Ah, the holidays

I’ve sadly been neglecting my blog, but it has not been because I’ve been getting ready for Christmas and New Year’s. No, I’ve not even scratched the surface of what I need to accomplish in the next ten days and several odd hours. Wait until the last minute and then rush like mad to get everything done is more my style.

The real reason I’ve been not blogging is two-fold. One, I don’t really have much diabetes related to talk about and I’d like to stay on topic as much as possible, and two, I kinda forgot I was doing this until I had to turn a blog in for another site. Oopsie. Also, I’ve been busy trying to track down the entire Star Wars Holiday Special on You Tube. Okay, not really. It’s easy to find. If you dare.

 

It's not only the video quality that's bad, apparently it's the link, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQt7LRTSVTA

 

I would like to point out that even though the time between Thanksgiving and the end of the year is my favorite, it’s not always easy to deal with as a diabetic. There’s a lot more temptation regarding food, a lot less motivation to get up and exercise (being sick this last week hasn’t helped, either), and I’ve just got this overall sense of malaise toward taking care of myself. It’s the end of the year, right? I can be more resolved to take care of myself next year.

Yeah.

 

I am trying though, to be better about what I eat.  The exercise thing is hard because the hubs is sick, too, and it helps to have a work out buddy. Plus we’ve been playing The Old Republic online, and that’s a lot more fun than getting sweaty by walking in place for twenty minutes. My blood sugars and the stupid bathroom scale should be enough to motivate me to exercise, but apparently they aren’t. I’ve gotten to the point now where I’d rather skip a meal than get off my arse and move around, not that this helps get my flabby tummy in any kind of shape other than round.  
 

Last month at the last minute (see paragraph one) I started a NaNoWriMo book. I believe I mentioned this, but for anyone not in the know,that’s National Novel Writing Month, and the idea is you write a whole novel of 50,000 words between November 1 and November 30. I started it on a girl with diabetes because there aren’t too many young adult novels dealing with the disease, and frankly that pisses me off.  I got about 7,488 words done in four days and haven’t touched it since. It seems that I can start a lot of things but when it comes to finishing them I’m not good at crossing the line. At any rate, I started another book (I think this brings my current total of unfinished tomes to 12 or something…), so that’s something. Perhaps I could just post it here in installments and then you all could share it with people if you wanted to. Hmm. There’s a thought
 

In case I put off blogging again until 2013, or in case there is no 2013, I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday season!

 

Ramblings

There are two or three things I've come to know about life.

1. My dogs will bark at the most inopportune moments and shatter my ear drums when all I want is silence.

2. No matter how hard I try to be happy with things, there will always be something that makes me wish for a little more.

3. I know nothing about life.

See also Sgt. Schultz

It's number 2 that really gets my goat. For the most part, I'm a happy person. I have a husband that I love and who loves me. I have a job that usually fills me with a sense of purpose. I have friends and family that care about me. I've written a book, been on TV, participated in the running of large organizations...and yet I found this morning as I cleaned my house in preparation of Christmas decorating that I am not a happy camper today, and I couldn't really discern a good reason why, because life is going pretty well right now.

Without getting to into too many details, I've made some decisions (with the husband) that I think are putting us on a better financial path, so that's a good thing. I've decided it's time to hand over some of the duties to my second-in-command at work that I've been doing since her predecessor left a couple months ago, which will lessen my work load.  I did dishes last night so my kitchen isn't a total disaster, something that is always nice. My blood sugar was low most of the morning...

This eureka! moment brought to you by the man who really invented electricity as we know it.

I'm not saying that my moods are completely controlled by my blood sugars, but if I'm in a bad mood for no reason a lot of times it is because my blood sugar is on the downward spiral. My husband can usually tell when this is the case. When I'm being particularly bitchy he tells me to go check my blood sugar before he takes cover and more often than not it's low or quickly approaching low levels, which I'd figure out myself if, you know, my blood sugar wasn't low.

