Tag Archives: wego health

Wego Health Day 10 (out of 30), a Letter to my Teenage Self

10 Tuesday Apr 2012

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Dear 16-year-old-me. Write a letter to yourself at age 16. What would you tell yourself? What would you make your younger self aware of?

Dear Amy,

It’s going to get better. You’ve had diabetes for 2 years now and the things that matter so much right now (fitting in, being popular, pretty, skinny, smart, having a boyfriend and enough money to keep up with your friends and most of all, not having to deal with high and low blood sugars, counting carbs, doing shots and testing your blood sugar) will matter less when you are an adult. You will get married, have children and get paid to write! You will come out of the dark hole of diabetes denial and slowly, slowly, accept this illness. After many years of feeling powerless to and victimized by diabetes, you will begin to see how it has made you strong.

Hang in there Amy. There won’t be a cure in 10 years like you were promised, but there will be a huge support group of people who will inspire you to live well with diabetes. I promise that you won’t always feel alone and in fact, your loneliness will lead to a book (The Smart Woman’s Guide to Diabetes) that will help other women feel less alone.

Wego Health Day 3, Superpower Day

03 Tuesday Apr 2012

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I don’t want to be a superwoman. I cringe at the cliche term “supermom” because I think it does moms everywhere a disservice. I think it makes us feel like we should have all the balls in the air and be able to keep them there. If I had a superpower it would be to sleep soundly like Snow White. To lie down in the middle of the day and erase all the to-do’s from my head (for those of you who saw the movie, ‘I Don’t Know How She Does It” you know what I’m talking about.) I don’t want tips about keeping a list by the side of my bed so when I wake up in the middle of the night, and I am plagued by all the things I need to remember (pick up dry cleaning, wash baseball pants, get more milk, send in cupcakes to school, email so-and-so etc.etc.), I can write them down. I want to sleep, not write. I want Snow White’s spell induced sleep, the sleep of days, weeks, months and years….or even just the straight, eight hour, sleep through the night with no low or high blood sugars, no children in my bed kind of sleep. Bring it on.

In response to the Wego Health Activist Writing Challenge day 3: Superpower Day. If you had a superpower – what would it be? How would you use it?

WEGO Health Day 2, Quotes to Live by….

02 Monday Apr 2012

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“I don’t know what I think until I write it down.”
― Joan Didion

I began writing when I was in first grade and had to walk home from school. The bus dropped me at the bottom of our mile long dirt road and as long as it wasn’t too cold (we lived in Vermont), I didn’t mind the walk. After I began telling stories in my head, I started looking forward to the walk.

My stories were about 7 year old girl things: girls named Jessica with long, blonde hair who spent their days riding horses. The walk took me anywhere from 20-30 minutes because I’d stop and sit on a big rock along the side of the road and get lost in the stories. They were an escape from the loneliness of growing up in the woods and took me to colorful places.

When my sister started school I was in the 3rd grade and well into my daily storytelling ritual. She got off the bus beside me and as we passed the big red barn and plugged our noses to block out the thick, wet stench of cow manure, she started talking. And kept talking. I tried to ignore her but by the time we reached the Maher’s house halfway up the road, she asked me why I was so quiet.

“I’m telling stories in my head,” I said.

“Well tell them out loud,” she said. So I did. But the stories weren’t as good out loud. I had performance anxiety and Jessica’s love for her horse and trouble with her friends didn’t seem all that interesting out loud. I kept the story going until we got home but was filled with discouragement. Maybe my stories weren’t as good as I thought? While my sister fixed herself a snack, I hurried to my room and started writing. I needed to figure out a way to make the story as good on paper as it did in my head, then I figured, I could read it to my sister.

I didn’t realize it then, but my stories weren’t about Jessica and her love of horses, they were about me and my desire to escape my suffocating small town. They were about me trying to find my way. I started writing in the 1st grade and I’ve never stooped. I keep writing because like Joan Didion, writing helps me know what I think.

(Inspired by: WEGO’s prompt: Quotation Inspiration. Find a quote that inspires you (either positively or negatively) and free write about it for 15 minutes.)

Health Time Capsule

02 Monday Apr 2012

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Okay, so typical of me but I’ve started the WEGO  Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge a day late……something’s got to change in my life, but that’s another topic. Here goes. On the 1st of April we are supposed to pretend we’re making a time capsule of my health that won’t be opened until 2112. What’s in it? What would people think of it when they found it?

  1. My running shoes, because running every morning keeps me sane.
  2. A bunch of kale, because I eat it every morning with my eggs to start the day off green!
  3. Glucose tabs, because they keep me from over treating lows.
  4. Diabetes supplies: pump, meter, test strips & insulin, because I have lived with type 1 diabetes for 26 years (complication free!) and I think I’m probably more healthy as a result.
  5. A photo of my family because I couldn’t do this alone.

Maybe people would see al this gear and not know what it was because a cure for type 1 diabetes would have finally been discovered! That’s my wish anyway….