I just can't get you out of my mind

We think a lot about the physical component of diabetes, but the mental component is just as significant. How does diabetes affect you or your loved one mentally or emotionally? How have you learned to deal with the mental aspect of the condition? Any tips, positive phrases, mantras, or ideas to share on getting out of a diabetes funk? 

How does diabetes affect me mentally and emotionally? Well, let's just say that those are two different things for me. Mentally, meaning logically, meaning when it's just me, myself & I and my Dexcom and my Omnipod PDM and my glucose tabs and my glucagon kit and my Humalog and my Afrezza then I feel mostly pretty fine about things. Tough days are just that, tough days. Good days are simply days that are easier. It helps to keep my yoga practice in mind. In yoga, you are always reminded that you are a different person each time you come to the mat. What you could do yesterday might not work for you today. Yet it is all still there, still related, still part of your practice. To me, diabetes is simply another practice. I'm thankful to have been diagnosed in a time of such advancements in diabetes technology that it can be that for me. That I can largely avoid the inconveniences and the fears of things like testing my urine for my BG or not being able to control my basal insulin. So I can be easier on myself and think of my diabetes as a tool for living a generally healthier life. And as for a mantra, well....I don't quite have one of those but I do like to think about the fact that I'm beating the hell out of science.

Emotionally? That's another story. Diabetes is not something that I like to share. I do share, here on this blog, obviously. I like that my family reads this (s/o to them!) But that's after I've processed things and it's sharing from a safe distance. It's not really that vulnerable. I don't know yet what vulnerability around my diabetes really looks like. I've struggled with it before and I struggle with it constantly with my students, with my friends, with strangers. Every time I think I've come somewhat to terms with it, I hide another low blood sugar, I don't take a break when I need to, I remember that I still don't own a medic alert ID bracelet. 

But, I have made progress. I am practicing. I'm not perfect. Each day is just that, a day. I'm going to have this disease for a long time probably, so I have time to get better at it. I think the biggest tip I have for when I get upset or frustrated or want to murder my insurance company is to remember that I can do as much as I can, and no more. 

Diabetes Blog Week

Well, it's kind of funny to say this in this post, but when I made my blog I never really imagined participating in something like Diabetes Blog Week. I'm not sure why I started it, but making it public and/or participating in the DOC was not really part of it, intentionally at least.

But now, 1.5 years and 3 (3!!) diabetes meetups later, here we are.

My first post of my first internet group activity, ever. There are 61 other posts on this topic. 61!! That's a heck of a lot of diabetics. More than I've ever seen in one place, for sure. So here goes lucky number 62...

And the prompt is....Lets kick off the week by talking about why we are here, in the diabetes blog space. What is the most important diabetes awareness message to you? Why is that message important for you, and what are you trying to accomplish by sharing it on your blog?

So, to come full circle. Why am I here? Why do I write a diabetes blog? To be honest, I don't know. I'm not sure what my intentions were when I started this and I'm not sure what they are now. I think this blog is mostly a processing tool for me. I think it's educational for my family (my only known readers). I think that I enjoy getting to share my funny stories and vent my frustrations and archive my feelings in one place. I think that it's probably going to be required reading for people who want a serious place in my life in the future. I think. All I know is that a lot of time my emotions come pouring out of my fingers and they wind up here.

What is the most important diabetes message to me right now? Simply the message that....I'm here. This is me. It's a little like the WOW signal.

There are more things I'd like to say, and more messages I'd like to pass on, and more fights I'd like to fight, but for right now I'm just a blip on the radar. I'm out here, and I'm listening. 

GIVE ME ALL THE APPOINTMENTS

I am going to be traveling this summer. A big trip. I've taken a few before, and while I always like to travel light, this is the first time I'm not going to be packing a functioning pancreas, if you catch my drift.

And man. Man oh man oh man oh man. And woman, oh woman, oh woman. Because I have both male and female doctors. And doctors are who I need to see, doctors up to my eyeballs. Endocrinologist, CDE, GP, travel nurse, and oh by the way I coincidentally happen to be due for the gynecologist, dentist, and a spirometry exam for my Afrezza prescription.

I've been bouncing around the city for weeks now, stopping every so often for a massive pickup at my trusty Walgreens, and I'm not done yet. I'm giving my FSA and my bus pass quite the workout.

It's funny because I'm going somewhere where the visa process is generally considered to be quite annoying and demanding. I even had to get my passport renewed, too. Yet somehow I accomplished that in about 10 minutes plus one trip to the post office. Maybe I'm being hyperbolic (who moi??). Maybe in the olden days it would have seemed like quite an arduous process.

