saturday morning hospital drama.

i know i've been posting rather infrequently, but don't you worry. i am still very much alive and kickin', thank you very much.

okay so this fine saturday noon, i'm going to write about my harrowing experience at the hospital this morning.

my endo ordered me to go for a blood test. it's called the "risk assessments" if i'm not wrong and basically they take my blood to test cholesterol levels, liver function and bla bla bla. drawing blood from me is not a problem. i think i am pretty much immune to needles now. and anyway we diabetics are terribly unafraid of blood...so i reckon.

what sucks is having to pee into those little vials.

because no matter how much water i drank, i just could. not. pee.

it's really harrowing to walk in and out of toilets for an hour. but anyway in the end i got some pee out of my body and the lovely, friendly nurse said it was enough. :)

and that's not the end of my story!

i had to fast from 10pm last night, so basically no food in my system despite waking up at a nice 4.0mmol (72mg/dL). and so after an hour of walking around trying to mentally induce myself into well, answering nature's call, i started to get dizzy and hungry.

and we all know too well what dizzy and hungry at the same time probably means.

to make matters worse, i'd forgotten to bring my good friend, the onetouch meter out with me. so after surrendering my liquid waste to the nurse, i decided i had to go grab a drink. i opted for milo, which is my favourite quick fix to a dropping blood sugar (normally in the morning when i don't have much appetite or after a workout if i know i don't want to eat).

10 minutes later i felt so much better and proceeded to catch a bus home.

hospital drama. all part and parcel of this diabetic's life. ;)

hung over.

this photo was taken at a friend's birthday bash last night. birthday boy is the fella who looks like he's gonna take a big bite out of my head. i left the party at close to 11. i took a taxi home with three other fellas and reached home around midnight. youtubed and chatted with the brother till 2am, and fell asleep feeling oh-so-happy.

this morning i wake up. i feel fine, if a little groggier than usual.

i grab breakfast.

i get on with stuff i have to do, knowing that i have a date with the gym and my kickboxing class at noon. i've church after that at 2, so i decide to pack something to eat. i stand in the kitchen assembling a ham and lettuce sandwich, and pop an apple and some cherry tomatoes into my lunch box as well.

and then it comes.

a wave of sudden giddiness. i feel like i'm being thrown slightly off-balance. the headache starts to grab my temples and impair me.

half an hour goes by and i decide to ring my parents who are both not at home. daddy the professor has to attend a convocation ceremony today. my mom is out running errands. then out comes the trusty one touch meter and the blood pressure monitor.

blood pressure first. 114/68. that's fine.

a finger-stick next - 4.6mmol. let's recheck. 4.6mmol again.

maybe my blood sugar's on a downhill trend.

i wait another half hour and prick the finger again. 4.3mmol.

sugar we're goin' down.

my mom has returned and is going to bake banana bran muffins (YUM!) so i grab a del monte off the bunch.

i need to leave my house in 15 minutes. i'm getting hungry after eating that banana.

let's hope this afternoon will be a good one.

because i reckon i'm kinda hungover.

this is blood-sugar friendly japanese food:
salmon sashimi and chawanmushi.
take note: this is what i am supposed to be eating at japanese restaurants.

this is not-so-blood-sugar-friendly japanese food
it is what i am NOT supposed to be consuming at japanese restaurants,
but sometimes the taste and thought of eating forbidden foods...
just makes it wayyyyyy tastier than it is.

i love the chewiness of the udon.
and the sushi rice is a very occasional treat.

and this is evidence as to why ben and jerry are my two favourite men.
strawberry cheesecake ice cream is heaven in a scoop.

and finally, here's proof of the carb/sugar-induced rush we had -
one of many photos taken using the self-timer on my camera!

***
and okay, i admit to the whole diabetes blogosphere right now that after that massively carborific meal, i didn't hit the gym. neither did i hit the gym the following day due to an allergy which affected my eye, and which warranted a trip to the doc's to get me some antiseptic eye drops. today, the elliptical is mine!

angel vs. devil.

this encapsulates how i feel about diabetes. and just what i want to do to it! be entertained. and while i'm at it, so you can think dance is awesome stuff. i can only dream of being like those dancers...and i can keep swooning over neil haskell while i'm at it.

love me. love my diabetes.

dinner at a friend's house.
yummy chicken, beef and prawns cooked on the hotplate.
delicious chicken soup with wontons, veggies, more prawns, and other things.
carb splurge spent on a bite of mango pudding, a bite of chocolate cake and half a durian puff.

then the chilled bottle of red wine appeared on the table; how could i refuse a couple sips of the dark red cabernet merlot? i do enjoy a glass of wine from time to time, even though my metformin medication supposedly forbids it.

my friend pours me a little bit of wine into a a plastic cup. it's less than a quarter of the cup. and i sip it slowly, enjoying the fruity, mellow flavour of the wine. it's not too dry or bitter, and rather light, and i quite like it.

over drinks we begin talking about what a bunch of twenty-somethings inevitably talk about - relationships and the problems which come along with it.

right now i'm proud to declare here on the blogosphere that at the ripe of age of nearly twenty-one, i've never dated and that it doesn't bother me much most of the time. so as we chat, we dish out advice to each other. and we just...chat. just as friends do.