I hate how a woman's emotional state is so often attributed to "that time of the month." Sometimes a woman just gets down on herself and needs someone to tell her she's got value, and it's got nothing to do with her reproductive system. And while I admit I am often more liable to strike out in anger in the days preceding the start of my monthly cycle, I am also more likely to bite your head off for something totally unreasonable if my blood sugar is in the 50's. Just knowing this ticks me off, because it's a thing that I don't have 100% control over, which means I don't have 100% control over myself. Think about that for a second....it's scary, isn't it?

November is...

November is National Diabetes Month.

I don't know how I feel about this, honestly. I mean, yay- we have a month in which we are probably going to get more air time and more coverage, but we're really not. I did some research for another blog I am doing this month (over at The YALSA Hub, and it's not up yet or I'd link to it), and I learned that there isn't a large number of teen books with diabetic characters in it. This wasn't a complete surprise to me, since there weren't many when I was a teenager. What was surprising to me was that since I was a teenager there haven't been any NEW ones. More people get diabetes now than ever before and the literary world seems to have dropped it like a bad habit. Millions of people have diabetes and there aren't diabetics in our literature? 250,000 people get leukemia a year and there are at least four books that have come out in the last two years for teens that have characters with leukemia in them. The numbers seem skewed, though I admit that my interest has been limited to the young adult novel and for all I know there's a series written by Danielle Steel all about a woman who is a diabetic...not that I'd know, because I don't read Danielle Steel.

But this got me thinking...November is also National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short). Maybe I should just write a young adult novel about a teen with diabetes myself. How hard can that be? I've been a diabetic for *mumble mumble* years now. I'm pretty sure if it came down to it, I'd be able to accurately write about how it is to live with it, as a teenager even. Hell, that's what I'm doing here isn't it?

Get it?

 

Alas, if only it were that easy. If I were just writing about diabetes it would be. If I were just writing about living with diabetes it would be, too. But writing a young adult novel that talks about diabetes, and is entertaining, has some plot, and doesn't sound preachy? Some of the worst YA lit I've read has come across as preachy. And some of the worst YA lit I've read has been about a disease. In fact, there's one author in particular that has built a career on writing about teens with cancer or some other fatal ailment, and got two books about diabetes in there, too....and all of it is schmaltzy, predictable....

It's not Nicholas Sparks, but this also applies to him, too, I guess.



 

Honestly even  if it were easy, I'm not that motivated to write it, either. Writing a book is hard, and writing a good book is improbable, and writing a good book for teens is a total shot in the dark (kind of like booking a trip on Expedia- sometimes you get a great deal, some times you don't.) The big thing in literary circles, especially ones dealing with those under 18, is that you need to be able to see yourself in the literature you read. Kids who live in the suburbs tend to lean toward books that take place there, just as kids who are of a certain culture/religion need to see kids of their culture/religion in the books they read. It's a reaffirming thing- "Hey, this person is just like me!" even though we're all supposed to be ourselves and not be like other people, which I sometimes take to the extreme.

For instance, I'd wear this...in public.

 





But the idea has planted itself into my head, and I can't seem to let go of it. In fact, I jotted down some notes and ideas the other day that I think could really work. Now I just need to find the time to sit down and do it, and then get a publisher, and hopefully write it well enough that I can squeeze a few sequels out of it....




 

Is it November yet?

Halloween is almost here.

It's my least favorite holiday.

Can you guess why?

My blood sugar is now 300 just looking at this.

 

Being a diabetic and having little bite sized portions of things that smell so good just sitting there at the check out counter, sitting there on the sign in desk at the doctor's office...filling the drawers in my office cabinet because it's Spooky Stories week at the library and the kids come in costume and trick or treat through every department...well, it's weeks of temptation and frankly, I fall off the wagon. Not even Easter, with the chocolate bunnies and Cadbury Crème Eggs, or Christmas, with the peppermint bark and candy canes, has quite the association with all things sweet and bad for you that Halloween does.

