A Whole New Ball Game

This is a piece I wrote recently for my Digital Journalism class here at Marquette. The assignment was to write a "personal profile" feature story in the third person and we had to read it out loud to the class so we could then be critiqued by each other and the instructor. I just got back from the class about 15 minutes ago. I obviously couldn't see myself when I read it out loud tonight, but I feel like my face always gets red in those types of situations. That'll be something I'll have to work on. Enjoy!

     Eric Decker is your typical college student. He wakes up each day, goes to class, eats his meals, studies, hangs out with friends, reads a book, then goes to bed just like everyone else might. The way Eric dresses isn’t totally out of this world either, wearing jeans or khaki-like pants, a sweatshirt or a flannel shirt, and a short, basically conservative hair cut. On the outside, there isn’t much that isn’t “run of the mill” for Eric Decker. But on the inside, for Eric, now that’s a whole new ballgame.

     Eric Decker is an eighteen year old freshman undergraduate student at Marquette University from Lake Bluff, IL. Just five months ago, Eric moved into his freshman dorm room, officially starting his college career, but just two months prior to that, Eric was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.

     With diabetes, each and every day is different and provides its own challenges. For Eric, his day starts and ends the same way: by checking his blood sugar level. On top of checking his blood sugar level eight to ten times a day, Eric must give himself an injection of insulin before every meal he eats and before he goes to bed at night.

     “Diabetes is basically just a big inconvenience,” said Decker. “It’s like a pebble in your shoe. Sometimes you don’t notice it, but it’s still always there.”

     Eric says that finding out about his diagnosis was a hard moment to grip, but sees the diagnosis as a blessing as well. “I was pretty sick leading up to when I found out I had diabetes because of all the symptoms that go along with having a high blood sugar for a long period of time,” Decker expressed. “So finding out [about the diagnosis] meant that I could get better and get back to being my old self.”

     Eric affirmed that he doesn’t want to let diabetes keep him from doing anything he wants to do with his life, including playing sports. On top of his academics, Eric plays intramural volleyball at Marquette. Eric has played volleyball since the seventh grade and it has always been a passion of his. “I have always loved volleyball because of all the people I have met playing the sport,” Decker remarked. “I made a good amount of friends playing volleyball on my intramural team this year, so that has definitely been a highlight of my time here so far.”

     Eric revealed that many of the friends he hung out with in high school he met because of volleyball. “I don’t know why, but the culture that goes along with volleyball… you just get really close with everyone you play with. It’s like a lifestyle that we all connect with,” Decker asserted. “I am still friends with guys I met playing club volleyball back in the eighth grade.”

     Alongside intramural volleyball, Eric is a volunteer leader for Young Life at Whitefish Bay High School, just north of Milwaukee. Young Life was a big part of Eric’s life in high school and he implied that he wants it to remain prevalent in his life during college as well. Eric first became involved with Young Life when he went to a week-long camp in New York with the local group the summer before his senior year of high school.  “I remember walking onto the bus… barely knowing anybody,” Decker recalled. “But by the end of the trip, I was friends with everyone. That week changed my life. I found out a lot about myself and gained a lot of confidence in who I am.”

     Eric understands the time commitment that it will take being a leader, but sees this responsibility almost as a necessity. “Taking time out of my nights and weekends to do things for Young Life gives me the necessary pressure to get my school work done. If I had nothing going on besides classes all day, I would have no motivation to get my work done efficiently. Young Life is a lot of fun, too,” Decker added.

     So whether you see Eric Decker from the inside or just the outside, understand this: he is all about being genuine. “I am just trying to live my life moment by moment with as much sincerity as I can,” Decker voiced. “Life is always going to have its struggles, but out of each and every one of those struggles can come a lot of good…. I’m always looking forward to see what’s gonna get thrown at me next.”

YouTube Videos I Love

Okay so if you haven't noticed yet, I am kind of a deep and hearty guy. It is just who I am. So yeah, most of these videos are on the emotional side, but I love them all! Enjoy!

