SWEETBLOOD

Tainted

2007-12-18T10:30:00.000-05:00

Driving to work, my thoughts drift to the future and all the amazing things yet to come for my husband and I, and a silly grin makes it way to my face. I think of LT’s first Christmas at home, holidays with all the cousins, and eventually being grandparents. For miles, I am lost in my own daydream.

That is until a nagging, cramping sort of feeling in stomach jars me back to reality. This cramping, almost painful feeling in my stomach has seemed accompany high blood sugars recently. Just like that my mood plummets and my worry of the damage done my body from diabetes takes over. Guilt is next, since it’s all up to me and let’s face it, I am not a model diabetic.

I hate this disease and the way it taints things with its mere presence. I hate that my biggest worry about being a parent (that is after the huge obstacle of actually getting him home) is my diabetes getting in the way. Will I be able to have good enough control to keep up with my baby and feel well enough to enjoy the priceless moments? More daunting still is the heavy weight of the complications that in my mind are inevitable.

A glance at his adorable face and I pull out my kit to test. I despise testing, those often angry numbers glaring back at me from the screen, but for him I’ll do anything. I will do my best to not let this chapter of my life be tainted by the big bullying D.

Christmas Early!

2007-12-13T16:35:00.000-05:00

I got my starter set of Real Time sensors today! I won’t be able to start using them until I get my pump upgrade which will happen next month, but I am still excited. Unbeknownst to me the sensors need to be refrigerated so the package was sent overnight and arrived at my office this morning.

My co-worker and friend, Sarah, was instrumental in helping me wade through the whole process with here inside knowledge from her previous job at Medtronic. Thank you Sarah! See, the first time I needed pump supplies with my UHC insurance it was a huge hassle to get the bill paid and my prescription plan only allows for 2 bottles of Novolog at a time (which is much less than I use) so I therefore assumed that there was no way my insurance would cover the Real Time, but Sarah told me that they would.

So, once I get the pump upgrade and actually start using the Real Time system next year it is game on! No more slacking, no more acting like I don’t have diabetes! It’s time to get those blood sugars under control – I’ve got to be in the best health I can be for baby LT.

IT'S A BOY!

2007-12-11T15:58:00.000-05:00

We got our referral! He is a beautiful baby boy from Guatemala. LT is about 2 months old, happy & healthy. We got an amazing video where he is happy as can be, almost-smiling, alert, and simply adorable. It was torture to watch LT on the screen and not be able to hold him, kiss him and breathe in that wonderful baby scent. I wish I could post a picture here but our agency asks that we don’t.

We are head-over-heals in love and we haven’t met him yet. There are still so many hoops to jump through and endless waiting to endure but at least we have a picture to attach to all our hopes and dreams.

Now all we want for Christmas is for LT to come home safely and quickly and most of all not get tangled up in all the bureaucratic crap surrounding international adoption.

PS
All the stress, excitement and waiting is wreaking havoc on my blood sugars

Big News....at least to me it is.

2007-08-07T23:22:00.000-04:00

The big news that I have been dying to share with the blogosphere but haven’t yet because there is a part of me that is terrified that it will not happen is....

We are adopting.

As my husband says “Good Lord willing, by this time next year we will have a baby boy home with us.” After much consideration and a huge leap of faith we decided on Guatemala and a boy. We are very close to getting our dossier in and then begins the real wait; the agonizing wait for him to come home. We have been fingerprinted, questioned, examined, schooled, and pushed to our limits with the mounds of paperwork. I think I actually broke a sweat when the social worker asked me tons of questions about diabetes which led to more questions about my Prozac use. There were some moments there where I hated diabetes the disease more than I ever had before because it felt like, for those few moments that I may no be deemed suitable for adoption because of it. The social worker and the agency do not see these as issues (in the carefully worded way it is all documented) but the doubt is still tangible.

I simply cannot wait until we get our referral and thus the picture of our baby. Then it will all feel so much more real. Then I can start decorating the baby’s room and buy him some adorable, tiny cargo pants, ooh and tiny Crocs, and little Converse and …. Then I might feel like this could actually happen to me.

I love kids. Love them sticky hands, sloppy kisses, whininess, brutal honesty, and all.
When I think of my future there is a child in it, and my husband too.

PS It seems so impersonal to call him just baby but without sharing the name we have picked out I am stumped so if you have any ideas let me know. Art Sweets moniker of Guatababy was great and is all I keep thinking of.

21 Days, They Say...

2007-04-04T17:31:00.000-04:00

You can’t keep doing this! You are killing yourself slowly. You have diabetes; it’s not going away; just get over it! These thoughts and more swirl in my cloudy head as I walk into work feeling like crap with no idea what my blood sugar is and 3 cups of coffee with calorie-containing cream down the hatch. Last check was in the middle of the night and was 317 which I corrected for so there is good chance that I was low when I woke up. My testing kit was even right on the dresser near the bed (where I nearly left it) but I still did not test. Testing is just not a part of my routine or habit, especially in the morning when I drag myself out of bed, make coffee and get ready for work. Seems like a simple fix – just do it consistently and it will become habit. Ha! Some days it is easy to just do that first blood sugar but most days it doesn’t even cross my mind until I start feeling crappy.

So poking around the web I came across this quote from Proverbs: “As a dog returns to his own vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.” Hmmm… Strong image to make a point. Is the lesson that constantly repeating (regurgitating) bad habits is as disgusting as a dog returning to it’s own vomit?

Then I came across a reference to something I have either heard or seen before: that it takes 21 days to form a habit. I’m going to give it a try to make those first-thing-in-the-morning-blood-sugars a habit.

It takes at least 21 days to form a habit. This means that you have to do something at least 21 times before it begins to become part of your everyday routine. So . . .
1. Decide exactly what you want to do. Write it down and post it where you can see it every day, like your bathroom mirror. Be as specific as possible.
2. Schedule time to do what you want to do. Again, it takes 21 days to form a habit, so schedule at least 21 days on your calendar and don't let anything get in the way of your schedule. If you miss one of your scheduled days, it's best to start over and schedule
another 21 days. You must be consistent and dedicated to doing what you want to do.
3. Once you reach your 21 days, congratulations! Don't stop now though, schedule another 21 days, and then another and so on, until you do those things you want to do, without even thinking about them . . . like brushing your teeth.

I made a sheet to check off the days & will keep you posted.

Painfully Familiar

2007-03-29T14:11:00.000-04:00

My husband and I purchased bicycles recently. We have wanted them for some time, since it is one of the few physical activities we both enjoy, so we just did it. It has been a long time since either of us has ridden a bike. That first ride, the first day we got them was wonderfully familiar to me. In my younger days, I was a true biker. At age 14 I did a 600 mile bike trip in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, it was not uncommon for my me and my dad to hop on our bikes and go 10, 15 or 20 miles, and then in college I loved mountain biking with the boys. On a bike, I feel comfortable, capable and strong.

I love the whirring of the tires on the pavement, the wind in my face, the click of the gears as I shift and that the bike only moves as hard as I pedal it. On the second ride we took at a nearby park, biking became painfully familiar. We may have overestimated ourselves by choosing to take the 3 mile path that is quite hilly. As in real hills not just slight elevations that when on a bike seem like huge hills. My heart beating so forcefully in my chest that I could hear it in my ears, gulping huge gasps of air, trying to catch my breath and the burn in my legs as I struggled up the hills, those too, were very familiar.

The next evening we were back on our bikes for a flatter ride and plan to ride when time and weather permit.

Old Dog, New Tricks?

2007-03-26T14:48:00.000-04:00

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.

What Do You Think?

2007-03-06T15:28:00.000-05:00

So since I have gotten so many warm congrtulations and people saying they are in my cheering section, I feel like I do have my very own cheering section. This has helped me immensly. Thank you all.

On a lighter note, I was thinking that perhaps my 'cheering seciton' should have uniforms. What do you think of these?

and I didn't forget the guys

Baby Steps Taken

2007-03-02T08:10:00.000-05:00

In the past 4 days I have tested a total of 20 times! Go Me! I have tested each morning, first thing, before my coffee. This was helped by my putting my test kit on my bedside table so that even before my feet hit the floor, I test. In addition to actually doing my blood sugars I have been – are you ready for this - writing them down in a logbook I created! The readings are all over the place, but I am following everyone’s advice of baby steps and simply concentrating on doing the blood sugars and logging them. I admit I have still done a couple of S.W.A.G. boluses* and an evening of no testing but I am trying. Hopefully in a week or so I will be ready to start taking a look at the numbers and making adjustments.

Do I get a virtual gold star?

Much of my accomplishments are thanks to my OC and real-life friends. See I opened my big mouth and told pretty much everyone around me how horrific my compliance was and that I needed help changing. I couldn't just not do anything when there are so many people rooting for me, I had to keep some semblance of integrity. Maybe my motivation is not perfect, but at this point I feel that any motivation is better than none at all.

* S.W.A.G. Bolus – Scientific, Wild Assed Guess bolus. This is where you use more instinct than data to bolus an unexpected or uncalculated meal. (borrowed from other OC bloggers)

Help Needed with Baby Steps

2007-02-26T17:20:00.000-05:00

So how about some detailed instructions or a road map to show me how to get there from here? There being decent control, enough to give me some freedom at least, and here being, the pit of denial I am treading water in. I hear, what you wonderful OC peeps are saying about baby steps, but how? When I think of baby steps I get caught up in just how many baby steps it will take to get there. Which one do I start with? What do I do when I stumble and fall taking those first steps? How do I get back up again?

Please don’t think I am looking for an easy answer. I also realize that I will have to create my own mix of ways to do this. It’s just that I have tired, time and time again to make a fresh start, to take those first steps and I always seem to fail; never seem to make it very far. In my mind, I am perpeptually the kid with the skinned knees, scabs & scars from all failed attempts. I have no shame in admitting that I need help and lots of it.

What should be my first goal or step? When the emotional part of me is screaming “NO,” how do I trick my mind into thinking like a diabetic?

PS – Thanks for all the advice thus far & the support I know I will continue to get from the OC :)

Confession and Revelation

2007-02-23T11:54:00.000-05:00

Some days

Some days I am disgusted with myself. I work for an organization that is all about diabetes. The mission is to prevent and cure diabetes and to improve the lives of all people affected by diabetes. I am surrounded by the statistics the risk factors, I process donations made in memory of someone’s loved one who has died from complications associated to diabetes on a daily basis and I put together educational packets on diabetes. Both information on my disease and support too is right in front of me, yet….

Yet I still work very hard at ignoring my own diabetes. What the hell is the matter with me? Am I really that cocky that I think I can be the one to beat the odds? Am I just that lazy? What is my mental block? Days like today, I just think I am an idiot. I should ‘just do it’, just get over it. But for some messed up reason I can’t. I will sit there for hours with the nagging though that I should do a blood sugar, maybe bolus for that coffee and muffin (mind you, it’s a healthy muffin I made from a diabetes cookbook) I ate and the sickly sweet, sluggish feeling of a high coming over and yet I don’t. Instead, I have another cup of coffee, take some ibuprofen and get on with work.

Days like today, I am so fed up with being me. See, most days, as of late are like this in the aspect that I have done, maybe, a blood sugar a day, and bolused only after a meal and by guessing how much to give. To some this may scream ‘crisis’ but to me this is pretty much status quo.

Being this honest is hard; I’m not sure I will even post this. It’s not like I have hidden that I am not exactly a good diabetic, but I’m not sure I want to be this honest…with myself or with anyone else.

Later that same day…

The topic of fasting blood sugars came up with my co-worker who has gestational diabetes and she was shocked to hear that I almost never do a blood sugar (fasting or not) in the morning. I went on to tell her that in the past few weeks I have done hardly any blood sugars at all. She replied that she had seen me do some and admitted that those were probably the only ones I was doing. She says, “So you just don’t do blood sugars? Why?” I confessed that I didn’t really know why, that I would think about doing one then, just not do it…for hours. I told her about my theory of a mental block or a piece missing. I was able to just be totally honest with E and talk about how I simply don’t comply. I think I was ready to come clean.

Sheepishly I admitted that I had really been digging the Dixie Chicks song “Not Ready to Make Nice” lately. This is not my typical type of music but the lines:
"I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should"
These words have just really resonated with me lately and I have been playing the song over & over, singing at the top of my lungs inthe car. E told me I was in denial and I agreed, but countered with how can I have been in denial for nearly my whole adult life? Then she asked me a very pointed question: “Do you feel like that by not complying you are fighting diabetes and to comply would mean you were giving in?” I paused and told her that I know what I should say, but she wanted to know how I really felt. How I really feel (even though the logical part of me knows it’s crap and that by gaining control of my disease, I would really be setting myself free and fighting it), is that deep down I do believe that by being the good little diabetic I should be I am admitting defeat.

