My eyes have been crap all day. Blurry vision. It’s very frustrating. I have my appointment at the eye ward tomorrow, maybe they’ll have something to say about it. We’ll see. Geddit?

Not much in the mood for storytelling now. But there isn’t much more to tell anyway. I went to the hospital and they started asking me questions and drawing blood. Repeatedly. I called home to let my parents know what was going on. My dad came over and picked up my stuff. And later on they all visited me. Repeatedly. Brought me toothpaste and books and whatever else I needed. My mother gave me advice on the hospital food. She works in the kitchen at the hospital. So she had inside information. What I should avoid due to the onion hazards. I quite liked most of the food I had while I was there really.

My dad came by with travel insurance papers for the doctors to sign. So we could get some of the money from the Greenland trip back. He also returned my boots for me. They were good boots, but a little overkill for just use in Denmark. At that price at least.

Most of the time I was there I just sat in my bed and stared at the wall or out the window. Thinking. I had books and papers and TV. But I found it hard to focus on them. So I spent a whole lot of time thinking, about what was going on and what the future would be like. And learning stuff about diabetes and injecting myself and all that. One of the first brochures I read said that you were allowed to drink sugarfree soda freely. That was a good thing, otherwise I would have probably gotten terribly depressed.

There was a doctor who asked if he could use me as a case for his students. One of the students came to ask me questions and examine me, just like the “real” docs and nurses had done. The original plan was for me to be wheeled down in the class room and have them all look at me. I said yes to that, even though I didn’t want to at all. I’m just very bad at telling people no. So then I felt horrible about it for a while, but managed to tell the doc that I didn’t want to after all. It was ok for the student to talk to me and for them to come up to my room just quickly, but that was it. And then it turned out that there were only 3 students and it wasn’t so bad after all. I was picturing myself sitting in front of a class room of tv-doctor interns staring at me and such. Hah. Oh well. I’m glad I was able to help them out somewhat at least. The doctor was very grateful.

And that’s about all I think. It wasn’t nice, but once I got into my own room it was somewhat bearable.

Now tomorrow is eye examination. Tuesday is back to the hospital. I have a followup meeting with the dietician in December. Foot examination in January. And cataracts examination in March. Christmas party on Friday. I think that about covers it.

I think my eyesight has improved a little while writing this. My blood sugar must be stable. For now. It’s been around 5-6 mostly. So that’s quite good. I think I have adapted well to the new regime, so far. I’m eating my greens and regular meals. It’s pretty good so far. I thought I’d be devastated and not want to live, but it’s not like that at all. Life goes on.

Definitely starting to feel better. Downgraded from horrible to almost just uncomfortable. A step in the right direction.

I had to go to the hospital today, though. I was running low on insulin. The nurse I talked to couldn’t understand why they hadn’t given me a prescription for refills. But she gave me a new pen (it comes in pens, but you can’t write with them so they’re pretty lousy pens when you think about it). When I go in for my appointment on Tuesday I’ll get a prescription so I’ll be able to get new ones at the pharmacy. Although I hope I can stop doing the insulin injections at some point. That’d be nice. Not that the injections are so horrible really. It’s been much easier than I thought. The idea of sticking a needle in yourself is not nice. But it’s just a tiny little needlepoint attached to the pen. Lift up a flap of skin and in it goes. It doesn’t hurt or anything. Nothing to be scared of. But it would be nice to not have to get up every morning and deal with it nonetheless.

The nurse was very nice. It’s been a good experience really. The people. I mean, it’s hard for me to deal with all these new people. But they are all so sweet and nice. And it’s almost humbling in a way. All these kind strangers who dedicate their lives to helping others. It’s their job of course. But I’m sure you wouldn’t become a nurse or a doctor if you hated people and wanted them to die: Unless you’re one of those psycho nurses who kills patients in their sleep and disguises it as natural causes. And I think those mainly exist in American drama series. All of the nurses I met were very nice. When they found out that I had social phobia and wasn’t too happy about being in a big room with 6 beds and other people, they got me moved to a 2 bed room that I had all to myself. That made everything so much easier for me. So big thanks to all the nice nurses and doctors. Good people.

