22 and 0

"You'd never know it from looking at your eyes."

That was my ophthalmologist's response to my saying that I'd had diabetes for 22 years. That's the exact response you want to hear, of course, but it was a stressful few minutes... hours... weeks waiting to hear it.

Obviously, I had my annual eye exam today. Except, it has been a smidge more than a year since the last one, and I had to force myself to make the appointment and go. Even though I know that the best way to handle eye complications is to be ALL over them, with timely exams and proactive care, making the appointment is an annual battle against the fear of the potential result.

During the exam prep, the technician who would be performing my vision test asked if I'd checked my blood sugar today, and what it was. I said, "which time?" and that (of course) threw her off a little. When I said "110 at noon, 190 at 8AM and 282 at 2AM" (damn pizza), she asked how long it had been fluctuating like that.

Sigh. "22 years," was all I could say.

To make things even more interesting, the doc's office has a new service. After they put the highlighter-yellow drops in your eyes, they leave you alone in the exam room while your eyes dilate... and show you an informational video about Diabetic Retinopathy, complete with an animated demonstration of lasers shooting into the computerized eye.

Seriously, I thought I was going to throw up.

After the video finished scaring the shit out of educating me, I had about half an hour of silence to psyche myself up for whatever the doc had to say. It ended well, as you already know, and for that I am incredibly grateful. Exhausted from worry, but grateful.