This is all still sinking in a day later but thanks to a wonderfully insightful co-worker, no, friend I think I am one step closer to understanding my twisted relationship I have with my diabetes.

Perspective

2007-02-07T16:37:00.000-05:00

Perspective

perspective noun a way of regarding situations or topics etc.; 2. the appearance of things relative to one another as determined by their distance from the viewer

Perspective is a funny thing. You see things one way, I see them in another. There is no right or wrong perspective necessarily, just different ones. A couple of things a newer friend (who I see daily since I also work with her) said to me got me thinking about my own perspective on things.

“Melissa you are too hard on yourself”

I smirk and say “Yeah, I’ve heard that one before…”

It makes me feel good to hear this yet I still don’t believe it. In my mind, if I really were that hard on myself I would be better in the many areas that I am lacking in. I would be a good diabetic, I wouldn’t be fat, I would exercise, I would eat better, I would have finished school etc. I would be me, just without all the big flaws, mostly the ones that seem to relate to diabetes and that at times seem to cripple me.

“Melissa, I never knew you felt this way, you don’t really talk about it,” this after she saw that I had a whole blog about diabetes and had read some of my posts. Her surprise was an eye opener to me because I see myself as a person with a flashing neon sign on my forehead blinking: I have diabetes; I’m a mess. I mean, shit, this disease kicks my ass on a daily basis, so it is hard for me to imagine that someone who is around me all day does not see it.

When I broke down a few weeks ago and sobbed to my boss about how overwhelmed I was by the disease and how I was not in good control she said that she never knew; that I seemed so in control of it. Ha!

My perspective on my disease is very different from what those around me see. It is not nagging at their thoughts 24 hours a day. There is not the ever-present reminder of the disease in the pump attached to them all the time or the beeping of said pump at the most inopportune times. Yes, there view is quite different from my own but I’m hoping that with some more sharing on my part that they will gain more insight into the day-to-day protocol of this disease and that I will be able to see myself as so much more than my disease.

Shift, Game On, Crash, Broken Record

2007-02-01T10:00:00.000-05:00

Shift

The holidays brought with them chaos, stress, tons of food and libations all around. In my world if felt like school, with its final exams and ten-page-papers due, were completed only minutes before Christmas. Diabetes care was an afterthought at best, but the guilt of noncompliance weighed heavily on my subconscious. There was simply too much going on, to much life to experience. I was not going to worry about this disease right then; I would do what I wanted, when I wanted.

Fast forward a few weeks. I was tired of feeling beaten down by this disease so I began a half-hearted effort at control. Two bad diabetes days in a row & I broke down. Day 1 highlights were a low in the middle of the night, then a rebound high accompanied by a viscous headache that Advil could not conquer, only 3 hours spent at work topped off by a blood sugar in the 500’s. I berated myself and promised that tomorrow I would do better. Day 2’s highlight was not having any insulin with me to fill my empty pump reservoir, ensuing in a nice long drive from and to work in which I got super-angry and frustrated at myself and diabetes too.

My little world was on a crash course to disaster and I needed to fix it NOW. I felt a shift in my thinking, really my whole state of mind. I turned my anger action. I even had a ‘talk’ (more like a collapse) with my boss about the trouble I was having dealing with my disease and I my concern that it was affecting my work and that I was on top of it. My boss was amazingly supportive and had no concerns about my performance. I was a guilty/lucky girl. Since said boss is wise in the ways of diabetes I opened myself up to some accountability on my part but I was ready for the challenge.

Game On.

First & foremost I needed to be able to see what the blood sugars I was doing looked like. Logging is not my forte and I don’t remember the last time I actually did it. I got the super-cool Excel logbook from Kevin and began. (Thank you Kevin!) I told myself that not matter what the numbers were I needed to log them. The first few days were brilliant: lots of tests and surprisingly decent blood sugars. The weekend was an a bit of an eye-opener in that I did not do as many tests as I thought, but that was okay, I could do more. I saw my therapist that Monday, and she was impressed with my efforts. I expressed to her my fear that it wouldn’t last and that I would be back to my old lazy ways soon. She gave me a pep talk about doing it for only me.

The next week I continued plugging in my numbers & watching the graphs, but slowly the novelty of the game of trying to watch the numbers and keep them in range was wearing off some but I was still in the game. I made an appt. with my Endo. for May and gotten blood work done. My A1C was better than I had expected, at 9.8. Not very good I know, but I was anticipating much worse. This was a workable number to bring down my May when I would get another done.

All in all, I was feeling pretty pleased with myself. This time felt different. This time I would make some real, lasting changes.

Crash

The following week all my bets where off since I caught an awful cold that left me in bed for days. Later that same week, my husband’s grandfather died, the dog was sick, there arrangements to be made, wakes to attend, the dog to get to the vet, burying Grandpa, in the morning and then our dog in the afternoon and true to form I paid not attention to my disease.

The cold has turned into a sinus infection, I feel like crap and my blood sugars (the few I actually do) are crap and I’m back to my usual ways.

Broken Record

So I feel like a broken record, stuck in this endless cycle. This endless cycle of getting fed up with feeling like crap because I barely take care of my diabetes, vowing to do something about it, taking action, which invariably lasts only a short time, feeling like crap again, feeling guilty for all of this and then we are back to being fed up.

I find it really hard to blog about because who wants to hear about it all the time? I don’t feel as if I have the right to complain about a disease that (for the most part) I do the bare minimum to control. You get what you give, and I am giving little. Sometimes the desire to feel good, makes the finger sticks, the site changes, the logging and paying attention to it all seem possible. But more often than not it seems like I am just not able to deal with it on top of life itself. I am baffled by those of you who get frustrated about not blousing correctly for a meal or drink when I can’t manage to make myself even bolus for a meal? What piece am I missing? Am I just some crazy hypochondriac freak who makes herself sick (by not testing, blousing etc.) so she can be lazy and not accomplish more? I keep hoping for one of those “Eureka” moments during therapy where I am given the reason for my behavior but it hasn’t happened yet.

June 27, 1985

2006-12-13T20:17:00.000-05:00

Cleaning my desk today at home I came across my newspaper debut. Front page of the 2nd section. Human interest story, the topic you guessed it - diabetes. Though much of the articles (there were 2 versions) are in my memory I still read through them. Oh My God - how embarrassing. What a dork I was, but really what 11 year old wasn’t? I wish I had the kind of scanner that would let me scan the entire article legibly so you could see it but I don’t & I’m too lazy & short on time right now to re-type the whole thing. But 2 parts stick out:

"Having diabetes can be a pain....but it can be okay too especially when you get interviewed. Maybe I’ll get famous and make a lot of money." The tears start. What I wouldn’t give to have that naivety of childhood back, even for a day.

Not only is what I (apparently) said in this article but also how the author writes are both hilarious. " With that petite Melissa, who will be a sixth grader throws back her head and laughs. "Ha" she guffaws with a man-sized force that seems to come all the way up from her white tennis shoes and turned downed socks." Near the end the article reads: Children with diabetes must first accept the disease and take responsibility for it. Melissa seems to have done that well. Big drops falling from my eyes now. What the hell happened? Like it is really that easy? Step one: Accept. Step Two: Responsibility and you’ve got diabetes mastered. Yeah right. What happened to that girl who could simply take this disease in stride instead of fighting it every step of the way?

She had only shared her body with diabetes living a life of needles, blood sugars, food plans and urine testing for a little over 2 years. All with the help of incredible parents and an amazing health care team. She was young strong and full of hopes and dreams for the future with a disease that gave her a bit of uniqueness which was fine with her since she liked to stand out.
Would it be too weird to say that I miss that little girls so much? She was so strong, so confident and yes, so innocent.

This was before the seizures from extremely low blood sugars left her barely awake, vomitting for days and often included a late night trip to the ER, and once or twice a visit from the paramedics. This was before the novelty of being different and the not being able to do whatever she wanted when she wanted wore off. Before it wasn’t so cool to be different anymore. Before the 2 weeks out of the year that she went to camp were what she lived for and camp was where she felt most alive surrounded by others like her. Before the combination of diabetes and depression brought her life to a screeching halt (more than once) and led to some scary scenes, serious U-turns and not-so-subtle family interventions. Before she questioned her self every single day because she couldn’t seem to live amicably with this disease.

This was also before a ton of amazing things that she would not undo for anything happened. Pivotal learning experiences, good fortune, awe-inspiring moments, great friends, amazing family and true love that have all made her who she is today but there are parts she wishes she had held on tighter to. The strength, the courage, the faith, and the acceptance that she had as a little girl.

Addendum to "Dealing with it"

2006-12-01T09:57:00.000-05:00

I left out a big part of what helped/helps me deal with all this: music

Music has always marked certain times and places in my life. The songs that meant something to me at that time are tightly tied to those memories. Sometimes it’s a line from the song, other times just the tune. It's a random mix some of it a bit cheesy but it's what touched me.

Here’s the playlist from the past few months:

Leave It All Behind – Nya Jade (leave it all behind - the chaos and the fear)
My Denial – Nya Jade ("here in my denial I stand trial for what I've done. Redemption..")
Too Little Too Late – JoJo (This one brought tears to my eyes just about every time, not wanting to ever have to say I did too little, too late to figth diabetes)
Don’t Look Back – Antigone Rising
Lucky Denver Mint – Jimmy Eat World ("you're not bigger than this, not better, why can't you see...")
All These Things That I’ve Done – The Killers (dealing withthe guilt)
I Can’t Take It – Tegan and Sarah
Live Again – Better Than Ezra (finding the strenght to really live not just get by)
All at Once – the Fray ("sometimes the hardest thing & the rigth thing are the same")
Let Go – Frou Frou (let go of all the anger at diabetes)
Jumper – Third Eye Blind ("cut ties with all the lies you've been living in")

Dealing with it.

2006-11-30T15:02:00.000-05:00

Yes, I had a chronic illness but did I really have to feel so crappy, so often and beat myself up over it?
I made an appt. with my ‘shrink’ (now located literally across the street) to take a stab at figuring why I was letting this happen.

One visit consisted mostly of me crying and telling her how much I hated diabetes. I didn’t want it. I didn’t want to deal with it. It was all my fault. I didn’t want to feel like crap. She let me get it all out, and then gently proposed the idea that I did in fact have a choice in all this. Decide you are not going to take care of yourself, and let what happens, happen and stop beating yourself up over it. Or do something. This blaming myself was not helping at all.

Over the next few weeks she reminded me of things I already knew, yet needed to hear. Diabetes was not going anywhere so deal with it. That it’s okay to be angry but don’t take it out on myself. Life is all about choices. I realized I was not okay with letting my health be left completely up to fate. Slowly my desire to feel good, see better numbers and not feel guilty won out over the anger and my attitude shifted. I also can to realize that this whole process of getting fed up with diabetes, getting angry, then fighting back, is an ongoing one. It will happen again. What changes is my ability to deal with it not hurt myself as much the next time I fall. Fall, I will, I’m sure of it. This is a disease that pushes its way into every nook & cranny of my life and sometimes the good care & control is just too much on top of life happening all around me and that’s okay, I’m getting better & better at picking myself up.

I can honestly say that I am doing better. Better but not perfect or great. I don’t think diabetes care will ever be easy or second nature to me but I think it can be something I can make work for me.

Diabetes Immersion Therapy

2006-11-19T13:24:00.000-05:00

I think part of the reason I thought a job with ADA would be a perfect fit for me is because I thought that if I was immersed in diabetes than I would really have to get my shit together. Surrounded by diabetes information, advocates and those familiar with my plight, all working towards the same goal there was no way I could be the same slacker. My idyllic plan of diabetes care being all of the sudden easy didn’t’ pan out exactly as I had envisioned.

First of all, the whole job changing/new job thing was a bit stressful and much hard work. I started right before it got crazy busy and then it was full speed ahead. I am now trying to catch up on all the things that are regularly part of my job but got pushed to the side while Walk season was in full swing. This took a toll on my blood sugars and there were some pretty ugly roller-coaster days.

Secondly, just because the people I now worked with got diabetes didn’t mean that they instantly got me or how the disease affects me. I had to show and they had to learn what happens to me when I’m low, how highs make me feel and bottom line they are not my diabetes police. It is wonderful to work every day amidst those who understand diabetes better than most and have a much better idea of what diabetes care entails but each person’s diabetes is so personal and they got that too, so I had to lead the way.

