Tuesday, July 11, 2006

The Truth Shall Set You Free

,What's this? A post without a logo update? Yep. Aren't you lucky.

It's monday night, and things are pretty good. They're not super happy great, but that's alright. They'll get better. They're improving already.

So, I've got three stories for you tonight. The last one is the really important one, but the others are good too. I don't have too much else to say, so I'm just gonna launch into story one.

So, it's 6:10 this morning, and my alarm goes off. I roll out of bed, turn it off, and think to myself, "Good crap, it's too early. I'm going back to bed." But then the more intelligent part of my brain kicks in and says "You're not going to bed until you've set your other alarm so you'll wake up in 10 minutes. Good thinking Christopher." So I set my alarm, and go back to bed. Sleep for 10 minutes, wake up to my other alarm. I roll out of bed, turn it off, and think to myself, "Good crap, it's too early. Too bad I can't go back to bed. I'm gonna sit in my comfy office chair for a few minutes, then get ready for practice." So, I sit in my comfy office chair, prop my legs up on Andrew's comfy office chair, thinking that there's no possible way that I could fall asleep like this, oh no. I'd be awake in 5 minutes, eating breakfast, getting ready to go run my heart out.

Well, despite my best efforts, I had a very nice nap with the office chair setup. You'd be surprised at how comfortable you can really make two office chairs. But moral of the story is, I totally fell asleep again. I slept for a good 30 minutes, and woke up to the clock downstairs chiming 7. I'm supposed to be at the school at 7 for practice. I look at the clock, and my heart sorta sinks. C'mon now, I don't want to be a slacker. I just slept way too late to make it to practice. There's no way I'll get there in time. I might as well just go back to bed, sleep in.

So, with my spirits low, I crawl in to bed. I look at the clock, and it says 7:03. I close my eyes, ready to wake up at 11.

But then, from the depths of my mind I remembered what Katie told me yesterday. Something about me being so motivated, she didn't know how I did it, etc. etc. I thought to myself, "Look at me now, missing practice cause I was stupid and slept in late. Booooooooo. I'm a slackerpants. Some action figure I am." And that thought didn't sit well with me. I was letting Katie down, being a slackerpants. Sure, time was against me, but that just wasn't good enough. The clock still said 7:03. I decided that good crap, I'm going to tear myself away from this pillow, and make it to practice before the team left. I knew I had at least a couple minutes, they always do warmups at the track before they leave. I figured I had about 10 minutes.

In great haste I jump out of bed for the third time that morning. I run around, trying to find my shorts, and eventually find them in the laundry room downstairs. I don't even bother changing out of the shirt I slept in, no time. I throw some shoes on, run in and wake mom and dad up to ask if I can take a car to the school. My mom wakes up with a snort, and I'm like "MomcanItakeacartocrosscountry??!" And she's like, "......Yeah..... take whatever's out there." So then I run in and I'm like "Andrew! Can I borrow your keys?" and he's like "......huh?" and I'm like "Andrew! I need to borrow your keys!" and he's like ".....ok......" So then I grab his keys, and I run downstairs, and I grab two fruitsnacks to stow in my socks, and I grab two bananas for breakfast. I throw one down my throat before I leave the door, and chuck the peel. I book it out there, hop in the car, and I'm like "It's go time." I was thinking to myself, if I had driving gloves, I'd put them on for this. So then I'm booking it over to the school, following the speedlimit almost. If anyone asks I couldn't convert the metrics to miles per hour fast enough. So I'm like Do do.... chkachkachakchak do do DO do.... DO do. Making the driving song, you know how it goes. Then I get to the light, and I'm like "Curses! A light!" But then I realized that it gave me a great opportunity to eat my second banana! Which I did, with great aplomb. So then the light turns green, and I'm like "VROOOM!" and I get to the parking lot, park, and run out there. I make it before the team leaves, and Coach is like "'mornin Thatcher." And I'm like " 'Morning coach, sorry I'm late."

And that was that. I totally made it to practice, even though by all means I shouldn't have. Practice was super super good though. Coach's assignment for us: "You're going to run for 90 minutes. 45 minutes out, 45 minutes back in. You need to run at a 6 and a half minute mile pace the whole way. Ok go."

