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This is one of the contributions to:DIABETES ESSAY AND POEM COMPETITION 2009
It’s that time, every three months I go to clinic. And once again I don’t want to go, because I know my hb1ac is going to be an eyesore on the paper.
So pulling up in the parking space in the hospital car park, I quickly grab my mum’s purse and head to the shop to buy myself a magazine, a sugar free drink and a packet of crisps. I pay the whole £2.50 and met my mum in the café, where she has just bought herself a drink.
Now it was time to take the walk of shame down to clinic 8a, I walk past a few people I see each time I come and say hello. By now I was slowing down because we were getting closer and closer. I walk into the clinic and book myself in for the afternoon. Was it worth missing my favourite lessons of the week, just so I could come here and feel sorry for myself for the afternoon. Well anyway I didn’t have a choice. And with that my name got called into the room where they do the hb1ac test is done.
I shout to the nurse the nurse ‘I’m just going to wash my hands,’ and I slink off to the bathroom. After washing my hands three times a do a slow shuffle to my mum, where she is waiting with my stabber. And she whispers to me ‘ I promise I won’t be cross with you, whatever you get,’ and with those words of reassurance, I enter the room once again. Giving the nurse a drop of my blood and wiping my finger, to remove all the spare blood, I go and sit back next to my mum and continue to read my magazine.
Then I had to go to the height and weight room and get them recorded onto my piece of paper. I was happy with my weight. Is that a good thing?
When I re entered the room I saw my mum holding the single white sheet of paper, holding the result of my test, and with that she looked up to me and gave me a weak smile. ‘ guess what it is?’ she says with disappointment in her voice. ‘ I don’t know, greater than fourteen, maybe?’ on saying that my mum looked at me and just smiled again. I knew I was right.
At that point all different thoughts ran through my mind. Was I going to have to go back onto twice a day? Was I going to have to eat in class and endure endless hypos? The answer to me was yes. But first was the talk with the consultant.
Enter his room I handed him the paper. He looked at it and gave me his disappointed look. I just hung my head in shame. I knew I had done wrong but I couldn’t help it. I had fallen into a routine of not taking my insulin, and now here were the consequences. After a long talk with him and seeing the specialist nurse. They agreed that I could keep my routine, but to tweak it a little bit. I would have to have a long acting insulin of a morning, and to keep my short acting of a night time. I was so grateful to them. But they had one condition. I had to be taking it everyday and my hb1ac had to come down, even if it was just a little bit. Then they would have been happy. And now it is just a few weeks until my next appointment, and I can’t wait because I know that it will have come down. And when I walk into that clinic, I know that I don’t have to hang my head in shame. And I know that my mum won’t have a weak smile, but a strong one that is very proud of me. And when I enter the consultant’s room he won’t give me the disappointing look but the same proud one my mum wears on her face.