but that was then, and as i sit here now, i realize how diabetes changes my concept of dating. i don't mean that i don't want to meet a nice guy some day. because sometimes i do. as much as i would like to think that i am miss independent superwoman, i am not. and nature demands that i sometimes think about how nice it might be to meet mr. right someday.

but diabetes forces me to change my idea of who's the right guy for me.

you see, it's as simple as me not wanting to be a burden to him. because many times i fear that i'll fall critically ill and i will be a financial and emotional burden to the ones i love, future boyfriend/fiance/husband included. and i don't want that.

and so it's rather idealistic but simple to work out in the end - love me, love my diabetes. love me, love everything that i am and i have. and that includes my flaws, and diabetes is undoubtedly something he must live with because i need to live with it too.

and it's all part of loving me for who i am.

and with that, i conclude whatever i was thinking about in a part-drunken stupor (okay, i don't think i was drunk...it was just a little wine and a few sips of some disgusting vodka mixes the boys concocted).

beautiful no matter what they say.

i've been hanging out in my house today with america's next top model on youtube as my companion as i want my ankle to recuperate.

my favourite contestant on cycle 10 hands down is whitney! she's a US size 10, so she's not stick-skinny like the typical ANTM contestant, but she's gorgeous. i guess it's because she's so confident about her body shape. and she is really pretty to boot. another thing i like about her (but this might be a personal bias...) is that she's also an '87 baby!


i like this photo of her published in seventeen magazine when she won. check out the tiny bit of flesh jutting out just above the swimsuit bottom. it's like, hey...that's normal! it's something girls like me see every time we put on that swimsuit. the extra bits of flesh, hey i've got that too.

point is, i'm still learning that bigger can be beautiful. i'm not saying here that i don't need to lose weight - because the truth is, losing a few kilos would be really beneficial for my overall health. but i won't ever be wearing a size zero because of my bone/muscle structure. i do have a bigger frame than the average tiny asian girl i see walking around me.

i have strong arms and shoulders, muscular calves. but i do put on weight around my tummy easily. i have nice skin which freckles easily, something sunscreen lotion can easily curb unlike some i know who battle acne and skin problems.

i don't look nice when i wear shirts with horizontal stripes, but tank tops and tube tops show off my shoulders - tanned and getting toned from swimming as regularly as i can. i may not look like your average supermodel when i put on a figure-skimming dress, but there are clothes i can wear which make me look nice.

the truth is, i don't love myself enough. i don't feel comfortable in my own skin sometimes. but sometimes it takes watching a favourite tv show to remind me that pretty isn't about being a size zero or two. beauty is something that resonates within. that's something i need to learn and to remember everyday.

***




and then i look at some photos of my girlfriends and i. and i realize...we are all beautiful. and it's okay to have hang-ups about the way we look sometimes, because all of us do.

and you guys can take a look at these photos above... because you can clearly see that some of us are smaller, some bigger. some shorter, some taller. some of us have really small eyes, some have big eyes. and so on.

but the truth is ... whether we're all dressed up in our prettiest clothes, with makeup on our faces. or whether we're at a favourite restaurant celebrating a birthday and sticking out our tongues at the camera. we are all beautiful...not just physically, but in every aspect of the word. we're strong, graceful beautiful women.

and you know what i think the essence of beauty is right now?

there wouldn't be beauty if there wasn't the concept of difference. and if big = different, then by all means let me be the alternative 'beauty' i want to be.

long overdue.

in between summer term starting, and a whole lot of other things, i've barely had time to update. it's sunday night and i just had a delicious homecooked dinner of mince & potato casserole, salad and a slice of papaya after a day out at church and then to the movies after.

my gang and i celebrated two 21st birthdays recently, and it makes me so excited cos my own is coming up...and i decided to celebrate it with a small bang and have an afternoon tea party at one of my favourite restaurants with my dearest.

birthdays are all smiles and songs and laughter and joy, and i like them very much. probably cos they're a celebration of life, and after my own brush with death, i guess life becomes all the more precious, and worth celebrating!


the first was gabe's...and he's the guy in the striped polo tee sitting in the middle. somehow along the way i got roped into planning his wedding-like birthday bash and gosh it was terribly stressful sometimes, but seeing the whole plan come into action was probably the nicest present the few of us could give...aside from the cologne i ran around town hunting for, which was his 'official' birthday gift from us.


the second was estrella's, and she's somewhere at the back of this photograph. we couldn't celebrate on her actual birthday as she wasn't free, so we planned a surprise birthday party for her at swensen's, mainly because one of her favourite things ever is ice cream! and yes, we did pull the surprise off pretty darn well, we made a lot of noise, confused the waiters with our orders, and indulged in some wicked good sundaes (yes, i had some too! leeched off my friends, of course.)

friends, what would i do without them? we don't talk about my diabetes much. and i know they forget about it sometimes. they forget...so very often. offer me sips of regular soda, and so on. but when and if something major happens, i've got many shoulders to lean on, many arms to hold me close and tell me everything will be okay, many lips to offer me encouragement, many ears to listen.

and i know too well that they don't understand the struggles i sometimes face with dealing with diabetes, because it's something they've no need to go through. and that's what you guys are for. i may not post often, and i may have temporarily dropped out of the D365 project because of some camera woes, but i treasure your blogs, your writings, and the fact that even though we are geographically far apart, we share the common bond of diabetes and the ups and downs it brings us.