02/23/12 – Typeface

Fox and TMZ are reporting that actor Daniel Von Bargen (Sienfield, Super Troopers) has been hospitalized after an attempted suicide.  There was supposedly a release of the 911 call, but I’m not finding it now.  Having failed to fatally shoot himself, he made the emergency call and explained that he was supposed to go to the hospital to have “at least a few toes” removed due to diabetic complications.

At some point in my early teens, an insulin-dependent family friend was in a similar situation.  Already bound to a wheelchair and regularly going through dialysis, he was told he’d be losing a foot soon.  Taking a shotgun to his own head, he failed to kill himself immediately.  He dragged himself through the house until he caught his roommate’s attention.  His original goal was eventually met, but whether he kept that goal up to the end is debatable, seeing as how he sought help.

I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes about 27 years ago, and I’m admittedly a poor example based on doctors’ interests.  I don’t check my glucose levels on a regular basis; in fact, I don’t think I have a meter after various moves and apathy.  For three short moments a day, it directly affects my life when I’m injecting a dose into my leg.  Otherwise, the relationship between my pancreas and the rest of my reality is rather negligible (again, directly being the key word here).

If anything, it’s been a twenty-seven-year-old science experiment, particularly on a) glucose levels and dreams and b) glucose levels and the speed of cognitive thought.  But I’ve been lucky thus far, as I’ve been blessed with a rather touchy sensitivity to my sugar levels.  A boy in my high school wasn’t so lucky and never made it to graduation.  My biggest fear in this regard is that I’ll become that (decreasingly rare) breed of diabetic that combines type 1 and 2, unable to produce my own insulin and unable to metabolize any I introduce to my system.

I’d like to get into the experiments later.  And the treatment of diabetics as members of “the other” in fiction.  But right now, this whole line of thought is illuminating the entries to some dark paths, and I’d much rather get some sleep.

“I’m from a land called secret Estonia (nobody knows where it’s at)” – Kerli’s “Creepshow”