local author turns diabetic tragedy into comedy in new comic book

Every diabetic has different experiences, but Haidee Soule Merritt is especially familiar with the ups and downs of trying to balance sugars in an uncooperative body.

Her symptoms of the disease have been heightened because, she admits, she hasn’t always been a good diabetic. Hiding a bag of brown sugar from your parents to devour it later is probably not good for any child, but it was especially bad for Merritt, who was diagnosed as a diabetic at age 2.

“Some diabetics don’t even have a sweet tooth, but I have a whole mouth full of them,” she said.

Instead of letting the struggle get her down, Merritt says she has to laugh. She has created hundreds of comic illustrations about diabetes, and the first collection of them was recently released in her book, “One Lump or Two? Things That Suck About Being Diabetic.”

When Merritt was diagnosed with Type I diabetes at such a young age, a doctor told her parents not to get attached to her or even take photographs because she wasn’t likely to live past her seventh birthday, she said. She is now in her late 30s, but she has seen many challenges.

A problem with her eyes required surgery that left her blind for about two years. She was in college at the time and had to learn Braille, listen to assignments on tape and type with a narrated computer program. Her sight gradually returned, but she still sees double in one eye, among other problems, and has a form of colorblindness.

Merritt’s struggles with her eyesight make it surprising to learn that she is a visual artist. Her fine art includes detailed nature drawings framed with mixed media, such as a dragon fly with raised, iridescent wings and an aging paper tag. This winter, she has also taken up the craft of designing up-cycled lamps, often repainting the base and wrapping the shades in coordinating or clashing material. These can be found online at her Etsy shop, Bird Wing Productions, and at Lucky 7 in downtown Portsmouth.

Merritt currently works in her Wentworth-Dennett studio in Kittery, Maine, surrounded by the artwork she has been obsessively creating. She makes art all winter, then works as a gardener in the summer, gathering inspiration for her insect drawings.
She is currently attempting to market her book, which she says is not about art as much as it is about sharing her experiences for the sake of other diabetics and those who know them. “Diabetics should read the book, people who live with diabetics, families of them,” she said. “Everyone could find something in it that’s true and funny.”

The book is smart and lighthearted, in-your-face and gently heartbreaking. It’s a quick read, but its words stay with you. It calls attention to the overlooked, such as the challenges diabetic kids face on Halloween and diabetic adults face on Valentine’s Day, and it promotes understanding of moodiness and other symptoms of the disease.

On one of the black-and-white pages, there’s a tempting, round whoopie pie and the words, “Whoopee! You can’t have ’em!” On another page, there are small dots with the simple words, “loneliness and isolation...”

The cartoon drawings are endearingly imperfect to varying degrees, a suggestion of Merritt’s poor eyesight that is not in her framed drawings. She was still recovering from her surgery when she began working on the book about 10 years ago. 

“I’m not a good diabetic. I didn’t follow the best advice or regiments, and because of that I’ve had experiences and complications diabetics try to avoid,” Merritt said. Now she is in a position to give advice and she says, “It’s a choice.”
“One Lump or Two” is available at the author’s website, www.haideemerritt.com.