Hello.
Do come in. Have a seat. Can I get you a coffee? Make yourself comfortable. Now then, let's get started.
I will try and briefly explain the complicated (yet boring) medical problems I'm faced with and how I try to deal with them.
...
What? You look uneasy.
If you are a polite friend trying to appear supportive/never going to meet me (or care about my survival)/looking for porn then of course you are welcome to skip this blog and shuffle for the door with nothing but my best wishes and a slightly burnt tongue from rushing your coffee (you asked for it, you're drinking it). For those interested parties/compassionate humans/potential collaborators or employers/masochists still reading - thank you. I will try to be as succinct as possible.
I'm a type one diabetic with epilepsy who has also had brain surgery. This combination causes a lot of annoying problems but two are more troublesome than all the rest combined.
Firstly, I just can't seem to join a sufficiently appropriate support group. Of course I tried to set one up in my home town. Diabetic Epileptics who've had Brain Surgery or DEBS for short. I managed to find another two members but as neither one was either diabetic, epileptic or had brain surgery they didn't really meet the application criteria. I tried to stop their admittance but as Debra and Debbie pointed out "this is the inaugural meeting and sixty six percent of us think you should shut up and make the tea, spaz-features". Yes, it's unfair, but that's democracy for you.
The second (and admittedly more serious) problem is that I am prone to a huge variety of different fits from a fairly wide range of causes. I won't list them in this post (I'll save them for some later date - you lucky reader; you know you'll be back) but whatever fit or bizarre behaviour or sudden mood swing I may experience the only thing I really need to be on the lookout for - the thing that is most likely to actually hurt me - is a hypo.
A hypo is a diabetic thing; too much insulin and not enough sugar (but I thought that insulin is a life saving drug-it is but it's very dangerous- and I thought diabetics weren't supposed to have sugar - yes, but that's a different type of diabetes - this is all a bit confusing, isn't it? - don't worry, it gets worse) so whatever you may see me doing that's very weird the thing I need to be watching for is a hypo.
If you are ever interested in saving a person's life (and why wouldn't you be? I'm told it's a wonderful feeling even if the life you've saved is that of a fairly pointless middle-aged mental) then watching out for my health might be your bag. If not then my mid-hypo antics can be very entertaining, so I'm told, so you might still want to keep an eye out. If my behaviour worries you then you could suggest that I should test my blood sugar level (a very easy procedure done on a small electrical unit that looks like a remote for an internal device I might have purchased at Ann Summers (it isn't, don't worry (I broke that device ages ago (oh crap, I've over parenthesised)))).
So that's basically it. I may have a hypo in front of you should we ever meet - in fact, it's quite likely that I will have some kind of episode but a hypo is the scary one. I should test my blood and, if necessary, eat sugar. I'll have a mars bar or fruit pastilles or something similar on me - I always do. It's a tiny bit of information but useful to tell the paramedics if I should fall unconscious around you. Diabetic, Hypo.
The more people that know that much about me the safer I will become. Yes, that means you are now a part of my support network. No, the Benefits Agency will not pay you anything for the service but you will receive a lovely warm feeling inside (if not, drink some more coffee. See? Warm feeling).
So there's the point of it all; telling people about myself in a blog but for a reason other than rampant narcissism. Not that I dismiss such motivations. I may well post again very soon with the sole intention of venting my splenetic fury as though anybody gave a cup of warm p!$$. And why shouldn't I use a blog for such a purpose? Isn't that what they're for?
