The Sugarless Plum: A Memoir (11 page)

My grandmother Gloria had not only been a professional dancer and choreographer, she was also a health food nut. In fact, she had been an advocate of health food before it had a name. She baked her own wheat bread, grew and ate organic foods, and made her own fresh carrot juice daily.

As a young kid I used to love Grandma's kitchen. There were dozens of jars of nuts and seeds: cashews, pecans, walnuts, as well as sunflower, sesame and pumpkin seeds. There was also a big jar of chewable vitamin C that Grandpa called
chee chees,
and that tasted like candy to me. As far back as I can remember, Grandma had been preparing healthful meals. She served papaya fifteen minutes before the meal to aid our digestion. Then came a salad with raw vegetables like jicama, cilantro, radish, scallion, red leaf lettuce, beets and carrots. Her salads were always a beautiful mélange of brilliant colors. The dressing was homemade, a combination of olive oil, herbs and Bragg amino acids, that was so good she could have bottled and sold it. Then came fish or
chicken baked with herbs and spices. We always had herbal tea at the end of the meal. Everything was so good that I had never thought of healthful food as anything less than delicious.

But beyond being a spectacularly healthy cook, Grandma was a fighter. When she believed in something, nothing could stop her. There was the time, for example, when my grandparents were living in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and all the Dutch elms in the city had been infected with a virus. No one could stop the trees from spreading the disease or from dying. The city officials wanted to cut down all the elms in Grandma's front yard, but rather than comply and lose her trees, she brought in a Dutch elm tree expert, who tested the soil and replaced it. Because of her, a whole city of trees was saved.

Grandma was definitely the person I needed. I called her and explained my diagnosis. “I need someone to help me get my body working again,” I said. “Could I come and live with you, Grandma?”

“Will you do what I tell you to do?” she asked.

“Yes, Grandma, I promise.”

So I packed up, said goodbye to Michele and her friends and went to live with my grandparents.

 

Grandma and Grandpa lived in Mountain Gate, a gated community high above the 405 freeway overlooking the city and valleys below.

Grandma put me in the guest room on the second floor. It was decorated in soothing light blue tones with a plush carpet and was bigger than the living room in my New York apartment. At
last, I had peace. It was a relief to be someplace familiar where I could feel safe.

Even before I'd unpacked my bags, Grandma had devised a plan, which was, quite simply, to focus on what I should eat. I was to drink fresh vegetable juices consisting mainly of spinach, cucumber and green beans with a little carrot. I was also to eat lots of raw vegetables, a little fruit, some nuts and seeds, minimal starches and no processed sugars, because they cause blood sugar levels to spike, and no processed foods. Everything was organic: no pesticides, hormones or antibiotics. And since I didn't sleep well, Grandma said no coffee, only herbal tea. No coffee! Since joining the company I had lived on coffee, diet soda and muffins. But I was committed to Grandma's regime even though I was dying for my morning caffeine and carbs and was having a hard time getting out of bed.

I remembered being a little girl and watching with my sisters and brother as Grandma handed Grandpa his pillbox before every meal. It was full of vitamins in every shape and color imaginable. There were pills for his heart, his liver, his kidneys, even his brain. He'd pick them out, one at a time, say what each one was for and then swallow it. We all wanted to take them, too.

Now Grandpa and I were swallowing our vitamins together. We both held our nose as we guzzled down our cod liver oil. He hated it as much as I did, but he wanted me to dance again and knew that if anyone could help me it was Grandma.

Even though he could be hard on me when I was a little girl, Grandpa was one of my most enthusiastic fans. Since I'd joined
City Ballet, he'd made numerous trips to New York to see me perform and spend time with me. While Grandma was the queen of healthy eating, Grandpa was the king of positive thinking. In fact, he turned out to be a real softie. Grandma was the tough one, and now both he and I were doing as we were told.

 

Grandma and I gathered an enormous pile of books and went through each and every one of them. I finally began to understand exactly what this disease was about. I learned that blood sugar levels affect every one of us, but when you have diabetes, controlling your blood sugar level is a constant concern.