So, as it was early morning, I couldn't quite do the math just yet. I had no idea what was going to happen. None of us had watches, so we just decided we were going to keep running and figure it out on the way. After about a mile, my brain finally figured out that if we really did what coach told us to do, we'd end up running 22.4 km, or 14 miles. That's a little more than half a marathon. So, I wasn't sure how I felt about that, but I knew that I was really enjoying running fast. We weren't just plodding along, this was no distance run. This was supposed to be sorta fast. We weren't racing, but it felt great to get my legs moving to something other than the funeral pace. It might have been the adrenaline from having to rush to get there, but I was really really pumped up. I was just ready to go, nothing was going to stand in my way.

So, we made the decision that we were gonna run to gardner village and back. That would be about 14 km, 9 miles. That's definitely not the good 22 km we needed, but we figured it was a good enough start, and that anything more would be ridiculous. The whole time out there I was booking it, I wasn't sure what was going down. Everybody was telling me to slow down, save my energy. But no deal, I was ready to go. I knew that I wasn't quite thinking straight, I was way too hyper for my own good. I generally don't get too hyper on distance runs, but wow. I said Good morning to everybody we passed on the trail. I always say good morning, but this time I was super cheerful. I was yelling at people that were on other trails but that we could still see. I was just a machine. I ran fast, I wished people good morning, and It was just great.

So, we get out there, then come back. I didn't get to run as fast as I wanted to coming back, everybody was telling me to not be a dingus and slow down. I guess I finally started listening to them, even though I wanted to keep running. All in all, it was a super great practice, it felt great. My body thought it was clements. If I keep this up, maybe I'll do good.

But really, I'm proud of myself. I know that's a bad thing to say, makes me look like an egotistical windbag. But ya know what, I made it to practice this morning. I know that I made the right choice, even though I was about yay close to staying in bed. I mean, I was already there, I was totally justified. I had made the mistake of falling asleep, and now it was too late. But screw that idea. I'm getting up and going to practice. I did the right thing, and that makes me happy.

So, moral of the story is: Get up when you're supposed to, it saves you lots of trouble. Other moral of the story is: Don't give up, even if you're already 3 minutes late and you're in your pajamas.

So that was fun, I loved it. On to story 2:

Frisbee friday was raging fun. For the first time since Brad's departure, we had the really old generation show up. See, I've played with 3 generations during my frisbee career. The biggest generation was Andrew and Brad's, the ones that graduated last year. Some of them are still around, but most of them are filing off on missions. They've got skills, they're tight. Then, we've got our generation. The one consisting of me and kyle and levi and james and thadeus and shelton and Nick and Ninja and all those other stallions around here. Then, there's the oldschool generation. The generation that's been there, done that, and that are old. Brad's older sister Christina is one of them, and so is Booey. I'm not sure if that's how you spell his name, but he can throw a forehand the length of the field. They really are the oldschool though. They're a little older than all of us, and they're not in super athletic performance mode like alot of the guys we've got out there. It's funny though, because they've got all the technique and skill. You see these short old guys running around, throwing amazing throws, making great cuts. It's good times.

So, we've got 3 generations. They were all there in force on friday. At one point we had 26 people playing. We had to break into 4 teams, and do the cool tournament. We had two teams playing up to the side of the parking lot, and the other two playing down in the bowl. The two winners kept playing in the bowl, the losers had to play up top.

It was one of my favorite nights playing frisbee. We've always got problems picking captains. Nobody wants to be captains. We used to have a failproof way to get captains, but it doesn't work when there are newbies around, and since we've always got newbies these days, that has become worthless. So, we always fight over who shall be captain. I decided friday that what-the-heck, I'm going to volunteer to be captain. I know everybody there, I can bridge all three generations. I know who to pick to make a good team, sign me up.

See, I've got an advantage over the other people. Coming from the lowest generation, I know everybody. I've been playing with this same group for 2 or 3 years now. I know Booey, I know Christina. I know Brady and Andrew and Isaac. But most importantly, I know the rising generation, and nobody else does. I know Kyle and Shelton and Thadeus and Levi. Isaac has never even seen Thadeus before. So, using my crazy generation bridging skills, I decided that I'd get the ball rolling and be captain.

