While reading Lynda Dahl's wonderful book "BEYOND THE WINNING STREAK" I came upon a number which sounded bells in my heart. It was an unusual number, this number 131313. It reminded me of what I had mentioned in my "ALWAYS ONE", a little article published in Reality Change, where I write "the reverse of 13 is 31", the year I was born."
The reverse of this triple thirteen becomes a triple 31 which sums to 93. Since we are writing the year 93 and my Social Security Number ends in 93, I'd be 62, or twice 31 and eligible for Social Security. I had my application appointment with the Social Security Office on the telephone, and curiously enough, on the very morning of my appointment, my blood sugar level - I had just been diagnosed with type II, or non insulin dependent, diabetes - was 93.
The day I wrote this little essay, by the way, which started out as a letter to Lynda Dahl, I had 131. A little high so early in the morning, I thought. I didn't have the faintest idea just then that I'd be writing about this number later in the day. Oh yes, I had a surprise coming. For didn't the first part of number 131313 contain that morning's blood sugar level? My "inner" self certainly knew its business, ha ha..
When it comes to that "unlucky" number 13, I have considered Friday, the 13th, my lucky day ever since I was given back a German composition on a Friday, the 13th, from a teacher who didn't believe in giving out A's all throughout her long teaching career and who only in our last year before graduation from high school, which incidentally was her last year before retirement, decided to change her beliefs enough to hand out a few. Thus it happened that on a day universally considered unlucky, I held in my hands the coveted A from this very special teacher, a Mrs. Helene Robe, who, though she was the principal of our school - principals on the whole do not teach - loved teaching so much that she taught German and English to one class only. We felt privileged that she'd picked ours. When I came upon this, for me, so very meaningful number - in triplicate yet - I spontaneously reached for the phone to tell Lynda how much I liked her book. But who should answer? He had just come back from a short vacation with her - she wouldn't be back for another day - he was in the process of unloading his car, and he never even answers that particular phone, but this time, strangely enough, he had. It was Stan. I had expected Lynda, of course. But had it not been the serial number of Stan's telephoto lens which had prompted me to make the call in the first place? My inner self must have seen Stan coming a mile off, so strongly had I felt that I had to make the call that very moment.
Yes, indeed, I always knew that the year '93 would be a big one for me. Why else would the last two numbers of my Social Security number be 93? Something big was going to happen, a change of some kind. It was certainly not only the fact that I was going to be eligible for Social Security. Though the extra money would definitely come in handy. No! This was going to be something really big.
This is what happened: A virus of some kind, accompanied by a fever of 103 (note again the numbers 1 and 3), had held me in its grip for several weeks. Though the fever had subsided, I had no appetite. In the mistaken belief that they would give me the needed energy, I lived on juices, sodas, ice cream, canned pears and peaches, all sugar laden. Still, I was getting weaker and weaker, sleepier and sleepier. Finally I gave up. I wasn't getting any better. And since I thoroughly believed that I had to be practically dying before going to the doctor, that's exactly what occurred.
On January 4, '93, - just in the nick of time - I finally went to Doc. Nick, "Nick" being my sons' nick name for Dr. Nicosia. When I typed my first account describing these events, just as I typed the word "nick" as in "nick of time", my sons' friend Nick Vacca called on the phone. Don't you love it? Anyway, it came to all of us as a great shock that something had gone terribly wrong and that my blood sugar level was over one thousand. Between 70 and 120 is considered normal. Doc. Nick said, "God must really love you!" He was surprised I wasn't in a coma or worse. While my daughter Diane, my friend Basha and my sons Corky and Rich looked on, Dr. Nicosia called the local ambulance and right afterwards Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck, New Jersey, to tell them to dispatch their own ambulance, so that the two ambulances could rendezvous en route. Convinced that I was two hours away from death's door, as he told my family later on, he didn't want to wait a moment longer to put me on insulin, antibiotics, vitamins and what not and wanted to put me on intravenous immediately. His diagnosis? Ketoacidosis and severe dehydration.
