orange juice

Sweet. Tangy. It stings as it touches my chapped lips. It hits my teeth, so cold it sends chills all through my body.

I loved orange juice. Almost every morning before school I would have a chocolate chip eggo waffle and a glass of iced cold orange juice. Sometimes a glass of milk but orange juice was always an option. 

I don’t know what it is about being told you can’t have something that initially makes you want it more but after I was told I could no longer have orange juice I remember always craving it. That longing for the always sweet and sometimes sour greeting in the morning.

I remember sitting in a small office in CHLA. It was the day after I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. Less than 24 hours after my life changed, I was being briefed by a nutritionist. I was given a crash course in carb counting and told what to stay away from – lemonade, apple juice, orange juice, soda. I didn’t care too much about apple juice. But lemonade and orange juice — that stung.

Growing up my siblings, friends and I liked to have lemonade stands during the summer or on a random weekend afternoon. We would put a table out in the driveway and make a giant pitcher of lemonade — never homemade but we convinced ourselves it was — as if emptying cans of frozen lemonade into a pitcher and mixing it with water counted as homemade. We would mix up a box of brownies (always taking turns licking the spoon) and cut them into uneven squares. Then we would set it all out on a small table along with a jar that said 50% proceeds donated to… followed by where we would be donating the money. Sometimes polar bears or whales and after I was diagnosed it was often The Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles.

Once we were all set up we would make a nice poster and take turns running up and down the sidewalk screaming “lemonade, get your lemonade!” We never got that much business. Usually family friends (that my mom secretly texted) would show up and would give us $10 for a $1 cup of lemonade. Sympathy donations or maybe our canned lemonade really was that good. I’m pretty sure it was the former but a girl can dream. In between customers we would take small glasses of lemonade, pretending like we were taste testing but really we just wanted an excuse for a cup. And when a customer would approach we would quickly hide our cups under the table – we were a professional business after all.

After I was diagnosed lemonade stands felt different. I’m not sure how many we even did after that. My friends and I were getting older but I also didn’t push for them. They reminded me of how much my life had changed.

Breakfasts before school became eggos and milk or cereal…always with a side of insulin. When we would go to restaurants I would order chocolate milk or water. We stopped having orange juice in the house as often. I think my mom felt bad or maybe I was the one who used to drink it most.

I’m not sure when it finally sunk in. Eventually no orange juice and no lemonade just became normal. The further away I got from life before no orange juice, the less I remembered what it was like.

Looking back, no orange juice was a small price to pay for being able to live, but that’s adult me talking. Eleven year old me just had her entire life change in an instant and she needed to grieve the loss of orange juice. I just wish I could’ve told her then that life without orange juice wouldn’t be all that bad and that one day it would be her favorite low blood sugar treat.