We were college students, secure in the knowledge we would live forever.
The minor inconvenience of your diabetes did not interfere with our rock n' roll lifestyle not a bit. We partied like it was 1969, which was pretty nonstop. You ate what you wanted, when you wanted and we scoffed at your juvenile diabetes.
My rude awakening to the seriousness of your disease happened a year into our friendship, when I literally saved your life. Finding you unconscious on the floor was for sure my wake up call. I got you emergency care quickly, you were revived and you laughed off the incident as no big deal.
But it was a big deal to me, and after consulting with your doctor, became a huge deal in my life. He explained to me the lifestyle you were living would have severe repercussions down the road.
You blew off his instructions and I was forced to watch you manage your diabetes your way. You were convinced that you knew your body and I needed to back off. So for the next 40 years, I watched you slowly kill yourself.
After we became adults and living in different states, our communication was by phone, interstate rates be damned. I soon learned to determine your sugar levels by your speech patterns and take phone action, ranging from directing you to drink some orange juice to calling for medical assistance.
When your sugar was low, you would be child-like in your speech, but would drink that juice cuz I told you to. I could hear the fridge open, the sounds of gulp, gulp right from the bottle. In about 20 minutes, you were back with me in full Annie. We laughed it off. This happened dozens of times as we whipped through our twenties.
When we entered out 30's you started paying the price for your diabetes nonchalance. You tired easily, no longer could maintain the party life, your teeth rotted out and you needed dentures. You slowed down considerably and started to pay attention to sugar levels and seemed to be managing your sugar levels better. Not well enough to handle a pregnancy however, and two miscarriages led to acceptance of not birthing a baby.
Your fifth decade, really handed you some diabetic realities. You had several eye procedures and kept losing more and more peripheral vision. When we took a vacay in the FL keys, you were not even to keep up with us at all. You sat in a lounge by the pool as we guiltily went chasing the boys.
By our sixties, you were fading before my eyes. Ironically, lung cancer got you before the diabetes. With bravado, you boasted: "Hey, I earned this fair and square!" as you chain-smoked until your last breath.
I think of you everyday, Annamary DeStefano, my dear and true friend. You lived with a dreadful disease, yet impacted so many with your spirit, warmth and wit.