I Am A Champion Speech - I get goosebumps every time I watch this video. How does this not get you absolutely pumped up?!

J Mac ESPN Story - I am pretty sure I started crying after first seeing this story air on SportsCenter back in 2006. I don't think I have ever seen anything more amazing.

2005 Illinois Basketball: The Comeback - So I am not as big of a fan as I used to be, but I have always loved Illinois basketball. They had an amazing run in the 2005-2006 season and this comeback in the Elite Eight of the tournament says it all.

Saturday Night Live's Lazy Sunday - Finally, not a sports-related video! So this one basically doesn't exist on YouTube anymore, so this version is just some guy videotaping it from another website. This video was a classic for my friends and I back in middle school. I remember watching this on my iPod Video over and over again.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Amazing Knife Kill - So I have definitely had my days of being absolutely addicted to playing Call of Duty, as a lot of guys (and some girls) will also admit to. Viewing this video for the first time made my jaw drop and made me downright jealous.

Volleyball Kick Assist - So I have played a lot of volleyball in my days, so I had to include at least one sick volleyball video. This one is unbelievable.

Ben Breedlove: This is My Story Parts 1 & 2 - So this video hit the news pretty heavily this past week because of Ben Breedlove's death on Christmas night of 2011. He posted this video just a week before his passing; outlining his life and previous flirts with death and how God revealed Himself to him. He was an 18 year old high school senior.

What Inspires Me

The other day my family and I were driving up to Door County, Wisconsin for a little Christmas weekend getaway trip. During the slightly long car ride, I slipped my Nook out of my backpack and picked up where I had left off in All The President's Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. For those of you born in the 1990s like me, All The President's Men is the story of how two Washington Post reporters basically unfolded the entire Watergate scandal which led to Richard Nixon's resignation.

I love this story. I love everything from the names of the two reporters to how resilient they were to make their stories fair and accurate.

I am only through four chapters of the book so far, but I saw the movie in my Journalism class in high school. Honestly, this movie and story inspires me. 

Determination!

What is inspiring is the lengths Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein went to get their information. They co-wrote most of their articles and as soon as they met their 7:30 pm deadline for next day's paper, they went right back out to the field, driving to different homes of people related to the Watergate scandal, trying to get their story for the next day. I have been reading many of their stories of how they wouldn't use notepads during their interviews because the notepads would make their interviewers uncomfortable and how after their interviews were done for the night, Woodward and Bernstein would meet up at one of their apartments and would just start writing. The amount of time they took out of their lives to get their stories and the way they did it shows how passionate they were about their work. That passion is what inspires me.

I have been learning more and more in my life to go for what you are passionate about. In high school, I thought I wanted to be an engineer. However, I was fortunate enough to have taken Journalism as a second English class my senior year and taking that class helped me realize that writing and journalism is truly what I am passionate about.

Yeah sure, an engineering degree probably would have guaranteed me a great job right out of college and a six-figure salary at some point in my life, but why the heck would I want to have that job when it really isn't something I love?

I wouldn't.

I'd say the goal would to never have to "work" a day in my life. And the only way to do that would be to do something I love.

I just hope I can have nights off like an engineer would.

Eric Decker, You Don't Say?

You know what a blogger does when he's hard up on ideas to blog about: he posts something he's already had written in the past.


Okay I have to admit, I have a few blog post ideas stored up in the old noggin, but I thought, hey, why not share something that you wrote in high school?


I wrote this piece in my senior year Creative Writing class. For the assignment, we had to write a piece about our own name. I definitely had a lot of fun writing this, so enjoy!


Titled: Eric Robert Decker by uh... Eric... Robert... Decker

You know those cool sounding names you see that famous people have? Tom Cruise, Kiefer Sutherland, Meryl Steep! These people having these names… It’s almost like they were meant to be famous! Okay yeah, we all know that the three of these guys at some point in their lives weren’t famous. At first, they meant as much to the world as Joe the Plumber did, but then they all had their big breakthroughs and now anyone who even knows even a little bit about pop culture would be able to recognize these names. Well for me, my name right now, Eric Robert Decker, barely means anything to even this high school.

