Diabetes notes: third time's the charm in training

 Last night I went to the third of three training sessions for new diabetics, postponed a month because of July heat problems. Ironically, yesterday was the hottest day of this month, but it wasn't quite as bad and I figured I'd better go than keep postponing it in perpetuity. It turns out to be a very good thing indeed that I did!

The focus of this last session was long-term care—what the complications that can arise from diabetes are. This is not an innately cheery subject, to put it mildly, but I came out of it substantially encouraged, because of the approach. For each topic, our speakers explained what the threat is, and then what we can do right now to decrease our risks of getting it (with some hard data: doing X reduces your risk N% over Y years, doing Z reduces it so much, and so on) and what we can do to contain and live with it if we develop it anyway. A whole lot of scattered things came together during this time, including some insights into symptoms I've always associated with my immune troubles; it looks like maybe I've had hypoglycemic troubles go undiagnosed for 20-odd years.

That was really awesomely worthwhile. I have a lengthy list of things to discuss with Medicaid and find how frequently they'll cover costs of repeating this and that test and examination, and I need to schedule some things with my doctor, but there's nothing huge now looming on the horizon. Time to settle in and live with what I've learned.

Diabetes notes: a bit more about food

I did speak with the nurse at last night's session about my running too low on daily carbs, and she also had some general advice. Since some of you are interested...

She and the endocrinologist emphasized the importance of feeling comfortable with what we're doing, because stress itself drives blood sugar production out of whack and is therefore a health risk all by itself. If you're under constant stress and frustration and feel like your life of diabetes management stinks, you're hurting yourself. So they talked about the value of enjoying treats on special occasions and of treating target numbers like carbs per day as goals to approximate rather than ones that must be hit precisely every time.

In my particular case, since I have both a shorfall in carbs eaten and some favorite foods I miss, the right thing to do is indeed to just add some of them back in and see how my blood sugar goes.
 

Vampires as transsexuality symbols

How else to start but by defining terms? 

 

When I write about things serving as symbols and images, I mean something specific but a little hard to articulate. I do not mean allegory: I don't much like allegory, and can only thoroughly engage with fiction where things are first and foremost, themselves. What I like as an extra layer, though, is when the fictional things, which are themselves, evoke something about the real world. A lot of the fantasy, sf, and horror I like says things about reality by giving what is in reality just states of mind a more tangible meaning.

 

So, vampires. Take Stoker's Dracula. Dracula is a vampire, not an allegory of something. But he caught on in late Victorian England partly because he was also a great embodiment of a lot of Victorian fears about sex, that it was thing which had great power but was innately defiling and ultimately corrupting to society as a whole. Anne Rice successfully re-riffed on the theme, building a foundation of innate glamour partly because we're less inclined to think of sex as innately yucky, but reworking the corrupting force within and without. 

 

I've been thinking lately that vampires can also serve as symbols of transsexuality. Consider. They are, first of all, exotic, and fit no easy standard category. They're rare. They're strange: they don't quite fit into society, though they can go disguised for a time. They can be deeply glamorous, but they are ultimately dangerous, and normal people must rally to defeat them. They are parasitic, dependent for their continued existence on resources others give, or are compelled to give. They're imposters, having only a semblance of what all normal people have for real—vitality, in the case of vampires, of course. 

 

This all sounds pretty familiar. I wonder if some of the stories I've been stalled on might work with this in mind as I appraise and revise. Might be some good drama in the interplay between this innately damaging existence and people struggling with ones that are seen the same way but aren't. Hmm.