In the hospital, I was assigned a regular room. No intensive care for me, thank you. As if I had anything to do with it. I was much too sleepy. Little did I know that my people were told it was touch and go. Would I respond to medication and insulin? When I was down to a blood sugar level of 400 - I had to be brought down carefully, slowly, to avoid going into shock - my son Corky informed me, "Now you're only terrible," while beaming from ear to ear. They were dancing in the hallway. I was out of the woods. My husband at age 89, after a hospital stay of nine days not so long ago himself - he'd fallen down the front stairs to our house, had hit his head and had sustained inner bleeding, had however made a marvelously fast come-back. We think of him as superman. Well, now he was sitting next to my hospital bed, holding my hand. Seems we were taking turns taking care of each other.
After a hospital stay of ten days, on January 14, 1993, I was discharged. I had to give myself an insulin injection every morning. At each doctor's visit the amount of insulin was reduced, till I was taken off of it completely and instead had to take a diabetes medication by mouth. Even that was cut in half and, lo and behold, after merely five weeks of being home, I was taken off the oral medication also and have been controlling my diabetes with diet alone ever since. But I'd been experiencing what it feels like to take insulin, I, the "Insulaner", as we called ourselves in West-Berlin while being surrounded on all sides by the hostile East, like an island (Insel means island). Sometimes I think that numbers and words are woven though the patterns of our lives.
Diagnosed with type II diabetes, I had become my doctor's star diabetes patient as he was sure to tell me every chance he got. For the first time in my life I was in control of my diet. As a child I was too thin. I can still hear my mom's voice as she admonished me, "if you don't eat you'll get Tb! Tuberculosis was rampant in Germany during and after the Second World War. The treatment then was eating lots of butter, which we didn't have, and drinking milk. Even milk was rationed and given to children and invalids only. In my mind, food was equated with good health.
At age 13 - once again I was looking at my lucky 13 - I had finally changed my beliefs enough to have acquired a healthy appetite. For the first time in my young life I felt hungry enough to be able to "eat a horse", as they say. There was only one thing wrong. At the end of World War II in Germany there was virtually nothing to eat. The appetite, however, stayed with me all my life till this virus took hold of me. It was the weirdest thing. Patiently, my daughter and my friend were feeding me. I had trouble swallowing. I'd chew and chew and almost choke on my food. All bread tasted bitter. Nothing tasted good. This lasted until I was home and even a few weeks after that. I'll never forget when I ate a piece of bread and it finally didn't taste bitter. It felt like a breakthrough. All my life I'd been battling food as if it were my enemy. I'd court it, hoard it in my body but had never made friends with it. When I reached these shores on May 12, 1958, I'd just lost 30 pounds to fit back into my clothes tipping the scales at 143 pounds. Though I wanted to lose another ten I carried my weight well and was happy enough with the way I looked. This feeling of elation didn't last long. Three months of strenuous dieting had made my body rebel. It wanted its rights.
In the years hence, every time I went on one of those low calorie diets the same thing happened. I gained back every ounce I'd lost and put on more besides. I went up, up and away, until on May 12, 1992, exactly 33 years to the day of my arrival in these United States, I was at the same old numbers, slightly differently arranged however. The 3 had jumped in front of the 14 and instead of the initial 143, I was at my now all time high of 314. Mind you, I wasn't aware of the number connection, or of the significant date. It took me two days to put two and two together, as they say. But it was rather strange that I had picked the 33rd anniversary of my coming to the United States to go on the Callaway diet. Or should I say, I was called away from my old ways by Dr.Callaway?
My next challenge is my arthritis. I've been using the walker and been sort of a shut-in for years. But that's changing too. For my beliefs in that direction are changing. I already practiced walking unaided in many of my dreams and have lately been translating my dreams into physical reality by taking a few steps, unaided, down the length of our living room. There's lots of belief work yet to be done since I firmly believe that we're breathing life into what we believe. As far as I am concerned, I was such a skeptic that I must have needed numbers to prove to myself that the center of the universe is everywhere, even in my lovely laptop computer I'm just beginning to master. I was getting ready to print this article when, for the very first time, I noticed the memory remaining indicator number at the top right of my screen. It read, "MEM. REM.-31 131." If this doesn't convince me nothing will.
The article finished, I mailed it out on May 7, 1993, exactly a year to the day I started the Callaway Diet. My scale read 236, down 78 pounds from 314. Not bad, I thought. Seven days later, on Sunday, May 19, Mother's Day, my daughter surprised me with an elegant mother-daughter locket of onyx with marcasites and, though costume jewelry, well made pearl necklace. Each of the 76 pearls - oh yes, I counted them right away - are framed by a golden link. Well, what about it? You may ask. Okay, so 7 + 6 sums to 13 and 7 * 6 to 42 which is another one of my favorites since it is the only multiplication that had never given me trouble as a child while all the others invariably did. But is that all? Certainly not. It's the tag, the one they use to code the merchandise! Framed by two quotation marks it reads: "131". Wow!