Thirdly, I was embarrassed at my lack of control. A couple of my co-workers seemed pretty excited to have some one board who "got it"; someone who worked hard, lived with diabetes every day and had done something right to stave off the complications. Me? Hell no. I honestly believe that I have made it this far by pure luck. I wanted to be that person they saw me as, but knew I wasn’t even close.

I heard about and saw firsthand those who had not been as lucky as me:

A woman my age who had gotten a kidney from her sister in order to live.
A name I recognized as someone I went to camp with was blind.
Someone’s mother-in-law who was a double amputee.
A volunteer who was on a liquid diet and near kidney-failure.
A phone call from an old camp friend who had a double bypass (kidney & pancreas) last year and had news of all those MY AGE who were blind, had suffered strokes, kidney failure and amputations.

It was all too much. I took no better care of myself than these people (well except for the never drinking regular pop, even I couldn’t do that) and look at what happened to them. What the hell differnce did it make if I took better of myself? The complications were inevitable. At least I was doing my part by working at a diabetes organization; the rest didn’t matter. This defeatist attitude lasted for a while and then I began getting really sick of feeling sick all the time.

continued in the next post

ER & Other Details of The Worst Phone Call Ever...

2006-11-16T19:16:00.001-05:00

“Thank you for calling the American Diabetes Association. This is Melissa how my I help you?”

“Is this Melissa Sutton?”

“Yes, it is” I say distractedly, wondering what new task this phone call will entail. It’s Friday afternoon and I’m so ready for the weekend.

“Mrs. Sutton, your husband asked me to call you. I am a social worker with Akron General Medical Center in the ER.” She has my full attention now.

“Your husband is awake and alert but you need to get down here quickly but safely.”

I lose all feeling in my limbs and my heart plummets. Oh. My. God.

Luckily a co-worker from the Akron office (I was in Cleveland) was seated at the computer right by desk and when I asked her if she could tell me how to get to the hospital she said that she would take me there. So I told my boss my husband had been in a car accident and that I needed to leave and followed my co-worker to the parking lot. She made sure I had her cell phone number in case I got lost and then led the way. Not before asking if I needed her to actually go into the ER with me. I had only met her once before, this was not here problem, the woman had said “awake & alert”, he would be fine I told her no thank you.

On the way down I think I made some phone calls but it is all pretty sketchy. I know I did get a call from one of the other guys (who was in the car with Rich, en route to the cabin for camping) wives and even though she sounded quite panicked she really didn’t know much so I cranked the music & tried stay calm. The next call was from one of the Revs I used to work with at the church and she was definitely panicked & insisted that I not go to the ER alone. Shit. Shit. Shit. She had gotten news of the accident because initially my husband was so disoriented that he couldn’t remember that I had a new job or how to reach me. She said it did not sound good. I called my co-worker and asked her if she would mind coming in with me, explained why & she said no problem.

We got there, I felt low but was actually super high, but opted to not bolus for it since I had no idea what I was about to see or hear. After making sure that I was okay with some blood the social worker took me back to the trauma room where the first thing my dear husband said to me was that he was sorry. Sorry for getting in the accident and more so for not telling me that he loved he me when I left for work that morning. It was like a scene from "ER" with one doctor stitching up his hand and arm while another worked on his head. There were several large 'pads' on the floor beneath his head, stained pink from his blood. At first glance I thought there was no way they would be able to close the gashes on his elbow or head, but they did. Somehow I was able to stay in the room while they stitched him up; I found a strength I never knew I had. The suturing as they call it took hours and totaled about 50 stitches.

I was back & forth to the waiting room of the ER to make phone calls and give updates to the friends who had been in the car with him, my sister who came to be with me and the minister who came to lend support. None of the other 3 guys who were in the car with Rich were seriously hurt. Thank God. I couldn’t imagine having to tell him that his childhood friend was in worse shape than he was. They all had blood on their clothing which I later found out was from Rich. This assembled crew would not leave until they had seen Rich and were assured that he was okay, relatively speaking.Finally around 10 pm we were taken up to a room. He was in so much pain and bandaged up like a mummy. After making sure he was settled I headed for home because he was so worried about critters there. I was in a sort of fog and got lost on the way home. The animals were happy to see me but the house felt so incredibly empty.

The next 3 days were a bit stressful. No broken bones or serious concussion, just some gruesome lacerations, soreness and serious pain. He was lucky it hadn't been worse. Over the next few weeks I would hear this phrase repeated often. "He was lucky." While part of me knew he was very lucky, another part of me kept thinking that luck would have meant none of this happening. Saturday was the worst. Several family and friends had said that would come visit him that day so I didn't call anyone to come be with me at the hospital while I was with Rich. It was a very long day since no one came until that evening. The pain meds were making Rich nauseous and there was an awful projectile vomiting incident that scared me. My mom had offered to come just to be with me, and at first I declined, telling her there was no need for her to drive 3.5 hours, but after this I asked her to come. She said she was planning on coming even though I said I would be okay.

It was such a relief when I saw my parents walk into the hospital room the next morning. This was all so foreign and scary to me. They stayed the day and with her background as an RN my mom made sure I asked the right questions and knew what was going on. My dad watched some game with Rich, keeping his mind off the pain.

Finally on Monday he was released and we went home. We both exhausted as hospitals are not very conducive for sleep for patients and sleep was elusive for me as you might imagine. Rich did not go to work the rest of the week, but I had to since it was days before Cleveland America's Walk for Diabetes and there was tons to do. Family & friends pitched in with food, support, dog walking and visiting Rich while I was at work. Cards and wishes of speedy recovery poured in from friends, family & the church family. Diabetes was basically ignored but in turn was quite vocal about it with skyrocketing blood sugars and quite a few lows at the hospital.

The healing has slowly but surely happened. We took the last stitch out last Sunday and there are almost no scabs now. He will have some decent scars on his head, I'm sure. The real magnitude of the whole thing hit me more in bits & pieces. Terrifying thoughts that I could have lost my husband, my life would come out of nowhere. Tears spilling down my cheeks on the way to work for no good reason and break-downs over nothing in particular.

A not so subtle reminder of how precious life is and how kind humans have the capacity to be.

Hello, Old Friends....

2006-11-16T18:52:00.000-05:00

It has been WAY TOO LONG since I have made an appearance here in the blog-o-sphere. What can I say? Life has been full over here. Here’s an abbreviated list of what has been happening:

Got a new job which does not allow for ‘blog time’ at work as the old one did.
Started new job just in time for “Walk” one of the biggest events of the year so I worked and worked and worked and worked. I am not complaining - working for something you are passionate about, surrounded by others who are passionate about the cause as well is amazing.
School started – class 2 nights a week plus homework.
My husband was in a horrendous car accident and in the hospital for 3 days. I got a terrifying phone call from a social worker from the Trauma dept. of a local hospital that I hope to never get again. I was reminded of the kindness of friends and strangers and was able to witness “ER” like scenes firsthand without becoming ill.
I crashed a burned a few times after all the stress but have managed to crawl back up to normalcy (or as close to it as is possible for me).
I have made some peace with Diabetes and remembered what an invaluable source of strength this world of diabetes blogs is.

So here I am, full of all sorts thoughts, frustrations, feelings, emotions, observations and general nonesense to share with you.

I Got It!

2006-08-08T09:41:00.000-04:00

Remember that job that I didn’t get that I thought would be perfect for me?

Well.... 5 months later I did get it. (Can’t help breaking into a stupid grin here)

I have known for almost a week now but it didn’t seem real yet and I guess I was a bit superstitious in that I thought if I blogged about it, it might not come to fruition. My notice has been put in at my current-boring-job (that-I-sort of-fell-until-where-the-benefits-are-good- and-the-people-are-really-nice-but-it’s-time-to-move-on) and my last day there is this Friday. In a word YIPPEE!!! The announcement has been mad to the whole church and a good-bye lunch is planned for this Wednesday. Most of the family & friends know. I have a start date at the new place. I am super excited. I guess it really is happening.

You are probably wondering where and what this job is. I will be the Coordinator for the Cleveland area chapter of the American Diabetes Association! I have met at least some of the people in the office over the years through my involvement with the annual walk and am excited to work with these fun, positive people. Of course I will still be doing some office work and administrative duties but it will for a cause that I am passionate and knowledgeable about. I will also get to do more hands-on type stuff.

This job just feels so right. When I was a kid the only thing I ever wanted to do as far as a career was to help kids with diabetes or run a camp for kids with diabetes. Well this job is not either of those exactly but it sure is closer than what I have been doing and I can’t wait.

diabetes scares me

2006-07-31T16:02:00.000-04:00

With my normally calm, cool, collected and slightly humorous disposition it came as a bit of a shock when I realized that diabetes scares the shit out of me. For the most part I am able to roll with the punches, take what comes my way. I am not a worry wart. I am trusting and laid back. Diabetes and what my future may hold scare me.

When will the first complications show up? It’s been 23 years, so they must be lurking there right below the surface. I have by no means been the poster child for good, tight diabetes control so after this long the complications must be near. That diabetes is something that often kicks my ass scares me too. At times it leaves my body feeling used and broken not to mention my spirit. I am trying to turn the fear into strength rather than let it eat me up inside.

The first big step was realizing that diabetes scares me. I had the image of myself at age 11, when diabetes was new and cool, uncomplicated, something that made me different, whose problems I could handle since I was, invincible, stuck in my head for so long. I hung onto the idea that diabetes was no big deal long after I realized it was a huge deal. If it wasn’t a big deal then it couldn’t hurt me.

The problem being, that if you let diabetes control you rather than controlling it, it does hurt you. My first challenge is to do at least 6 blood sugars a day. I keep telling myself, that the actual number is not as important as simple doing the blood sugars and acting on the results right now. I can’t let myself be afraid of those numbers-they are simply tools. I know that soon I will need to work on getting them in range but I have to be consistently doing the actual tests before I can fine tune things.

The next or rather concurrent challenge is to log. In a word – YUCK! I hate to log. Even when I was young and really didn’t mind having diabetes that much I did not log willingly. My mom had to bribe me to get in the habit of logging before going off to college with a pair of Birkenstocks if I wrote down all my sugars for 3 months. I got the Birks, but not so much the lasting lesson. Although for 3 months I did write down my sugars because I really wanted those sandals. Maybe I should try a less costly reward plan.

If I can face my fear and turn it into positive action there just might be some hope for a decent hbA1C and in turn less fear.

Frustration/Ranting

2006-07-14T16:15:00.000-04:00

Admittedly, I am pretty blasé about my numbers. Anything under 120 and I usually feel low. Hovering around 200 I feel great. Strange, but true. But 429 on a day when I actually tested before breakfast and again after and made the necessary correction is way high even for me! I woke up with a splitting headache, checked my blood sugar: 165, and guzzled some water and ibuprofen, waited for that to kick in then onto coffee. By the time I left the house the pain was mostly gone. After about 30 minutes at work it was back & by lunchtime had reached epic proportions. I took more ibuprofen with water and went to lie down (one of the few perks of my job is ‘Ladies Lounge’ with a comfy couch in a dimly lit room). Shit, I know I should test. 429 – WTF? I corrected earlier for my 285 and have not eaten anything since. This awful headache, maybe I am really getting sick – damn!

My infusion set came out and I didn’t even notice it. Could’ve been the particular pair of pants that I am wearing, linen drawstring ones that rest dangerously close to the site. Four hours and close to 15 units later, and I am down to 200 and starving! My husband, after making sure I am okay and that it is coming down, tells me that I have to be more careful. I know this is true but I absolutely hate it. My thoughts are so clogged with other things there just doesn’t seem to be the space to worry about this too.

I will probably crash later. I hate having to worry about this hate feeling like this. I am so not cut out for the role of diabetic. ARGH!!!!

this & that

2006-06-23T12:19:00.000-04:00

It was time for my bi-monthly check-in with MMDA again and I put it off until the last day. Given what happened last time I called (see Maybe It Was Me post from April) I was not looking forward to it. I am happy to report though that the person I spoke to this time was very nice and very professional and offered no judgments about my diabetes care. Phew!

Now maybe I will actually answer the phone when they call in August instead of having to call them back before they discontinue my free supplies.

The exercising is going really well. We are going consistently and this morning I was given the last pieces of my Full Body Workout by the lovely trainer and now I will be spending close to 2.25 hours at the gym in the morning (warm-up, 45 minutes cardio, abs, strength (arms 3 days, legs 2 days), stretching then showering and getting ready for work - Whoo Hoo! Snark-asm aside, I feel good when I am actually working out and feel better about myself. It’s the only the beginning so I am not yet obsessed with seeing results, and I know that takes time. I am sleeping better (but that could be the Requip) but I am still very sleepy most of the day at work. Yesterday I actually fell asleep at my desk for about 10 minutes. Frustrating because I thought this whole exercise thing was supposed to make you less tired?!?

