{"id":573,"date":"2011-10-13T01:43:37","date_gmt":"2011-10-13T01:43:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mydiabeticsoul.com\/?p=573"},"modified":"2011-10-13T01:43:37","modified_gmt":"2011-10-13T01:43:37","slug":"tempestuous-tempting-halloween-for-a-diabetic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mydiabeticsoul.com\/?p=573","title":{"rendered":"Tempestuous, Tempting Halloween – for a Diabetic!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Halloween was always<\/em> an exciting time of year for\u00a0me and my family.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

Growing up in Massachusetts, this state is one small part of\u00a0\u00a0repetitious glorious autumns.\u00a0 Cooler temperatures and windy weather invite\u00a0all tree leaves to shed from their boughs and branches.\u00a0 Shaded and vivid colors of yellow from the oak trees, red from the maple trees with splotches of purple and varying shades of the primary color palette take over the living earth at this place, my\u00a0New England, every year.<\/p>\n

There is a certain passion among the colors as they fly through the air, placing themselves on every street and territory disguised as leaves.\u00a0 A\u00a0majestic arrogance.\u00a0 So much so that tourists continually arrive year after year to see the spectacular foliage that peaks in mid-October while enjoying New England hospitality.\u00a0 The joy of this seasonal change is exaggerated with the celebration of Halloween.\u00a0 Anxious excitement and creative preparations with decorations are seen everywhere.\u00a0 This is a happy celebration\u00a0that\u00a0marks the end of summer,\u00a0the harvest of deliciousness,\u00a0the beginning of winter, and to respectfully\u00a0commemorate the passing of the dead.\u00a0 This is when the past\u00a0is recognized as such, never forgotten.<\/p>\n

As I am one of five siblings, preparations for the Halloween Event were the most fun for our trick-or-treating.\u00a0\u00a0Our mother was greatly creative, encouraging, and patient with this endeavor.\u00a0\u00a0All of us were allowd to go through her things – all her things including drawers, clothes closets, jewelry, hats, make-up, and\u00a0anything else we kids could find – in order to ‘dress up’ and purposefully disguise ourselves.\u00a0 Oh, there were limits of course, but just being allowed to rummage through her things was magnificent in itself!<\/p>\n

Imagine a family of four or five children (Judy wasn’t old enough yet), costumed to the nines, knocking on your door with\u00a0empty sacks and bags\u00a0(pillowcases were the best) outstretched toward you and\u00a0hollering “trick or treat!”\u00a0 It was\u00a0hilarious!\u00a0 Because of mothers’ encouragement, I still look forward to this “holiday” every year.\u00a0 But now I am on the other side of the door, serving the tricks and treats.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The best cosutme I recall was my brother, Charles,\u00a0being a mummy.\u00a0 He got the idea from the infamous 1960’s movie entitled “The Mummy.”\u00a0 He gathered all the ace bandages he could muster.\u00a0 Mom kept them for her sore, tired legs.\u00a0 Imagine a 10-year old boy wrapped in ace bandages from head to foot.\u00a0 It was marvelous and the funniest thing I ever did see!\u00a0 Toward the end of this particular trick-or-treating event, his bandages started coming off, actually making him look more eerie.\u00a0 I remember laughing and laughing, trying to help him tuck one end of a bandage in to where it had loosened, only to have another one pop out.\u00a0 It was hilarious!\u00a0 I fell on the ground laughing with tears streaming down my cheeks.\u00a0 He was upset.\u00a0 I could tell he was getting frustrated.\u00a0 The only thing he wore under all the Ace bandages was a pair of BVDs.\u00a0 Tired and cold\u00a0with the prospect of school homework looming, I had to get him home.<\/p>\n

Once inside our house, he ripped those things off as soon as he could, swearing he’d never do that again, and continued to enjoy his candy collection.<\/p>\n

I wasn’t shy when it came to eating some of that stuff.\u00a0 On no.\u00a0 My siblings did not witness this sneaky cheating.\u00a0 Otherwise I would have been chastised to the mountains and grounded and probably banned from any further Halloween trick-or-treating participation for the rest of my life!\u00a0 My siblings policed me studiously!\u00a0<\/p>\n

However<\/em>, my manipulations caused my older sister to walk ahead\u00a0with the younger kids while I carried the rear, purposely.\u00a0 While dusk turned to dark, I gluttonously indulged in many a forbidden sweet.\u00a0 I almost hate to admit it but my favorite chocolate bars became Almond Joy and Butterfingers, the little ones, so it didn’t seem so bad.\u00a0 But, when I ate too many as is prone to happen with any child, I became ill.\u00a0 It wasn’t so much the stomach ache, but my blood sugar was on top of the moon!\u00a0 I could feel it.<\/p>\n

As there were no such mechanisms as\u00a0“glucometers” invented as yet, I depended on “Clinitest Tablets” used to check a urine sample for glucose content in my blood.\u00a0 Silly as that seems\u00a0now, that is\u00a0what was available back in\u00a0the early days of coping with diabetes.\u00a0 So,\u00a0through my candy binging, I didn’t need to take a urine test to know that I messed up.\u00a0 Bloated\u00a0with extended stomach, sleepy with lethargy, I needed insulin.\u00a0 I took it.\u00a0 I knew how.\u00a0 I first learned how to give myself an insulin shot at the age of six.\u00a0 Using only the clear, “Regular” kind because it was “fast-acting,” it still took a few hours until I felt better, was better.\u00a0 No one in the house was any wiser or aware of my actions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the “Sugar-Free Halloween Fairy” came to visit our house while we were out.\u00a0 My mother placed a special purchase of sugar-free goodies under a pillow or atop the bureau chiding me to see if I\u00a0found anything unusually special.<\/p>\n

Gosh, that was gloriously thoughtful.\u00a0 That type of heartfelt kindness is rekindled to this day, forty years later.\u00a0 \u00a0And the “Halloween Fairy” along with the “Valentine’s Fairy,” the “Easter Bunny,” and whatever character was implicated during certain and specific times of each year was an implication that there existed diabetic characters of each holiday genre.\u00a0 There were some that were just plain sugar-free, like me, and they know where I lived and left me treats.\u00a0 Oh, Happy Happy Halloween –\u00a0good treating of your friends and family!\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

A. K. Buckroth, “My Diabetic Soul – An Autobiography<\/span>” available at mydiabeticsoul.com.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Halloween was always an exciting time of year for\u00a0me and my family.\u00a0 \u00a0 Growing up in Massachusetts, this state is one small part of\u00a0\u00a0repetitious glorious autumns.\u00a0 Cooler temperatures and windy weather invite\u00a0all tree leaves to shed from their boughs and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mydiabeticsoul.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mydiabeticsoul.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mydiabeticsoul.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mydiabeticsoul.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mydiabeticsoul.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/mydiabeticsoul.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mydiabeticsoul.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mydiabeticsoul.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mydiabeticsoul.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}