Complete (My Last) 180

I want to sculpt my body while I still have diabetes, just to prove that I can.

This brand new, oddly motivating sentiment burrowed into my mind mere months ago and swirls around my psyche on the weekly, aerating its complex tasting notes like a savory glass of wine. Ever since the Eledon Twelve were cured of Type 1 Diabetes, the murky possibility that the last day of my life and my last dose of insulin may not share the same box on the calendar has transformed into an impending reality. A cure has been close at hand, advocates promised, every minute following my diagnosis eleven years ago, and I remained the rare cautious optimist while hunkering down for the long haul with spring-loaded needles, a fridge full of little glass bottles, and blaring blood sugar alarms. Thanks to the burgeoning development of anti-rejection drug Tegoprubart, a new era has dawned, and every last patient on the study who received pancreatic islet cell transplants has achieved the impossible: the spontaneous genesis of insulin within a Type 1 Diabetic body.

Inspecting myself in the mirror, I contemplate the concept of a “naked shower”, a colloquial term referring to bathing without a glucose monitor or infusion set anywhere on the body. I can’t remember the last time end-of-life for my glucose monitor and pump site coincided, but the truth is that all my showers will be naked any day now. In my mind's eye, my skin turns smooth and amphibious, like a mermaid’s glistening tail, slipping between flowing waters with a whisper of movement. How easy it will be to catapult myself out of the pool, the concrete edge scraping flush against my torso without sucking in to avoid ripping away the life-saving accessories taped to my stomach.

After my shower, I reattach my pump tubing to the dock at home in my abdomen with a click, splash! Miniscule drops of water spray everywhere, because I never wear the plug included with my infusion sets for showering or swimming like I should. Despite this, the total number of pump site infections I’ve contracted can be counted on one hand, infinitesimal in proportion to the thousands of times I've changed it. I think about the time I’ll click, splash my last, and I dry the rest of my body with a sense of preemptive nostalgia.

I don my shirt first so I can thread my tubing under the hem and lay it flat tucked in, and I can hook my pump onto my waistband. My lifeline and my badge of honor, I cut holes in the sides of my dresses so I could show it off on a belt before I gained the wisdom to place the slit under the arm instead. For Christmas one year, my father gave me a garter that was intended to be a gun holster, but it worked like a charm; the nifty invention carried my bulky t:slim X2 all through college. These non-negotiable bionic accessories necessitate dressing with strategy, and I gaze at them through new eyes now that an end is in sight. I will be able to feel every bone and ridge created by my corsets, remerging as a mainstream style trend I wore before it was cool, and I wonder what it will be like to feel every inch of my skin bare against the world equally instead of the uneven gaps in sensation created by small shields of hard plastic.

My vanity is cluttered with snow cone flavoring, the miracle rescue sugar that works almost instantly. It’s taken me this long to discover what works better than the box of fruit snacks lurking in the corner behind my bedroom door, and one fast-approaching day, I’ll clear both of them away for good, and I’ll be truly weightless.  There will be no more gulping maple syrup in bridal shops while my best friend stops trying on wedding dresses to make sure I'll survive the outing. I'll kiss waking up in the middle of the night to an all-hands-on-deck emergency goodbye. The greatest freedom will be in deciding what I eat, and when, and my body can be mine again.

On average, type 1 diabetics make 180 more health-related decisions per day than a healthy person, and these are just the first few on days when I’m lucky enough to have slept through the night without the heart-pounding panic of a low. My body can’t control my blood sugar in any direction, and while prolonged high glucose causes gradual damage to several body systems, low blood sugar constitutes a life-threatening medical emergency. The greatest amount of peace will stem from dropping that burdensome stone of fear and sleeping, deeply, like surfacing for air in the final seconds before drowning. I tell my friends that this is the first thing I will do; will, because there is a viable cure that worked on every single person who has ever received it.

I’ll get more than one piercing at a time. Smoky, black snakes will weave across my arms in the massive tattoo I’ve been dreaming of. I’ll go camping in the wilderness and hike strenuous trails without any tether to the outside. I’ll take that romantic getaway with someone special, "Unplugged", locking our phones in a sleek box while we spend a secluded weekend nestled in the mountains. Never again worrying about closing the short distance between me and a medical emergency with an ounce too much exercise or a drop too much insulin, I will be free to test the boundaries of the body my peers have taken for granted their entire adult lives. I’ll be effortlessly lithe and strong, and I'll run and dance and figure skate until I collapse, muscles burning with rigor, unstoppable. The future is a snowflake melting on the tip of my tongue, no insulin required.

For now, I’m laser-focused on my diabetes to preserve my health as well as possible. Despite the success of the Eledon trial, it will still be some time before the cure is available to a larger cohort of study participants, and I’m content for now to live in limbo, waiting backstage to make my debut as the most free version of myself, until that final day when I complete my last 180.