            My name means something to me though. I love my name. I wouldn’t want it any other way. It’s not too long, not too short, it fits just right. I think even Goldilocks would agree and hey, she’s famous, right? Over the years, I have asked my parents numerous times why they named me they way they did in probably the same fashion Uma Thurman asked her parents how she got her name. So apparently, my middle name actually was almost my first name. Weird, right? Reminds me of that kind of weird sensation I got when I saw Kiefer Sutherland in Stand by Me for the first time after watching three straight seasons of 24. But really, imagine my face, my personality, anything about me, with the first name Robert slapped across my chest. My parents eventually did make up their minds and Robert became my middle name. My parents steered clear of Robert because my parents didn’t like that the name Robert had so many nicknames; Robby, Rob, Bobby, Bob, etc. If I had been named Robert, Robby would have been my top choice of nickname to go by. RAH-BE. Robert was ultimately put into my name in honor of my maternal grandfather. He was somewhat famous, so I guess I’ve got that going for me!

So then there’s my first name; not quite up to the awesomeness of Kiefer or Uma, but I’d say it’s pretty solid. I’m not sure why my parents chose the name Eric, but I think my parents mentioned once or twice that they just liked the simplicity of it. I remember when I was little I told my Mom once or twice that Eric should be spelled with Air in the front, instead of Er. I’m not sure how she reacted to that, but I think it’s funny that I took the time to think of that. I wonder what Willow Smith is thinking about her name right now? The Fresh Prince of Narcissism, anyone?

I’m not sure when it first happened or why it happened, but however it happened, calling me by my last name, rather than my first name, has stuck. I wonder if anyone called Tom Cruise by his real last name… “Hey, Mapother! What’s going on, man?”

Nah… doesn’t work for me either. I’m a senior in high school and it has gotten to the point now where almost all of the guys (and a handful of girls) at Lake Forest High School call me by my last name. My volleyball coaches here at the high school even call me Decker! Decker has caught on so much that a good amount of my friend’s parents call me Decker. Apparently, Decker, DEHK-ERR, is catchy.

The greatest thing that happens with my name is when people can’t decide whether or not to call me Eric or Decker. I wonder if Vince Vaughn ever had any trouble with this. It happens probably about once a week or so… The person desires to get my attention, but instead of calling me Eric or Decker, they have a little brain-fart and both names come out at once and they call me Deric, or Derek; however you want to spell it. They all realize their blunder the second after it comes out of their mouths and I laugh almost every single time. Maybe this is what happened to Meryl Streep. After all, her real name is Mary Louise Streep. Maybe she got sick and tired of people mixing them up, so she just decided to combine her first and middle names. But really, how hard is it to pronounce the name Eric Decker correctly? It’s only four syllables, it’s a relatively common name, c’mon people! Take a look at these names of some of my friends: Tasos Stavropoulos, Lukasz Sobieraj, or even Reyna Zascirinskis. Try consistently pronouncing those correctly! I’m friends with all three of these people and I don’t even know how to!

Overall, names are so unique and are ever-evolving; just take a look at those names I listed above or even some of the famous people I mentioned. The great thing about names is that if you were completely unaware that anyone was famous in this world, each and every name you came across would have no greater significance than the name before it. It’s when you finally get to know someone, or in the case with famous people, read about someone, do their names finally start to stick out to you. The only thing my name means to this world right now is the fact that Eric Decker is a rookie wide receiver for the Denver Broncos in the NFL. I want to be an engineer. Engineers don’t really get the attention from the media that football players get, but maybe someday it’ll get to the point where the world mixes the football playing Eric Decker up with the world-saving environmental engineer that I want to be. I’d still be pretty honored even if someone were to mistake me for being a football player. I play volleyball right now, about the exact opposite sport when you compare it to football, but it could happen. Leonardo DiCaprio sure thought people would mistake him for being way more important than he actually was in Catch Me If You Can. I’m by no means a con-artist, but it’s still not too late to change career paths, if that’s what you want to call it.  It has potential though. We’ll see. 