Now the diabetes care on the other hand is in maintenance mode. Not fabulous, not horrible. It feels like I can only concentrate on so many things at once and the whole exercise thing and 6 week summer class have taken up my allotment. The exercise should be a habit now & the summer class is over this Tuesday so after that it’s time to concentrate on those blood sugars.

Wedded Bliss

2006-06-19T10:56:00.000-04:00

When people say to me “your husband…” or call me “Mrs. …” it is sometimes like “are they talking to me?” We’ve been married for 1 year today (yesterday 6/18/06) but it still makes me smile to hear my new name or to hear R referred to as my husband. Our wedding day was absolutely perfect. Truly. That was pre-pump so I didn’t even have that to worry about and my only wedding memory that has diabetes in it is when I was getting nervous before the ceremony and my mom suggested that I test; I did and it was around 250 but I didn’t want to drop low during the ceremony so I left it. I was especially worried about dropping low on the walk down the wooded path, and up the slight hill to the rock ledge that we would be standing on for the actual “I do’s.” We wrote our own vows so I definitely wanted to be able to read them; knowing that there was little chance I would actually remember the words I had so carefully chosen to say. There were so many other feelings that day that I was not even thinking about how I felt diabetes-wise.

To be honest, I am not sure that I even tested again that day. Thankfully I didn’t have any real problems that day. I am quite sure that my blood sugars were crazy. What with the nervousness, utter joy, excitement, awesome meal, dancing like a fool with my sisters, nieces and friends, and yes, of course the libations. I’m pretty sure that I remembered to take my Lantus at some point before going to sleep because I don’t remember feeling like crap the next day, but I really don’t remember. For that one day, I didn’t feel like a person with diabetes. I just felt like me. Melissa: girl about to become his wife and, it was wonderful.

I hope I can have other days like that; ones where diabetes just fades into the background, becoming practically invisible, but if not, at least I have the memory of that perfect day.

Happy Anniversary, R! You are my window….

She's Here!

2006-06-16T10:57:00.000-04:00

~~Madelyn~~ Madeline Grace Rivers

June 15, 2006

7 lbs 2 oz.

Welcome the the world, Baby Maddy! We are all so excited that you finally made your appearance. Just so you know, your mommy (my sister) and daddy are two of the most amazing people around and are going to be wonderful, wonderful parents to you. Your dad will probably be more of a pushover and your mom can be tough but she has the biggest heart so don't worry. The rest of you family is pretty fantastic too. Grandma and Grandpa L. will be there in the next couple of days to see you so I am sending tons of hugs & kisses with them. You are the first grandchild from their 3 daugthers so they are likely to be beside themselves with excitement.

I can't wait to meet you, Maddy!

Love your Aunt Melissa

What are you so afraid of?

2006-06-13T15:43:00.000-04:00

Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make you a far happier and more productive person.
Dr. David M. Burns

Fear (or the fear of failure.) Could that be a big part of why I am so resistant to really paying attention to diabetes? The concept that I am a bit of a perfectionist is foreign to me. If I were in fact a perfectionist than I would do better at so many of the things I am not that good at, is the reasoning in my jumbled head. To an objective person this may not make sense but in my mind it makes perfect sense. If I were such a perfectionist I would actually be trying to be perfect all the time, right? I wouldn’t let my diabetes management fall to the wayside. But then it clicks: if you don’t even try you can’t have failed. Ah HA!

But now that I have discovered a small to piece to the method of my madness, how do I figure out why I am so damn afraid of failing? I am no stranger to screwing things up royally, alienating my family, pissing people off, giving up, or failing in general, so why this? Why now?

Some of the images of ourselves or identities we labeled with from when we were children just seem to stick with us. I was the baby of the family, the spoiled one, generally agreeable, not much of an athlete, a dork at school, creative, polite and good at diabetes. I was eager to learn all I could to take care of myself, thought the shots were cool not gross, liked being different, loved all the diabetes camps & trips I got to go on and was a favorite among my health care team for being a fairly compliant patient despite my ‘brittle’ diabetes. I was on the front page of the newspaper and in a local commercial, all because of diabetes. There are many things I am not much good at but this; this was something I was good at.

Except that I wasn’t always and the older I got, the worse I was but ingrained in me was my identity as a good diabetic. And not it seems I am afraid of not being such a good diabetic after all. I am afraid of failing. Rightly so, I suppose, since the stakes are pretty high – retinopathy, neuropathy, kidney failure and many other big, scary words. I’ve got to deal with that fear.

The bottom line...pride?

2006-06-12T17:13:00.000-04:00

Within the span of 15 minutes, I shamefully eat a candy bar (sans testing, sans bolusing), show the Professor ads on blood glucose machines for an assignment, (which leads to a mini-discussion on the advances in diabetes) and say “I wear an insulin pump.”

Notice that I did not say “I have diabetes” or “I am diabetic.” No ownership of this disease that, like or not, is mine. I will however talk about, educate about it or use it as my trump card when it is useful to me.

As soon as the conversation with the Professor ended I wondered whether or not anyone had seen what I ate and then heard what I had said. Paranoid, maybe?

It was this strange sort of awakening in how I deal with diabetes. The bottom line is that I don’t want it. Don’t want to share my body with it, don’t want the lows, the highs, the restrictions, the complication or the guilt it brings. I don’t want any of it…unless, of course, it will benefit me in some way. I have made no real commitment to this disease.

I look at myself and wonder how I can still have such a twisted, complicated relationship with diabetes after over20 years. Have I really learned so little along the way? Why can’t I "just put on my big girl panties and deal with it"? How do all you other PWD’s accept it? From my very limited viewpoint it seems like there are people who have done a much better job of the acceptance and commitment to taking the best care possible of themselves than me.

Yeah, sure, none of us asked for this. Not one of us honestly likes having diabetes, although some are much better at finding the silver lining than I. It seems to me though that in order to effectively manage diabetes and live with it you need to take some ownership of the disease. How do establish some sense of pride about something you loathe? I’m not thinking the kind of pride where you tell every single person you meet about the disease or have it painted on you forehead (although isn’t wearing a trusty medical id bracelet pretty close?) but more along the lines of enough pride that makes you (me) want to the best job possible in managing diabetes*.

I’m not sure where I got it from but I have a picture in my head of a grandpa type saying something along the lines of whatever you do, do it well and do it with pride. That is sentiment that for the most part I believe in. But how do I have pride in and do the best at something I simply don’t want?

*side note: as I was typing this, the spelling correction I was given for my spelling of managing that came up was: mismanaging – hmmm?

Catch Up

2006-06-02T17:14:00.000-04:00

I feel like I haven’t written anything in a while. Diabetes sometimes just gets lost in the crazy web of life. Or maybe it would be more appropriate to say that when life gets busy I tend to ignore the ‘betes more. Life is happening, I am living it and I just don’t want to deal with diabetes. For more on that check out Scott’s post. Here’s what’s happening in my neck of the woods:

1. I have been busy with school. I am taking a 6 week summer class so it’s a ton of work but very interesting.
2. Yard work – not very exciting but the yard looks good thanks mostly to my husband.
3. Work has been busy which is uncharacteristic for my job. Lots of “not quite right” people stopping, calling and generally making shake my head in wonder.
4. My most recent obsession of making my blog’s appearance reflect who I am has taken up quite a bit of time. I like what you see here better than the green but I am not done.
5. Getting up at 5 a.m. four days this week to go the gym!!!! Yes, my sister (otherwise known as ‘Anonymous’ on this blog) and I have been getting up early, doing the elliptical, trying not to injure ourselves on the machines, then showering, dressing etc. and heading to work. We are quite pleased with ourselves and plan to continue our morning routine.

So, true to my crazy way of rationalizing things, I figured that since I was getting all this exercise so it was okay to not test that much and slack off even more than usual on the diabetes front. My blood sugar mid-morning today proved me wrong: 512! That is way high even for me. Surprisingly, I did not feel as awful as I would have that. That number is really not going to help to lower my A1c at all.

This weekend I am going to Toledo for the annual OWE Festival (historic house tours, art fair, junk food, neighborhood wide garage sales, people watching and porch sitting) so paying attention to diabetes will not be easy but I am going to give it the old college try!

A Touch of Diabetes

2006-05-24T16:41:00.000-04:00

Watching the news the other night with my husband there was someone being interviewed about some health issue and this is what we heard:

“My mother had some trouble with diabetes and I think I may have a touch of diabetes too. Yeah, just a little bit of diabetes.”

I turned to my husband, R, and he had a knowing look in his eye and a smirk on his face, knowing that I was about to pull out my soap box.

Outrage in my voice, I say, “A touch of diabetes?”

The volume rising I ask, “So if he has just a little bit of diabetes does that mean that I have a whole bunch?”

The smirk on R’s face is more like a smile now. He knows so well how the lack of education about diabetes pisses me off. We both break out into laughter but not before I get in my dig about the lack of education about diabetes for the average American. And then I put my soap box away and just enjoyed laughing with my husband.

Girly stuff, lows, and laughter

2006-05-22T09:26:00.000-04:00

Let me first say that I love my doctor. She is my primary care doc, internist or whatever you call the one who handles anything that is not diabetes. At least now that I actually have an Endo, but before I had an Endo she helped me with that, too. This doc is young, hip, friendly, knowledgeable, very willing to try new treatments, and just someone you could picture being friends with. She will also do all the ‘girl stuff’ (pap, breast exam, etc.) that is recommended yearly.

I had an appt. this week to see her for a consultation about some prescriptions, my trouble sleeping, and to have the dreaded girly exam. I was not looking forward to that part of the appt. at all. It has been years since I had any of this recommended stuff done and by the time the appt. rolled around I was questioning the wisdom of having everything done by the same person. I worked myself into such a tizzy over this appt. that I was a shaky, sweaty, elevated heart rate mess by the time the doc came into the exam room. I had to admit that I was nervous about the appt. and she couldn’t believe how frazzled I actually was about this appt. Her: “You come here all the time, Melissa.” Me “Yeah, but I usually get to keep my clothes on.” Her: “You are really sweating.” A light bulb goes off in my head and I do a blood sugar while trying to keep the handkerchief sized gown secure. Yup, I was low.

We both laughed at my getting so worked up that I made myself low over a simple exam.

You have to laugh at yourself or you’ll cry your eyes out….

I (insert your personal favorite expletive for hate here) lows!!!!!

2006-05-19T14:26:00.000-04:00

I was jolted from a peaceful sleep at around 5:30 this morning by my throbbing hand. This is my body’s newest way of telling me I am low. I fall out of bed, do the requisite b.s., guzzle juice and burrow back under the covers since lows make me extremely cold. I don’t technically need to get up until 7:00 to get ready and leave the house by 8:15 to make it to work on time so I stay in bed with the morning news on drifting in & out of sleep. Next thing I know I look at the clock and it reads 8:00…SHIT! I jump out of bed, and start running around frantically trying to get ready in record time. I look at the clock again and it read 8:15 but in my mind it registers as 7:15 so I slow down and continue to get ready at my regular pace. I feel a little groggy from my earlier low (which was 70 and really wasn’t that low) and feel a low headache coming on but not too bad.

I make coffee and have some cereal, which I bolus for without checking my blood sugar again. At some point during my getting ready for the day I glance at the clock and it reads 8:45 but in my mind registers 7:45 and think, I’m doing o.k. on time. I get in the Jeep, turn the key and the radio clock reads 8:58. What the %$&@? It finally processes correctly. I am supposed to be at work right now! What happened? I guess I should have checked again when I woke up for the second time.

Needless to say I was quite late to work and the day hasn’t gotten any more normal. My low headache has reached epic proportions (no thanks to the drilling of concrete going on right outside the front door), my blood sugar has rebounded, my sense of time is completely out of whack and I am getting the strangest inquiries and requests from visitors to the church today.

“Where would I find my doctor, in the Yellow Pages or the White Pages?”

“Is my name in your historical book? I think my mother was one of the founders.” Keep in mind that this particular church was founded in 1820.

“What is the name of that restaurant across the alley from that one restaurant around the corner from you? I will need a little more information to help you since there are several restaurants and a couple of alleys right nearby as this is a downtown church.

“I was there last Sunday and I dropped some change…did you find it? My name is _______”

“If I sign up to volunteer, how much will you pay me?”

“Got any soap?”

Ah, the joys of working at a downtown church with a mind hazy from being low.

