Michael Moran

Signal Loss

Now I lay me down to sleep,

to drift in dreams both long and deep,

and if Death comes to claim my life,

may Dexcom’s buzzing wake my wife.

One weekday morning at 5 a.m. I set the kitchen table, a pity party for one. Among the insulin pens and needle tops and lancets and alcohol swabs I lay the tweezers and long nose pliers. I tuck my GI Joe pajama shirt into the collar like a bib and expose my stomach, the lumbar and umbilical regions shaved, stubbly, bruised, and raw where I ripped from the skin the medical adhesive holding my continuous glucose monitor in place. This is my John moment, McClane or Rambo, because jutting from my flesh is half an inch of medical metal, “soft as a kitten’s whisker,” the company says. The coffee maker sputters and gurgles; the darkness swirls in my peripherals; the kitchen chandelier funnels all light onto my makeshift triage station; and from my scowl stumble the words, “This is so fucking unfair.”  

I’m barely functioning on more than thirty years of broken sleep. My mother used to hold vigils in my bedroom. If she couldn’t confirm my chest rose with breath, she’d tickle my feet. Disturb sleep for proof of life. A mother’s love preventing diabetic comas. When science irons out the kinks of teleportation, I have faith she will break herself down into unrecognizable bits and reassemble her copy in my bedroom just to slide a finger over my soles.  

My wife doesn’t tickle when I pass out on my back, head hanging off the bed’s edge, throat clogged with uvula and tongue. Unsure if I’m snoring or lapsing into agonal gasps, she grunts, pokes, nudges, and shoves, and I unconsciously obey, sparing her my nocturnal noises.  

We’re aware some folks shut their eyes each night and sleep with an unchallenged confidence that in the morning they’ll wake. My monitor should provide that peace of mind, but  

its noises blare like a foghorn through the cloud of sleep. The chimes and chirps are degrading. We cannot choose our exit music, but we can avoid sounds too much like Nintendo’s smug Duck Hunt dog laughing, mocking as our life’s energy bar dwindles to zero.  

Game over. Do-do-do-dooo. 
I set my alarm, my bedside nurse, my guardian angel, to vibrate. 
Three long buzzes—I’m approaching the ledge. 
Three long followed by three rapid buzzes and six beeps—I’ve gone Wile E. Coyote and 

hover over the canyon, conscious of my own demise. 
Four quick buzzes and three beeps—brace for impact and my own personal mushroom  

cloud. 
One long, steady buzz—disconnected. Signal loss. 
Face pressing into pillow and drooling, I awake to that flatline hum, medical Morse code.  

Some/Thing/Is/Wrong. To silence the alarm, I stretch, dragging limbs and torso over the sheets. The recent injection site near my navel shrieks, the solar-tinged face of mild concern on the pain scale chart. And technical difficulties embedded in my flesh are reason for concern. Perhaps the company mailed me a defective sensor. It happens. Perhaps a piece of the sensor broke off beneath my skin and, without surgical intervention, would result in infection, redness, swelling, and death. That happens too.  

Game over. 
Macabre thoughts murder sleep. 
Barefoot on the cold kitchen tile, I flick the sensor wire and consider waking my wife, the  

epidermis enthusiast. Deep pores, ingrown hairs, something to squeeze, something to open, something to release, if it’s gross and satisfying, she’d give it a go. But upstairs she’s relishing the space of our queen bed and the silence of my departure.  

Pity party, table of one?  

I grab the tweezers. This sensor which should have lasted ten days went bust in ten hours. A hundred and twenty insurance dollars wasted, dropped in a coffee can, duct taped, and deposited on the curb. In my head, I hear the absurd UNICEF commercial pleading my case. For just twelve dollars a day, you can make a white cisgender American male’s life just a little bit easier.  

I know so many Americans lack health insurance. 
And I know so many diabetics cannot afford their life-saving prescriptions. 
And I know diabetics in countries shaken by war have been cut off from their medication and may die, not from bullets or bombs, but roadblocks. 

So in this moment alone in my kitchen when I should be asleep, in this moment dealing with the failures of medical technology, I clench my jaw and pluck from my gut the wire sensor. My breath stutters. My heart flutters. I sit, elbows on the table, palms pressed into my eyes, and steady my hands before I officially start the day.  

Button my shirt. 
Knot my tie. 
Drive to work as if everything is fine, as if a lifetime of kitten whisker traumas don’t knit themselves together and cling to the soul like a weighted sailcloth.

Michael P. Moran is a nonfiction and fiction writer from Long Island, New York. His work has appeared in The Chaffin Journal, Miracle Monocle, Emerald City, The Bookends Review, Please See Me, The Headlight Review, and Outlook Springs. He is currently working on two projects: a collection of essays centered on his life with type 1 diabetes and a novel both beautiful and terrifying. His wife encourages his typewriter to sing, and his child wants to know when someone will publish his chapter book about the bird. Instagram @mikesgotaremington