In order for the body to function properly, the cells need to be fed. Cells get their nourishment from the foods we eat, which are broken down in the body and circulate through our bloodstream as “sugar.” That “sugar” needs to travel from the bloodstream to the cells, and what makes this happen is a hormone called insulin. When the body senses that there is sugar in the bloodstream, the body releases insulin. In a normal body, insulin is like a key that unlocks a door and lets the sugar into the cells. But a person with diabetes has one of two problems. In type 1 diabetes, the body manufactures little to no insulin. In type 2, the insulin is available but the body doesn't utilize it properly. Either way, the sugar remains in the blood and creates what are called high blood sugar levels. A high blood sugar level is a sign that your cells are being starved. And starved cells can lead to anything from heart disease or stroke to kidney failure, blindness, circulatory problems and amputations.

As I have said, while type 1
always
requires insulin, the treatment for type 2 diabetes is a diet and exercise regimen, often with oral medication and sometimes also insulin. Since neither of the doctors I'd been to had even suggested my taking insulin, I naturally assumed, as the doctor apparently had, that I had type 2 diabetes, which meant that I could reverse it with medication, diet and exercise. But if that was true, it also meant that I'd somehow brought the disease on myself because of my poor lifestyle choices. I blamed my emotional eating, poor sleep habits and stressful career. I knew I couldn't exercise any more than I had been (in fact, in retrospect, it was probably dancing as much as I did that had kept my blood sugar levels from rising even higher), but I could eat healthier and I could try to do more to control my anxiety.

Three days and forty books later, Grandma and I came to the conclusion that what you ate did make a difference, but the books didn't seem to agree on what that should be. Some said to count carbohydrates, and to eat a lot of them. Some said to avoid carbs altogether. At that point I was more confused than ever, and my monitor was telling me that my blood sugar levels were still out of control. Grandma and I decided that her diet was better than any of them and that we could figure this out on our own.

We analyzed every morsel I ate and how it affected my blood sugar levels. I was using my monitor thirty minutes after each meal, between meals and right before the next.

We noticed that my numbers were high after breakfast and tried to figure out why. Breakfast consisted of two eggs, a piece
of toast with butter and half an orange. We guessed it was the fruit sugar in the orange or the carbohydrate in the toast. After a week we started to see a pattern. Red apples elevated my blood sugars higher than green, and beans alone caused them to rise more than beans with chicken. White rice caused more of a spike than brown rice but not as much when combined with a protein or fat like nuts, seeds or olive oil.

My mom and Romy called from New York every day, but I still didn't want to talk to any of my friends from the company. I'd told my grandmother that if any of them called she should tell them I wasn't home. They were all still performing every night, and just thinking about the theater got me so upset that I'd want to cheat on my diet. On the one hand, I was determined to reverse my diabetes, and I had confidence in Grandma's diet. On the other hand, all I could do was cry. I was trying as hard as I could to do whatever it took to get back to New York and dance. But I was afraid I wouldn't make it. My body was tired and my soul was tired from trying to be strong.

 

I'd been checking my blood at least twenty times a day, and the numbers had been consistently in the high 200s or the low 300s. Normal blood sugar levels range from 70 to 110. Then, at the end of the second week, I was checking as usual when I looked at the monitor and saw a number in the low 200s. Apparently the medication and Grandma's diet were working!

Just to be sure, I pricked my finger again, waited for the beep, and sure enough, the numbers started coming down. Grandma
and I were elated. We hugged each other tight. Grandma was beaming. For the first time in weeks, I smiled.

Still, I had a long way to go. Even though my numbers were coming down periodically, they were still too high. I was still dizzy, and I was famished all the time. I wanted to devour every bit of food in the entire kitchen. A pound of almonds or cashew nuts would have been a good start. It wasn't easy to stick to my diet, but with my ever-vigilant grandmother hovering, I did.

About that time, I started to feel that I could handle saying hello to my friends. I missed them and I missed my life, so the next time my friend Jeff called, I told Grandma I'd take the call.

Jeff Edwards was one of my closest male friends. We could talk about anything. He was a gorgeous dancer with a bright future who had been with me in the cast of
Les Petits Riens
and frequently worked out with me at Julio's studio.

“How are you feeling, Zippy?” he asked.

I said I was better and then I asked how he was doing. The season had just finished and the company was now on their three-week layoff.

“Great,” he said. “At the end of the season, just when you left…” And he went on to tell me about all the dancers who'd been chosen for all the parts I would have given anything to dance. I wasn't ready to hear it.