Reformed Test Strip 'Collector'

2006-05-16T11:09:00.000-04:00

I am a reformed test strip ‘collector’. I used to drop them many places in my halfhearted attempt to contain the used strips in the pocket of my One Touch case. That was until my CDE pointed out to me that it was pretty gross, and unsafe to let those little strips with the dried up blood on them float around. Part of me thinks that this is no big deal, it’s such a tiny amount of blood and it’s my blood, but part of me agrees with her. The part of me that agrees with her is the same part that also wants to impress her since she is such a cool lady and so I have heeded her suggestion of putting the used the test strips in an empty test strip bottle. So simple yet I had never thought of this before.

So now, since I never liked the case that came with my meter that came with my pump I throw everything into a much cuter little case that my friend gave me (thank you Court) and so that I can tell apart the two bottles I have put stickers on the discard one.

I am not by nature, a neat freak, by any means. I have to consciously try to be neat and remind myself to close cabinet doors, but this is one little place where I can keep some order.

Endo Appt.

2006-05-11T10:28:00.000-04:00

Hemoglobin A1C: 9.1

The doc was not concerned since this is no higher than my last A1C over a year ago and I have only been on the pump and recommitted to my care since January. I was really hoping for lower.

I get so worked up over these routine appointments. You would think that I would be used to them after 23 years but I’m not. Driving to my appointment, my stomach is in knots and I am nervous, worried that this will be the time when my blood work will show that my body has finally had enough. I am lucky, other than my high A1C, I have avoided complications yet again.

“Your blood work looks good…kidneys are fine, liver fine, your LDL is a little high (105) but your HDL is great so I’m not worried about that…Your BP also is great.”

Huge sigh of relief.

We changed my basal rates and she, of course told me to get some 2 a.m. checks. She told me about the CGMS and recommended getting it if at all possible. The general consensus was that I was doing alright, just needed to keep working on getting those blood sugars down and in turn get my A1C closer to 7.

I left feeling pretty darn good about it all.

Then I looked at the paperwork she had given me with the results of my labs and notes from the visit. Under Review of Systems - Weight: Gained. Physical Exam: Obese. I am well aware of the fact that I need to lose some weight but to see the word ‘obese’ on my chart was a bit of an eye-opener. Obese means unhealthily overweight. Not a thing was said about this. Having diabetes puts me at a higher risk for all sorts of things and being what they call obese cannot be good, so I would think that would be addressed. It was pointed out to me that perhaps the doc figured I had enough going on (with the diabetes & depression) so didn’t think it was a good idea to bring up my weight and that maybe I was looking for someone to tell what I already knew. She may be right.

I suppose I can do one of 2 things: waste energy on being upset about something I already know (that I need to drop more than a few pounds) or I can do something about it. I’m going with the latter. Today will make 3 days in a row of walking at lunch time for me – GO ME!

Small steps, one day at a time.

Interviewee Answers

2006-05-08T10:07:00.000-04:00

Here is my interview by Art Sweet:

When did you know that your husband was The One?
Honestly, I think even before our first date. I am the one who asked him out first and I remember thinking that I had to be ready before I did so, ready for something big. In many ways it didn’t make sense because we are different in many ways but I just knew.

Is there anything you'd like to do, but haven't done because of your diabetes?
It’s hard to decipher whether it was the diabetes or just me that has kept me from doing things…

What do you hope to do once you're done with school?
Anything but the boring job I am currently in. Finishing school for me is more about actually finishing that goal than the result. Officially my degree will in Marketing. This was a decision made spur of the moment right around the time I did not get the job with ADA that I desperately wanted & I thought that a marketing degree could help with getting a job doing fundraising or such for diabetes. Bottom line, I want a job that means something to me, that I am passionate about.

What's the best thing about living where you live?
Family & friends nearby.

How often do you see/talk to your family?
My sister who lives in town I talk to a couple times a week and see just about weekly.
My parents I try to talk to once a week and see them every couple of months.
My sister in Chicago I probably talk to once or twice a month and see a couple times a year, although it’s been more often lately with her baby on the way, and my wedding last year.
My in-laws are all in town as well so I talk to & see them fairly often.
The few aunts, uncles and cousins that I have I only see on special occasions but thanks to my mom keeping in contact with them I get info on what they are up to.

If you want to participate:

Leave me a comment saying “interview me.”
The first five commenters will be the participants.
I will respond by asking you five questions.
You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions.
You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

"it's not my fault"

2006-05-05T15:18:00.000-04:00

I have, in my own way, been trying to stop and really think about why I make some of the choices that I do. Some of the reasons behind the feelings have been pretty obvious especially when I took the time to analyze them. You know, procrastination and avoiding confrontation at any cost, because my coping skill is avoidance, rebelling against diabetes because I am angry that I have it, that sort of thing.

One that took me by surprise is the realization that I hate it when my blood sugar is ‘good’ but I don’t feel good. If my blood sugar is not in range then I have my explanation of not feeling well right there. I have found that I really don’t like not feeling 100% especially when I don’t have a reasonable explanation for it. Could this be why I often let my blood sugars wander higher or lower than I should? I also don’t like it when I have say a pain in my hand but no visible sign; I want to be able to see concrete evidence of what is the matter with me, not just symptoms.

Diabetes really doesn’t work that way. It is more a behind the scenes kind of disease, wreaking havoc without the apparent gore. At least if my readings are off I can pinpoint what is causing me to feel bad. Much, much, more than I should, I use the disease as an excuse. Some of my rationale is that I put up with so much from diabetes, that I am entitled to get something back where I can. I’m not saying that I use the disease all the time, to get out of doing anything unpleasant, just that I fall back on the excuse more than I should. I liked being low during school as a kid because then I got to go in the coatroom and eat lifesavers, and act silly.

I marvel at the bloggers out there who say they never use the ‘betes as an excuse and refuse the let it limit what they achieve. Me, run a marathon or have a very high stress, high profile job, yeah right, I just don’t see it. My self-confidence has not reached that level.

Yesterday, my blood sugar was 142, but I felt like crap. Near perfect reading, not too close to feeling low for me. I felt dizzy, run-down and just not right. Looking back over my numbers, I realized that they had been pretty darn good for the day, the past few days even. I hated it. My blood sugar was good, so I was supposed to feel great, dammit!

Where I get these ideas I do not know. Reasonably I recognize that I am ordinary person who happens to have diabetes and that this does not mean that I don’t experience the regular everyday ailments that we all do. Illogically, though I want to be able to explain and yes blame all those aches, pains and flaws on the ‘betes.

Diabetes is my nemesis, so it makes sense that everything is its fault, right?

'Maddy'

2006-05-04T14:01:00.000-04:00

How is it possible to love so much, a little tiny person you haven't even met yet? My sister is 8 months pregnant and I just saw her last weekend. I could not contain my excitement for this baby on the way; I just had to keep touching her 'belly', kissing it and letting baby know that her Aunt Melissa can't wait to meet her! Already, I know that I would do anything to help this tiny person and feel fiercely protective of her. Yes, we do know that she will be a girl thanks to chromosome testing. Madeline Grace is the forerunner for names but do you every really know until you lay eyes on them? My sister was getting slightly annoyed with all us fussing about her, telling her not to do anything, but it was all out of love and she knew that. This will be the first grandchild/niece for my family of origin so we are especially thrilled.

The other night, as I was thinking girly thoughts about ‘Maddy’, how cut she will be, wondering if she had any idea how much she is already loved an awful thought came rushing in: would she have a higher risk of developing diabetes because of me? Out of all the things I could pass along the next generation diabetes never, ever made the cut. I would rather give any of my other faults, but not diabetes. As I pondered this I was calmed by the thoughts that would have to be a cure before Maddy would even have to worry about it. Right? Then I remembered what I was told growing up about when there would be a cure and how that time has come and gone. Still no cure.

At least little Maddy will have an aunt and a family who is experienced in living with diabetes to help her every step of the way if she should happen to develop diabetes but I am really hoping that she doesn’t have to deal with it…no one should.

Maybe it was me

2006-04-26T17:20:00.000-04:00

Medical Mutual is my insurance provider and they have this nifty program called Diabetes Advantage that if you play right will cover many of your diabetes care needs at no cost to you. When I heard about the MMDA program of course, I said "sign me up!" The catch is that you must talk to a nurse once every 2 months, answer some questions, see your endo, give them lab results and in turn they send you educational info, cover all pump and testing supplies and even call to get your supply order before you run out. Overall, very cool.

The first 2 times I had to talk to the friendly nurse on the phone it was virtually painless, that is aside from having to give my height and weight to a woman who sounded perky and thin. The usual drill has been that they call and leave me a couple messages and I call back when I get around to it. Well, this last time they left more than a couple messages so on Friday after work I called them back. From the first hello, this nurse sounded a bit more serious, but no worries, I just had to answer some questions. Yeah, right. Maybe it was me, maybe it was her tone but the phone call left me upset and feeling inadequete.

Her: "Have you had any blood sugars lower than 70 or higher than 200 in that past 2 months?"
Me: "Yes"
What I was really thinking: "Well, Duh, I have Diabetes, don't I????"

Her: "What is the lowest reading you have had?"
Me: "About 43"
Her: "That's very low and by letting yoru blood sugar go that low you do know that you are putting yourself at risk?"
Me: "Yes."
What I was reallly thinking: "Let my blood sugar go that low????? It's got a mind of its own at times!!!! Putting myself at risk???? I have diabetes, lady, that's where the risk comes from!"

On to the other end of the spectrum...

Her: "What would you say was your highest blood sugar reading in the last 2 months"
Me: "Maybe 300" I say sheepishly, padding the number given her previous lecture on a low of 43 in the past 2 months for a Type 1 diabetic on the pump.
Her: "That's pretty high"
Me: In my head, "Oh if you only knew"

Her: "You really have to wacth thos sugars and not let them get above 200. Sugars above 200 put you at a much greater risk for complications. Why are your blood sugars above 200?"

Me: "Yes, I know"

And on it went with her telling me things I already knew but in a way that rattled me and pissed me off. I swear, she must have said "you are putting yourself at risk" at least 20 times! Just when I thought it was over and dinner was dangerously close to burning, she asked about my weight then my height and after I answered she paused and said "thats another thing you really need to work on. "

Really? I had no idea that my wieght is high for height. Thanks for the tip. There's just something about a complete stranger, who has never set eyes on you, commenting on your weight.

She was only doing her job, I get that. It was just the way the conversation left me feeling as if I had failed the test. She must have said "putting yourself at risk" at least 20 times. As if diabetes is a choice. The previous MMDA calls had not left me feeling that way at all. One of the other callers even said "you have plenty of other things to worry about," when I admitted that I didn't exercise nearly as much as I should. The other calls made me feel like they were only checking up on me to make sure I was making an effort not failing as this last call made me feel

I: Meme

2006-04-17T18:34:00.000-04:00

I am: “32 flavors and then some”
I want: to not want anymore
I wish: life were more simple
I hate: having to wait
I miss: the carefree days of childhood
I fear: complications
I hear: the drone of computers and the blah, blah, blah of my teacher
I wonder: if this class will ever end
I regret: much more than I should
I am not: alone in this fight against diabetes
I dance: alone when I am cleaning
I sing: whatever song is stuck in my head and it usually an annoying song
I cry: usually about or due to diabetes
I am not always: the person I want to be
I make with my hands: the cats purr, a gift for a friend, fat-free veggie dip for Easter
I write: what’s on my mind
I confuse: want & need more than I should
I need: security and he is my security
I should: take better care of myself
I start: many things
I finish: few
I tag: everyone

Diabetes Will Not be Forgotten

2006-04-17T17:11:00.000-04:00

Even during Easter Sunday worship diabetes rears its ugly head. In the Christian faith, Easter is a joyous time and I was in good spirits. My parents were in town and I had successfully guesstimated my carbs at dinner with them last night. No small feat given we ate a Mexican place, had appetizers in addition to the chips & salsa and I tried something new. Just as the sermon began there was a disruption as an older man was try8ing to carry his wife out of the church. She was collapsing & unable to stand. Many people rushed over to help, as people do in these situations. Even though she was on the floor in the aisle right next to the pew we were sitting in, I stayed put. That is until I heard the words low blood sugar and diabetes. I grabbed the juice box from my purse, ripped off the straw inserted it, and thrust the juice box it into the hands of a member of the congregation who was evidently a nurse. I heard “can’t swallow…and sugar packets” so I ran to get those. By this time the minister had stopped trying to preach, the EMS was on the way and everyone in the Sanctuary was trying to figure out what was happening. They were able to get maybe tow of the sugar packets in her mouth to dissolve and run down her throat when my brain clicked into gear & I grabbed my blood sugar machine, elbowed my way to a spot right next to her and did a blood sugar. She was 53; not great but not as low as I had thought it might be. She was having trouble keeping her eyes open and was not alert.

