I actually talked to my sister
My sister called me last night and interrupted my sleep which I desparately needed after waking up at 3:30 and doing the Bolder Boulder 10k. Normally, I would’ve ignored her call, I do that often to her because we usually end up in a fight. I don’t much enjoy fighting with her anymore, they’re pointless fights, doesn’t get me anything but the feeling of annoyedness and a million questions in my head.
Last night however, for some odd reason, I picked up the phone. It ended up being an hour phone call because I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I had been sleeping and didn’t feel like talking to her (I mean, I could’ve not answered, but since I did I suppose I thought I owed it to her to listen.)
She went on and on about PCOS or something or other (I didn’t pay much attention because I’ve been listening to that part of the story for years and frankly, it doesn’t matter to me, I could care less). Then she got to the point where she thinks and everyone else thinks that she has diabetes and “oh my gosh what do I need to do”. Of course, I told her to go to the doctor and get a fasting glucose test done and BAM! she’ll know if she has diabetes. Of course (because she has an answer for everything because that runs in the family, the answer for everything part) she says, “I have, they have done the test, and it shows I don’t have diabetes”.
I roll my eyes. We’ve had the diabetes talk before, she’s on metformin, she’s overweight, she doesn’t eat healthy, and she doesn’t exercise. Usually I tell her she deserves it if she gets diabetes. She’ll have earned it. And I truly think that, still to this day, but I didn’t express that thought this time. I kept my mouth shut and let her continue on.
And then she started describing symptoms that went with Type 1 diabetes (and now, I know my sister, and I know she’s a hypochondriac, she has been all her life and of late she’s been a cyberchondriac, I wouldn’t be surprised if she had looked up the symptoms and told me what fit, something in my head says she’s not smart enough to get that there’s more than one type of diabetes.) She said she’s lost 45 lbs since August, now the last time I saw her, she looked as fat as she did every other time. She’s a cow, she doesn’t look like she’s losing weight but she says she is, in pounds per day apparently. I asked her about water intake, she’s drinking a gallon a day (it’s also the magic number I was drinking when I got diabetes, a gallon of milk a day in addition to all the water and other stuff). I asked her about going to the bathroom, well, once every 2 hrs which is more than I normally go she says.
She wanted one of my machines, I’m stingy with my machines and even more so with my test strips, not to mention I’m on vacation. I told her to go to Walmart get an One Touch Ultra Smart Mini and check her blood before she goes to bed, when she wakes up, at meal times and 1 and 2 hour post meal. I really had no clue what I was telling her, but I also kindof thought nothing would come of it. I told her to do that for a few days and call me when she had records. I also told her that if she went over 200 to call the doctor (I have no clue if that’s accurate, but whatever).
The point of this story is, I actually talked to my sister for an hour without fighting with her or raising my voice.
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June 4th, 2008 at 7:43 am
[...] Last week when she called me and was telling me what was going on a piece of me really hoped she didn’t have diabetes because it sounded like Type 1. Diabetes isn’t anything I would wish upon anyone. But all the calls I’ve had with her this week just irritated me. Excuses were flying everywhere about why she hasn’t changed, why she didn’t stop gaining weight, why she wasn’t making those lifestyle changes that would nip Type 2 diabetes in the bud: I hate exercise, I hate being outdoors, blah blah blah…and since when are ramen noodles healthy eating? This week I thought she deserved it if she got it because it was sounding like Type 2. [...]