SCHOOL COOKIES
Now, here is a free glucose meter for you, the doctor said to my sister as we left his office, both of us in tears. My sister had just been diagnosed with diabetes. She was overweight and in her forties, but we suspected it was coming because our paternal grandmother had it and our father, who had been dead for nine years, never caught it. I said I would take care of making the three or four calls, and promised Kate that I wouldn’t call anybody but close relatives. Kate wanted to handle her friends and co-workers at the school her own way. She probably wasn’t going to tell them anytime soon; after all, it was reported to us, not only by the doctor but by our dad and by other people, that you could live your whole life with diabetes. It would be painful, exhausting and uncomfortable, but you could do it. Kate’s biggest worry right now was her sugar. She had a constant craving for sugar, and she had Type 1 diabetes, the kind that restricts sugar intake almost entirely. She was always munching on donuts and cookies. I told her she could summon up the will power to stop, but she rejected this outright. Kate was bound and determined to keep sugar in her life as a pleasure, a sort of connection. I had introduced her to countless men but she was resigned to eternal spinsterhood. Her last real encounter had been when she was in college. This guy had taken her out a few times, she had fallen for him, and then a few women who lived in her dormitory let it slip that “Skip” was seeing a much prettier girl and that they had been sleeping together since sophomore year. That was all it took for Kate’s complete disillusionment with herself and with men.
