“They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat.”
This is, as my mother and countless other vessels of Jewish wisdom have expressed, the theme of every major Jewish holiday. It is also the theme of my freshman year of college, where “they” is my haywire immune system, and “us” is the royal we. I’ll hold off on the third part for right now.
When my body first tried to tell me something was awry upon my return from URJ Camp Coleman in the late summer of 2012, I blamed the lingering hypochondriac tendencies of my fifth grade campers. Drink some water, I would tell them. You’ll be fine.
When my body began to destroy itself to protect me, I assumed the weight loss, thirst and exhaustion were evidence of all my hard work on the treadmill. I could finally compare myself to the toned, tanned Miami counselors I’d worked with.
When my mother told me to get my sugar checked, just in case, I rolled my eyes and dragged my feet to oblige. Worries go down better with soup, I told her. How does matzo ball sound?
And when the doctor used the “D” word for the first time, I heard my parents’ breath hitch, their daughter now and forever a question of levels, units, grams, and percentages which could never be ignored. To them, Type 1 Diabetes might have well as been a death sentence.
But we won. The keyword is “we.”
At school, I felt very alone. My first college boyfriend left me a week after helping me shakily inject insulin into my belly for the first time. The few friends I made in my fatigued first semester were unsure of what to say as I fumbled with blood glucose test strips in the dining hall. My roommate couldn’t help me through the night sweats that came with the sudden changes transpiring in my blood.
However, the Jews in my life were direct. As is key to the daily renewal of our faith and the continuation of our people, they asked questions of what they didn’t understand. They offered interpretations of this as a blessing in disguise without sounding self-righteous or making me feel guilty for my self-pity. On the contrary, by sharing in their sympathy I was able to diffuse some of my frustrations and begin seeing the positives. They didn’t hesitate to loudly notice that I had gained weight—and that that was a good thing.
For the first time in my life, I was on a Mi Shebeirach, a prayer for healing, list, but far from feeling weakened by this, I was empowered by my community. Folks came out of the woodwork to donate art, books, and services to a silent auction to help my family cover the costs of our deductible, an insulin pump, and medical supplies. Every day we had a new magazine article handed to us explaining the importance of lean proteins or low-carb recipes.
The hardest adjustment was reacquainting myself with the element that brings not only Jews, but all people, together: food. I suddenly dreaded meals, not because I didn’t want to eat, but because counting carbs in what seemed like pitiful portion sizes turned meals into mourning for me. It took a year of Shabbat dinners to remind me of the true motivation behind that old adage my mother loves so much; eating together is a celebration of all that we have overcome, and the table is set and full. They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat.
Now that things have settled down and my body is once more my own, I have found that living with a chronic disease forces me to walk the fine, awkward line between normality and disability. I look like any other college junior, yet often in the middle of class I find myself strapped into a roller coaster of blood glucose level madness.
On the outside, I seem lethargic, tired, snippy, or confused, which for someone without diabetes might just be the signs of a bad day after a good night. Aside from the health dangers of a too-high or too-low blood sugar, it also makes staying on task difficult. It’s embarrassing to smother my continuous glucose monitor as it alarms obnoxiously or to excuse myself to scarf down a snack in the hallway.
The trouble is that I feel normal until I don’t. To make my “normal” understandable to others, I have a talk with my staff and campers each summer to fill them in on the what, why, and how of my condition so they don’t feel helpless and I don’t feel alone when my levels go wonky. At school, my friends have all gotten the spiel, and my professors now know the difference between an insulin pump and a cell phone.
When I went on Taglit Birthright last month, the staff successfully struck the balance between making sure I was keeping an eye on my levels without patronizing me. The directors of my current fellowship, The Nachshon Project, met me at the opening seminar with an insulated lunchbox and freezer packs. People are happy to help if only you teach them how.
So, here’s my Type 1 public service announcement to the Jewish community:
Only 5% of diabetics have Type 1. I am not your great-aunt Ruth who lost four toes and went blind because she lived at the Wendy’s drive-thru. Type 1 is an unpreventable auto-immune disease which currently has no cure. No amount of dieting or Zumba will make this go away.
The worst symptom I’ve encountered is ignorance. Know and recognize the signs of Type 1, even if it’s not even a blip on your radar. It certainly wasn’t on mine. Although Type 1 typically manifests in children, I was diagnosed at 18, and it can be found in people up to age 30.
Keep an eye out for fruity breath odor, extreme thirst, frequent urination, dry skin, fatigue, extreme hunger, unintended weight loss, changes in vision, frequent infections, and changes in mood.
One of the most important things I’ve learned from this experience is to listen to my body. Instead of ending my prayers with question marks, I look for the parentheses in my own actions. My parents were doing that long before I thought to, and thanks to them, we won this battle before it put me in the hospital, or worse.
I can lead a normal abnormal life, paying attention and consuming only good thoughts and good food.
Let’s eat.
Rachel Glazer is a student at the University of North Georgia.
