remember reading that Amy Winehouse died.  Succumbed finally to her addictions.  Everyone shook their heads – they saw it coming.  She was a train wreck and it was only a matter of time until her self-destructive drinking and drugging took her life.  They don’t see me the same way.  But Amy and I are kindred troubled spirits.  I fight the same demons she did.  And all I can say is that today, for today, I won the fight.  But Amy didn’t. 

            If I could wish for something it would be that we all didn’t have to fight so hard to live.  But maybe that’s what we’re meant to do.  Maybe it’s part of what makes life so very precious.  Because it’s worth fighting for.  Every soft summer day, every impossibly blue sky, every joyous shared drive to an ice cream shoppe, every moment shared with someone we love, it’s worth fighting for.  With everything I have and with everything I am…I want to live.

At least I still have two hands...

       Having Diabetes is like living in the Game of Thrones.  Epic, requiring heroism, shocking loss…a world where there is just so much damn drama and pain.  And it’s exhausting.  The relentless testing, watching, measuring, medicating, testing again, charting, tracking, adjusting, and testing again…it’s just massively draining.    

Trying to keep myself motivated, and positive, and on top of my own health, can just feel overwhelming.  Last night I cried and railed against the unfairness of having to cope with so much…my diabetes and my psoriatic arthritis – both requiring so much work and focus and maintenance.  I’m scared that if anything else happens or breaks or fails it will just be too much for me to cope with.  Sometimes what I already have to deal with is too much to cope with.

I think about the incredible freedom people without diabetes have and it almost seems beyond comprehension.  What must it be like to wake up and not even think about what is happening inside your body?  The sheer bliss of just eating what you want, when you want…no medications, no testing, no fears about going high, going low…wow.    It’s not fair.  It’s just not.

I’ve had a stomach bug for a couple of days and that just increases the need for tracking my blood glucose levels.  I took my morning long-acting insulin shot and then spent the next 24 hours chases falling blood sugar levels.  Nausea made it really quite disgusting to get food in me…I managed, but it took tea with sugar to get me through it.  I don’t have the luxury of just dealing with being sick – I have to also be monitoring and adjusting and bending and weaving to make sure I don’t go too high or too low.

Sometimes having diabetes is just exhausting.  If anyone is out there reading this, it sure would be nice to hear what you struggle with too?

Using our powerful minds for good!

We are brutal to ourselves.  Inside our own heads we beat ourselves up over a thousand different infractions and failures.  Didn’t stick to our diet, didn’t exercise today…or yesterday…or last week.  Things we didn’t do, or things we need to do and haven’t gotten to yet.  It takes a huge toll, maybe even bigger than we ever imagined.

Likewise, when we make the decision to shower ourselves with positive, self-affirming statements we have an equally powerful positive impact on ourselves, our feelings, our perspective and yes…even our bodies.

We have the capacity to literally alter our own brain structure because our brains don’t know the difference between 'imagination' and 'reality'. If we pretend to play a musical instrument, then a PET scan (positron emission tomography) is almost identical to one taken by the person that is actually playing the musical instrument.

So, we can pretend our way to anything.  Imagine it and it becomes concretized in our very cells.  It makes sense that if we dwell and focus on suffering that suffering is what gets concretized and overlaid on everything we are.  If we dwell and focus on our incredible strength, power, potential and dreams…then THAT is what we actual begin to create.

Deepak Copra, M.D. says, "We are the only creatures on the planet who can change our biology through our thoughts, feelings and intentions. Our cells are constantly eavesdropping on our thoughts and being changed by them.

We are approaching summer solstice.  It would be a great time to consider the enormous power we have and make the decision to use that power for good rather than evil.  Time to rescue ourselves from the tower.

Shame on me...Shame on you

I needed to pick up a few things at the supermarket so I went there after I worked out at the gym.  It always sounds a little silly to me when I say that I “worked out” like I’m trying to play pretend or something.  Worked out conjures up an image of someone really pushing themselves to an extreme, working up a major sweat, doing a variety of exercises.  Truth is that I just “walked…maybe slowly jogged” on the elliptical machine…so do I have a right to claim I worked out?

