Old Dog, New Tricks?

They say “you can’t teach old dogs new tricks.” I feel like an old dog who cannot seem to learn new tricks. The feeling like an old dog part has meaning on several levels since I just have not been feeling that great lately. I caught a cold (the stuffy nose and gross cough variety) that I just can’t seem to shake, my monster headaches have returned, insomnia is in again and the general stress level of my life is up. All I want to do many days is sleep like an old dog. The new tricks part refers to me and my learning to take better care of my diabetes. The minimum: testing, logging, bolusing and carb counting.

The only one I have really done better with is testing but since I haven’t picked up the trick of logging I have no good proof of this. I feel like I have been better about blousing when I eat as opposed to after, but again, it’s hard to show that when I am lacking the logging the part. I’m trying to not be so hard on myself and recognize what I have accomplished and keep trying.

I have been blessed with an anonymous-to-you-commenter (but not to me anymore) on my blog who offered their help in the baby steps and subsequently given support via e-mail. We had a great plan to check in with each other on Mondays and Fridays and set goals for ourselves. Well I am ashamed to admit that I let the ball drop on that one. The last time we e-mailed was like the 14th of March. Before I post this, I will e-mail them and see if I can salvage that support.

Other stress comes from work get busy with a couple of big events coming up: The Celebrity Art Auction and Gala and the Tour de Cure Rock-n-Ride at Blossom. Then there is the bigger stress of a serious illness in my husband’s family which entails one dog staying at our house and my husband staying at his sibling’s house with another dog. We get to see each other every day for dinner and on the weekends but the whole situation is crappy and tough. Except for having Skippy stay at our house – he is a great dog.

Another bit of stress came after I spent a few days in Toledo with my niece, Maddy, who stole my heart and came home really, really, really wanting one of my own. Because of many reasons we are looking at adoption and since there are age-limits for many types of adoptions, (not to mention, our own life plans) and my husband will turn 44 in May, the clock is ticking. It hasn’t gotten stressful yet but we are well aware that path ahead is likely to be rough.

So in a nutshell, that is what’s going on. I was horrified when my faithful reader in the office pointed out that it had been 20 days since my last post.