More Important Than Sight 

By Brenda Trumble

When I was eight years old I was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. In a normal, healthy body, the food you eat is turned into a sugar called glucose, and your pancreas produces a hormone called insulin to carry the glucose into the cells to be used for fuel. In a diabetic body the pancreas does not produce the necessary insulin, and the glucose floods the blood stream. Diabetes can be controlled with a sugar-free diet, exercise, and insulin injections, but if left untreated or uncontrolled, high blood sugar destroys all tissue it comes into contact with. The most common side effects are heart disease, nerve damage, kidney failure, and blindness.

I was always a shy, insecure child. My parents were very loving and generous, but self-confidence is not something someone else can give you, you must have it for yourself, and I never did. I felt out of place in everything because I felt inferior to everyone, and diabetes just compounded my feelings of inadequacy. From day one I did everything I could to pretend I was normal. If I felt like eating a candy bar, I did. If I didn't feel like taking my insulin shot, I didn't. I was supposed to test my blood sugar four times a day, but I tested it maybe four times a week. When I did test, instead of being between 80 and 120 milligrams per deciliter, it would almost always be over 300 or 400.

When I was thirteen I fell in with a bad crowd. Wanting to fit in, I began drinking, smoking, and doing drugs with the rest of them. I didn't want to see or confront the damage I was doing to my body. My theme was deny, deny, deny. When I was sixteen I began using methamphetamines. It was the beginning of a serious downward spiral that almost cost me my life.

By the time I turned nineteen my speed addiction had become all encompassing. I was hanging out with dealers, so money was never a problem, and unfortunately, neither was availability. I would wake up in the morning and immediately start snorting lines of speed. For three, four, even five days at a stretch I would go with no sleep, eating maybe a bag of chips or a candy bar every twenty four to thirty six hours, finally crashing for two or three days when I couldn't go on any longer. On my twentieth birthday I weighed ninety pounds, and I was so sick I could not walk five feet without passing out. This was the day I found out I was pregnant.

Suddenly, everything was different. For the first time in my life I realized that I wasn't just hurting myself, but everyone who ever loved me. Now there was a tiny spark of life, alive in me, because of me, who was depending on me to take care of both of us. It was an epiphany. My decision was instant--I told the baby's father, whom I love very much, that if he wanted any part of me or our child that it would be the last day either one of us ever touched drugs. The agreement was mutual and together we began a new, sober life. I have never since had any desire to touch drugs again. The next challenge was finding a doctor to help me. Every physician saw an emaciated, sickly drug user they assumed would not change. Three different doctors told me there was no way my pregnancy was possible and that my only option was to have an abortion. I left the last doctor devastated, crying, convinced there was no one willing to help me. When I got home the phone was ringing. It was the doctor calling to apologize. He told me he made a snap judgment, and if I were serious about the whole thing that there were people equipped to help me. He sent me to the Tarzana Medical Center which has a specialized high risk pregnancy ward.

The day I went for my first appointment they saw that my blood sugar that morning was five hundred, and their first response was to hospitalize me. Within a week they had me on an insulin pump, and my blood sugar was miraculously under control for the first time in my life. They told me if I wanted my child that it could be done, but it would most likely end in kidney failure and blindness. I never even had to think about it. If I hadn't found out I was pregnant, I would have never stopped doing drugs, and I think its safe to say I would have been dead within the next two or three months. There was no hesitation when I told them I would do what ever it took to bring my child into this world.

I enjoyed being pregnant, despite constant morning sickness. True to their word, I begin to experience problems with my eyesight by my fourth month of pregnancy. I came out of the bathroom after throwing up one day and there was a huge, black floater streaking my vision. That was how it started, and it steadily progressed until the world looked like I was looking through a dirty, oily shower curtain. I had thrown myself into diabetic retinopathy.

The plan was to take the baby by cesarean section when I was in the eighth month, but things did not get that far. When I was six and a half months pregnant, I woke up early one morning doubled over with pain. My fiancé rushed me to the hospital where I lay in a bed for two days. No one quite knew what was going on. They decided to do exploratory surgery. I was cut from my sternum to my belly button, then over about five inches to the right, where they found that my appendix had ruptured and become gangrenous. They lifted my uterus out, baby inside, and cleaned out the poison. Then they put her back in and stapled me up. The next day I went into premature labor and gave birth to a healthy, three-pound baby girl.

My daughterıs name is Amanda, and she is without a doubt the most special, precious thing I have ever been privileged to come into contact with. She is beautiful, charming, and smart. At six years old, she understands her beginnings, and how she saved my life. One time someone made the comment that I lost my eyesight because I was pregnant. I cut that very short. I explained to them that bad choices about diabetes and drugs cost me my eyesight and that my child was my salvation. I donıt ever want her to think for a moment that she was responsible for my stupidity. A note on said stupidity--I have made some very bad decisions in my life. Some things I am not proud of, some things Iım downright ashamed of. But every mistake I have ever made has brought me to the place I am now, and I am happy, so I can't really regret those decisions. I am at peace with myself.

Five years ago this January thirteenth, I lost the last of my vision. Prior to the loss I had numerous laser and invasive eye surgeries, but all in vain. After going totally blind, I was depressed for about six weeks, until one day my family came in and sat on the edge of my bed where I lay for weeks, and told me it was time to get up. They said I had too much to do just to lie there and die, and I know they were right. I had a daughter who needed me, if nothing else. Two years later, my endocrinologist asked me what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I said I was doing it, and his response was that there no way he was going to sit back and watch me waste my life watching television full time. I left school in the eleventh grade, so an education seemed like the logical way to get started. I enrolled at College of the Canyons, the local junior college, and last May I earned my AA degree in Humanities. Next fall I will transfer to Cal State Northridge, where I plan on receiving my Masters degree in psychology.

Dealing with being blind was difficult at first, of course, but I have a strong support system. I found help learning small tasks to get by at the Braille Institute, as well as many crafts that I could enjoy without sight. I have learned that sight is no where near as important as vision. I hope every blind person can learn the same lesson.

Publisher's Note: Brenda recently had a kidney transplant and is doing exceptionally well. She will be attending California State University Northridge in the fall. You can email her at brendabarry@earthlink.net.