 

Even as a kid I always found it a little...I don't know, what's the word...unfair to send a person who isn't supposed to eat candy out into the night dressed as Barbie/G.I. Joe/whatever to beg for it. Don't get me wrong- dressing up is fun, and gallivanting off into the neighborhood after dark with your friends is, too, but what's to stop you from doing that at any time of year? When all was said and done my friends would be noshing on a pillowcase full of goodies, and even if I snuck one or two pieces at their houses when I got home my mom would confiscate it before my costume was even off- even those really uncomfortable plastic jobbies that they don't even sell anymore. You know what I'm talking about. The ones that had a plastic mask and a plastic smock telling you what the costume was just in case the person answering the door didn't have a TV or a kid?

 

For more epic badness go to http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/10/26/bad-halloween-costumes/

 

Halloween really wasn't a big deal, to be honest. My friends never gave me trouble, my little sister (who often hung out with me and my friends since we're so close in age) never gave me trouble either. And even though Mom always intervened on my behalf when I got home, she doled it out one or two pieces at a time in my lunch box- sometimes through Christmas! (Stick the chocolate in the freezer and it will last as long as you can make it.) But the principle of the thing kind of rankles me now.

 

Candy aside, I'm still not a fan of Halloween. I don't like "scary" movies, and never have. I've never seen "The Shining" or "Scream" or any of the "Halloween" movies...I've never seen "Psycho" or "The Birds" either. I've seen "It" and let me tell you, that's more than enough scary for me. Scary just isn't my thing at all. And then there was that year the dog across the street scared me so much I didn't go out trick or treating for at least another four years. (I was terrified of dogs as a kid, and dogs are terrified of Halloween, so it really was a match made in Hell. Be kind to your dogs and lock them up before you open the door this year.)

 

So basically, the whole holiday could go away and I'd be okay with it....well, except for one thing.

 

What I believe Halloween was created for, and the holiday's sole reason for existing.

 

 

The long and winding road...

So, that medical procedure went okee-day. Except for the fact that I'm feeling kinda like I had a medical procedure, and I can't quite shake the alien feeling. Also, they pump you full of air to make room for their surgical instruments, I think, which makes for an uncomfortable couple of days.

Just sayin'.

 

The thing about medical anything and diabetes is that no matter what people tell me about how long it takes to recover, I always end up taking longer to heal than I expect- even when I'm in really great shape diabetes-wise, which, I must admit, I have not been this past month. Between being sick for a while with a lingering head cold and then this surgery thing, diet and exercise have not had a place in my home. Needless to say, both my glucometer and the scale have been showing me higher numbers than I would like.

 

 

 

Here's the weird, totally not expected thing about this...I miss exercising. I miss eating right. I must be missing a few screws, too, because this isn't me. I'm all about noshing on deep fried stuff and sitting on my butt and playing video games or watching "The Princess Bride" for the one thousand one hundred and thirty eighth time. I'm lazy. I'm so lazy I have a theme song written by Irving Berlin and sung by none other than Bing Crosby, because yes I am that cool.

 

It's called "Lazy," ironically enough.

 

But here I am, actually kind of craving exercise and vegetables. I'm guessing this a good thing...it's odd, but I think somewhere along the line I may have made a life change. I'm planning on really getting going on Sunday when I have the all clear to exercise again, and hopefully by the end of December I'll be down five pounds or so and back on track with those blood sugars.

 

The only problem I really foresee is having to come up with a new theme song...

 



Yeah. That'll work.



< insert snark here >

Not feeling my snarkiest today, which is bad, because I love my snark. It's kewl.

There's a reason I'm not feeling very snarky today. One, my blood sugar is kinda high right now, which always puts me in a foul mood. The other is I'm having a medical procedure done on Friday that requires anesthetic, and I'm not exactly looking forward to this. In fact, I'd have to say I'm the polar opposite of looking forward to this.

