My Own Little Shop of Horror Keeps Asking For Blood

The sweetest reminder of my new full-time job

Photo by Pavel Danilyuk/Image designed by the author

Beep!
Beep!
Beep!
Beep!

I can hear my little glucometer calling me. My husband’s voice drifts across the living room to the hallway where I am scratching my head trying to figure out why I forgot what I was coming to get.

“Babe, your little machine wants more blood!”

I huff, but then I smile and go into the bathroom to unzip my glucometer from its case. The rudimentary green and black graphic of blood spilling onto a glucose stick awaits me, and much like Seymore in Little Shop of Horrors, piercing his finger to feed his hungry Venus Fly trap alien plant —

I do the same with my glucometer.

I pull out a strip from the canister, load it into the glucometer, prick the tip of my forefinger until a bead of bright blood blooms — and finally, I let the hungry strip sip from it to read my glucose levels. My prayer is that the reading is between 70–130mg/dl.

It’s my prayer every morning.

The other day, my diabestie said those of us with diabetes are warriors and we have a full time job with no days off when it comes to managing diabetes…