Exhaustion

I am single. I have no children. And I live with my parents.

(Ok, so I'm like the epitome of uncool.)

And I have never been so thoroughly exhausted in my entire life.

Julia, I don't know how you do it.

Honestly, any parent of small children right now, I just don't understand how you can possibly function.

I've had no more than seven (more like six, actually) hours of sleep each night this week (Sunday thru Wednesday) and I can barely function. I swear I'm going to fall asleep while driving one of these days.

I'm still in my I'm-in-college-so-that-means-going-to-bed-at-1-a.m. mentally, except I have to wake up at six in the morning in order to get into the shower before my brother has to get up to take his shower.

I stop by Peets Coffee & Tea on my way to work (thank the Good Lord there is one in between my Quaint Bedroom Community and Big Bustling City) so that I can actually survive my commute into Portland and not fall asleep at the wheel, lose control of my vehicle, smash into the SUV in front of me before rolling off the cliff, crashing into various riverside mansions before rolling and plummeting into the Willamette River (and that's Wi-lamb-ETTE, not Willa-MET).

I'm at work from roughly eight fifteen in the morning (which is when I've been waking up for the past, like, year and a half) until one in the afternoon. I have an hour break for lunch (which is when I post messages on Diabetes Teen Talk, work on stories or finish homework), before I have class for two to four hours, depending on the day. Then I get to drive home, have dinner, and work on Diabetes Teen Talk and the Diabetes O.C. until I finally crash around 10:30.

But this week has been unique. Instead:

Monday: Spent another two hours with the Crisis Communication grad class where we had a conference call with the Press Secretary of NASA (!!!).

Tuesday: Attended a fundraiser for Rep. Darlene Hooley (D-OR), which featured guest Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO), who is awesomazing (awesome + amazing). Her 12-year-old daughter, Franny, has diabetes and is on the Coszmo pump. Diana and I spent about fifteen minutes raving about the pumps to Darlene and Matt, a 22-year-old with diabetes I had just met.

Diana asked me how my control was on the pump, and I said it was mostly good except for a few bumps when I hit college. Not having parents around was difficult, I explained. Diana replied that her family jokes that when her husband dies, "Have you bolused yet?" will be written on his gravestone.

Wednesday: Went out for drinks with the girls since our 4 p.m. class was canceled. Actually stood outside of a bar at 3:45 p.m. waiting for the bar to open before deciding we were ridiculous and went to another bar that was already open.

It was 5 o'clock somewhere.

Tuesday: Visited JDRF to sign an expense report and return the office key. Went to a friend's house for an hour to watch CSI and eat left-over pasta casserole. Drove home for ten minutes to test my blood sugar because I had left my meter at home (I know. I know, I know, I know. But hey, I was 181. Not bad for having gone 13 hours without testing... come on, you know you're impressed). Then I went out to buy event decorations for next week and a pair of Old Navy pants. Finally arrived home at 9 p.m.

Most of those days were at least 12 hours long. Tuesday was 14 hours. Today was 15 hours, with one short stop at home.

How do you function? Diet Red Bull? Monster? An IV of caffeine?

Forget insulin, caffeine is starting to creep up on the list of Drugs I Need to Survive.