So as you might have noticed, I'm not really into engineering anymore. I applied into the engineering departments of every college I applied to my senior year. However, just a couple of months before I graduated, I realized just how much I love to write and my passion for journalism, so I decided to switch majors. 

Let's just say life is a lot less stressful being a Communications student at Marquette than it is to be an Engineering major.

You also might have noticed that that rookie wide receiver on the Denver Broncos is slowly becoming a household name now. Spike Lee once told Michael Jordan that is must be the sneakers that makes him so good, but for Eric Decker's case, it must be the name, right?

Unwrapping the Gift-Giving Debate

So Christmas/holiday shopping is pretty much in full swing now. Black Friday was about a couple of weeks ago and as I am typing this post, the television commercials I am watching are filled with Christmas-related jingles and other symbolism referencing the need for us to buy gifts for everyone because it's the holiday season. As we all know, our society has marked the way for buying and giving tons and tons of Christmas gifts to be the normal thing we all take part in. Personally, I remember overly-coveting all of the Christmas gifts I received when I was a kid, but now I think as I've matured, my perception of the gifts has changed. I see the love from the people I receive the gifts from now a lot more. I definitely still appreciate gifts, but I just enjoy them in a new way.

Recently though, I ran into this video when I went back home to Lake Bluff for Thanksgiving break. This video was a part of a sermon that my former youth pastor, Syler Thomas (you can check out his blog here), gave at the church services that weekend at Christ Church Lake Forest.

I want to mention that this video does not necessarily reflect my opinion about the matter. I am just posting it to put it because I think it is interesting and could possibly be a good platform for discussion.

My first reaction to this video was "wow." Whether you buy into everything the video is saying or not, it is eye-opening. You can't deny that. The video brings up a valid argument that we can be doing more good with the money we use to buy gifts for our loved ones for the holidays. The thing is though, would our society, as a majority, ever be willing to place a lesser importance on spending money on gifts (as in, material gifts)?

What do you think? Leave a comment below with your thoughts!

The Breach

So It's the middle of November now. I'm about two and a half months into my first semester as a full-time college student. I'm a freshman at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I'm not too far from home, but things are definitely a lot different here than the comforts of my hometown, Lake Bluff, Illinois. Instead of knowing my way around every nook and cranny of tiny Lake Bluff, I'm now in the middle of a legit city, barely knowing which way is north versus south.

I can honestly say, I am thankful for having a smartphone and very much so for Google Maps.

Even though my classes have been challenging and tough from time to time, from day one I have enjoyed what I have been learning so far. This is probably the first time in my schooling career that I am taking classes that I really enjoy and that I look forward to attending (for the most part).

One of the classes I am taking is called Culture and Health. The class is through the College of Nursing and it's a Service Learning class. Before I go any further, I just need to mention how sweet it is that at Marquette I can be a Journalism major in the College of Communication, yet still take a class in the College of Nursing. Thank you required Diverse Cultures course credit!

Anyways, this class is a Service Learning class. This means that I need to register at least 20 hours of volunteer service at an approved location in order to get a decent grade in the class. This semester, I have been volunteering at a homeless shelter/resource center in Milwaukee called The Repairers of the Breach. Volunteering at this place has probably been the most influential part of my education at Marquette.

The Breach is unlike any homeless center I have been to. The cool thing about the place is that it is mainly governed by the homeless people themselves. They are the ones making positive contributions to the center, such as guarding the place, cooking food, housekeeping chores, providing encouragement at their weekly meetings, and lots of other things.

I have started volunteering at the Breach twice a week now and it has truly been an amazing and eye-opening experience. On Saturdays, I attend their weekly house meeting where they lay down the ground rules for the place and provide LOADS of encouragement for the homeless people at the Breach to turn their lives around. The small first floor of the shelter where the meetings are held is always packed. Almost every seat of the place is filled. This meeting has a sweet name too: Book Shaka Laka!

