Smackie the Frog

I think that I am a pretty normal person. I mean, I have some pretty odd personality quirks, but if anything, I think that makes me even more normal. What is it to be human if you aren’t a little weird, right? So yeah, I’m a little strange, but I’m mostly “normal”.

Except for one thing. And that is that I wear a machine that plugs into my belly region and it keeps me alive. And I’m pretty sure that most people don’t have that. So I’m a little weird in that regard. And I’m not writing to complain, I’m actually writing to say that most of the time, I don’t even think about it. It has become such an integral part of my life, that I don’t view it as weird anymore. When I think of myself, I don’t view myself as any different, really, than I was 4 years ago, before I was sick.

And that is true 99% of the time. 99.999999% of the time, I would have to say. But there is this one instance that really makes me feel self conscious, about always upsets me way more than it has any right to. And that is when I fly.

I guess normally, either most people don’t notice my insulin pump, or they think it is a pager or iPod or a phone or something, and so they don’t comment on it. Plus, I wear it in my pocket, so you really only would see a clip, and maybe a little bit of the tubing, except I try to hide that as well. So it isn’t an everyday occurrence for it to be pointed out.

But every time I go through airport security, they ask about it, and I explain, and right away they realize and it is not an issue. But it really gets to me. For some reason, that one thing makes me feel more weird, and more different, and more “diseased” then any of the other things that I have to do to deal with.

So it really isn’t that big of a deal. I’ll go through security tomorrow, get a little bit upset, and then move on with my life. But it sure is an interesting little quirk that I have. At least to me.