The Fire Squad, EMS, etc., poured in and took over. Her husband was apologetic for the disruption. He said that she must have taken too much insulin that morning. They gave her oxygen. In my head I was screaming, how about some sugar guys, she’s only 53? They took her out on a stretcher. The worship service continued. It was odd. There was a strange current rippling through the congregation. We were not used to this much excitement. It took a while for my heart beat to return to it’s normal rate. I thought I might be low but I was 263, just a bit shaken up.

After the service, people were saying things along the lines of me saving the day, or you really knew what to do or you went above and beyond. I heard low blood sugar and only did what is second nature for all of us who live with diabetes. As if I could just sit there with my juice box and blood sugar testing machine in my purse, with a woman barely conscious a few feet away from me and not jump into action. Mind boggling. This was not some great act or something to be applauded for. It was simply a human act.

I feel like there is some bigger message I am supposed to take away from this event since it happened during church on Easter Sunday but I can’t seem to figure it out. It reminded me of the importance to always be prepared with low supplies and that the ‘betes will not be forgotten. It will rear its ugly, Hypoglycemic head during the most inopportune times and you better be ready.

Beep, bop, beep

2006-04-11T12:11:00.000-04:00

I was feeling good about this interview. I scored the interview through the reference of a friend. I was able to finagle it to come for the interview the same day they called. I was not nervous as I was for the last job I interviewed for since I was not sure this was even a job I would want.

The walk over to their office was miserable as it was cold and very windy and I had on heels for the interview. I made it there okay albeit a bit windblown, flushed and vowing never to wear heals if I needed to walk more than a block again. I was impressed by the fancy office complete with a great view of the lake

I nailed the first round of questions and was please with myself. The two women interviewing seemed to like my answers as well. Then things to a downward turn…

“Beep, bop, beep”

Shit, shit, shit. My pump is beeping! You have got to be kidding me. Nice timing.

They look to see where the sound is coming from and I try to pretend I heard nothing. Instinctively I reach for the pump on my hip and realize that I was wearing it on my bra since I was not wearing a belt. Is there any way I can possibly cancel the alarm through my clothing without looking like I am fiddling with my chest? Negative. Maybe it will not beep again.

“Beep, bop, beep”

I don’t want my interviewers to think it is my cell phone but I can’t tell them I have diabetes and wear an insulin pump in an interview. What to do? I pretend not to hear it and speak up when it chimes. They look at me quizzically but say nothing. We conclude the interview with the normal pleasantries and they say it will be at least a week before they contact me. I walk back to work cursing my pump & my choice of footwear.

Grateful

2006-04-10T18:42:00.000-04:00

The memorial service was very nice; I was pretty much crying for the whole thing. Her children put together a slide show of pictures of their mom to be shown before and during the service. I volunteered to run this slideshow from the balcony of the church. I think the tears were in my eyes as soon as the somber organ music began, signifying the start of the service, but I really lost it when it was time for the personal comments on Gloria. The first two people to speak, vaguely alluded to the idea of ongoing health problems, but no specific reference to diabetes. The third person, the parish nurse for our congregation, got right to the point, as far as I was concerned. She said that Gloria suffered from almost every complication diabetes could cause. She spoke of her lifelong struggles with the disease and how well she dealt with them. I was sitting in church full of anger and frustration at Diabetes, at Life, even at God too. Tears stinging my cheeks and blinding my eyes I could not get the thought that this woman’s life was cut short by my disease. It was so unfair. I had never really equated diabetes to death before; now it was staring me right in the face.

Every person talked about her smile. The smile she always had & the inspiration she was to so many people in so many ways.

As I was walking out of the service, I was feeling more than a little bit self-conscious because of how upset I was (I mean I didn’t really know her that well & I was not family; what right did I have to be so upset?) I made my way over the parish nurse to tell what a great job she had done. She told me she was glad she had seen me because ever since Gloria’s death she had been worried about me. The weeping began again. She told me that she had been worried about how this would affect me. Talk about hitting the nail on the head.

“Melissa, I want you to know that you are going to be okay. You have done so well with your diabetes. She had all sorts of other problems. She had diabetes before, home blood testing, before insulin pumps…for 50 years. You are going to make it.”

She touched on the fear that I had not really spoken of to anyone: the fear for my own life. Even though I felt in part selfish for my relief at hearing I would be okay, doubt that this was true, anger at the ‘betes and great sadness about this world’s loss, overall she made me feel better. She told me things that I already knew but needed to hear. For that I am grateful.

Life is Good

2006-04-07T15:57:00.000-04:00

I was looking back over my blog & it occurred to me that people reading may find my posts depressing or negative. The may wonder if I am just a cranky person. The answer is a resounding “NO!” In reality I am a fairly cheerful, happy person. I am not one of those people walking around with a huge grin on my face, but I am, for the most part a happy person. When I give myself a break & actually think about it – I have a great life:
· Wonderful, supportive husband
· A job with great benefits
· 2 adorable cats (and Beagle)
· A nice home with an awesome kitchen that my husband built for me
· Great encouraging & supportive family & friends
· Only 40 more credit hours of school & I will have a degree!
· New job prospects
· This amazing ‘family’ of d-bloggers for diabetes support & encouragement
· A ton of hard life lessons under my belt that I have learned from
· Choices

And most of all I have hope for a better future. I’ve hit a bad patch as of late but things will get better, I just know it.

As I commented over at Scott’s blog, I may actually try to Eat Well, Exercise & Pay Attention to My Diabetes for a whole week & see if I feel better (less depressed, lethargic & head-achey). We'll see!

I Hate Mondays

2006-04-04T16:10:00.000-04:00

What a way to start the week. I woke up with enough time to gather all my paraphernalia for the day without having to race around like a chicken with its head cut off. No small feat for me. I had my usual cups of coffee, threw a granola bar & a piece of fruit in my bag & was on my way. I even made it work early. I never actually ate the breakfast that I remembered to bring so by about 9:30 my stomach was grumbling. Reaching for my trusty black kit, my arm brushed against my abdomen where my infusion set was and something didn’t feel right. I looked down and saw that I was not attached; as in no pump. My mind quickly did a recap of the morning & there it was…sitting on the hamper in the bathroom, at home, where I put it while I shower. Shit. I do my blood sugar and it is 341. Great, 341 & no insulin on board. Frantically I rummage through my emergency pump supplies looking for a syringe, trying to figure out how I could use my extra infusion set and reservoir to get insulin into my body. I give up on that idea, when I realize I would have no idea of how much insulin I was giving myself which would surely lead to an ugly low. Instead, I call my husband to lament. I really don’t know what I expected him to be able to do from across town at his office but I just wanted him to know. “How can you forget to put your pump on?” he asks, in a fretful tone. Not exactly the sympathy I was looking for but a very valid point.

How can I forget to put on my pump that provides my life-sustaining drug? Probably the same way I have forgotten my blood sugar machine or test strips (on more than one occasion). I just do. My mind is elsewhere. The day did not improve from there. I had to go home (25 miles) and get the forgotten pump and hurry back to work. By the time I got back it was time for lunch which coincided with a staff meeting on this particular day but my blood sugar was still too high to eat. Of course there were these mini-brownie-cupcake-things that were just about making me drool. The unfinished ones, I knew would be parked in my office (the reception area) for the remainder of the day. Great; I did not have the willpower for this today. I was cranky. Needless to say, I had a few.

I continued to feel ornery for the remainder of the day; so much so that I decided to play hooky from school. My self-destructive path persisted with the eating of Kraft Mac & Cheese, plus extra cheese for dinner and the taking of an extra-generous bolus for this meal in hopes of dropping low so I would have a good excuse to eat more chocolate. It worked and I dropped to 100, and felt like I was still dropping so I had chocolate covered pretzels and ice-cold milk. I did not bolus for this extra treat and went to bed glad that this bad day was over.

It wasn’t over yet…I woke up at 1:30 am, bladder near bursting, with a blood sugar of 475. Nice. Bolus 11.1 units in the middle of the night and pray that I would not crash and wake up low causing another bad day.

I woke up at a perfect 126, but still angry at myself for my previous days behavior. I don’t know why or how I can forget such simple, essential things such as my pump or my BG machine. Maybe it’s because I am trying to forget diabetes for a while. On the other hand I do know that I make choices about my diabetes care when I am hyperglycemic. The high blood sugar makes me feel cranky and too lethargic to care about my stupid diabetes. My mind is too clogged with the abundance of syrupy sugar in my blood stream for me to think clearly. Just when I need it most, the clear thinking and voice of reason abandon me. I know this happens, just not how to fix it. I am nowhere near the level of care where high blood sugars do not exist.

I've Got My Life to Live

2006-03-27T18:40:00.000-05:00

Still thinking about the first person I ever knew who died from diabetes; from ‘my’ disease. She finally passed away Friday night. I feel so awful thinking about her family at her side, just waiting for the inevitable. My husband was waiting at home with dinner on the stove, a bottle of wine in the fridge and arms open wide to fold me in.

Damn, I was naïve. I never actually thought about people with diabetes dying. It’s a bit of a shock when reality rears its ugly head. Logically I knew it could happen, I’ve seen the stories of ‘other people’ but not someone I actually knew who lived with the disease. They were supposed to have a cure by now! They (top diabetes researchers from around the world) told me when I was 16 that there would be a cure within 10 years. Well, times up, what happened to the cure? This is a disease we manage, hate, rebel against, and live with not one we die from! That’s a cruel twist you don’t actually die from the disease Diabetes Mellitus. No, only from other horrible things like heart disease, heart attacks, kidney failure, etc. caused by the disease. But, surely there will be a cure before any of that can happen to me or to anyone I personally know, right? Right? When you told me, in your effort to scare some sense into me in my teens, about the horrible complications that could happen to me I thought you only meant to old people who didn’t manage their disease. This disease CANNOT cut my life short. I’ve got things to do! I want to be a mom and a grandma and finish school and go to Ireland and grow old and senile with my husband! I’ve got a niece on the way who I need to watch grow up! I’ve got to…..I’ve got my life to live!

Fight of My Life....

2006-03-24T11:38:00.000-05:00

This morning as I was getting ready for my day I was jamming to O.A.R.’s “Heard the World….”. I especially like the line; “How you're caught up in the fight of your life.” Earlier today, singing that line in the shower it made me feel powerful and think that, yeah I do feel like I am caught up in the fight of my life with diabetes, but that’s okay, because I am strong. I was in such a good mood: it’s Friday & the weekend is just about here, I have some fun plans & I woke up happy.

Now I am fighting back tears, trying to keep my composure at work. Every cell in my body is aching to scream its hatred of diabetes. A friend from church who is only in her mid-fifties, and has had diabetes most of her life, is being taken off life support today at 10:00 a.m. Her family, close friends and the ministers will be by her side. That provides some comfort.

Since I work in a church, I get calls more often than most people about someone dying, but typically it is one of the older members whom I only recognize by name. This one hits close to home. I knew this woman. She had “my” disease. We compared pumps and other diabetes info. Last fall, at the annual hayride I talked to her & her husband about how the daily struggles of diabetes were for me and she really listened and best of all she knew where I was coming from. She gave me all sorts of information, one of which was telling me about Dlife, which led me to this world of diabetes blogs. She left information for me about support groups and articles she thought I might find useful. She always had a smile for you.

It’s now 10:10 a.m. I wonder if its over. God, why her? Why diabetes? Why?

“She didn’t die from diabetes, it was her heart,” a helpful co-worker explained. I replied that people don’t actually die of diabetes but rather from the complications caused by or worsened by diabetes. Don’t try to tell me this disease had nothing to do with it. She had diabetes for 50 years; before there was blood glucose testing at home, before the DCCT Trials, before insulin pumps and I find it hard to imagine that disease didn’t take a toll on her body. The same helpful co-worker offered that she didn’t take good care of herself citing that she would eat all sorts of pastries etc. at Coffee Hour on Sunday mornings. Some people just really don’t understand. I would be willing to bet that her HbA1c was much better than my own.

I can’t push the thoughts away; the thoughts that this is what the end of my own life will look like. That the same comments will be exchanged by those who knew me. These lyrics will not stop running through my head;
“How you're caught up in the fight of your life.
Nothing's gonna save me.
I'm hanging from the nearest tree.
Nothing's gonna save me.”