I won't get into details, but it's a routine thing that literally half of everyone I've talked about it to have either had it done or know someone who has. That doesn't make it any less nerve wracking. I don't like being put under for anything. When I had my wisdom teeth pulled a few years ago I woke up in the middle of the procedure and let me tell you, that's not a good experience. Kind of like in Awake....only not like that at all, actually, and with a lot less Hayden Christensen.

It took less time to become Darth Vader.

 

My real problem with this is that I can't eat anything (I can't even drink water) for at least eight hours before my procedure, which is scheduled for early afternoon. In case you're new here, I'm a diabetic. Not eating all morning is not usually recommended. I've already had to reschedule this once for work related reasons...I don't really want to have to put it off again because I needed to keep my blood sugar from crashing (though with the high blood sugar trend I've had going, that is probably the least of my worries at this point.)

 

It doesn't help that my allergies are really kicking up, too, which makes me cranky. There's a list of medications a page long that I am not supposed to take for at least a week before this surgery, and rather than read it because it's long and the same medication can be called three different things, I've just cut myself off of all meds other than insulin. No pain meds, no allergy meds, and I've even run out of vitamins, though I gotta say I'm a little glad not to be swallowing those horse pills anymore.

 

'Nuff said.

 





Anyway, if you would be nice enough to send some good juju out into my general direction Friday, that would be nice of you. And if you can't send good juju, at least send pizza 'cause this girl is gonna be HUNGRY when all is said and done.

The demons that keep me up at night

I had a really bad blood sugar day Thursday. I mean, it was BAD.

Sorry...I'm not much of a photographer.

 

This is my Dex meter. It's the continuous blood glucose testing system that I've got. The bottom, solid line means I'm LOW, really LOW, like below 40 low. The dotted line a little above it means my blood sugar is 80. The dotted line above that means 160. The top of the screen there is 400. I like to keep my blood sugar in between the dotted lines. This was a 12 hour view of my blood sugars. So from midnight the night before through noon on Thursday, I pretty much felt like crap.

 

Today has been much better, but after napping on the couch this afternoon with the AC cranked a little too high my throat is really sore and my head feels really stuffy. I was over whatever cold symptoms I had last month this weekend because there was no way I could have done this if I'd been sick:

 

Band was AWESOME. Venue was NOT.

 

Thursday was one of those days where I needed to keep reminding myself that being perfect isn't going to happen (or, rather, my husband needed to remind me). The frustrating thing is that a day like that usually takes a few days to get over blood sugar wise, but I carry the self loathing and failure longer. So basically, same stuff, different day.

 

Today I've been better about keeping track of my calories and I think this week I'll be getting back on the exercise bandwagon, but after this last month of sick and #fail I know my next doctor appointment isn't going to be as nice as the last, which irritates me. It also inspires me to make sure the next three weeks are better than the last three, so I can at least counteract things a little bit.

 

On blink-182's most recent album (Neighborhoods, it's awesome, go get it) there's a song called "Up All Night." The chorus goes like this-

 

Let me get this straight,

Do you want me here?

As I struggle through

Each and every year.

And all these demons,

They keep me up all night.

 

I know what demons keep me up all night.







Diabetes vs. Diabetes

As you probably know by now, I have diabetes. What you may not know is that there is more than one type of diabetes. In fact, off the top of my head, I can think of three.

Gestational diabetes is something only pregnant women get. There are several factors that can lead to it, but according to WebMD only about 4% of pregnant women get it. And even they are smug.

To the three people who get that joke, Garfunkel & Oates thank you. For the others? YouTube.

Type 2 Diabetes is the one that most people have. In fact, over 90% of people with diabetes have Type 2. Type 2 is preventable. A healthy diet and active lifestyle go a long way, and if you're lazy and eat nothing but fast food Type 2 diabetes is likely to be in your future. Before anyone flies off the handle, not everyone with Type 2 diabetes is obese and lazy, but a sedentary lifestyle and poor eating habits can definitely lead to diabetes. Type 2 diabetes can be controlled with diet, exercise, and some medications. It can also be controlled with insulin, which is why they shy away from calling it non-insulin dependant diabetes anymore. There are other factors that can lead to Type 2- including a family history of diabetes.

