Strange Pulse

I met Debbie via an email list for diabetics. She’d been diabetic for much longer than I–she was about 7 years older than me (in her mid-30’s) and had been diabetic since she was 18. She was a good support for me in dealing with being diabetic. She always understood whenever I complained about something, and she could always relate.

I don’t remember what first sparked our email conversation, but it went on for a long time. Like a couple years. We’d email everyday, sometimes more than once. Big, long emails. We’d discuss all kinds of things. When I started working fulltime in Seattle to put my husband through school 6 years ago, I’d go into work a little early. To have breakfast, and email Debbie.

Debbie was really smart. She’d been a computer programmer before she had kids. After she adopted two girls, she stayed home full time. But she loved computers and the Internet and she always stayed current on technology. When I think of her, the word bright comes to mind. I could ask her about anything and she’d always have an answer. Or a suggestion of where I could look for an answer.

We used to play Scrabble via email. I used to think I was pretty good at Scrabble, but she’d always cream me. Once, she used all her tiles for one word, which gives you a bonus of 50 points, and it was on a triple word score.

I could talk to her about anything. She always understood. And not only that–she always replied with a comment that put whatever I was trying to express into words better than I could. She was so insightful. And always interested in everything and anything I had to say.

When we first became email friends, she was healthy. Then one week I didn’t hear from her for a few days. I don’t remember what I thought–if I was worried, or if I just figured she was busy. Then I heard from her. She was in the hospital, emailing from a laptop her husband had brought in for her. She’d been going about her normal morning routine of seeing her husband and daughters off to school and work, and must’ve taken her insulin and then forgotten to eat–or only had some juice. She went into a low blood sugar-induced diabetic coma. She didn’t come out of it for 3 days.

After that, she started having more health problems. They’re usually referred to as complications from diabetes. I hate that phrase. Diabetics end up with nerve damage, caused by years of having elevated blood sugar (ie, being diabetic), called neuropathy. She had neuropathy in her heart. It made her blood pressure unreliable. It’d drop down to nothing, and she’d pass out. She broke her collar bone once, passing out on her kitchen floor. Eventually, she had to use a wheelchair, because she couldn’t walk without passing out.

Her eyesight also went. Because she couldn’t drive anymore, she sold her car and bought a giant computer screen. She’d blow the fonts up way up high and use a vocal reader to read my emails.

When she started having vision problems, she asked me about diabetic eye exams and how long I’d been diabetic. I don’t remember what the time frame is, but after you’ve been diabetic for a certain number of years, you’re supposed to have regular eye exams so you can catch any eye problems early. It turned out I was right at that year mark of needing to start eye exams. But I didn’t have insurance that covered it, and couldn’t afford to pay for it myself. She sent me a check for $500 so I could get my eyes checked out (and they were fine). When I told her I didn’t know when I could pay her back, she said there was no need. She said she knew I’d someday do the same for someone else, and that was repayment enough.

She confided in me a lot about what it was like for her with her health failing, but mostly she liked to talk about normal, everyday things, like we always had. I think having me email her about normal stuff was a big help to her. People started responding to her differently in real life because of her health–she was blind, in a wheelchair–and she appreciated having a friend that she could still be normal with.

It was really hard for me to see her deteriorate so quickly. And what made it even harder was knowing that I’d most likely face the same thing someday. I hope I handle it as well as Debbie did. At one point she had a physical therapist come to work with her, to help her build up some strength and be able to walk. It was crazy to think of her not being able to walk–she’d always been in great shape and used to swim in a lap pool in her garage everyday. He set a goal for her to be able to walk from a parked car into a grocery store, get an item, pay for it, and return to the car. She wasn’t able to. He told her there was nothing more he could do and stopped working with her.

She was put on a waiting list for a pancreas transplant. She told me if it was at all possible, she’d email me before she was flown to the transplant center to let me know it was happening. Then one day, the email came–she was on her way. But something happened to the organ when it was being transported. She didn’t find out until after being prepped for surgery and being put under. She woke up to find the transplant hadn’t happened.

That was a big let down for her. But she stayed positive. And eventually another one became available. The surgery went off without a hitch. But the new organ didn’t work right. It wasn’t producing insulin or regulating her blood sugar. I don’t know all the details. I know she got a letter from the husband of her donor. Often the family members of organ donors want to know something about the recipients. It’s up to the people involved whether they want to allow contact. Debbie wasn’t sure what to say to him, since the transplant wasn’t a success–the new organ wasn’t working. She wrote up a letter and asked me to read it before she sent it.

She died before another organ became available.

It’s funny how much you can miss someone you never even talked to in real life. Although I did hear her voice once–we had a chat program that allows you to talk over the internet like it’s a phone, and we tried it out when I was my work–but it turns out the mic I had was broken. I can still hear her saying, “Susan? Are you there?”

And I still miss her. A lot. I saved most, maybe even all of her emails, but I can’t bring myself to read them. Maybe someday. I wish I’d stayed in touch with her husband, but I’m afraid I didn’t deal with her death too well. I’ve lost too many people. It was too hard. But if there’s one thing I know about Debbie, it’s that she understands.