LifeAfterDx--Diabetes Uncensored

A internet journal from one of the first T1 Diabetics to use continuous glucose monitoring. Copyright 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016

My Photo
Name:
Location: New Mexico, United States

Hi! I’m William “Lee” Dubois (called either Wil or Lee, depending what part of the internet you’re on). I’m a diabetes columnist and the author of four books about diabetes that have collectively won 16 national and international book awards. (Hey, if you can’t brag about yourself on your own blog, where can you??) I have the great good fortune to pen the edgy Dear Abby-style advice column every Saturday at Diabetes Mine; write the Diabetes Simplified column for dLife; and am one of the ShareCare diabetes experts. My work also appears in Diabetic Living and Diabetes Self-Management magazines. In addition to writing, I’ve spent the last half-dozen years running the diabetes education program for a rural non-profit clinic in the mountains of New Mexico. Don’t worry, I’ll get some rest after the cure. LifeAfterDx is my personal home base, where I get to say what and how I feel about diabetes and… you know… life, free from the red pens of editors (all of whom I adore, of course!).

Saturday, May 17, 2014

Lost


I’ve lost something.

Me.

Everyone else says they can see me. But I can’t seem to find myself.

It’s an odd sensation. There’s really nothing wrong, but nothing feels right, either. Well, yeah, I’m still running tired. I nap a lot. Even as an infant, according to my mother, I never napped. And I’m a bit forgetful. Yesterday, I drove to Santa Fe without my wallet and without enough gas to get home. But that could happen to any stressed-out, over-worked 50-year-old man.

I still seem to be able to do my work just fine. Yes, it takes me longer to write than before, but my editors assure me that the quality is unchanged. I can still look at blood sugar patterns and understand what’s going on in my patient’s bodies. I still remember all the diabetes meds, what they do, and what their dangers are. I’m still able to spot the lies and self-delusions some of my patients bring to the table. I am still able to comfort the newly diagnosed, and to inspire the old hands who have fallen off the wagon to get back on and back into the game.

So I am functioning. 

But it I feel hollow. Like an actor playing a part, instead of a real, living, breathing human being. I guess that’s it. I don’t feel that I’m alive, that I’m living.

Something is lost.

I can’t put my finger on it, but I just don’t feel… well, Me.

My joy, my zest, my inner-sparkle seems to have died with the chickenpox.


It never occurred to me that a disease could spare your body but kill your soul.


5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Depression? I hope you start feeling better soon.

3:24 PM  
Blogger Jonah said...

It's the continuity, I think. The sense of being the person who was in your body last year- gone. The sense of being able to anticipate what comes next. Am I right?

It's been almost eight years since I lost it. I was keenly aware of it for between one and two years.

It won't go back to the way it used to be, but you will find yourself again Wil.

4:17 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hope your on the way to finding yourself Wil.

Alx.

5:39 PM  
Blogger RichW said...

Hey Wil, years ago you were writing about being broke and wanting to write a book and I told you to just do it. It's been years since I've looked at your blog, since you wrote your first book, and I see you've written four award winning books. Wow... I'm almost done with a book I've been writing forever but about growing up with the physical results of having had polio (it makes diabetes easier to endure). I need to take my own advice and finish the book. I hope you see life is full of wonderful challenges.

11:53 AM  
Blogger Dougs ramblings said...

Will - hope you have made progress on finding yourself. Miss seeing the musings of the unfiltered Will. The non PC Will

9:29 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home