I am not homeless yet these meetings have even been having an impact on me. At the meetings, I sit in the back of the room. This is a cool experience because I get to sit right with the homeless people and interact with them. I often find myself having small side conversations with some of the people I sit next to. Despite my slight unification with the homeless people, during the meetings, I still am sort of in the mindset that I am just their to observe and soak in this culture that I have never experienced before. However, I find that the encouragement and positive thoughts from the meeting having been pouring into my heart more than I have expected them too. I just feel more joyful coming out of these meetings. We sing high-energy songs, we clap our hands; everything we do in the meetings points toward the message of making the most out of your life and coming over your obstacles. It really is powerful.

Another thing I want to note is that this place is in a neighborhood that is eye-opening in itself. When I was there about a month ago, it was pointed out to me by a guy there that the building across the street is a crack house.

Wow.

I have read Josh Hamilton's book before about his battle with a cocaine/crack addiction. I read about the crack houses he had associated himself with, but now to be suddenly looking at a real crack house, just 30-40 feet away from me was very surreal.

I remember that I was on the second floor of the Breach when the crack house was pointed out to me. Suddenly, I started to notice more and more the people cycling in and out of the crack house.

I couldn't take my eyes off of the place.

I was just a five minute bus ride away from campus. The realism of the crack house floored me.

As I slightly brought up earlier, it has also been amazing to get to interact and form relationships with the homeless people there. I have become friends with a man who helps out with the cooking. He is a recovering alcoholic and I enjoy seeing him every time I go to the Breach. I have also become friends with one of the security guards at the Breach.

The cook has told me parts of his story. He told me that he used to have a house, a nice job, but he lost it all because he became addicted to alcohol.

I do not know the security guard's story really at all, but I found out that he has recently gained custody back of his two children. I was lucky enough to be a part of the filming of a video we made to help raise money for a heating system for the place.

Just in case you had forgotten, winters in the Midwest are kinda cold!

Anyways, I got to interview homeless people at the Breach for the video. This was really cool because not only was I able to help for a great cause, but I was able to practice my interviewing skills, which is great for my aspiration to be a journalist. I found out about the security guard and his kids when we interviewed him. As he told us this story, tears started pouring down his face. His raw emotion for the love of his kids... it was just so powerful.

Having been exposed to these trials that these two men have faced, so many questions have come to my mind.

How did these guys get to where they are?


Why do the addictions and crippling troubles hit these people and not I?


Why were these people destined to be homeless and not I?

Each and every time I go to this place, I further realize more and more that the people at the Breach are just like me. Yes, they are homeless; our lives in a lot of ways are completely different, but my eyes are being opened more and more that I am just the same as them; I just happen to be more fortunate. It could easily be me sitting in that center on a Saturday morning, seeking... desperate... for even a sliver of hope and encouragement that this life is going to get better.

Instead now, I am sitting at my desk in my dorm room. My room is nicely heated. I have a comfortable bed. I have a decent shower and a bathroom just down the hallway from me. I have a dining hall that I can eat all of my daily meals at just a few floors below me.

I am lucky.

I am blessed.

Before I started taking classes at Marquette, I had an idea that my education here would be different from what I was being exposed to in high school. Now I don't know the stipulations of every college in the world, but I just don't think you see this kind of education I am receiving at the typical state school. Marquette's whole motto is "Be The Difference." I don't know how much of an impact or difference I have made so far at the Breach, but I can't deny that I am becoming a familiar face at the Breach and that my Marquette education is definitely changing me.

My required 20 hours of volunteering at the Breach are almost up. After that, I can walk away from this place forever. I can pretend all I want that everything is fine in this world. I can be naive and tell myself that the poverty and corruption isn't anywhere near the bubble I am living in. I can deny all I want that just a short bus ride away from campus, a homeless shelter and a crack house lay in war zone.

Something tells me though that I'll be back volunteering at the Breach even after this semester has ended. I'll be back to experience the search for hope, for a light. I want that. It's contagious.