Perspective: the gift of old age and also shitty pancreases.  

What's in a Name?

I work in a pretty progressive school. While we have an eye out for learning differences, and we certainly have students tested often and frequently, we tend to not officially "label" children in first grade. But sometimes we do, and recently we worked with some parents around their daughter's classroom abilities. We founds some stuff, to say the least. Stuff that was getting in the way of her learning, stuff that was frustrating her, leaving her feeling overwhelmed and doubting herself. Stuff that leaves her needing (at least for the foreseeable future) devices to help her focus and work in a typical classroom. Her parents are, understandably, nervous, and worried about giving her a name, a disease even, and making her self-conscious. They don't want her to notice anything different.

But here's the thing, at least as I see it. She already notices. She already knows. A name is so powerful. A name gives you an entity separate from yourself to grapple with, to blame, to accommodate. A name is a powerful tool when you are coming to terms with your own abilities.

When the nurse said to me, diabetes, I laughed for several reasons, but mainly relief. A name! A problem! Synthetic insulin--a possible relief! It's so much more than that, of course, but for months my narrative running through my head was "I'm sad. I'm tired. I don't like my life. I'm lazy. I don't want to do anything. I'll never feel good again. I'm trapped. I'm not trying hard enough." I'm, I'm, I'm. Me, me, me. I'm the problem.

But guess what? It's not me. Try as hard as I might, I'll never, never, never be good enough to function without a working pancreas. There's me, and there's diabetes, and they are two things. I'm in charge of both, but they are two things. Sometimes I want a break. Sometimes my diabetes demands one. I have to honor both but I can't blame myself for diabetes' neediness.

Having a name, something to describe, something to know is there along with you, along with your own natural abilities and challenges. That made a world of difference. Sure a label can be challenging. It can shine a spotlight. It can invite comment or misconceptions. It can be a lightning rod. It can be a source of community. It can be an I.D. badge. It can cost a crap ton of money. It can be combative.

But it's not really the name's fault. Whatever was there, needing that name, has always been there. There's always been a there there. What the name does is it takes something that was festering inside of you and it lets you take it out of your heart and sure, maybe you put it into a backpack and carry it as a weight forever and it's heavy but at least it can't hurt you in the same way anymore.

What Makes Me Tick

Literally.

Sometimes you have a handy family and you're home visiting and you just get curious. What IS that thing softly clicking and not-so-softly beeping away on your body day and night? What am I actually carrying with me? Where does that flipping needle come from? 

So.....you bust out some tools and get grabby. Sorry, Insulet, looks like I won't be recycling this one. 

You Can Go Your Own Way...

Go your own way! Pause for a little respect for a great band and a great album.

And....moving on.

It's hard to get psyched about diabetes, let's be honest. I mean, initially it's kind of fun and crazy, and there's something about being a whirring, clicking, robot/human hybrid that's a little interesting. Although, come on, let's get that artificial pancreas going guys, I'd like to be a little more automated and a little less human when it comes to my diabetes at least.

Regardless, it's definitely more of a wear-and-tear, daily-grind type of disease. So you have to make your own excitement. Which I'm doing, in the form of taking a little bit more charge of things. I wrote a few months ago that I'm afraid of dying in the night, especially when camping/backpacking. It's still true, and while I love being outdoors, diabetes has made me much more cautious about my outdoor experiences. But no more! I'm doing something any self-respecting, gutsy, woodswoman should have done long ago...I have signed myself up for a Wilderness First Aid class next weekend. So I get to spend 16 sweet hours making splints and bandages out of twigs and leaves, and finding out how to resuscitate dummies, staunch bloody noses, create smoke signals (I imagine this is the curriculum at least) and allll of that fun stuff. And maybe, just maybe, I'll leave with some survival tips for myself...

Ode to a Low Blood Sugar, and Other Poems

An anthology featuring such classics as:

"I didn't eat dinner last night so now I'm eating it at 4 am....covered in sweat."

"Oh look cookies! Those will work: A tragicomedy of errors."

"How much is that juice in the window? [Alternate title: I'm not drunk, sir]"

"Who beeped?"

"Overnight low corrections; or, make sure you turn off your Dexcom's high alert"

"?"

"Instagram: for when the letters in books are swimming on the page"

"Insulin on board, that sticky wicket"

"I fell asleep cuddling my glucose tabs"

"I can't believe I have to wake up and go to work in 3 hours"

And, most importantly--

"Will what I wrote right now make sense in the morning?"