Eating Again, Little One?

Today I was looking through the thousand and something photos from our wedding and engagement shoot that I just figured out how to put on our new laptop, and I just kept thinking how pretty I was and how skinny I was and how badly I wish to be that size again.

And then it struck me how sick I was too.

I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes just shy of 2 months after my "Happily ever after" day.

Should I do a little backstory? Probably. Here goes!

In September of 2014 I was hired at a local bakery called Delicious Orchards in Colts Neck NJ. They weren't supposed to keep anyone after the holidays, but ended up liking me and a few other people so much that they kept us after Christmas.
 It was amazing.
 I've never had a work experience like that before. I know a lot of people says it's like "Another family" but these people really were like my 2nd family. We laughed, we cried, we confided, we fought and we loved. I met some people who I will never forget, and I also met some people who I'd rather not ever see again, thank you.

Anyway, enough sappy shit. Where was I... Oh yea.

So when I started I had some pretty long days filled with lots of physical labor. I went from sitting on my couch watching netflix to working 5 days a week, 7 am to 5 pm (usually) if not later. Then after the holidays things started to slow down, as they usually did at the Orchard. But my hours changed. I started going in around 5 most mornings, it was time to make the donuts! Some mornings I wouldn't have to be in until 530, and others I had to be in at 4 or 430- depending on the donut  expectations during the week.

I hadn't really been feeling too well the past few months, and it intensified when my hours changed and I started my workday at 430-5 am instead of 7am. I thought I had just never adjusted fully to the whole working full time gig. But when I started working earlier, man oh man was I pooped. My head pounded constantly, I was always achy and had a lot of back and neck pain, and pain in my abdomen. I honestly thought i was just getting abs that you couldnt see under my pooch i have always had. Then I started losing a lot of weight, despite the amount of food I was eating... Looking back I can't believe how we didn't know something else was happening. How we didn't know something was wrong. I ate so much I don't even know how to describe it. Let's just say that EVERYONE in the whole place knew me by how much I ate. All the older ladies would always tell me to "be careful, it will catch up to you someday!" People who I didn't even talk to would walk by me on break and say "look at Megan! Is she eating again?? It's only 10 in the morning and I've seen her eat 3 meals already!" I'd just give them the finger and tell them they wished they could eat like me. Ha.

One of my close friends, we can call him Rozwald, this wonderful Italian man with the sweetest accent in the world would always jab me in the ribs with his elbow and say he couldn't believe how I ate. "Eating again, little one?" We would sit together at lunch and breaks every day and he would watch me eat and shake his head in disbelief.

And despite how incredibly much I constantly ate, nothing could quench the hunger I always felt, and nothing could quench the thirst. I would drink close to 2 gallons of water every single day. And don't even get me started on how often I peed. I was blessed to work with certain people who actually liked me, because when I say I was heading to the bathroom every half hour, I was heading to the bathroom every half hour. I used to joke and say they were going to fire me because of how many bathroom breaks I would always take.

Besides the constant pain I was in, plus the headaches, the eating and drinking and peeing, I was so exhausted. Which again I contributed to the fact that I just didn't get much sleep and I had to be up early for work. I honestly thought all of this was normal. And so I dealt with it. For months I dealt with it. Almost crippling tiredness, pain, sluggishness, moodiness, and weight loss. I thought this was normal stress related, teen stuff. After all, I was planning my wedding at the same time.

Fast forward to my wedding day. Everything went so well. There were some not so great things here and there, but overall, simply wonderful. I couldn't have asked for more in a wedding day!
Then we honeymooned, (which is a completely different blog post in itself) and returned home to our normal lives.

A few weeks after we got back, my husband and I filed for life insurance after the prompting of my wonderful parents. We were young, totally healthy and it would be cheaper the healthier we were. So we figured why not?

I remember a few nights after we filed, I came home after being out somewhere, I don't remember now. I walked into my living room where my parents were sitting just the 2 of them. Which is weird for my home because of all the people living in it. My mommy told me to sit down so I did, close to her. I said, " Come on guys, who died?" with a little chuckle. they smiled and said nobody died, but they got an unsettling phone call they had to tell me about. They said that the rep from the life insurance company, (also a family friend) called them directly and said I was rejected for my life insurance because I was a health risk and they couldn't risk insuring me.

I was rejected. I was rejected for life insurance out of nowhere.

The reps aren't supposed to call you, and it was odd that he did, so I knew it was serious. "Am I dying? Do I have cancer? Why would they reject me?" My mind was spinning.

My mom told me that my long term blood sugars were very high and I needed to go to the doctor and have them checked out.

My A1C was 12.3 And I was very sick. My doctor was baffled that I wasn't hospitalized. I count myself blessed because for many other type 1's, they find out they have diabetes because they end up in the hospital for days with syrup running through their veins instead of blood.
I know I was blessed. But It's still hard to feel sometimes when you're stuck with this lifelong disease that touches you every single day of your life.

My DO family was so good to me, so understanding and gracious about the whole thing. My doctors said that I shouldn't be working in the state that I was in, and I told the Orchard that, and everything was ok. I'm not saying that it wasn't an inconvenience to them because I'm sure that it was. But they were just so good to me and told me that I had a job when I wanted to come back.

3 months after I was diagnosed, we found out I was pregnant. to the shock of my doctors, I had gotten my A1C down to 6.9 and was seemingly healthy enough to carry a child.

My life was falling apart, but my dreams were coming true at the same time. I will admit, I wasn't in a good state of mind since my diagnosis, and only recently came out of that. It was the hardest year of my life and I felt very alone. Very sad and alone and abandoned by God and thinking thoughts that I am afraid to even admit to myself.

Sometimes I can only think, thank God I got pregnant when I did. Because I value this tiny life inside of me more than I value many things in my own, and I truly believe that through God, she saved me.

At my doctor visit last week, I found out my A1C is now 5.7 and my numbers have been alright. a few highs here and there but nothing I can't handle. (I say this now, but if we just keep in mind my last blog post, I'm sure I'll recant that in a few days.)

I wonder if my life will always be this roller coaster of happy and sad, or will it calm down and I'll mature a little (or a lot) and be more stable? Not that I think that I'm unstable, I just think that I'm only 19 and still have some growing to do.

I think it will be better when Maggie is here.

I can't wait to hold her in my arms.

Peace, Mego out.