I have Type 1 diabetes. Interestingly enough, according to WebMD, most people with Type 1 have no family history of diabetes. (My paternal grandmother had Type 2, but other than that? Just me.)When I was a kid people always assumed I'd eaten too much sugar and given it to myself. Considering I was 14 months old when I was diagnosed, I think we can safely say that overindulgence on chocolate had little to do with it. The truth is that my immune system went all Kill Bill on my Islets of Langerhans (the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin). Viola! Diabetic.

It's all very wibbly wobbly, timey wimey.

 

Both Type 1 and Type 2 are serious, and untreated will lead to a whole grocery list of miserable complications, and even death. But the key word for me is preventable. I don't know what I could have done, or what my parents could have done, to stop my immune system from going wiggity wiggity whack on me. But if your doctor tells you to shape up and eat more greens or face diagnosis, I think it's safe to say that you had fair warning. Also, I was just informed by a friend (and my husband, who knows just about everything, confirmed this) that people with Type 2 diabetes who have undergone gastric bypass have been known to be cured. (Whether because of a strange self healing the body does when you slice open and refit a person's stomach, or because once you've had gastric bypass you have to change your diet dramatically I'll let you decide on your own.)

 

I probably sound unsympathetic to the 90% of people with Type 2. I am in some ways. I had a coworker several years ago who was a Type 2 diabetic. (One of my other coworkers referred to him as "that damned New Yorker.") He was overweight, didn't eat right, and didn't exercise, but he complained to me that his doctor wanted to put him on insulin. I told him he should take his meds, watch his diet and exercise to keep that from happening. He didn't, and while I felt his pain, I also felt he was an idiot. Some people, and not just Type 1 diabetics but some Type 2 diabetics, too, just don't have the option to "turn it around."

 

I don't know exactly what it's like to have Type 2 diabetes, but I imagine that the logistics are fairly close to being Type 1. You have to eat right. You have to check your blood sugar. You should maintain some level of exercise. And that's not easy. You've got no idea what it's like to have a high blood sugar until you've had one, and man do they suck. You feel like absolute crap. Tired. Thirsty. Nauseated. Weak. Irritable. Who the hell wants to exercise or eat healthy when you feel like ass? No one. Not even me. Especially not me. I'm the Queen of Lazy even on a good day. I procrastinate like it's an art form.

 

(insert snarky caption here at some point)

 

But I tell you what, if my doctor told me tomorrow I wouldn't have to wear a pump or do blood tests if all I did was follow a specific diet and exercise everyday, that elliptical machine of mine wouldn't have a spec of dust on it and I'd be eating exactly what I was told to eat. Would it be easy? Hell no! Would it be worth it? Abso-frickin-lutely.

 

When I got my first job with my current employer they fingerprinted me for a background check four times. Each time my fingerprints came back because they could not be read. I'd done so many blood tests over the course of my life that I had no fingerprints. I ended up having to have my fingers laser scanned four years into my career. My arms and legs and stomach are all misshapen with scar tissue from years of shots and insertion sets. I've already got a little bit of diabetic retinopathy starting in my eyes. And even with diet and exercise, I'm still jamming a tube into my stomach every four days, and having to give insulin, and not always doing a great job of things.

 

In spite of my unsympathetic tone, I'm actually glad most diabetics have Type 2. That means many of them have the opportunity to reverse the effects of diabetes and get themselves back to normal. One of my co-workers asked me the other day if I'd gotten any comments or feedback from Type 2 diabetics on this blog. I haven't really addressed the differences before, so I'd be interested to know what people have to say.

 



That's just sick!

I have a head cold.

