Monday, February 5, 2024
Memorial of Saint Agatha, Virgin and Martyr
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Sunday afternoon at the ER
After making the crossing to the other side of the sea, Jesus and his disciples came to land at Gennesaret
and tied up there. As they were leaving the boat, people immediately recognized him. They scurried about the surrounding country and began to bring in the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. Whatever villages or towns or countryside he entered, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak; and as many as touched it were healed.
The boys slept late yesterday, but everyone was ready for church by 9 am, when Aki picked them up. We left soon after. But I was worried about my blood sugar, which was still very high on Sunday morning. And I was shaky, walking anywhere was difficult. During church, during a very good sermon on the blind man in John 9, I kept closing my eyes. Tired.
So after church I skipped Sunday School. But before I had a chance to skip it I talked to John and Pam. Pam is a late-onset Type 1 diabetic, and when I told her my blood sugar numbers (around 400), she fell into the chair behind her. “You have to do something about this today!” John walked me home to our apartment across the street.
At home I called our nearby Austin Regional Clinic. Nurse Linda looked and looked but found no available appointments today, nothing till 8:30 Wednesday morning. So I packed my bag and we drove to the nearby ER.
We spent several hours there, but in treatment, not triage. I was happy at how few people were there. I got some IV fluids, but no meds. My blood sugar dropped a couple hundred points and I was discharged, in enough time to watch most of the Illini game (Ill 87, Nebraska 84). The doctor changed one of my medications and waved goodbye.
I’ll have to stop eating so much sugar. Today I’m giving away my 12 packs of Sprite and root beer. And there’s lots more that I will stop ingesting. I’ve known I should do this for a long time, but it takes an un-emergency emergency, one where I’m not quite dying, to break into my unfounded confidence in my body’s ability to absorb anything, that is essentially immortal.
My friend Chris said that when he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, he read a book, Think Like a Pancreas: A Practical Guide to Managing Diabetes with Insulin. If I start using insulin, I’ll read that book. Maybe I’ll read it right away anyway. Great title.
I realize more and more that when I’m feeling healthy I think I’ll always feel healthy, and when I feel sick I think I’ll always feel sick.And on a side note, everyone around me should feel just like I do. I think that’s called narcissism.
As I get older I become confused about how to respond. My body is wearing out, I say. Shouldn’t I sit still and let that happen? But there are medical treatments of all kinds to slow down that wearing out, I say. Shouldn’t I notice what’s going on inside me and tell a doctor, who will find something to make me last a little longer?
I think Margaret is on to something when she says, in her own words, “Do the best you can with what you’ve got.” She loves the science of nutrition, partly because so often she has needed to work out her diet and meds herself.
I have never had to do that. Until now.
(1 Kings 8, Psalm 132, Matthew 4, Mark 6)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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