Love, Fate and Other Things I'm over

chapter one

chapter one

fifteen days after diagnosis

I couldn't breathe.

I knew what was happening- the occurrence was nightly at this point.

I couldn't breathe and my legs had gone stiff to the bone and they were cramping badly. The pain shot up my calves, stretching to behind my knees. The stinging sensation was excruciating, and I was sweating all over. I had kicked off my covers and they now lay at the base of my bed in a heaped mess.

My chest was constricted, and my breaths were becoming ragged and airy. The panic was settling deep into my pores, sinking into my skin and permeating the calm that had previously washed over me.

It took a few minutes for the cramping in my legs to go away as I cried softly. I wasn't about to wake my parents up. They' hardly been getting much sleep. They were coming into my room in the middle of the night and the early hours of the morning to check my sugar levels to make sure I wasn't going to have a low overnight and I already felt immensely guilty.

Half an hour later, the pain had subsided, and my chest no longer felt so restricted. It had taken many deep breaths and reassurance from myself to get my mind and my body to calm down. I looked over to the clock beside my bed, it was four a.m.

There was no going back to sleep now, no matter how much I tried. Besides, I was not overly excited to return to my restless state.

As I lay in bed, staring at my ceiling where a detailed painting of the night sky was, my thoughts wandered.

My entire ceiling was painted like the night sky. There was a detailed painting of the moon, constellations and stars. My mum's best friend had painted it when I was a baby. The paint even glowed in the dark. It's been on my roof ever since. My eyes scanned the painting as my mind erupted.

Why was this happening to me?

You know why. That little voice in the back of my head chided. It's because you're fucked up and useless.

The tears gathered in my eyes once more as I nodded into the dark. I was useless. My mum and dad had been taking on the brunt of my diabetes work, simply because I refused to acknowledge that this was happening to me. It was like the functional part of my brain had decided; yep, this isn't happening, we're not doing this. Ignore. Ignore. Ignore.

I didn't know how to handle the fact that my world had been turned upside down in such a short amount of time and I was repressing any thought that acknowledged that everything had changed.

I don't want to do this.

I don't want to do this.

I just want my old life back.

I want a life without carb counting and finger pricks. A life without stabbing needles into myself daily, a life without stress.

But I couldn't have that. And I never would be able to.