Bountyman

Originally Posted by Bountyman

A friend of mine stopped by this afternoon. During our visit I realized that we hadn't seen each other since before I was diagnosed with type II diabetes. He saw my Bayer USB meter plugged into the front of my computer...said it was the biggest thumb drive he'd ever seen. Said 'what does that puppy hold, about a gazillion gigabytes?' I told him it wasn't a thumb drive but a blood glucose meter that uses a USB connection for downloading the blood glucose tests onto a program.

"So, what's up with that?" he asked. "Somethin' wrong with your blood I oughta know about? You don't like have something I can get takin' a pull off this Jack Daniel's bottle, do you?"

"No!", I explained. "For the last maybe, oh, 5 years I'd been trying to kill my pancreas and other organs through my decadent lifestyle!"

"So, did you do it?", he asked.

I said 'almost' but Rick found me nosed into the carpet one day, called the whaaambulance, they came and got me and took me to the ER...then they showed me the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was; took stuff outta me, put stuff into me and then went somewhere else for 2 hours. (apologies to Arlo Guthrie)

I explained to my friend what diabetes was, what types there were, why they were that type, what treated what, what did what, what the heck and whatever...and then after a half hour I asked my friend if he understood any of that. He replied:

"Well...the way I understand it, with type II you're like your pancreas's little helper. With type I...you ARE the pancreas!"

I agreed.