That awkward moment when diabetes is kind of cool for once.

[Note: There are some gross photos to follow. If you fall easy to nausea, I suggest not reading this post.]

Alternative title: Microbiology: it's happening on you.

Having diabetes is the absolute worst*. Yesterday, for example, I took to much insulin with my bedtime snack and two hours into sleeping I woke up in a hypoglycemic panic, and before I could grab the glucose tablets by my bed, I began hallucinating: a giant centipede with a human face--a human face without eyes, nose, or mouth--broke into my bedroom!!! Intense!!! And terrifying!!!

Anyway, so usually diabetes sucks. There's the lows and there's the highs (this isn't figuratively, this is literally, as in my hypo- and hyperglycemia). Regardless, thanks to diabetes I've also been given a small arsenal of medical tools to tell me how my body is doing. Usually they're quite mundane. But in certain circumstances I can use them to . It's like having constant access to back-alley, outpatient lab services.

Seven days ago I sustained a large, second-degree abrasion to my left knee. Hilariously, I didn't treat it because we had just learned about skin infections in Micro and I wanted to see if I could catch something hilarious like staphylococcus aureus. As a diabetic I am technically immunosuppressed.

Regardless, my knee ended up scabbing really badly. [gross pictures to follow]

*Diabetes isn't the absolute worst. But in my own life, it is.

So today I ripped the scab off. When I was younger and liked to "remodel" scabs so I could form the most orderly scar possible. This scab was hideous. I can't have hideous things just chilling out on my body. It's gross.

Removing the scab sounded like the crinkling of cellophane. Closer inspection revealed a lot of golden fibers connecting the scab to the edges of the wound. I suspect there was a crazy party on my knee and only fibroblasts were invited. Hence, collagen was just everywhere. 

And then it began bleeding profusely:

Every time I'm bleeding from a random limb, I like to use my glucometer to test it. I almost exclusively test on my forearms and they've built up pretty bad scars themselves (below left). Anyway, I'm such an expert at testing my blood sugar that I don't think when I do it and ended up accidentally testing my forearm instead. I got the following result (below right):

So I pulled out another test strip and successfully tested my bleeding knee and got the following:

I immediately panicked: while a 27 mg/dL difference may seem insignificant, the accuracy of my glucose meter is important. A 27 mg/dL can mean the difference between an a1c of 6% (awesome!) and an a1c of 7% (monitor closely!). 

AH HA! So this was an inflammatory reaction! And my body was releasing a ton of cytokines at this site to send in the cavalry! And cytokines make your body resistant to insulin! That's why when you have infections your blood sugar is elevated! SO MANY COOL THINGS. To prove that my blood glucose meter was in working order, I proceeded to test on my right thigh, my right calf, and my left forearm and got the following numbers: 74, 78, 78, respectively (the numbers are slightly lower than 88 I suspect because some time had passed between the first and second set of testings, and I had taken insulin with lunch). Then, out of curiosity, I tested an area within two inches of the abrasion and I got 70. I then PUT a test strip IN the wound and got 54. I presume this is because there was a lot of plasma and gushy stuff that is diluting concentration of glucose. Of course I am probably wrong. So now I'm left with more questions than answers. INSANE, I know. But also super cool! 

Don't worry: I cleaned up the wound. With hydrogen peroxide. It smelled wretched. In high school we did an experiment in AP Bio involving turkey livers and H2O2 and it was the first time I had been exposed to an unpleasant odor in a science laboratory. Regardless, with my abrasion smelling like a Thanksgiving Turkey prep, I proceeded to smear Neosporin on it with my finger.

I still kind of want a staph infection.

Deal with it.