Tag Archives: writing

Wego Health Day 8, a Conversation with my Son

08 Sunday Apr 2012

Posted by in diabetes, posted by Amy S. Mercer, writing

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Prompt: Best conversation I had this week. Try writing script-style (or with dialogue) today to recap an awesome conversation you had this week.

Reid, my 2 year old, sits in the jogger and I stand behind him. We’re at the front entrance of his brother’s elementary school waiting for Miles, my 7 year old to walk out the front door. Will, my 10 year old stands beside me. He stayed home sick again today with a cold, but I made him walk with me to get some fresh air. The sun is shining, it’s a warm, spring afternoon, but I’m grouchy. My blood sugar has been low all day, and both Reid and Will have been sick with colds–coughing and runny noses, low grade fevers. I haven’t been able to get any work done. Instead, I’ve spent all day with a cranky toddler shadowing my every move and Will, leaving a trail of tissues in his wake. I am feeling suffocated by this life with my children. The hours pass slowly and meaninglessly and I am short tempered with the boys. I feel like an animal at the zoo, boxed in.

“Hi Mom!” Miles walks toward us. Miles with his wild, thick, blonde, too long hair and his bright blue eyes. My beautiful, unpredictable boy.

“How was your day? I ask.

“Good. Mrs. Musci said I don’t have to do homework today because I beat my MAP score.”

“That’s great.” (One less thing to stress about, I think.) We walk past the car riders line and I can tell my blood sugar is dropping (again!) so I reach down into the jogger to grab the bottle of glucose tabs. The Kalediscope kids, the ones who stay after school until 5pm, are loud on the playground as we walk past and I sigh deeply. Tired.

“Mom,” Miles starts.

“Yes Miles,” I say, preparing myself for one of his long stories. He is looking at the trees. I wait.

“Mom,” he says again.

“What!?!” Will steals a glance at me, I can feel it. He knows I’m irritated, I’ve been that way all day. I didn’t believe that he was sick and pushed him to go to school. When he cried and whimpered I said, “Fine, stay home!” and he did. And I made him pay for all day with my grouchiness.

“You couldn’t pay me all the money in the world to go to Kalediscope after school.”

“Oh yeah?” I said, not really listening.

“You couldn’t pay me all the money in the whole, wide world. All the toys, all the Skylanders, all the 3DS or wii games. You wanna know why?”

“Why?”

“Because I want to stay home with you.”

“Really?” My heart was in my throat.

“Yes, really!”

You have no idea how much I needed to hear that,” I said. And it was all okay. We walked home together.

Wego Health Challenge Day 4

04 Wednesday Apr 2012

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I write about my health because…

it helps me feel less alone. This is the slightly edited intro from my book, The Smart Woman’s Guide to Diabetes, which spells out why I write about my health:

Being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at 14 years old, the cusp of adolescence, changed my life forever. Insulin injections, a “diabetic diet” and the ever present fear of complications were suddenly added to the typical teenage fixations of boys, clothes, and being popular. Instead of speaking in the 1980’s valley girl slang, I had to learn a medical dialect, the language of old age. Instead of experimenting with changing hormones and a budding sexuality, I had to learn how to read my body’s signals to determine if I was ‘high’ or ‘low,’ or whether I needed sugar, or if I needed to go for a walk to bring my sugar down. And all this time I felt like I was alone, like I was the only one in the world with this dreadful disease.

(…..)

I didn’t realize when I started writing this book five years ago that I would was embarking on a journey both emotional and physical. Listening to nearly one hundred women has allowed me to see that I am not alone. Listening to the stories of women living with diabetes, women who were different from me in age and personality, women who lived in different parts of the country and even across the world, women who were athletes, doctors, educators, mothers and writers, women who were married, single and widowed, has taught me that I am not alone. We all share diabetes.

That’s why I write about my health.

Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge

07 Wednesday Mar 2012

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My plate is already too full, but I couldn’t pass up this challenge. Check it out:

I will be writing a post a day for all 30 days in the Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge hosted by WEGO Health. I hope you’ll join me in writing every day about health. It’s going to be a lot of fun and I’d love to see what you have to say about each of the topics, too.

All you have to do to join is sign up here, and you’ll be able to start posting once April rolls around. Looking forward to writing with you!

Traveling to California and Finding my Way…

21 Saturday Jan 2012

Posted by in diabetes, Uncategorized

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I flew to San Francisco this week to meet with Amy Tenderich of Diabetes Mine to discuss a job opportunity. My aunt lives in Mill Valley, and offered to pay for my trip. I flew out, leaving my 3 boys and husband behind, thinking that this would be the perfect job. I’d written a few pieces for Amy and whose feedback ranged from: not enough personality to, too much personality, and after much deliberation, I realized that our styles did not match.

Here are the posts I wrote for DM:

Little Helpers for Managing Your Medical Bills

C-Sections vs. Natural Births in Diabetic Moms

Diapep277 Re:educating the Immune System (I “ghost wrote” this one)

Realizing this job was ‘not right for me’ was hard because I wanted the security of a full time job. I wanted to write for a great site with a huge readership like Diabetes Mine, but I also don’t want to change my writing style.

So if it takes flying across the country to realize the kind of writing I want to do, so be it. The trip was not a waste for many reasons, most of all because San Francisco is a very cool city! Also because it helped me realize that the kind of writing that I want to do here, on my own site, is personal and insightful. As I look back through my posts I realize that the stories I want to share are about real people living with diabetes, especially those stories that will help readers feel less alone. I want to give my readers stories about the emotional side of living with diabetes like managing the cost of diabetes and our fears of complications. I will continue sharing my stories of my attempt to  live well with diabetes physically and emotionally.

We are in this together, redefining diabetes.