Extra Baggage

So some of you might not know this yet, but I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in late June of this year. Finding out was hard. The transition has been tough, but I am getting the hang of it. Diabetes has brought on many new challenges to my life. God threw me a curve ball, but so far I'm making contact.

With diabetes, I have to constantly be monitoring my blood sugar. I prick my fingers and check my levels at least 10 times a day. I have to give myself an injection of insulin into my thigh or abdomen before I eat anything bigger than a small snack and also before I go to bed at night. And before I give myself those injections before meals, I have to count exactly how many carbs I am about to ingest so I know how much insulin to give myself.

I also constantly have to have my little black pack that carries all of my supplies for doing this diabetes stuff near me at all times. I also always have to have some sort of a simple sugar (glucose tabs, a juice box, or fruit snacks) and real food (basically anything that comes in those little 100 calorie packs) near me at all times just in case my blood sugar begins to crash.

The best way for me to carry all of this stuff with me when I am away from home is in my Under Amour drawstring bag. Ever since I was diagnosed, that bag hasn't left my shoulders. I feel naked without it. It's a part of me now. I feel vulnerable without it. I feel like a dog without its collar when I don't have my bag with me.

A time when I need this bag with me more than any other time is when I'm exercising. For diabetics, and for anyone really, physical exercise lowers your blood sugar level. The more rigorous the activity, the quicker it drops. I have had diabetes for about four months now and I still haven't fully figured out how to effectively and confidently workout with the disease.

My doctor tells me to eat something to get my blood sugar into about the 160s before I begin exercising (normal blood sugar levels are between 70-120), but often times, I'm not that hungry to begin with, so having to sometimes force myself to eat food just to go workout isn't the greatest thing ever. Now you may be thinking, "Eric, why don't you just take a few swigs of Gatorade beforehand rather than eating food? Sports drinks have carbs in them." Yes, they do have carbs in them, but there's no fat in Gatorade, so it doesn't stay in my system long enough for it to keep my blood sugar stable, even if I weren't working out.

With all of that running through my mind whenever I feel like working out or whenever I have an intramural volleyball game, exercising has been an intimidating thing for me the past four months. I haven't hit the gym since my diagnosis. I have played my volleyball games with success in terms of keeping my blood sugar stable, but even so, I find myself relying on eating more food than my stomach wants to in order to make things work.

Recently though, I had a breakthrough. Turns out I had been taking too much of my night-time insulin compared to how much extra exercise I was getting at school from walking to all of my classes and from walking up four flights of stairs to my dorm room 5-10 times a day. All of this extra exercise compared to what I was getting at home during the summer was making my blood sugar drop super fast. I was getting low a lot and things just weren't ideal. I now take less of that insulin now though and so now my blood sugar doesn't drop as quickly as it used to, which means I don't have to snack as much in between meals to keep my levels up, which then makes the idea of working out seem a little more realistic.

My Uncle Bill also helped me out too. Over my fall break last weekend, we were hanging out at my house one of the nights. We started discussing how working out has become such a daunting task for me now. Well thanks to good, old Google, my uncle found this special type of shake made just for diabetics. The shake has about 25 carbs in it, which is the perfect amount to keep my blood sugar up for a workout, and the shake has fat and protein in it, which makes it last in my system longer, keeping my blood sugar stable for longer, which is, once again, perfect for working out. Also, the shake is, of course, a drink, and it's only 8 ounces, so it's not very filling at all. So once the discovery of this shake was made, my mom picked some up from the grocery store and before I knew it, I was taking about a dozen and a half diabetic shakes with me back to school.

Finding these shakes energized me. They offered me hope. I had gone 18+ years of my life not having to even worry a second about working out or anything related to my blood sugar. I had had so much that I had taken for granted in my life stripped away from me. These shakes suddenly gave me hope of possibly gaining back a sliver of the independence I used to have. I decided last weekend that I am going to become more disciplined and committed to working out and getting exercise. I was just getting too dang tired of being afraid, and these shakes gave me a reason not to be anymore.