To keep a record of this amazing synchronicity I placed
the necklace on top of my copier. Just to see if it would print out.
I curved it around once creating a double loop making sure 
that
the tag would show up all right. After it had printed out successfully,
I went around the string with my pen numbering each pearl in succession.
The way the pearls of the two smaller loops lined up with each other has
to be seen to be believed. The big 42 from my
Shell story was right on top before the overlap. 19 lined up with
58 which made it 1958, the year I came to this country.
I made quite a few other associations. "So what!" My son says.
"Who cares! But I do like the necklace!" And he's right of
course. To each his own.
EPILOGUE
Monday, November 29, 1999
I just copied this article to be posted on my site. Six years later, I weigh 230 pounds, six pounds less than I did when I wrote the above, still too much, of course. On the positive side, I walk without a walker or cane, though so far only short distances, before I have to sit down and rest.
Tuesday, December 14, 1999
A few weeks ago I had the flu. My blood sugar level, which for six long years, I had been controlling with diet alone, soared once again. This time I knew what to do. On November 16, '99, on the advice of my doctor, I took my first double tablet of Amaryl which worked like a charm. This morning I had a blood sugar reading of 131 and before dinner 93. This is uncanny, I thought. To have both these numbers show up on the very same day I've posted the copy of the '93 necklace showing the price tag with # "131" ? What is this telling me? That there are bleedthroughs over the course of several years to the exact time of year, even? For in '93 it was also around Thanksgiving and was a virus while this time it was the flu that triggered this whole business. Astonishing!
Thursday, December 16, 1999
It hit me quite suddenly last night. I had such a severe reaction to low blood sugar (extreme weakness - I had trouble lifting my hands, couldn't walk, had trouble talking, couldn't even write) that I took myself off of Amaryl completely. After exactly four weeks my blood sugar shows normal levels which, for me, might have been just a bit too low, the doctor told me, hence the reaction which lasted through half of last night, this morning and early afternoon. By late afternoon the weakness had left me completely. The doctor, a different doctor this time, paid us a housecall and pronounced me quite well. Again I had make a marvelously fast recovery. But it had been scary. I hope to have learned from these experiences so I won't have to go through them again, numbers or no numbers.
Friday, December 17, 1999
I subscribe and contribute to BLACK SHEEP, a networking fanzine for writers and artists --who love Seth, Jane Roberts and Rob Butts -- featuring poetry, short - short stories, sketches, earth mysteries, coordinate points, the world grid and other stuff.
Madelon Rose Logue, editor and publisher
3868 Centinela Ave. # 12, Los Angeles, CA 90066-4431
310-313-1162
The zine celebrated its 5th anniversary this year and I couldn't help noticing some, by now familiar numbers, namely 4, 3 and 1. Thank goodness I didn't put myself through the excruciating experience of getting myself up to 431 lbs and instead can now make a totally benign association with the highest combination of these three numbers, and of course once again with number 31. That's why, for issue #31 of BLACK SHEEP, I had written the following verse:
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY
ISSUE #31
One
Chinese
sheep year,
yes, you heard right,
sheep year, not leap year,
this century saw, besides '43
which is Josephine's number, you see,
was the year '31 which puts me in awe
of the fact
that these sheep numbers
43/31
are the tail of the Black Sheep zip code,
namely 900 66-4 431.
From 1907 till the year '91
every twelfth was a sheep year:
1907, 1919, 1931, 1943
1955, 1967, 1979, 1991
Now, let's have some fun.
Sheep number 19 sets this century's tone.
Everyone has it preceding their own
year of birth, sheep or no sheep.
1919 is Rob's year of birth!
As can be seen,
he's a double nineteen!
Madelon's phone,
(31 031 31 162),
it is true, at first sight,
sports three 31s.
But let's get this right:
Since 62 is twice 31
there are five 31s for five years of the fun.
A new millennium opens its door.
I hear the sheep baaing:
"We want more!"
HAPPY FIFTH ANNIVERSARY!
And many, many more!
Ute Kaboolian
[born '31]