March has been…chaos.

2020 was hell. 2021 was heller. 2022 said, “Hold my beer!” in the worst way possible, especially last month.

For those following along on social media, you know that Riley’s heart meds are killing his kidneys. Nothing we can do about it other than let the two organs fight and see who wins. You also know that DiNozzo may have cancer and gets his biopsy tomorrow. You might also know that I got diagnosed with steroid-induced cataracts, for which I need surgery in both eyes. (This last bit has made it very challenging to write, do art, read books, hell—do anything really.)

But I had a kicker this past week to try and top them all. I spent 6 hours in the ER on Thursday. On Wednesday, I had my normal annual bloodwork + auto-immune bloodwork done and apparently missed calls at midnight from my doctor. Never a good sign. I woke up Thursday to a call from my doctor in near hysterics, telling me to go to the ER immediately. Turns out, COVID is the gift that keeps on giving.

See, newer research into COVID and long-COVID shows that it attacks organs, right? Particularly the heart, brain, and lungs, but it can also attack the kidneys, liver, and pancreas. In 2020, my bloodwork was fine. The pandemic had us eating better as we stopped going out to eat, ate more fruits and veggies, ate less stuff that comes from a box, and personally, I cut out soda, which is huge for me.

I knew I’d lost a ton of weight and based on changes to my body and size, I figured it was in the ballpark of 60-70 pounds. When they weighed me at the ER, I discovered I’d actually lost 117 pounds. <insert shock face> I haven’t weighed this amount since my first year of college—but I’m burying the lead here. I suspect I’m doing that because this still feels very unreal to me, and I’m still processing it. The reason my doctor sent me to the ER is that in my bloodwork, they found my blood sugar was very high. That new research I’m talking about for COVID? Apparently those of us with long-COVID have a 40% increased chance of developing Type II Diabetes due to long-COVID attacking the pancreas. Also, my massive weight loss adds another 10-15% increase in my chances. Add to that my genetics and boom—that was it. I am now diabetic.

Out of all the things my body could give me, it gives me this? I know there are worse diseases to get, but dammit, I’d really hoped to live in this world without this disease. The ER doctor wanted me to see my primary care doc and an endocrinologist within two days. <insert laugh track here>  NO ONE has that availability in this pandemic. I see my PCP this Thursday, where she will hopefully adjust my medFormin, but I don’t see the endocrinologist until the end of May. *sigh*

So I’m finally getting to my taxes and a million other things, but be patient with me. And if you’ve had cataract surgery or have diabetes, feel free to ply me with your tales. It’s nice to know others have gone through this and come out the other end okay. Feel free to share your kitty pics too. Keep ours in your thoughts. <3