After I hung up, I walked slowly back to my room. I wasn't smiling now, and my occasional “better” blood sugar test didn't seem like such a big deal. I wasn't mad at Jeff. He simply assumed
that I would be back and as good as new. Since I didn't tell him, he had no idea how much I was still struggling.

 

When I'd been at my grandmother's for about two weeks, my aunt Rhonda redeemed herself from her comments about my trying to get my father's attention by giving me a list of healers. One in particular drew my interest.

Jenni was a Native American medicine woman who lived about half an hour away. I scheduled an appointment with her. When I got there, she told me to lie down on a massage table, rubbed my body with oils and made a list of herbs I was to prepare and drink three times a day. As I lay there on her table with crystals at my head, she told me that something good would come from all this and that someday I would write a book about what I was experiencing. I decided she was trying to be kind, and I appreciated that, but I thought she must be crazy.

 

After four weeks on Grandma's diet, taking Jenni's herbs and the oral medication, my blood sugars returned to normal. My head cleared. My moods stabilized and I no longer felt so hopeless. My stomach stopped its constant rumbling. My cravings abated, my thirst was quenched, and I no longer spent the day running to the bathroom. I was elated. Since my assumption, as well as that of the doctors I'd seen, was that I had type 2 diabetes, I quite naturally believed that what I'd been doing had worked—I'd taken control of my disease. It wasn't until later that I found out I was in the “honeymoon stage” of type 1
diabetes, during which time there is some spontaneous restoration of insulin production. Undoubtedly my diet had helped, but, as I would soon discover, it wasn't a cure.

One of the things I'd learned from reading all those books and was now experiencing firsthand is that there's a close relationship between unstable blood sugar levels, cravings and emotional turmoil. When my sugars were out of control, so were my cravings and moods. Now that my levels had normalized, I was starting to feel more like my old self. I had more energy and started doing
tendus
and pliés while holding on to the bathroom sink. I even did some
relevés
to reacquaint my feet with pointe shoes.

It was just in the nick of time. Rehearsals for the spring season were about to begin. I had been away from the company for five weeks. I wasn't sure I was ready to return, but I needed to try. I had to be in company class. I had to get back there before they forgot about me.

I needed to move and dance again.

Back in New York, the company had been off for three weeks and I hadn't danced in five. On the first morning of rehearsals for the spring season, many thoughts ran through my mind. Peter Martins would be teaching company class. Peter's classes were always technical and difficult. Was I crazy to think I'd have the muscle strength and stamina to get through it? Had people been talking about me while I was away? Did everyone know about my illness? Would they be staring at me? Would my blood sugar levels be okay?

I didn't know, but in the end I was more worried about what people would think if I weren't in class—that there was something terribly wrong with me, that I was even sicker than they had thought—than I was about being there and dancing poorly.

The first thing I did when I woke up was to check my blood sugar levels, as I did every morning now. I still found it hard to get the right spot, just at the outer part of the padding of the finger. That morning I saw a big droplet of blood, large enough
to fill the entire strip, which is what you needed in those days to get a proper reading. Good, I had hit it right this time. I followed the steps, put the strip into the slot on the front of the meter and waited. I hated this part—waiting for the result, the moment of judgment that would tell me whether or not my levels were okay.

My fingers looked like a pincushion from being pricked all day. As of last week my readings were still above 200 at times. Beep, the meter made its annoying sound: 118. Great, my blood sugar levels were within the high normal range.

I decided to eat a couple of eggs, organic of course, with no cereal or toast. The eggs were solid protein and wouldn't raise my sugars. I couldn't afford to be spaced out today. I got dressed, packed my leotards, tights and pointe shoes in my dance bag, and headed out the door. Romy and I were now living on West End Avenue and Seventy-fourth Street, in the part-residential Esplanade Hotel.

On my way to the elevator, I was comforted by the familiar laughter of the youthful African cast of the Broadway hit
Sarafina!
Their voices reverberated throughout the floor as they sang and danced to rhythms that made me wish I could shake my body and move so freely. I was feeling pretty stiff and preoccupied with how I might not be able to stand perfectly on one foot in Peter's class. As I passed their rooms, I tried to let their songs and earthy freedom loosen me up.