Throughout the evening we played 7 games. 4 of those were in the 4 team tournament. 2 of them were in the 3 team tournament. One was a warmup, and the other was the two super team match. I had to pick 4 seperate teams. I was always the last one to pick. When it was just two teams being picked, I took second pick. When it was all 4, I took 4th pick. I knew I was setting myself up for something good. Either we'd be victorious, and I'd sound pretty cool cause I volunteered for last pick, or we'd lose, and I'd look like a little cocky pansy because I thought I was tough and could still make it taking last pick.

Picking teams is always a challenge. It's a hard choice. You know how people play, but sometimes people have good nights, and sometimes people have bad nights. You know that certain people work really well together, and that other people can't stand to play with some guys. You know that if they pick this guy, you've gotta hurry and pick his little brother, because you can't pair those two up, they're unstoppable. You know if they pick little pappas, you've got to pick someone that can defend the raging cherry pick. It's all very political, and just intense. You always wanna make the best choice possible, and so you're careful. You know that one wrong pick might skew the game the wrong direction, and you're gonna get flattened. It's a stressful job.

Picking was tough, but I think I did well. I stuck to the rising generation alot more than I expected to. My plan was always to take speed and hustle over slower guys with more raw skill. Thadeus was usually on my team, and if I could get Levi or James I'd definitely spring for them too. Shawn Fairborn was always high on the priority list, so was little pappas. I went with a younger team all 4 times, but it definitely payed off.

Moral of the story is: We went undefeated for the night. 7-0. We weren't even the first pick. We were the last pick, and we totally took them down. Go go go rising generation, you show those old folks.

So really, Frisbee is just great, I love it so. We're playing thursday, 7:00 this week instead of friday. My brother's getting married, and it's hard to be at a reception and play frisbee at the same time. So things are moving to thursday. it's gonna be kicks.

Hey Goober, what are you doing? I just dont know

It looks like my guest writer has popped in. See, story number three is intense. So intense, in fact, that I don't remember about 80% of it. I was there for the whole of it, but I just don't remember it. Therefore, I've brought in an expert guest writer. Please welcome Andrew Thatcher.

Why hello little ones, please gather round for the story of the century.

It all started Saturday morning, our Mom came in and woke Christopher and I up and told us that we needed to take care of the lawn. It was eventually decided that Christopher would go out and mow and I would go and endge it and whatever else. So eventually Christopher goes out to mow at about noon.

Important to note is that I never ate breakfast before going out to mow. I had a piece of toast and some chocolate milk. I didn't do any insulin cause I figured I'd just work the carbs out mowing. So, I didn't officially have breakfast. I go out there and mow, it takes me about an hour, but I figure it looks pretty dang good. Andrew comes around to edge a little later. Once I'm done mowing, Dad says he's made us smoothies in his awesome blender. So hey, I go have a smoothie. Once again, I don't do any insulin cause I feel a little low.


So he eats his smoothy and while I'm working, all signs say that he crawled back in bed and fell asleep. So I work my tail off for about 3 hours or so then go up to the room, get on the computer check the news whatever and I look around and notice that Christopher isn't in his bed. I was a little confused, my brother had disappeared, so I ask Michael if he has seen him, and he says"I think he is sleeping." That was not very helpful, so I decided to go investigate. Once again I check and he isn't in his bed, so I go downstairs and check the front room counches, his next favorite place to vegitate.

Sure enough he is there, but he wasn't quite laying down, or sitting up on the couch, I would say he was at about a 30 degree angle with the couch, resting on his arm. Upon closer inspection I found that he had his hands clentched with his vial of insulin in one hand and his syringe in the other and he had a lot of fresh sweat all upon his shirt.

Now, Andrew's a smart kid, he nailed me on this one. I had in fact laid down to take a little nap when I had finished the lawn. I chilled in the bed for a bit, then something woke me up, I don't quite remember. I started talking to a few people online, then decided to test. So, I test my bloodsugar, and it says 216. That's alot higher than I want to be, and I'm like "Ok, I'm going to do two units of insulin to take me back down to where I want to be." Right at that moment, I started to get really hungry though, and I remembered how very little I had eaten. So, thinking fast, I'm like "Ok, I'll do 5 more units of insulin so I can have a bowl of cereal, then everything will be peachy." So, I pop in 7 units of insulin, then go lay on the couch to wait a minute before I go eat. According to the Doc, it's better to do a shot before you eat, it makes things work better. So, I was going to wait for my bloodsugar to get back down to where it needed to be, then eat. So, I lay on the couch to wile away the time. I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up knowing that my bloodsugar was very very low. I had slept alot longer than I expected to, and now all that insulin was getting to me. I propped myself up with the design of walking into the other room to get some food, but I never got that far. I never even sat up all the way.

