Countdown to North Carolina, Part I: I'm Going to Goddamned Die

 Well. Here we are. 

As we get closer to our trip, we've had some unfortunate things happen over the past week or two. Nothing major, but enough things to where I'm like holy shit, I just need stuff to stop happening and mini-crises to stop occurring so that I can just get the fuck out of here and away from Nebraska for a few days.

I don't generally air a lot of my more personal stuff on here and that's not going to change, but today I had my first doctor's appointment in a year -- and my blood is apparently the consistency of maple syrup and my A1C is a full point higher than it was last year. It is at its highest-ever number, unfortunately. 

I am very frustrated by this and spent a few hours telling Daisy "I'm going to goddamned die" in not only fear, but worked into song on multiple occasions as well.

I am frustrated that even though I've lost 75 pounds in the past eight years, became a vegetarian, quit smoking almost a full decade ago, and have cleaned up the vast majority of my diet, it does not appear that I am able to control my diabetes without being on either high-level different drugs or GLP-1 injectables which absolutely wreck my digestive system and essentially give me explosive IBS. 

But. But.

I'm not dead yet.

I got my prescriptions all refilled, and my new Metformin and the Chantix I specifically asked for has already arrived in the mail via Amazon Pharmacy. I also got a vaccination for pneumonia -- which, generally, isn't given to most folks for another ten years or so age-wise, but the doctor said that since I have diabetes and I vape, well, can't hurt. So, I shrugged and told her sure.

Now my arm hurts and it has ached like hell since I got the vaccination. It is what it is. 

The other prescriptions I need have not yet been fully cleared by my insurance, and I'll likely wait until I'm back from the trip to order them anyway as I'm not running low on them anytime soon. My doctor will discuss with me on Monday what she believes to be the best path forward for my diabetes treatment, she'll send the prescriptions over to Amazon, and we'll go from there. 

As an aside, we both really like our new doctor. She seems wonderful, patient, listens to our concerns, answers every possible question we could have about our care, and wants to get to know us as people rather than just as numbers or cogs in a hospital system. I really appreciate that. Battling my diabetes is hard enough, especially as it progresses, and I really need that sympathetic ear and medical assistance when I'm so frustrated. It's going to be an uphill battle no matter how I want to look at it.

But, for the next few weeks, that battle is suspended; I am not going to let all of this affect our vacation to visit my parents. I'm not going to shame myself into feeling guilty for every piece of food I put into my mouth, I'm not going to force myself to look at the "healthy options" at any restaurant we visit or grocery aisle we peruse -- and I'm not going to question every little action I do or don't do while on vacation. The point of it is vacation; anything else can wait until we return home to normalcy and our regular lives resume. 

We got a lot accomplished this weekend. After our doctor appointments on Friday, we stopped and got Chipotle for lunch -- something that is now becoming a tradition after doctor appointments, I guess -- and I took a nap in the evening while Daisy absolutely dismantled her closet to help get it cleaned out, to fill giveaway bags, find some clothing she wants to pack for the trip, and to pare down her stuff. She is about 1/3 of the way done with cleaning it all out, roughly, and I am very proud of her. I helped her where I could once I woke from my nap, and yesterday we dropped off several bags of donations at the Goodwill -- also tossing in the $30 toaster oven I'd gotten us over a decade ago that we no longer use.

Yesterday we did that, we visited the parents for a bit to see them and talk about our doctor appointments, then went to Costco to pick up some healthy food options, protein bars for the trip, and some essentials before stopping at Natural Grocers on the way home to get ingredients for healthy, gluten-free crust pizzas -- which was our dinner.

Now, it's 1:30 in the morning and Daisy is in bed, and I am winding down my last night of the weekend as our next winter storm is winding up.

I wish I were kidding.

Look, I'm glad that neither Daisy nor I have to leave the house for our jobs anymore. I'm glad that for the most part, our house is pretty sturdy and it takes a lot to damage it with weather (that doesn't mean our rickety picket fence isn't in danger when winds like that whip through, though), and I'm glad that the car is full of gas and we have a new furnace that keeps us warm. 

But, it's the middle of March. It's time for this snowstorm shit to end. We went from a tornado threat last weekend to a blizzard threat this weekend. 

The great irony of all of this? Tomorrow morning, Monday morning -- it's supposed to be single-digits cold with wind chills well below zero.

By Thursday and Friday? Eighty degrees and gorgeous -- a veritable heat wave and our first tastes of summer weather here in Nebraska. 

I can't make this up. Weather in the midwest is bipolar, and it's one of the many reasons I can't wait to be able to move away from the middle of the country. 

This storm is also going to spawn severe weather in the south and southeast, including the Carolinas, and I shared a warning about it with my dad over Facebook a couple of days ago so that he'd have the heads up on it.

His response?

"Life is one disaster after another."

"Well that's a cheerful outlook," I replied.

Turns out my mother broke her tooth on Thursday night and required a $2100 crown to be put on it Friday morning. She had not told me anything about this, and I'd just spoken to her that morning via text. So I asked her, again via text, in the afternoon if she was going to tell me about that. She ignored that question but confirmed that the $2100 was with a five percent discount.

"A whole five percent, huh?" I asked. I did not get a response.

It's things like this why I'm not going to tell my parents about how my diabetes has progressed. I might talk to my dad about it in private, but it would just make my mother worry and -- more than that -- I'd be judged for it and scrutinized for everything I eat or everything I do while I'm there. And I'm not going to do that. Again, it's a vacation. I'm not going to make myself purposely miserable while I'm on vacation.

Also, I'm sure that my mother didn't tell me about her tooth for the same reasons -- she didn't want me to worry or consider changing our trip for her. Either that or her autism makes her oblivious and she didn't think about it. It's slightly frustrating, but it's her way. It is what it is. I love my parents, but I don't have the daily connection with them like I do with Daisy's parents, and I certainly don't see them every week like I do Daisy's parents, so it can be difficult to gauge interactions with them, especially via text. Maybe I'm projecting more than I should. I don't know, to be honest with you.

Anyway.

I am spending the night doing laundry and hanging out with Mable at my feet as a small preparation for the upcoming trip. This will be a short week for me; I'm going to take off Wednesday night as well (this was originally unplanned) to get a little breathing space and get some last-minute stuff done around the house to make it look and feel better and not be ashamed of any of that once the catsitter comes to take care of the children. Daisy is spending her week working as per the usual; we have bills to pay and she still has to pack and do her part to make the house presentable, so it's otherwise a pretty normal week for us. I just want to put my head down and get through it.