I briskly walked the twelve blocks to the theater. I could do the half mile in twelve minutes if I didn't have to wait at a stoplight. That was more exercise than I'd had in more than a month. It felt
so great to be outside and moving again. Spring had arrived in New York and the air from the Hudson River was crisp and clean. On my way, I passed the fruit and vegetable market on the corner of Seventy-second Street. It had a great salad bar where I used to pick up dinner after the performance. I loved the tuna salad, the rice and bean mix, and the vegetables in some exotic sauce. How would my sugars react to those foods now?

There was Luv's, the drug store where I bought my false eyelashes, eyelash glue, and the baby oil and cotton balls I used to remove my stage makeup. The best part of the walk was the iconic fountain at Lincoln Center. Today, a light breeze blew a spray of water that covered me with a gentle mist. I felt like I was home.

I went through the back stage door and down the stairs where I greeted the guard, who always said, “Hello, Zippora,” as I entered each day—the same one who had kept pointing to the message board reminding me of the notice from my doctor that I continually ignored.

 

Inside the theater, I took the elevator to the fourth-floor dressing rooms for corps de ballet ladies. I changed into my leotard and tights, covered myself in sweats, and went up to the fifth-floor rehearsal hall. As I made my way along the cement hallway, I began to shake. What was happening? I felt as if I might pass out at any second.

I ran back to the dressing room, now starting to fill up with dancers chatting about their vacations and complaining about how fat and out of shape they were. I was moving fast; no one
seemed to notice me. I took my meter into the bathroom. I was shaking so much that the prick wasn't easy. Forty-five, forty-six, the meter counted. I was afraid that another dancer might hear the loud beep of the meter, so I flushed the toilet to drown out the embarrassing sound. Two minutes later my number was displayed—52, way too low. I was having my first low blood sugar attack.

Even though I hadn't yet experienced what low blood sugar was like, I'd been told numerous times about how it would feel. The shaking—which felt like a minor earthquake inside my body—was one of the key symptoms I'd been warned about.

I needed something sweet and I needed it fast. I didn't know at that point that I ought to be carrying something sweet with me at all times. I ran to the vending machine, shoved in my change and guzzled down a can of orange juice.

A few minutes later I walked into the rehearsal hall determined not to let anyone see that I was still mildly shaking. In a few minutes, the juice would hit my bloodstream and I'd be fine.

 

The room was full of formerly pale dancers, now tanned from island vacations and greeting one another with hugs and kisses. Stacey and Catherine came running up to give me big hugs. Other dancers asked if I was okay. Suzanne Farrell, Patricia McBride and Heather Watts each gave me a nod to show their support.

“Everything is great, I'm fine,” I repeated over and over with a thank-you-for-caring smile. But was I really okay, or was this just my best performance yet? Still shaking, I slid into a split and stretched my legs. Suddenly, the loud buzz in the room abruptly
ceased. I turned, and sure enough, the silence meant that Peter Martins had entered the studio. The shaking had stopped, so the orange juice had worked to restore my blood sugar just in the nick of time.

The pianist started playing softly. With no direction we stood at the barre, took first position and began bending our knees in a plié. It felt so good to move up and down to the rhythm of the music. Most of all, it was good to be back in the community of dancers and feeling that I belonged.

As we began our
tendus,
Peter circled the room, giving corrections to one dancer after another. Then, suddenly, he walked in my direction. As he came closer, my heart began beating so fast that I felt as if it were going to pound right out of my chest. This was not a diabetic symptom. It was nerves.

Peter grabbed my hand. I took a deep breath, and I lifted my head and chest as if I were in the army and my commander had singled me out for an order. Still pointing my toes as hard as I could, I gathered up my courage and glanced at Peter out of the corner of my eye.

“Are you all better now?” he asked.

“Yes, Peter, I'm all better now.”

He smiled, nodded and walked away. Was that it? Was that all I had to say? As if I had caught a cold and now it was gone? Maybe it
was
gone.

The doctor had said, and everything I read had confirmed, that exercise would bring down blood sugar levels, and help the medication work better. If my low blood sugar attack was the result of
my no-carb breakfast and a brisk ten-minute walk to the theater, maybe, now that I'd be exercising all day, I could cut down on the oral medication the doctor had prescribed. Maybe someday I wouldn't need medication at all. At least that's what I hoped.