So, he is sitting at 30 dgrees clenching his vial and needle and staring at the arm of the other couch. I wasn't sure how long he had been there, for all I knew he went in, did a shot and fell asleep right after he finished mowing the lawn. He did not respond to me entering the room, so I said "Hey budge, what's up." Surprise surprise he didn't respond, or move, or blink. I tried to talk to him a few more times but there was nothing. So I have been around diabetics long enough to put these signs together and figure out that he was low, really low. But I didn't know how to fix him, I knew he needed sugar, but I thought it better to get an expert in there. I turned my head and yelled up the stairs "Hey Michael! Come down here!"

To my surprise and delight Christopher actually responded to this one he scowled "Don't Yell!" With as much energy and hate as that little kid could handle.

Upon hearing my plea, Michael came down to see the freak show that I had advertised in my unwelcome yell. He sees the kid and says
"Hey buddy, what are you doing!" while shaking his shoulder. Apparently this was as bad as yelling because Christopher mustered his hate and energy and spoke again telling Michael "Don't touch me!"

Michael quickly went into the kitchen to get some pears, while I stayed int he frontroom tryin got keep Chritopher awake. I realized that touching him actually gets a response and lets me know he is alive, so I patted his shoulder and asked "you still there bud?" You guessed it, anger; "Don't touch me!"

Michael came back with the bottle of pears and a fork and put a pear up to Christopher's mouth and said
"eat". Chistopher responded with "I don't like pears"

Ok, you've got to understand that when your bloodsugar goes really low, alot of different things start happening in your body. First and foremost, your cells need that sugar and energy to function. When they don't have that for whatever reason, they sort of start to shut down. So mind you, I don't remember any of this up to this point. I might have briefly been awake for Andrew walking in to the room, but I don't remember yelling at him, or Michael touching me. My brain really was starting to shut down. The whole cognitive thought thing just wasn't there for me. The other thing that starts to happen when you get really low, is you get way emotional, and everything is irritating. Maybe it's because your brain is functioning less, but you're just an emotional basketcase. So, you throw out my brain, and the shell of me is just responding to stimuli. So, apparently I yelled at him. He shouldn't have yelled.

However, there are a few patches of this whole experience that I do remember. My brother Michael is a big kid. I remember propping myself up to the 30 degree angle, and the next thing I remember is Michael coming at me with a GIANT pear on a fork that he's trying to shove in my mouth. It's all a little fuzzy, but come now. You're sitting here, nearly dead, and you've got your big brother with a giant pear coming for you. So naturally, I tried to resist.

So he is sitting up and Michael is shoveling small pieces of pear into his mouth. Christopher is mumbling all sorts of random things and Michael says "It's funny when you are low you think that you are the boss and everything you say makes perfect sense" and he kept shoveling the pears that Christopher didn't like into his mouth with surprisingly little resistance. I went into the kitchen to check something then walk back into the front room to hear Michael say "Here comes the airplane" while waving a huge chunk of pear infront of Christopher. To my utter glee, Christopher in his dazed and bewildered state opened his mouth and moved his head around to follow the pear where 'er it moved despite his earlier protest.

I then dumped the excess juice from the pear bottle into a cup, got a straw and took it into Christopher. I stuck the straw to his closed lips and said
"suck it" he sure did start to suck. He was downing it until there was about a thrid left, then he grabs my hand and pulls it down so the straw isn't in the juice anymore, but he just keeps sucking. I fix it so he is getting his life giving sugar water and he finishes the rest of it.

I'm not sure why, but he then decided to start chewing on the straw. I went to pull it out of his mouth, but before I could he just clamped down and would not let go. By this time Nathan, our oldest brother had come in to see the freak show, and mocked his feble attempt to clasp the straw in his mouth by laughing and making jabs at his mental capacities.

Eventually I coaxed Christopher into opening his mouth and letting me take the straw out so he wouldn't try to swallow it, so that disaster was avoided.