They have taken on a different meaning than this morning. I have never personally known a person who had diabetes and then died. This is a disturbing and depressing first. Don’t worry, dear reader, I am not on the brink. This is just one of those times when life’s cruel, hard truths are thrown right in your face and it makes you think about the fragility of life and, in this case, makes me hate the disease that taints our lives.

I am, we all are, survivors and will endure. When you come across this please say a little prayer (or whatever it is you do) for my friend who managed to survive for more than 50 years with diabetes and then smile at how far we’ve come because I think she would like that.

This is the Way My Mind Works

2006-03-21T17:02:00.000-05:00

I had a crazy morning. Got to sleep in a bit since I had an appointment with my therapist at 11:00 a.m. and would not be going into work until after that. Well, I slept in a little too much and in my rush to leave the house I forgot my blood sugar machine. This, I did not notice, until after the appointment when I got to work & was starving. I am going to meet a friend for coffee after work and was thinking I should have a game plan of what to get to drink, choose something not too awful and check the carbs before I get there. Before I could type in the web address I thought well, why bother with all that when I will have no idea what my blood sugar is anyway so why bother with all that. I’ll just guesstimate. This is the way my mind works.

There are days when my blood sugar has been all over the place and instead of playing it safe and eating something healthy, I instead look at it as an opportunity to splurge since my blood sugar is already not perfect. That’s my justification. I don’t know why I think this way. I was telling my therapist today that I seem to make bad decisions and she pointed out that they were choices. I agreed with her, but asked her “what do I do when I am in the moment, with a choice and I am leaning towards the bad choice?” She told me that at that point I should stop and figure out what emotions I am feeling before making that choice. Is that really possible? For these many (millions) of little diabetes decisions we have to make every day?

So I guess my best choice about the coffee and the carbs is to make a reasonable selection, know how many carbs that particular choice has and bolus for that amount then deal with the blood sugar testing when I get home. It is not the end of the world & I am not perfect.

Blarney

2006-03-20T16:06:00.000-05:00

I know that St. Paddy's Day is over but I've been busy.

I love the word blarney. It's one of those goofy words that are often difficult to fit into everyday conversation but I just like the way it sounds and the meaning, too.

"Blarney" has come to mean nonsense or smooth flattering talk in almost any language. (The Scots have a similar term in "blether".) Tradition says that if you pay a visit to Blarney Castle in Co. Cork and kiss the Blarney stone that you'll be receive the gift of eloquence and powers of persuasion, a true master of the "gift of gab." It's ironic that an English queen is credited with the origin of the word.

My husband wonders how I got the "gift of gab" as I have never been to kiss the Blarney Stone.

No New Job

2006-03-16T14:25:00.000-05:00

Well, after a hellish week waiting…I found out I did not get the job. That news, coupled with my-not-always-remembering- to-take-my-Prozac, left me wallowing in the depths of my old friend Depression. I took the news really hard. This new job was perfect me. It would be just the change I needed. I had ‘wowed’ them at my interviews. Or so I thought.

This whole experience was good for me in the end. It has been a long time since I have put myself out there and I really have had almost no experience with a real interview process. It made me remember some of my old passion. Also brought into focus for me was the fact that this whole job thing is what I will be doing for like the next 30 plus years so I better find something I like to do. I am working towards figuring that out but I tend to lose sight of that in this business of living. I am going to school part-time to obtain my bachelor’s degree. The end seems so far away when you can only take 2 maybe 3 classes a semester, slowly, but surely I am getting there though.

I Want a Job That I am Passionate About

2006-03-03T11:29:00.000-05:00

I have a decent job which provides good health insurance and for the most part I work with kind, caring people, but I am burned out. I sort of fell into this job about 6 years ago and at the time it was just what I needed in many ways. I desperately need a job, I needed health insurance, I needed to learn how to use a computer and I needed some caring guidance, all of which I got. I work at a church. Something I never would have imagined myself doing what with my rebellious nature, lack of church attendance and 12 years of attending Catholic schools as a non-Catholic. Don’t me wrong, I got an excellent well rounded education, healthy respect for authority, and confidence that I wouldn’t trade for anything; it’s just that the whole Catholic school thing tends to leave one with a somewhat jaded view on organized religion.

I have been saying for quite some time that I need to look for something else; a job that t is more challenging for me and one that pays more. True to form, I have not done anything. There never seems to be the time and I’ll admit I’m scared of not getting the same level of health insurance I currently have. I am also leery of having to pussy-foot around the whole diabetes issue.

A few weeks ago I saw a posting for a job with a diabetes organization in my area that I am totally qualified for. Before I had time to overanalyze it I applied. This job interview process and my meeting of an un-educated person with diabetes awoke in me my passion for wanting to help people particularly those living with diabetes. When I was a kid the only thing I ever wanted to be when I grew up was someone who ran a camp for kids with diabetes in the summer and then diabetes educator in the winter, “to you know help kids with diabetes,” was what I told anyone who asked. Through my own personal struggles with and denial of diabetes I had almost completely lost sight of that passion and those goals.

Now after interview number two, I want this job more than I have wanted anything in a long time. I just know that I would be really great in this position and have a lot to offer and addition to just really having a good feeling about it. Sometimes you can’t necessarily reason something, you just simply have this feeling that a situation or opportunity is the path your life is meant to take and that it is time for a change.

I’ve done all I can and it’s down to me and 2 other candidates so let’s hope this feeling I have is right and that I have shown them what I’m made of. As added security please keep you fingers crossed for me until early next week when I should hear the verdict – Thanks!

Rant

2006-03-02T09:17:00.000-05:00

On our second date my husband took me with him to help out at a program he volunteers for. Due to confidentiality I can’t get into specifics, but the program helps homeless families by housing them with the help of various churches. When out church’s turn comes up, and our schedules permit, we still volunteer there and last week was our turn. I met a man who had some very bad luck but was not bitter. Dinner was pizza followed by ice-cream sundaes. I excused myself and took extra insulin. As the sundaes were being made I heard the man ask if there was sugar-free ice cream so of course that caught my attention. I asked him a few questions and found out that he has Type 2 and we got to talking. I was horrified at how little he seemed to know about his disease. Now I will admit, I don’t know much about what medical advice he ahs gotten or even what the standard is for a person with Type 2 but it angered me that eating not sugar had been drilled into him so much that even when he wakes up, dizzy, clammy and weak he only has one piece of candy! He takes Lantus so I would have thought that he might have some education on how to treat a low. He was also under the impression that he could eat as much as he wanted as long as it wasn’t sugar. He knew nothing about reading labels or portions only that he should drink water or diet pop and not things like juice that have high sugar content.

I suggested that if he was feeling dizzy, clammy & weak when he woke that he should probably have more than one piece of candy & that he should tell his doctor this. I also encouraged him to ask doctor about seeing a dietician and in the meantime I gave him some suggestions for portion control (such as using you fist as a guide for a serving), to watch the fat content in foods he is eating and the basics of how to read a label. He wanted to know how long I had had diabetes and was impressed by how much I knew. I was thinking, it only seems like a lot compared to how little you know. I showed him my pump and explained how it worked. He was fascinated. I wanted to run home & gather up some of the oodles of information I have on diabetes and give it to him. I wish I could follow-up with him but the program is run in such a way that it isn’t really possible to do so.

It made me realize how lucky I am to have good health insurance and access to all the information I could possibly want on diabetes. This man was so eager learn anything he could from me about his diabetes. I was reluctant to offer too much information because I am not CDE, RN or DR, but IO was dumfounded that someone who appeared to me to be starving for information. Why did he not get this information from a healthcare provider and instead a chance encounter? Is it because he has poor insurance coverage? An under-educated physician, perhaps? Or simply our screwed up health care system in this country at work again? In my mind and from my very limited point of view it is inexcusable no matter the reason when nearly 16 million Americans have diabetes and most of those are Type 2.

It is hard enough to deal with this disease when you are armed with information and resources let alone when you have little information and few resources and it is so not fair. I only hope I helped him enough to get him pointed in the right direction.

Just One Day

2006-03-01T09:42:00.000-05:00

Beep, beep, beep! Hit snooze, pry eyes open, and glance at the alarm clock. It’s only 6:00 a.m. so I pull the kitty close for a snuggle; I’ve got time. By 6:30 a.m. I am actually out of bed, as in two feet on the floor, eyes fully open, and on my way to test my blood sugar. Now, if you know about me and mornings you know that this no small feat. I usually hit the snooze button for more than an hour and wait until the last possible second to drag myself out of bed. It is just so comfy and cozy before the day has really begun and if I don’t get out of bed, then I don’t have to go to work, right?

Well today, not only did I get up on time I also exercised before coming to work. Yes! I did it! It was just one day of getting up in enough time to exercise but for me it was an accomplishment. Seriously, I have been trying for weeks to exercise in the morning. My latest ‘excuse’ was that my blood sugar was too high the times I did actually wake up on time but my CDE suggested giving a unit or 2 and exercising anyway so there goes that reason.

On the way to work I felt so good, so energized with all those endorphins in my bloodstream. My blood sugars have also been creeping lower which helps, I’m sure. Days like this I feel like nothing can stop me. I just feel so good, so happy, so strong. I wonder how long it will last and cross my fingers that it is more than just one day.

Tangled

2006-02-28T09:34:00.000-05:00

Every now & again this whole diabetes thing gives me a good laugh. Not
often, but once in great while. The other day on my way to work I was
doing what I often do: multi-tasking. In this case it meant I wasn't
quite ready to leave the house when I actually had to leave the house to
make it to work on time. What this usually means is that I am doing my
blood sugar, bolusing and having breakfast as I commute. I did the
glucose test fine (only one noticable swerve) and moved onto bolusing. This is a bitmore tricky since I live in Cleveland where the winters are cold and it is necessary to bundle up, and I also had my seatbelt securely fastened. My pump is hooked to my belt on my right side, under my coat, under my thick sweater, all strapped under my safety belt. In the interest of safety, I did not unbuckle before digging out my pump to bolus. Somehow I managed to find my pump and pull it up to where I could I see the screen and use my Bolus Wizard to set an amount, all the while trying desperately to not let any bare skin be exposed as it was COLD.

The reattaching of my pumpwas what got messy. I got the pump totally tangled through not only both parts of the seatbelt but also my belt. With no slack left in the tubing, the pump dangling somewhere near my lap and after I was reasonably sure that I was still in fact attached to the pump, to avoid any further annoyance I left it to deal with once I arrived at work and concentrated on driving.

Reaching my destination I went to reach for my bag on the passenger seat I simultaneously remembered that I was completely tangled up in my pump and looked down and saw the tubing tangled around the seatbelt & I simply laughed. I laughed out loud, all by myself, in my car. Not just a small giggle of amusement, but more a huge, stomach-clenching, tears in my eyes laugh. To this day, I still do not quite know how I got my tubing as
tangled as I did but it still makes me smile.

Note: I had to disconnect and pull the pump out of its clip before I could unwind it form the seatbelt and then actually take off my seatbelt.
Miraculously the tubing was not damaged.

Irony

2006-02-27T13:41:00.000-05:00

I feel jittery, hyper, like my heart is beating too fast and I can’t stop fidgeting. Did I drink too much coffee? Have too much caffeine? I don’t think so. Plus, too much caffeine usually leaves me feeling more headachy and sick to my stomach. I’d better test my blood sugar.

My reading is a perfect 90 – that explains it. My in-target blood sugar is making me feel this way. It’s making me feel as if my pupils are dilated and there is too much light in the room. It is so hard to hold onto a thought. I feel so excited and energized, like I might burst.

My poor body is not used to blood sugars like this. It doesn’t know what to do; anything below 120 & I start to feel like this or I feel low. I know it’s because my body is all out of sync and that the lower my readings stay, the better I will feel, but this sucks. At 180 or even 200-I feel so much better, so normal. It’s ironic that my good blood sugar is making me feel bad; that’s diabetes for you.

irony a (1) : incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result (2) : an event or result marked by such incongruity

"Mel Time"

2006-02-15T17:06:00.000-05:00

Some comments about my Fruit Loops & Ice Cream post got me thinking about how truly supportive my parents were & not just my sisters. It was my mom’s goal from the very beginning that I think of myself as a person who happened to have diabetes and not a diabetic. She, especially, was adamant that I learn about my disease in order to be as independent as possible. From the very beginning my parents helped but did not do it all for me. I gave most of my own shots; with some help pinching enough skin in a tricky spot like the upper arm, and from what I recall, I did most of my own urine, then blood sugar testing.

