“Calloused Finger Tips”

Self-portrait, one-touch ultra test strips.

Over the last 22 years of living with type 1 diabetes, I, along with thousands of other type 1’s, have pricked my finger 40,105 times. We wake up in the middle of the night to check our blood sugar, bolus insulin doses, and walk around with the constant fear of low blood sugar in the back of our minds. We do everything right and still sometimes end up hyperglycemic. We live with diabetes every day, every hour, every minute. But while diabetes is a part of our lives, we are not defined by it. When we prick our fingers to test our blood sugar, something very powerful happens over time: tiny callouses form – our fingers harden to the pain, they adapt – just as we all have adapted to make diabetes a seamless part of our lives, never letting our chronic disease dictate how we choose to live our lives. My self portrait is comprised of test strips as a microcosm of my every day life, however, the beauty is when you step back and no longer see the test strips: only me.