I’m Dipping
Anne Gross | Non-Fiction Award Winner
“I’m dipping,” I groggily told my husband. The sweat rolled down my face, the elastic band of my boxer shorts wet and sticky, clung to my body. It was 5 a.m., and hearing my familiar refrain, my husband pulled himself out of bed and hurriedly made his way downstairs. Minutes later, he handed me a bowl of corn flakes bobbing with strawberries, my favorite summer fruit. This started my daily ritual, prescribed by my endocrinologist, of eating protein, carbohydrates, and fat every two hours, from early in the morning until 11:00 at night.
Several months earlier, on a Sunday afternoon, my husband said goodbye to our daughter on the phone, turned to me and said, “She applied for a job doing theatre with homeless children, a perfect marriage of her love of performing and passion for social justice.” The words slipped away before I could piece them together into a coherent whole.
“What’s the job?” I asked.
He said it again. I pressed my hands against my temple, willed my brain to hold onto every word, but they slithered away like wet soap.
“What’s the job? I repeated.
My husband’s face and neck bloomed with red splotches.
“When is our daughter’s birthday?” he asked.
I shrugged my shoulders.
“We’re off to the emergency room,” he declared.
My heart quickened. What turn had my life taken? My husband wrapped his arms around me, assuring me that everything would be okay. In times like these – when I needed him most – my husband and I did best. Enveloped in his warm and familiar embrace I knew I could face whatever came next.
A CT of the brain was normal, ruling out a stroke. “You’re free to go,” the doctor said. She started to leave, then hesitated. “Just to be safe, let’s take your blood sugar.” It was low. As I drank apple juice, every cell in my brain awakened, as if Glinda the Good Witch of the South tapped her wand inside my head.
Several weeks later, after completing a series of tests, my husband and I met with my endocrinologist. “Test results show high levels of insulin in your body due to insulinoma, a rare tumor of the pancreas,” she explained. “The tumor, about the size of a sesame seed, randomly pumps extra insulin into your body, forcing your blood sugar to dip, often precipitously. Eating frequent meals elevates your sugar. Fortunately, 90% of insulinomas are benign. Once the tumor is removed, your blood sugar returns to normal.”
My husband leaned forward in his chair, his attempt to absorb more of what lay ahead. My new diet concerned me most, however, as I recently dropped four dress sizes. Eating frequent meals lay counter to the image of myself as a newly svelte woman in the seventh decade of her life.
“I don’t want to gain weight. Do I have to eat that much?” I asked.
“You have a choice,” she said. “You can eat or you can die.”
I glanced at my husband, his face ashen, his head drooping like a flower after the harshest snowfall. My husband shifted in his seat. He envisioned the worst possible scenarios.
“Can she drive if her blood sugar can drop unexpectedly? Can you tell if it’s cancerous? Do you know a surgeon experienced with this rare condition?” he asked.
My husband’s questions surprised me. He’s an optimist, avoiding any hint of conflict or pain whenever possible. I swing the other way, diving into murky waters no matter what lies beneath. I remember years ago, when he and our younger daughter prepared a Mother’s Day celebration. My daughter meticulously laid out the cupcake mix, chocolate and vanilla frosting, water, oil, and eggs. The cupcakes baked and cooled, my daughter scooped out the frosting, painting a design on each one. The knife slipped out of her hand. Attempting to repair the smudge, the colors fused into an indistinct blob. Her voice rising, she insisted on starting over.
I watched from the adjacent room, willing myself to be still as my husband embraced her. “Let’s keep moving. We need to prepare the lunch, pack the picnic basket, and decorate the card,” he said. She could not be consoled. He stepped away, swayed back and forth on his feet, his hands by his side, his eyes darted upward to avoid looking at her. Her cries subsided, her body gasped for air. I hoped he would use this opportunity as a learning experience, to explain that imperfections don’t ruin the day; rather life is easier if we can embrace its unpredictability. Instead, he quietly coaxed her away from the cupcakes and onto the next task.
“Can’t you talk to her about her perfectionism?” I asked him that evening.
“It will go away on its own, ” he said.
But I could not let up. I encouraged my husband to say difficult things, whether it was acknowledging our daughter’s perfectionistic tendencies, our relationship with his mother, or asking our children to simply remove their possessions from the family room. When relatives pressed my mother-in-law to celebrate her birthday in New York, rather than her home in Florida, I begged my husband to talk to his mother, to find out where she wanted it. He refused.
We became fixed and entrenched in a vicious cycle: the more I pushed, the more he retreated, creating an ever-widening crack in our caring relationship. Many topics important to our union were off the table.
The diagnosis brought anxiety to my husband. To me, it brought relief, as I had suffered unknowingly from low blood sugar for two years. I understood now the dizziness I first experienced exercising five minutes on the stationary bike and my head whirled as if I had exited a spinning Rotor ride. And why, a year later, talking to a friend over coffee, sweat coalesced in my feet, quickly careening upward through my body. My brain felt drained of sustenance, like a deflated tire. My ability to follow the conversation ceased.
“It’s just anxiety,” my internist later said. I pushed onward.
After my diagnosis, periods of low blood sugar increased. “It’s Mr. Sesame again,” as we affectionately named my tumor, I called to my husband. I pulled juice, cookies, and life savers from the kitchen pantry, swallowing them down in a hurried attempt to raise my blood sugar. My body, working overtime, exerted more energy to fight back. I treasured my mornings, my time to write and do errands. By the afternoons, I lay supine on the couch, too tired to move. My sole focus was to make it through the day. I didn’t have time to worry about what came next. Instead, any concerns about the future found a new host in my husband. While at work he called frequently to make sure I replenished my carton of apple juice in the car. He tossed and turned at night, worried I would be one of the unlucky 10% found to have cancer. My best friend commented that I didn’t seem anxious about the surgery.
“My husband inherited my fears so I don’t feel them,” I replied. This monumental revelation, which eluded me for so long, now seemed common sense.
Just as insulin had overtaken my body, I realized my frustration at my husband had taken up so much relationship space I no longer did the loving things that so defined my husband’s behavior to me. Moving forward, I made a point of thanking him for all the things he did, from the expected, doing the nightly dishes, to the above and beyond, researching treatment options available for insulinoma patients.
I now saw my role in what I previously viewed as only his problem. I dialed down my emotions, gave my husband space to express his. The fog lifted, peace wafted through our house.
Sitting across the dinner table one evening, he swallowed his chicken, put down his fork, and said, “You know how I love sesame chicken? I could never eat it again.” His face focused on mine, his blue eyes magnified in a way I hadn’t seen in years. It was his ability to turn anything into a laughable moment, as well as his genuine compassion, that drew me to him in those early days. The bedrock of our relationship; it was enough for me then, and, I realized, it was enough for me now.
We had planned to spend our 30th anniversary navigating the Venice canals. Instead, we celebrated in a stark hospital room five days after my surgery. My blood sugar stabilized, we fondly reminisced about one particular morning when I awoke disoriented.
“I had this weird dream. I kept opening the door when you were in the bathroom,” I said.
“It wasn’t a dream. You repeatedly walked into the bathroom, apologized profusely, left, then barged back in seconds later.”
We laughed. He reached across the dinner tray and ran his hand up and down my arm. The warm touch of his body.