As I described earlier this week, I consume a lot of fluid. On average, over 3 times the amount recommended for someone my age and gender without Long COVID. This is a topic of conversation with every medical provider I’ve seen over the course of the last year, as well as a general topic of conversation with friends and family.
Recently, when I saw my hairdresser for the first time since I developed Long COVID and I mentioned my extreme levels of fluid intake, she asked if one of my many tests had been to check for diabetes. I replied, “Is drinking a lot a sign of diabetes?” However, as the words were leaving my lips, a scene from the Babysitters Club books floated into my mind answering my own question. One of the babysitters was diagnosed with diabetes after she developed an insatiable thirst.
Sitting in the chair at my hairdresser’s, I was overwhelmed with two immediate and strong reactions.
First, why hadn’t I been tested for diabetes? As Long COVID is less of a diagnosis and more of a process of ruling out any other possible causes for the symptoms experienced, testing for diabetes given my excessive thirst seems like it ought to have come up by now. When I first figured out I was consuming 2.5 gallons a day, I thought it problematic, but none of the medical providers I’ve mentioned it to have raised any concerns. (I will ask them about diabetes eventually, but I have a bunch of other medical things going on taking precedent currently.)
Second, gosh, the Babysitters Club made quite a lasting impression on me. I never thought of these books as being among my top influencers. Based on my writings at the time, I’ve identified Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books, Zane Grey’s westerns, and Avi’s The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle as the principal influencers from my middle school years. However, the current diabetes potential is not the first life lesson I’ve taken from the Babysitters Club. I press my finger against my skin to verify potential sunburn because of a passage from the Babysitters Club books. (I’m a fair-skinned, redhead, so it’s always sunburn.) And when my Dad got laid off from his job when I was in high school, I didn’t trust my parents’ assurances that everything was fine (which, by the way, it wasn’t) because of the detailed description of what the parents and children went through under similar conditions in one of the Babysitters Club books.
While my early writing style strongly resembled Laura Ingalls Wilder’s and the adventures in those stories mimicked Zane Grey’s and Avi’s, it turns out that Ann M. Martin’s Babysitters Club are the books that left me with lasting lessons for real life.
Feature image credit: open book by Leo from Noun Project (CC BY 3.0)
Carolyn Ristau 