So..... the pear juice was chunky. I remember that part. I didn't like the chunks. I have no recollection of anyone playing airplane with me. That whole block was a gap. I do very vividly remember chewing on that straw though. I had no idea why, but I knew that I was chewing on it. Good straw. Just keep in mind, my mind is out the window.

Nathan, being very helpful, went down stairs and got our big fan, because Christopher was sweaing and looked really hot. Nathan turned on the fan and pointed it at Christopher and said
"doesn't that feel better?" Turns out that it didn't. The mean little boy started yelling as much as he could telling him to turn it off because it was "uncomfortable"

After the fam ordeal, he was starting to get his mind back a bit and asked for a glucose tablet and said
"They are in the drawer under the droor where. . .where we. . .keep stuff"

Michael interpretted by saying
"they are in the bottom drawer"

I went to the kitchen looking in the bottom drawer and heard Christopher saying something about looking in a box and apparently some sort of insults to my intelligence

I found the fabled box and at the top found a tube of "liquid glucose" I took it in and was going to give it to him but he said "I don't want the liquid, I want the solid" He was a very honry patient, but I went in and dug deeper in the box until I found the five year expired glucose tablets.

Ooh ooh, I remember this part. I remembered how proud I was, cause I told andrew that the liquid glucose was gross cause it expired in '74. I was proud of myself cause I used numbers to insult him. I was getting a tiny bit of brain function back. I was still a little jerk, the sensitive part of me wasn't online yet, but I thought I was so cool cause I had used everything my brain had to explain exactly why that liquid glucose was bad. I was backing up arguments with reasoning here. This was a good sign.

Mind you the solid glucose tablets were older than the liquid ones, but as was explained before,
"when you are low, you are the boss, and everything you say is right" Anyway, I took the solid tablets in and Michael said "man, those are gross."

Christopher retorted "I like them, let me have them."

I decided not to let him hold them because I wasn't sure if he was sane yet, or how many he would eat, so I gave them to him one at a time at Michael's council and he chomped them right down. And within a few minutes he was back, still a little physically weak, but his mind was back, still a little beast, but at least the words made sense.

And that is the story of me saving Christopher's life, with the help of my associates, minus Nathan, the fan hindered the whole process.

Let's all give Andrew a round of applause for saving my life and helping write this post. Yay for Andrew.

So, there you have it. What happens when I do alot of insulin then don't eat anything? Bad things. I don't remember more than a few tiny little pieces of that whole story. When I was finally coming back, I had no idea that it was me sitting there. I knew what was going on, I knew that "I" was low, and that "I" was being helped by Andrew and Michael. I had no idea whether it was a dream, or a memory, or me just thinking of what might happen in a certain situation, or if it really was me sitting there. I didn't believe that it was me, it just didn't feel like it. As I started to get more into it though, I guess I finally accepted it, but it took a while.

All in all, funny experience, but sorta scary. We're all laughing about it, but had I been home alone, bad stuff could have happened. I really made a stupid choice with that nap. I'm not going to do that anymore. It's getting really late. I meant to write alot more about the questions and stuff it's brought up. Maybe next time.

The important thing is, I've got really great big brothers that are willing to play airplane with a really mean 16 year old that can't move his arms or legs. Did Andrew really save my life? I think so. It's funny how close that was. I mean, I could have gone a little bit longer without brain damage or whatever, but it was dangerous. Not to get all mushy or whatever, but I could have died. How lame is that? I always thought that death would be a choice. Like, I'd be sitting there, with this gaping wound in my chest, and I'd be able to hold on, because my mind and will power were so strong. I'd hold on to life, even though I shouldn't be able to. Yeah, none of that. For all my running, for all my frisbee, for how good of shape I like to think I'm in, it didn't do much for me on the couch. I was just there, muttering really mean things about Andrew. No choices, I didn't even know that it was me on the couch for a bit. So yeah, good times.

The important thing is, Andrew's a stallion, and that's not gonna happen again. So yeah, I'm a mindless zombie, so what? Have a nice evening everybody. Hooray for being alive.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yay for Andrew. Christopher should be nicer. Hey Thatcher, I'm glad you're not dead.

Nick said...

Yeah, me too. Imagine... Well, at least I'd play Taps for you on the Frisbee Hill of Honor.