By admin 
ROCK HILL, S.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) – Ephraim Scott Sommers has a way with words. When life leaves him grasping for them, he often writes song lyrics.
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“My boots are filling up, and it’s getting harder to walk. All my lightbulbs have been lost,” he sang, performing his song “American Mud” on his guitar at his Rock Hill home.
“I’m in the American mud, but I’m looking for sunshine,” he continued singing.
The local singer-songwriter says picking up a guitar helps pick up his state of mind. But it’s just one way he uplifts himself at uncertain and emotional times.
“Try to find some sort of joy, or levity, or laughter within a really difficult situation that I’ve been given,” Sommers told Queen City News.
“My pancreas, because of an autoimmune disease, has stopped working,” he said, explaining the impact of Type 1 diabetes.
It’s forced him to reflect not just through music but through another medium.
“Ode to Spouses of Diabetics and how they find us in the darkened kitchen at 3:16 a.m.,” he said, reciting “Ode to Spouses of Diabetics,” a tribute to unsung heroes like his wife Ann.
“She’s also listened to me go on and on about diabetes, so I am so grateful,” says Sommer.
“In our underwear, shirtless, spotlit by the light of the open fridge, our right hand wearing a whole rotisserie chicken like a winter mitten, like an edible oven glove,” the Winthrop professor writes in that poem, highlighting an uncomfortable moment with humor.
His book “Diabetic Gumdrops” paints a poetic picture of living with the chronic disease. Two years ago, the diagnosis shook him. The book will be released in September and is being pre-sold now online.
“So much fear,” Sommers said. “And from that fear arises so many other emotions of anger, frustration; a super dark place.”
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He says poems give him a chance to see the positive. Ephraim calls them a “monument to a moment.”
“With poetry I can be a little more personal, a little more specific about my experience,” he says.
He was overwhelmed by everything needed to manage diabetes. He laid out an array of books, equipment, and other items that he needs.
“This is called a continuous glucose monitor,” he shows us. “This is called fast-acting insulin.”
“I was in a state of ignorance at the beginning, and that ignorance had pretty high stakes,” Sommers said.
His father is also diabetic, diagnosed with Type 1 in his 40s just like his son.
“So much of what diabetics are dealing with is in silence; you can never really understand what they’re going through,” says Sommers.
“I can’t survive if I focus every day on that I have this for my whole life,” he said. “I can survive if I find joy in tiny little moments. If I have the ability to say, ‘What can I be grateful for?’ One thing I’m grateful for is my spouse. One thing I can be grateful for is his needles.”
Whether it’s poetry or music, creativity means a lot to his psyche. That gift means as much as any medicine.
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“A little laughter and joy can help the difficulty of the moment,” Sommers says.