I really hate being sick. I don't know too many people who enjoy being sick, actually, but for diabetics in particular it really sucks. For starters, try reading the label on that cough or cold medicine sometime.  Do you know how much sugar they put in that stuff to make it "taste good"? Fortunately, there's stuff like this on the market:

 It tastes bad and usually costs more, like everything that's good for you.

 

I've actually given myself a really massively high blood sugar sucking on throat lozenges, which are often little more than medicine flavored candies. As I usually feel awful when I have a high blood sugar to begin with, adding the sniffles to it only makes it worse. And while my body is fighting off this cold with an already weakened immune system, my blood sugar is going to be naturally higher because apparently you burn calories when your immune system goes to war with germs. It's almost Mother Nature's way of kicking me while I'm down.

 

Fortunately, this is only a head cold. The stomach flu is infinitely worse for me, even if you don't take into account that I'd rather watch an episode of Barney than throw up on any given day.

 

 

Actually, that pretty much equals the same amount of barfing.

 

 

Imagine, if you will, giving yourself a dosage of insulin to cover the food you just ate like a good little diabetic. Now imagine your body has decided the food you just ate is not welcome to stay in your stomach, and after making a donation to the porcelain god, you now have insulin coursing through your system with nothing to do except make your blood sugar sink down lower and lower while it looks around for the food that is no longer there. The thought of eating anything makes you want to double down on that donation you made earlier. What do you do?

 

 

Always good advice.

 

You stay calm, get some anti nausea liquid and pray that the toast stays down long enough to make a difference, that's what. The towel you should always have anyway.

 

My biggest problem with being sick is that being sick always breaks any good habits I've managed to get started. When was the last time I exercised? Before I started dealing with this head cold, which I've actually been fighting off now for over a week. How's my diet going? Feed a cold and starve a fever, man....and I don't have a fever. It takes a while to get a good habit going, and one bout with the sniffles to send it packin'. That is annoying.

 



Even more annoying than this. Seriously.





 

So being sick makes my blood sugar go high, can be hard to treat with regular over the counter medicines, throws off my groove, and makes me feel sick. Being a sick diabetic takes a little more planning than grabbing the tissues and watching daytime TV in your TARDIS robe all day. Luckily I've had plenty of years to learn what to do and how to compensate. Doesn't mean I have to like it.

 

For those of you keeping score, that's another Hitchhiker's Guide graphic, an Animaniacs video,  andThe Emperor's New Groove and Doctor Who mentions. Barney doesn't count.

An anniversary, of sorts

Anniversaries are funny things. Sometimes good...sometimes bad...sometimes both.

September 15, 1990, I went to my first concert. I was twelve years old and went to see New Kids on the Block with my mother, my little sister, and a couple of friends. I still have the ticket. I still remember most of the show.  I remember watching the New Kids on the Block cartoon right after the Beetlejuice cartoon that morning, and I remember getting dressed, and I remember dancing and singing my pre-teen heart out. One of the most memorable things about that day for me, though, was not New Kids related. That day, according to my mother at the time, was also the anniversary of my diabetic diagnosis. Or might have been. She wasn't completely sure at the time and I think that date may have been wrong, because September 15th of 1979 was a Saturday, like this year, and also strangely like 1990. (Then again my pediatrician employed my grandmother as his nanny, so who knows? It was around that time, at least.)

I found it on the Internet so it must be true.

 

Regardless of the accuracy of the date, every year since that particular September 15th (which was more years ago than I care to openly admit, and I do it now only for educational purposes) on September 15th I've thought about it. I don't remember the day my parents were told I had diabetes- I was only 14 months old. In fact, I don't remember living a day without diabetes at all, which can be rotten on one hand and nice on the other. I don't know what I've been missing. But I think about it, even for a few days before the 15th hits, because it's...I don't know. It's a mark. It's tangible. It's the day that before became after. Even though technically I still had diabetes before, on that date my parents knew, and like the G.I. Joes say, knowing is half the battle.

The other half is awesome lasers and stuff.