My dad often helped me get my bedtime snack: just about always nachos (Tostitos with cheese, melted in the microwave) and sugar-free chocolate milk. To this day, that is still comfort food to me. Much of my childhood and even into my teens my bedtime snack was a ritual never to be missed. During that time I was also having a problem of dropping low in the middle of the night and had quite of few hypoglycemic seizures as well. Glucagon to bring me back and Phenergan suppositories to help with the vomiting that always followed, were staples in our house. All administered by my parents. How scary it must have been to have to give a shot to your convulsing kid, wait for her to awake groggy and disoriented, and asking “did I have another one?” Then try to get her to drink some regular pop or eat something as she’s asking for something, anything to throw up in. They did it. Sometimes we had to go the ER for an IV if I couldn’t keep anything down and my blood sugar wasn’t coming up. They did all this and yet somehow kept their calm, didn’t let me know just how scary or awful it was, and let me feel like it wasn’t such a big deal.

My parents were my biggest fans and supporters in the annual Bike-A-Thon to raise money for the diabetes youth group run by the team at my doctors’ office. Dad borrowed a truck, the kind with the lift on the back, from his work each year and gave all us kids rides which was always a hit. Today they are still among my biggest supporters in the annual ADA walk. They tried to treat me the same as my sisters, but isn’t that nearly impossible when I had a chronic illness such as diabetes? At Halloween I would go trick-or-treating with all the other kids then turn in my candy to my mom in exchange for a toy or later a jean jacket I just had to have. At Easter I usually got a toy or something too; after we figured out that the sugar-free candy caused stomach problems. Not such a bad deal.

Aside from a strong aversion to actually writing down my blood sugars, one which I still have, by the time I graduated from high school I was an independent, comparatively responsible 18 year old heading off to college 10 hours away from home. That is when my diabetes control became my sole responsibility & I started screwing it all up. I don’t want to reminisce about the self-destructive path I was on for quite some time (at least not now). I am finding strength in remembering the sacrifices my parents made for me, the knowledge to care for myself and my disease that the bestowed in me, and all the love and support they gave and still give to this day. I am drawing on that strength and thinking I CAN DO THIS. I really can find a way to live in harmony with diabetes and be happy and healthy.

As with most things, I will do it in my own slow, sweet, “Mel Time” as my mom calls it.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2006-02-14T08:56:00.000-05:00

live.

love.

be in the moment.

each one is given for a reason.

What is Your Blood Sugar?

2006-02-09T10:35:00.000-05:00

As far back as I can remember, me saying, “I don’t feel good” is always followed by someone saying some variation of, “What is your blood sugar?” When I am especially grumpy or really sad, or just not all there, it is almost always blamed on my blood sugar. Argh!!! Why can’t it just be that I don’t feel well or that I am having a bad day? Why can’t it just be a normal ailment that a regular, non-diabetic person gets? Why can’t it just be me? As if my numbers are not already constantly on my mind, and right in front of my face.

Every illness or stress I have can and often does affect my blood sugar and more often than not, it is my out-of-whack blood sugar making me feel like crap. I know this, yet the question still bothers me when I know it shouldn’t. People only ask out of concern, yet it still does. A lot. If it wasn’t my blood sugar that was causing me to feel off in the first place, an out of range number is sure to follow. It’s a vicious cycle: moods, stress, illness and life in general affect blood sugar and, in turn, blood sugar affects moods, can cause stress, makes you feel ill and disrupts your life. It is an endless merry-go-round that is not very merry.

If it is not in fact my blood sugar that is contributing to my moodiness, then the next question my husband and close friends will ask is “Have you been taking your medicine?” By medicine, they mean my pal Prozac. I have tried not taking it daily and sometimes still have lapses where I seem to think I will be okay without; the result is not pretty. I have been taking Prozac on and off for close to 6 years now, so with the help of my doctor I am resigned to the fact that this is what I need. I am well aware of the multitude of controversies surrounding Prozac and other ‘mood-enhancing’ drugs, but I also know that, for me, it makes my life livable. When I get lulled into the idea that I feel great, with no extreme bouts of depression or dark days, I start to think that I don’t need this help anymore; I am brought back to reality in a couple weeks’ time. I hate that the question of whether or not I have been taking Prozac has to even be asked. I wish I could be okay without it, but I have learned from experience that I am not.

I feel bad that when I yell at my husband about something totally stupid like our grocery shopping, he has to wonder if it is my blood sugar or if I have not been taking my meds. The man is a saint and lets me get through my yelling at him for no good reason followed by my subsequent hour long nonsensical sobbing before gently asking me what my blood sugar is and if I have been taking my medicine.

Medicine injected into me through a tiny cannula attached to a pump on my belt and medicine swallowed each night to allow me to function as a normal human being – ain’t life grand?

Fruit Loops & Ice Cream

2006-02-08T10:58:00.000-05:00

I don’t have many specific memories of my childhood before diabetes. Poking oranges with syringes to practice giving shots, the playroom in the hospital where I got to make all sorts of cool crafts, and the exact outfit I had on when I left the hospital the day before my 9th birthday; those things I remember in detail. I loved being in the hospital. I was not sick, sick, but rather there to learn all about this new disease I had. I was looking forward to being in the hospital for my birthday, as that would obviously mean a ton more presents. It hadn’t occurred to me that perhaps shopping for my birthday presents was not number one on my mom’s agenda, given that her youngest was in the hospital having just been diagnosed with a terminal illness. She knew firsthand where the disease could lead since she was a R.N. who made home visits. Then, I just saw it as a way that I was unique and special. No big deal. The day before my birthday came around I was cleared to go home. I put on my pale yellow oxford shirt, railroad striped OshKosh B’Gosh overalls, tied my maroon with silver swish Nikes and pinned on my Garfield pin. I was ready to go.

It never occurred to me until much later that maybe my family wasn’t as ready as I was. My mom pretty much made my two older sisters and I eat healthy even before my diagnosis, so I’m not sure things changed all that much. She was what we now affectionately call “a hippie mom.” You know; made her own granola, made pizza at home, colored on meat trays… For the couple of years before diabetes, my sisters and I had all gone to camp together for a week or so in the summer, but now that I had been diagnosed with the disease I was going to Camp Ho Mita Koda (the name means welcome, my friend) instead. I loved Camp Ho. I cried endlessly when it was time to go home and back to the real world. Camp was a sort of vacation for me because almost everyone there had diabetes. We all waited in line to test our blood sugars then walked up to the dispensary for our shots. The meals and snacks as well as the exchanges were all figured out for you. Looking back now, I’m sure it was a vacation of sorts for my family as well. Their diets were not restricted and they didn’t have to worry about me while I was at camp.

Long after I had stopped going to camp my sisters confessed to me that after the family dropped me off, they got ice cream at a place down the street from camp. Then, once closer to home, they picked up Fruit Loops, Honeycomb and other ‘fun’ cereal at the grocery store to enjoy while I was away. The fact that for all those years they did this without telling did not make me jealous or angry but rather made realize just how much they, too, had to give up. It made me realize just how much they loved me.

Loved me then and still do now. I truly have the best big sisters in the whole world. Each would do anything for me and I for them. Sara & Krista, thank you for all the sacrifices you made on my behalf and for only getting to enjoy Fruit Loops and ice cream while I was at camp.

I'm back...

2006-02-07T14:46:00.000-05:00

So...I took a little break. The break from blogging was not deliberate, per say. The holidays came around, work got really busy...and well, life happened. After the holidays I had plenty of time, but by then I was questioning whether I had anything original to say (more on my longing to be different, yet the same later) in this huge world of d-bloggers. So I procrastinated some more. I'm really good at the whole procrastination thing, by the way. By then I had started slipping into, well probably more like crashing into my old ways of not dealing with the diabetes, and was obviously not in the mood to conjure up something witty about the disease for the entire world to see. Diabetes was tucked way back in the far recesses of my conscience and only accessed when completely necessary to do so. My body was nowhere near to being the Ritz Carlton of places for diabetes to stay; more like some seedy roadside motel that offers rooms by the hour.

I had given myself permission to be a slacker because I knew I would be going back on the pump soon and that then I would have to be good. I would be using the (new to me) Paradigm 715 pump with the Paradigm Link blood glucose meter that sends the readings right to the pump and has the Bolus Wizard to figure out your insulin dose for you and then all the information could be uploaded to your computer and combined to give you reports etc. on all your information. No more trying to combine information from several places or having to write it all down on my own. It would take care of some of the annoying little details that I absolutely hate doing such as calculating, correction, and carb doses and then not having one place that stored all of my results, as well as providing useful reports. I was very excited. I even wanted to blog about it.

But by then it felt like it had been too long since I had written to just throw another blog out there. It’s not like anyone would notice or care. I’m not some profound writer. In fact, I am only able to post my entries after an awesome friend who makes them look better has proofread them. I haven’t conquered my diabetes demons so I don’t have great advice to offer others. I’m just a girl with this disease called diabetes that has been my nemesis for as long as I can remember trying to figure out how to live in harmony with it. I have sorted through my complicated feelings about writing this blog for other people; worrying about what they think, or if it is witty enough. I have remembered that I am doing this for me.

Well, ok, not so little a break, but I’m back!!!

Accommodations

2005-11-10T14:38:00.000-05:00

Thank you everyone for all your gracious comments and support. I shed a few tears reading your comments and really do feel like I am not alone. Reading your comments also made me wonder whom this brave and strong girl is. She can’t be me.

When I have a low blood sugar episode like the one yesterday that left me crying at my desk because I couldn’t complete a simple letter requested by my boss, I just don’t think I can do it. My mind hazy and thick with pressure from not enough blood getting to my brain, thoughts so jumbled they would not translate in to spoken words, hands shaking, hot and sweaty; all I could do was cry. I was scared that many more lows like this at work could possibly cost me my job. I continued to blubber uncontrollably because I hate diabetes so much at that moment that I wished for any other ailment. Anything but this.

“Cut me out of this role. I can't play it anymore.”

These lyrics from Better Than Ezra mimic how I feel about the big D. The role is not a good fit for me. I am too laid back, too reckless and far too undisciplined for the role of a diabetic. This role should have gone to someone who is stronger than me. To someone who is able to just build a bridge and get over it, as my husband likes to say. You should have given this role to a person who does not have the mental block that I seem to have. Give it someone who is better equipped to play the role.

I like the idea of accommodating diabetes rather than accepting it. Acceptance somehow feels like resigning yourself to fate or the role of the victim. Accommodate, yeah, I think I can do that. Almost as if I am providing housing, make that temporary accommodation, for diabetes and the nicer the lodgings I provide the less it will complain. Make no mistake, though, I do not share my body with this disease by choice, but I think I can accommodate it until there is a cure.

So here’s to being the Ritz Carlton of bodies for diabetes to use, for the time being.

my very first post

2005-11-09T13:28:00.000-05:00

Recently I stumbled upon the many great blogs out there written by fellow persons with diabetes and got the thought that perhaps it would help me to write a blog. Since today has been dubbed D-blog day I thought it would be an appropriate time to post my blog. So here goes….

The basics:
My name is Melissa. I am 31 and have had Type 1 since I was 9 (well, actually 8; I got out of the hospital the day before my 9th b-day). Since June of this year I have been happily married. We live near Cleveland, Ohio. Work is full-time and pretty boring but I am going to school part- time to change that. My favorite past time is reading and I am a dork who loves the library. We share our home with my cats, Pokey & Rodeo, and his beagle, Angel, all of whom bring us both joy and at times frustration, but they are worth it. I love kids and have 3 nieces and a nephew plus one on the way who are the best! Every single day is a struggle with diabetes.

For the first time in many years I am really trying to accept, tame and live with the disease instead of fighting it. It is not going away & I am only hurting myself. I often feel like I have made it this far with no visible complications by pure luck. Yeah, sure I had great care when I was younger, I had an amazing diabetes care team, I had an extremely supportive family (especially my mom), and I was very well educated about my disease. Then, I legally became an adult and the burden of my care fell into my own hands. Most of the time though, I only did what was necessary to not feel too sick and to just get by. Sure, I have had times when I tried harder, or paid more attention to what I ate and made an effort to be a good little diabetic. But if I am to be really honest with myself I have never really accepted diabetes as an adult or done my best to take control.

I am making a commitment to myself to now do that. I will not let diabetes run my life. I will not skate by on pure luck anymore. I will take action to keep myself healthy until the cure arrives. I will believe in me. I will do better.

But I can’t do it by myself. I need to know that I am not alone. So tell me your story. Give me your tips & tricks of living with diabetes; tell me your struggles, tell me your accomplishments and if you check back here I will tell you more about mine.

~Melissa