I was typing the other day and I noticed how clicky my fingers sounded against the keys. It was the callouses that have come from the thousands of blood tests I've taken. Click, click on the keys. My fingers don't hurt as much as they used to, and I imagine that the nerves at their tips have long since given up the ghost. It used to be that doing even the simplest task would hurt, picking up an envelope or driving a car, anything that would bump the edges of my fingers. It was the quick movements, the stuff that you are never conscious of because you're just moving through your day. But now that pain is gone. It's much rarer for me to feel much of anything in my finger tips now, thanks to the callouses and the death of those nerves. Now it's just the callouses I notice.
Click, click.
Isn't it amazing what we get used to? Isn't it amazing how strange this disease is? I see the big impacts of diabetes everyday. The constant monitoring, the unending adjustments, the persistent dialogue and decision making that goes on in my head every day like a subtitle in a foreign film. I can tell you in a minute how diabetes has changed my philosophical outlook, the many struggles it's presented and even some of the good it's brought to my life. You know, big stuff. But I realize that I'm a bit slower at noticing the smaller stuff. The details. Like the fact that my sheets are sometimes dotted with tiny blood stains from blood tests taken in the middle of the night. Or that I seem to find random test strips everywhere, like a persistent clue in some strange and personal mystery. Or the fact that my fingers click as I'm typing. Little stuff. Strange stuff. The texture and details of living with diabetes.
Yes, it's easy to see the big things about diabetes. But there are small ones too. I think it's important to notice them both.
Click, click, click.
Birdie,
You are so right. We get so used to the little things - the tiny blood stains, calloused fingers, test strips everywhere. This disease certainly is made up of a lot of little things.
Posted by: Donna | December 14, 2007 at 04:37 PM