The other patients in that first room I was in were very nice too, don’t get me wrong. There was especially one guy who was all friendly and kept showing and telling me how to do things. Very kind of him, especially since I was probably giving off a “I’m miserable, please leave me alone” vibe. He was very helpful. “Shouldn’t you be getting in your hospital clothes?” “They didn’t give you any? Oh I’ll just go tell them. …oh nurse?” and he’d go off and tell the nurse that they hadn’t given me any hospital clothes. It was thanks to him that I got headphones for my TV just in time to watch the last 15 minutes of the Brondby game that was on the telly too. I didn’t think they’d get the TV2 Sport channel in the hospital so I didn’t bother checking for the game at first. Missed out on an incredible 4-3 game. Brondby went down 0-2, the other team had a man sent off and it was 2-2 and Brondby took the lead 3-2 and they equalized 3-3 and then we finally won it in the end 4-3. What a game to miss. Stupid diabetes. Anyway, that guy was so very nice. And he also talked in his sleep which was somewhat startling. I don’t remember what he said, just random phrases. Another guy had breating problems and snored loudly. They were nice guys but I’m glad I only had to spend one night in there. It was hard to get through. I wanted to pull the curtains around my bed, but none of the other guys did that. So I felt like I couldn’t do it either, like it would be like saying “I don’t like you guys” or something. Yeah. Stupid social phobia. I would have been more comfortable with the curtains around my bed, but too self conscious to do it. Oh well.

It was hot in there too. I prefer a cool environment. I had to sleep in the hospital clothes, I wouldn’t feel comfortable sleeping in my underoos. And I couldn’t turn the heat down or open the window. That was probably the first thing I did when I got my own room. Open the window and breathe some fresh air. That made the nights easier. It was still hard to get some good sleep, though. They came in to measure my blood sugar 2-3 times a night. Just when you manage to fall asleep in that new and frightening place someone shakes you and tells you that they’re going to stab you a little. Man, they took so many blood samples from me that first day. And then I had to collect urine. Wheee. That’s always fun. For 3 days. It was a blow when they told me that, because I knew I’d have to stay for that long then. It must have been Tuesday morning they told me that. I was hoping to go home Tuesday. No way that was happening.

Well, now I’m all warmed uo and typing I guess I should do the long version of what happened. It may be boring but it’s nice to have it written down anyway.

So let’s see. I had the appointment with the eye doctor Monday at 9 o’clock. He told me that there were signs of diabetes in my eyes. And cataracts. He told me to go to my own doctor to have the diabetes thing checked out further. My regular doc is right next door practically so he told me to go make an appointment right away. I went outside and met up with my dad. We were going to go boot shopping at 9:30. For the Greenland trip. We had forgotten that the shops don’t open before 10 o’clock. So with half an hour to spare I asked him if we could go to the doctor’s office so I could make an appointment. And that was fine. So we went there. The secretary had some trouble finding a time for me. No openings. So finally she said “if you come back at 1 o’clock the doc will see you”. Alrite. So my dad and I went to ye olde boot shop. And bought bigass, expensive boots. Plus a hat and gloves. We were done by 10:30 or so. I didn’t feel like going back home just to have to come back downtown an hour or two later. So we decided to stay for a while. We went to a little cafeteria-style place and had something to eat. Sandwiches. I had a nice bacon/chicken sandwich. Afterwards we went to this hip coffee/coco joint. Jazz music playing in the background. A girl sitting at a laptop. Another couple of girls talking to each other in English .We had a cup of hot chocolate. It felt very in.

It was really nice spending that time with my dad. I don’t usually do those sort of things, IE spending time with other people. But it was good. When we had finished our hot chocolate my dad went back home and I went shopping. I bought the Simpsons DVD set. And a bottle of Fanta Orange. Half a litre. I finished that while waiting for my doctor’s appointment. The last proper soda I’ll ever have. I’m sure it helped skyrocket my blood sugar. At the doctor’s office I delivered a urine sample and had the first of many blood samples taken from me. It didn’t take long for the doc (and the trainee doc who was with him) to come back and say that there were definite signs of diabetes and that he wanted to admit me to the hospital. He sent me out in the waiting room while he tried to get through to the admission place. And five minutes later he gave me a piece of paper and sent me on my way. The hospital is just a 10 minute bus trip from the doc’s office. I asked if I could go home with my stuff first, but he said that it would be best if I went straight to the hospital. So that was a bit of a shocker. Everything was going pretty fast all of a sudden. I had been expecting to get an eye test and buy boots and that’d be it for the day. Instead I was sent from doctor to doctor and straight to the hospital. Bam.

And now I’m tired and my eyes are blurring so that’s the end of storytime. I’ll try to pick it up tomorrow, although there’s not a lot left apart from the stuff I already told about the hospital. But thank you for listening and please tip your nurse on the way out.