Anyway, like I was saying, I went to the supermarket afterwards to pick up a few things.  I found the electric cart and got on it and went first to the bathroom.  I don’t like riding the cart, but until I get used to the new shoe molds the podiatrist made, I need to avoid walking, so there I was – riding on my cart and trying not to feel handicapped or like an imposter.  Strange…I feel like an imposter at the gym and then an imposter on the wheelchair cart.  Why do I always feel like some kind of imposter?

As I drove the cart as close as possible to the bathroom I saw an older, grey haired woman standing blocking the entrance, waiting for her turn at the deli counter right next to the rest rooms.  She had one of those three pronged canes for stability and support and I paused…not wanting to ask her to move, but unable to negotiate my way around her.  She glanced at me and I said “excuse me, I need to get past you?”, and she then moved slightly to the side.  No expression on her face, just watching me.  I slowly inched towards the door to park right outside and walk in.  Strangely, she turned and seemed to be following me, and as I walked into the door, sure enough, she followed me in.  I turned around and glanced at her and she looked at me and said “you’ve got diabetes, don’t you.”  It was more of a statement than a question.

Caught by surprise, I nodded.  “Yes.”  “How did you know?” I asked her.    She gestured towards me with her cane and said with some derision in her voice “your feet…I could tell.”

I was kind of frozen for a couple of seconds.  I could hear the blame, the judgment in her tone.  You know that feeling when the world kind of tilts and it’s kind of disorienting for a moment?  I knew I was being accused and found guilty of something bad…but I couldn’t figure out what she was talking about for a few beats.  Then I kind of “came to” and realized she had seen the psoriasis on my feet and clearly assumed that it was from diabetes.  I said “that’s psoriasis”.

Her expression cleared slightly and her shoulders relaxed almost imperceptibly.  She said “oh…” and turned to walk towards the empty bathroom stall.

I walked into the others still slightly stunned by the situation.  I felt as if I needed to speak up for myself, but didn’t know quite what to say.  I took a breath and said “do YOU have diabetes?”  At this point we were both in our own stalls carrying on this bizarre conversation.

“No”, she said angrily, “but my husband does”.  “And he refuses to take care of himself, insists on eating his cheeseburgers and beers and won’t listen to the doctor.”

At that moment I realized that the hostility she had aimed towards me was from her frustration with her husband and I breathed an inward sigh of relief that she wasn’t angry at me.  In my relief I morphed into a co-conspirator.  “Yes, I know how frustrating it is when people won’t deal with the diagnosis…my nutritionist says there are people walking around with blood sugars over 300 but just not dealing with it”.

Now, honestly…was I just wanting to bond with this woman over our mutual frustration?  No, I wanted her to know that I was a good girl and not worthy of her anger or blame.  Why I didn’t even know this woman, would never see her again.  But somehow I leaped onto the chance to exonerate myself in her eyes.

From the other stall she said with disgust “I don’t care if people kill themselves with the way they live…I just get sick of my tax dollars going to support them and their ways”.

Standing by the exit, paused but ready to leave the bathroom, I stood facing her closed stall, feeling kind of captive by her words.  I had absolutely no idea what to say to her.  I mumbled something incomprehensible like “yeah…hmmm..well  - bye” and walked out and got back onto the electric cart as quickly as I could and drove away.

It was several days before I even told anyone about the experience.  Even now as I write it I have a hard time believing that it happened.

People blame those of us who have Type 2 diabetes.  Note the effort people make to clarify when someone has type 1 diabetes.  They want you to be absolutely clear that THEIR diabetes wasn’t their fault.  Obesity is the last refuge for bigots…and diabetes is a potent weapon to hurl at those who exhibit both.  The message is crystal clear and cuts with a fine edge…I am fat, I have diabetes, I am disgusting, it’s my own fault, I’m a burden on the world, you dread seeing me coming in your direction…I’m a problem that you want dealt with.

