Easter

Generally I don't dig Easter. I treasure it for what it celebrates--the death, burial, and resurrection of our Savior and Lord--but the whole trappings don't do much for me. Maybe because I was diagnosed with diabetes over the Easter weeken of 1989, and I remember being given a toned-down Easter basket with strict warnings to make those sweets last. Easter in the hospital stunk, but worse was the pity that accompanied my diagnosis. I itch just to think about it.

But this Easter I will treasure as one of the best and most meaningful I've experienced. Each year my church produces and performs a Passion Play for our community, and for the last seven years I've declined to participate because...well, it's a time drainer, it comes near the end of the semester, yada yada yada. But I realized this year that this might be my last chance, and that to not even try it, just once, might be something I would regret. So I signed up for the choir. Now, I love to sing, but this was a bit risky since...well, I can't harmonize. I sing what I hear. And I am, I like to say, "An alto masquerading as a soprano."

Last Monday through Wednesday was spent at the theatre rehearsing--songs, "stage pictures," entrances and exits. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights we performed. And this was so wonderful. While the performance itself was exhilerating, what was so cool was the way the cast and crew came together. I didn't socialize a lot "below stage," but I loved observing how believers co-exist in a close environment...offering encouragement, joking, praying. How when we were told we'd have to do a second run-through on the night of dress rehearsal, after little to eat and a long day already, nobody argued or complained but just did it and did it well. Most heart-warming, though, was seeing a group of 15 year-olds praying together in a corner doing their down time. I was so humbled, for I was in the corner breezing through a very good, but certainly not very edifying, book. Also humbling (and edifying) was the thanks that people gave--people who've been coming to the show for years, and others who had never seen it before, hugged us, shook our hands, and thanked us for this ministry. It is hard to begrudge a week and a few weekend rehersals with that kind of response.

I also learned some things about diabetes and diabetics this week.
1) Never rely on food. I ate full meals on Monday and Tuesday even though each night people are slated to bring food for supper. You never know what will be provided, and on the nights I ate the pickings were good. So I ate twice. Wednesday, then, I didn't eat beforehand...and I discovered that a meal of cookies is not such a good thing. There were lots of sweets and no savories, certainly nothing substantial. Not ideal for a diabetic!
2) Never rely on others for your diabetes supplies! I didn't intend to do that...but I walked off with my meter lying on the kitchen table, and my CGMS needed to be calibrated. So I did what anyone else would do, and asked Diabetic #1 if he had his meter with him. He shook his head in a guilty "no." So I asked Diabetic #2 if he had his meter with him...and he, too, had left his at home. We laughed pretty hard at the fact that none of us 3 diabetics were "responsible."
3) Stage fright screws up those blood sugars! Before each performance I would start to climb, climb, climb. I ranged from 250-350 each performance, beginning about an hour before curtain. Saturday I got smart and cranked my basal to 200%--and it made absolutely no difference. So I was cranking in the boluses each night, to no avail...until it all caught up with me on Saturday!