So began endless visits to Tripler Army Hospital or as the guys called it, "The Pink Whore"
At first it wasn't bad. Every two weeks I'd go in and pee in a cup, they'd take blood, listen to heart beats discuss my diet, the whole ball of wax. Then it got worse. I was diabetic but not just type two which I'd always been borderline. This variety was called "Gestational Diabetes" which meant more than likely it would disappear after I gave birth.
I was ok with that so far until they told me I not only had to test my blood I had to have insulin. I had to give myself a shot every day. That was not easy. I think it was only one but one was one too many.
I could not do the shot. I tried the first day. I filled it up to the mark and stuck it on my thigh and pushed. I could not believe when the needle bent. It would not go in my skin.
At the hospital, which by the way, they kept me in at that time for a week to be sure the amount was right, they told me to pinch it up and it would go in the skin. Well, it just was not working.
I called out to post and they sent a nurse, a male nurse out to give me another lesson. They said if necessary they could send someone around to do it for me every day. I didn't care for that. It was a waste of time and it meant there was something I couldn't do right.
The guy came out from the post. It was kind of odd. He was missing a finger on that hand. He had an orange with him. I kind of wondered about the orange. What we did is practice with the orange. Doing the orange was easy but when I tried again on my leg it pushed the skin down but it didn't break through.
Finally he said my skin was loose and because of that, instead of pinching it up, I should push it apart. That worked and I was able to give myself the needle after that.
Tom was willing to do it for me but he wasn't always there in the morning when I'd get up.
I now had to go in there once a week. This would not be such a big deal but I had catch the bus in Wahiawa, take it downtown and catch another bus to the hospital. I could save time if I got off part way and caught the hospital bus on its way but that meant standing and waiting and hoping you hadn't missed it.
I would put one of the Army back packs on in case I wanted to shop between times. It was really getting to be a chore.
I was having real bad stomach upsets. I was barfing all the time. You read about morning sickness in the books but mine was around the clock. I'd wake up in the night and run for the toilet and hurl. I'd do it a lot in the night. It got so bad that the guy downstairs complained to the landlady that I was keeping him up all night flushing the toilet. I felt bad because he had cancer but there wasn't much I could do about it.
I didn't give up on going places either. I'd still take my bus to the beach and collect my shells, take pictures and shop.
I discovered "Welcome Baby" a program for mothers-to be that was run by volunteers out of Wheeler Air Force Base. It was not only free, it was very helpful. Then I had a van that would pick me up and run me back and forth. It was also a lot of waiting but now I was going in there twice a week for the same routine.
The docs told me at one point that my sugar was too high because I was eating the wrong stuff. So began my first food diary. This told them the problem. I was visiting the Farmer's market once a week and buying lovely fruits. I was eating way too many grapes. I was craving fruit all the time.
I was put on a careful diet.
While I was pregnant I got WIC. This meant I could get free cheese and milk products, maybe something else like cereal.
I had trouble digesting milk while I was pregnant but I did drink it. At one point, there was no milk to buy in the stores. On the news they said that all the milk was recalled as well as home produced cheese.
It seems that the farmers thought they could feed their cows the sheared off tops of the pineapple plants after the pineapples were harvested. What they didn't take into effect was that those same pineapple plants had been sprayed with a pesticide to kill the ants that would eat the pineapples. It was very toxic to humans. Most of us pregnant women were terrified of what that could do to our babies.
I was still going to the beach, the library and other places.
Tom had found a portable washer so I could wash clothes at home. He put it out on the porchlet because it sometimes leaked and we didn't want to damage the floors. I put too much soap in one day. I found out about it when the guy downstairs started yelling that I was killing his plants.
I could have told him it was just soapy water and if anything it was good because of two things. One being the bugs were driven away because of the soap and two being at that time there were a lot of phosphates in detergent and that made plants grow like crazy.
He was in no mood to hear that so I shut up or SUCKED it up and shut off the machine and cleaned up the porch as much as I could. I wasn't going anywhere near the angry one.
While I was still staying in the apartment I started finding a ripe pineapple outside my door every morning. The father of one of the ladies who lived near us had found out I was pregnant. He would pick one every morning and put it by my door. She told me he said I needed to eat more fruit for the baby.
I found some Hawaiian ladies at Haleiwa when I went over there afterwards. They were gathering brown stuff out of the sea water. They told me it was a kind of kelp. They would take it home and rinse it off, then pickle it in a vinegar brine and eat it.
They tried to get me to taste of it out of the water. I wouldn't at first. It just looked icky but then one of the old ladies did, so I gave it a try. I hate to say it but I was not impressed at all. I just smiled and nodded my head. Some of them didn't seem to understand English very much.
We went over to the spot where I normally found the bigger shells. The water was calm there but deeper than I liked to go into. They wanted me to get in with them. They said it was good for the baby. I finally started to go in it. They swore they would protect me. Yeah, I can see a bunch of old ladies protecting the blimp. I wasn't that big yet but it was funny to think about.
In the water I didn't go any farther than up to my waist. It was clear and I could see my feet easily. The sun was shining brightly. They stayed right with me. It was a luscious feeling because the water there was cool and soothing.
As I was getting out one of them yelled at me to look. A dark thing was swimming out of the rocky part beside us. I think they said it was an eel but it didn't look like the long snake like things I'd seen at home in the rivers and brooks. It was about a foot and a half long and fat like a big fish.
One old lady said, "Doan be fraid. Dey more scared you den you dem." I understood her. I guess I'd been there long enough to understand. When I had time I looked them up at the library and found out if disturbed they could be very dangerous. I was sure glad I got out when I did.
One afternoon I was coming back from the base. I was showing a lot. You could easily see I was pregnant. The bus was packed. After awhile some got off but I was still standing. There were no empty seats. At one point the driver had stopped to let someone off and he saw me standing.
He tried to get some young blonde surfer type to get up and give me his seat. The guy said no, the driver argued that I was pregnant. The creep replied, "So? I didn't get her that way." I was so glad that statement was true. The driver apologized and almost immediately, a young mother with two kids in the seat beside her made them get up so I could sit.
Somebody gave me this surfer shot. I didn't take it. When I scanned it in this time I couldn't figure out what it was till I turned it around. I'd scanned it in upside down.
There is no way I would have gotten in that water at all.
Those guys were having a lot of fun and its great to see it but I'd be on the shore line collecting my shells...and there wouldn't be many because a surf that bad would break what ever shells it tossed on the beach.