Going back to school earlier this week, I was looking for an opportunity to go workout; to go see what these shakes could do for me. I found that first opportunity on Tuesday. I put on a pair of mesh athletic shorts, laced my gym shoes, grabbed a shake and my bag, and started walking to the Rec Center just down the street from my dorm hall.

As I walked down the street, I downed the shake like it was it was liquid gold. It certainly was no gourmet milkshake, but it tasted fine for what it's supposed to be.

Now as I neared the gym, I couldn't stop thinking about the previous run-ins I had had with the employees of the Rec Center when I would go to the gymnasium for my intramural volleyball games. You see, the Rec Center has a "No Bag Policy." The thing is though... I need my bag. My Under Armour bag is my lifeline. Yeah sure, I could carry around my little black pack and food wrapped in my arms like I was carrying a baby, but that's just plain ridiculous. That's like walking up to someone on campus and telling them they aren't allowed to use backpacks anymore and that they have to carry all of their books in their arms. Not happening.

Now, everyone is allowed to bring bags into the facility, but they expect you to use lockers to store your things while you exercise.

But I fight the rule.

Every time I have wished to go to the Rec Center to play volleyball, I have had to ask the attendant by the door of the gym if I can bring my bag in. When they tell me no like they're supposed to, I have to put them in a hard situation. I tell them that I have diabetes and that I need my bag with me.

I've gotten mixed responses from the attendants there. Some of them don't say another word and let me by with my bag. They understand that I need my bag and don't make a fuss. Others have reacted differently. One guy once said to me, "Well can't you just carry all of your food and stuff in there with you?" I told him, "Well yeah of course I could, but that's annoying." He let me by, but I had to work for it. All of that in itself IS ANNOYING.

So with those scenarios replaying in my mind over and over again as I entered the Rec Center, I started to have anxiety. First, I had only ever been to the gymnasium of the place, never the weight room where I was headed to now. I wasn't sure if there would be a "No Bag Policy" or not for the weight room. Second, I hate the confrontation and it's the last thing I want to run into now.

I found the staircase that led to the weight room. I reached the second floor, walked into the weight room, and right there in my face was a big sign on an easel that listed off a bunch of things that weren't allowed in the weight room and the list included bags.

Dang it. Here we go again.

I walked over to the lady sitting behind the desk and went through the whole routine again. I asked her if I could have my bag with me. She said no and I explained once again that I have diabetes and need my bag for all of the reasons that I have explained in this long blog post. The lady gave me what I define as a negative reaction. She told me, "Well you're not supposed to, but you can leave the bag on the table behind me." Okay. Success. But still, I was angry. I was angry that I had to take the time to explain all of that again and I was angry from the response I had just gotten. Yeah sure, she was just doing her job and she did let me keep my bag in the gym, but I was mad at what she had told me. "Don't tell me I'm not supposed to have my bag," I thought. "I have diabetes! I need my bag! This isn't me being lazy and not wanting to put my bag in a locker. I ACTUALLY need my bag and my life ACTUALLY depends on it."

I worked out for about 45 minutes in the weight room. It was amazing. It felt so good to go for a jog, to lift some weights, to actually break a sweat for once! I felt good.

Despite my successful workout, I was still fed up with the Rec Center and their "No Bag Policy," so I took some action. I quickly got into contact with the director of the Rec Center and explained him my frustration via email. I asked him at the end of it if he could help me so I wouldn't have to keep explaining myself to the workers at the Rec Center every time I want to use their facilities. The director got back to me in just over an hour. His response made my eyes light up like never before. He told me he had written a note for me that would excuse me from the "No Bag Policy" rule and that I would need to pick up the note from his mail box. He also told me that a copy of the note would be placed at every entry to the facilities of the Rec Center and that this should solve the issue.

Yes.

Receiving that email probably gave me more of a surge of hope than finding those shakes did. Hope and relief. That's what I felt. It filled me with joy for the rest of the day.

I received that email late Tuesday afternoon. It's now early Friday morning. I haven't had time to workout again yet, but I can't wait for the next opportunity I get.

I'm sure my bag can't wait either.