It’s ugly and unfair and especially lethal because the grain of truth buried under the prejudice makes it hard to dismiss the bigotry.  Which should be dismissed.  Which isn’t right.  Which shouldn’t happen.  But…I did eat too much of the wrong things and I didn’t exercise the way I should have for years.  That’s true. 

It’s like when I was in fifth grade.  I remember standing in front of the class because it was my turn to give my oral report.  The teacher had to exit the room for a moment and asked me to wait – there I stood, in front of the other kids, waiting for the teacher to return.  A mean girl named Lori – can’t believe I still remember her name – said “you fat thing”.  I stared blankly out at the sea of faces…frozen and not sure what to say.  I heard another voice come from someone else…”how can you just let her say that to you, why don’t you say anything back to her?”

I shrugged and said “she’s right”.  Silence filled the classroom.  That moment stretched out forever.  Until the teacher came back in.  That’s all I remember.  That and a profound feeling of shame, being discovered, being unable to hide, and being forced to confess.  I just didn’t know how to defend myself when there was something true about what was being said.

Shame is a hard thing to shake.  But one of my greatest challenges these days is to let go of unproductive guilt and focus instead on what I can to today…and tomorrow.  I can look back and see my destructive choices, but I can also see where they came from, and what was behind my choosing food as medication and comfort.  Understanding leads to compassion and forgiveness.  Most of the time anyway – I wrestle with demons like anyone.

Welcome to My Life

I get it.  Your life will never be the same.  Gone are the days of wild abandon and eating without thought to consequence.  Gone are the giant ice cream sundaes, the sweet coffees and morning bagels with cream cheese, no more slices of pizza or Chinese food without a thought.  Take a little time to grieve and feel sorry for yourself…you have every right to.  

It’s like you’ve been sentenced to a bland diet of deprivation that will never end…lots and lots of “no” foods, weight watchers calls them “red light” foods.  Maybe you’ll even have to eat from the punishment racks of sugar-free baked goods.  As a bonus for being entitled to those products you also have the stares and compassion/pity/judgment of all who pass by and see you.  Alright…maybe add a little anger to grieving and feeling sorry for yourself.    

Having diabetes sucks.

Now get over it.

When someone loses a sense – goes blind, they don’t ever drive again.

Ever.

No negotiating.  No being in denial.  No putting it off…

And so it HAS to be with Diabetes.

No negotiating.  No being in denial.  No putting if off…

I’ve lost a type of “sense” in a way.  And I can’t pretend and somehow make it different.  My choice is slow, terrible decline and painful illness, or actually getting HEALTHIER than I am right now.  I choose healthier.  No question.  Read my back story if you wonder about that.

One of the most important things I do to stretch for health in my life requires that I always be vigilant about portion size, timing and type of food.   Yep.  Your life too.

HOWEVER.  I refuse to accept a bland, punishment diet – even if I have diabetes – even if I have to lose weight.  I can’t cope with knowing that any single food is off limits to me.  I have to be able to taste and enjoy food today.  Enjoy, delight in and even anticipate!  I may have to limit myself to one homemade chocolate chip cookie…but I’m going to get it at the perfect temperature when it’s at its gooey best and I’m going to savor every morsel.  Become one with the cookie.

Because here’s the deal.  If I can’t just stick to one, then I really can’t ever have chocolate chip cookies again – because they would be dangerous to my health – like beautiful berries in the wild that entice and then turn out to be toxic.  But as long as I can enjoy just one…then they are on my menu of life forever after.  It’s a deal I’m willing to make.  Oh, and I’ll make it for pizza too.  Don’t eat it often – maybe once a month or so?  One big, gooey, cheesy slice of pizza – hot and crispy on the bottom, well…I don’t have to say more, do I?  And so it goes.  If a food is worth eating, it is worth limiting.

That’s my philosophy and I’m sticking to it.