In this first‑person memoir, Tami Grgas recounts her journey from a troubled first marriage and a life‑threatening type‑1 diabetes diagnosis to meeting her future husband, Paul, through an early‑2000s MSN chatroom (3016). She describes the dynamics of the chatroom community, her struggle with an unhappy marriage to her high‑school sweetheart Dean, her conversion to Christianity, and her participation in a pioneering islet‑cell transplant study in Alberta that helped reveal type‑1 diabetes as an autoimmune disease. While navigating these personal crises, Tami deepened her online friendship with Paul, bonding over Napster music sharing. Their relationship progressed to a face‑to‑face meeting in Chicago during the 2000 holiday season, followed by an extended visit to Paul’s family and a summer trip to England and other European destinations. The narrative highlights themes of online community support, medical adversity, spiritual awakening, and the evolution from virtual friendship to marriage in 2002.
Chapters
Okay. Now, in this one, I want to tell you about how I met my military man. I was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. I am a Canadian, and my husband was living in England. He was stationed at Mildenhall at the time. And we met in an internet chat room. It was an MSN chat room, and it was called 3016. We met in the year 2000, and in all honesty, we were friends at the time. It was just a— we had this room. It was 3016. There were like a whole bunch of us that were always hung out in the same room, and we got to know each other. It was, you know, There was Cupcake, there was like all sorts of different name people— Horse, uh, Mustang. I was Redheaded Girl and my husband was Xander, um, or well, we called him X. But we were friends for quite a while and I was actually married to my high school sweetheart at the time. But our relationship was struggling extremely. I, I was having difficulty managing my diabetes because I didn't realize it at the time, but I did not have the right tools to manage my diabetes. And I wanted to have a baby, and the kind of activity needed to create babies wasn't really happening very much, if you know what I mean. And it just— he wouldn't go to counseling with me. I— near the end there, before I met my current husband Paul, I had come to Christ. And that was a huge eye-opener for me. I really thought that Dean— that was my ex-husband— I really thought he was going to come to Christ too, and that God would fix my marriage, even though we were no longer equally yoked. It was, you know, hindsight is so 20/20. It really is. I, uh, I went through a lot with all that. And at the same time, it's kind of crazy, like, this is before things happened that split us up. And, um, I, I just kept trying to work on the relationship, trying to work on the marriage, trying to make it better, trying to make it work, trying to like Oh gosh, I was working so hard at that. At the time, I had built a hair salon in our home. So I was doing hair out of the home, and he would go out of town for 10 days, be home for 4. That was kind of the cycle we were on. And like I say, I was going to church, I was getting, you know, God again. I was like, to be honest with you, I, I was amazed that God loved me. Uh, I grew up in a Roman Catholic, um, God's mad at everybody world, and I got lost. I didn't want to have anything to do with that. So, but yeah, uh, so yeah, um, I was going through an islet cell transplant. So they had a study up in Canada. Uh, we lived in Edmonton, Alberta. Well, I lived in Sherwood Park, but just outside of— that's just outside of Edmonton. And I got 2 islet cell transplants done. And I was off of insulin for a month or so, and then slowly I started having to go back on insulin. And it, it's kind of cool that I went through that, um, and I went through that— I was getting ready for the study, doing everything I needed to do, and, um, That's when my ex-husband told me that the reason that the marriage wouldn't work is because he loved me like a sister, not a wife. And that was my breaking point. I was like, well, I don't want to be married to my brother. So That's when my world flipped upside down. And that's— he left. He was basically going to stay out of town instead of coming home every 10 days. And I dealt with cleaning up the house, lusting the house. All that stuff, and I got 2 islet cell transplants. So I was under a lot of stress at the time, and that could have been part of the reason my body rejected. However, if my body had not rejected, I would not have been allowed to get pregnant because that's an agreement I made because of all the anti-rejection medication I was on, I had to agree that I would not have a child, um, while I was on those medications. So, you know, it was kind of a blessing in disguise. But, um, and through that, um, at that time, type 1 diabetes was just its own little category. And through that study, they saw— like, I remember the doctors talking, and it was kind of like, I didn't really understand at the time, but like I say, 2020, when you look backwards. But they were talking about— they were like, why, why are, um, the white blood cells— apparently my white blood cells were— I think it was white blood cells, whatever, the, the ones that are like defending your body and trying to get rid of things like bad stuff. They were attacking my liver, and my liver is where they transplanted the islet cells. So that kind of made a lot of the studies— and I don't— like, I was the, the 8th person who got it done. I don't know how many more got it done after me. I just know there were 7 ahead of me, and I don't know if I was the first person they saw this in, or like, I just I don't know, but I like to see that I contributed to them figuring out that type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease. So that was kind of cool. But so that happened, my marriage exploded, um, and until that point, Paul and I were just like really good friends. I was actually even trying to set him up with other girls in the chat room and So that happened. My chat room, everybody was there for me. Everybody was so supportive through that. It was phenomenal. It really was. I, I would love to be able to create that kind of community for people, because it was We still talk a little bit on Facebook, but it's not like it was. We were all in our 30s back then, and we just really were there for each other. We really got to know each other on deep levels, some deeper than others, but, you know, and there were of course some a-holes in there too, but, you know, it is what it is. So after that, um, when I was going through— I can't remember the timeline here. I don't think I had gone for my first transplant yet. And Paul and I started getting closer and spending more time together. We were in Napster a lot, listening to music, and Napster was our thing. We were downloading all this music and just having fun in there and, and, um, talking, getting to know each other. And I can't fully remember the turning point, but, um, I think— I think it was because Christmas was coming up, because I got my transplants In October. And well, it was— yeah, it was actually November 1st and November 15th, I think, is when I had my transplants in 2000. And yeah, Christmas was coming. He knew he was going to fly home for Christmas and be in Chicago. That's where he's originally from. So he asked me if I'd like— if I would like to come meet and, and meet him in Chicago. And I was, you know, of course skeptical. Um, I was like, whoa, okay, um, I think I know you, but do I know you? Um, he introduced me online to his sister, and she's like 2 years younger than he is, and we were emailing back and forth, and I got to know her a little, and I started, you know, I built some— he built some trust with me. We exchanged pictures. At the time, there was no— I don't— I think there were videos online, but they were more like higher production videos. Regular people weren't doing videos online. And, um, I think the only place videos were, if it was around at that time, was YouTube. But I don't know. So anyways, we met in Chicago, and that was fantastic. Like, never in my life had someone looked at me and I truly saw love in their eyes for me. Uh, that's it. I was, I was, I was sunk then. So we spent a week together. I met his whole freaking family on New Year's Day, the whole family. I didn't go there until the 26th of December, so I had Christmas with my family at home, he had his, and I met his whole family. That was a little bit intense. But then he invited me to Europe. He said, hey, um, if you get a flight, pay for your flight to come to England and to get back to Canada, you know, like a return flight. And he said I could come spend the summer with him there. And, you know, I was like, okay, this went really well. Um, so yeah, I, you know, if it doesn't work out, I get to go to England. And he's, you know, he's like, I'll take you to Scotland, I'll take you to Ireland, we'll do this, we'll do that. And I said, the only place I really want to go is Paris. So he said, okay, we'll go to Paris too. And he said— he just covered everything, everything else. Like, I stayed at his place, he fed me, he took me places, he spoiled me. I'll tell more about that later. But yeah, that was— I've got more to tell about that story. So yeah, that's how we met, and it's been Well, we got married in 2002, so we've been married for a while now, and it's been great. But I will stop it there, and I will continue the story. Uh, let me think, what would be next? Oh yeah, my trip to England. I'll tell you more about that. Bye. Bye.