 

I guess this time of year I just take a while to pause and reflect on things. Most people do that around their birthday, but I do it around mid-September. Another year with diabetes gone, another year older.  My husband follows the diabetes news. He's always telling me about new advances in treatment, new theories on cures and stuff....I don't follow it. I guess I'm bitter. When I was a kid, it was "the decade of the cure." They were so sure when I was a kid that I wouldn't have diabetes as an adult...well, that didn't go as planned. Maybe someday I'll have another anniversary to reflect on- the anniversary of not having diabetes anymore. I'm not holding my breath. 

 

John Lennon sang, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." In a way I feel a little cheated that I never got to make plans before life slammed into me like a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, but it doesn't really matter. There are people with much bigger problems than mine, and even though I think about the before and after at this time of year, I've been a diabetic for over thirty years and I am in pretty good health, all things considered. So like I said, sometimes good...sometimes bad...sometimes both.

 

 

 

 

"...like having your brain smashed out with a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick."

 

On a totally unrelated note, I'd just like to point out that I fit New Kids on the Block, Beetlejuice, G.I. Joe, John Lennon and Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy  references in one blog. I win. :)

 





Start All Over Again

After my last bought with unconsciousness my doctor had me change the basal rates on my pump. A basal rate, for those of you who don't know, is the hourly rate at which my pump gives me insulin. For example, if my basal rate is 1.3, over the course of an hour my pump gives me 1.3 units of insulin. What's a unit? I don't know. I think they're like the cc's of a syringe.

Anyway, my basal rate was too high overnight, which meant I was getting too much insulin and I was crashing hard. Since making the changes I haven't really crashed too bad, though I was kinda low this morning (however, this was also the first morning in a week I've been able to sleep in past 7:30 because we've been dealing with plumbers, so the fact that I only rolled out of bed a couple hours ago may have something to do with that.) I have been running a little HIGH though, which is upsetting.

Yeah. Like that.

 

I wish that I could get this right all of the time. I wish I could get out of bed in the morning and find my blood sugar at 100...and then make it all the way though the day and find that it has pretty much stayed there. I wish I could eat what I want and not have to guess if the carbs are going to break down right now, like when I eat bread, or three hours from now, like when I eat rice. I wish that every little thing that happened during the day didn't make my blood sugar do something completely unexpected. But wishin' don't make things happen, and I haven't been making things happen lately, either. If life is like Oregon Trail, then I fell off the exercise wagon before the wagon even made it to Ft. Laramie.

 

 

Twenty five years of playing this game I have never seen this screen before.

 

I have a bad habit of not wanting to do something if I'm not good at it. If I'm not going to be Ginger Rogers, I don't want to dance. It's part of my stupid perfectionism, which has been discussed at length before. It's not always a bad thing to want to be perfect, especially if I'm willing to work at being perfect, but the problem is I expect to wake up perfect and not have to work at it at all. Ginger Rogers may have been a fabulous dancer able to keep up with Fred Astaire, but both of them rehearsed long and hard to be able to do the things that they did. I mean, Fred Astaire destroyed pairs of shoes because he rehearsed so much even though he made it all look effortless, so clearly just being naturally talented wasn't enough for him.

 

Diabetes appears to be one of those things that I am not naturally talented at handling, so I have to put in the extra effort, and I admit here, now, on the Internet that never forgets anything, that I am not always willing to put in the work to be successful at it. It's hard to do everything my doctor says, follow a strict regime, eat the food I am supposed to and pass on the chocolate cake, only to fail. It's disheartening to know that no matter how good I am, how close to perfect I try to be, I can still wake up with fruit punch staining my pajamas and my husband staring at me with worry across his face.  It's Sisyphus all day, every day. No end, no win, no nothin'.

 

 

This lesson in Greek mythology brought to you by the Internet. 

 

 

This last week has been like that and I have let myself slide because it's easier than pushing the rock up the mountain only to watch it sliiiiiide back down. But I am not going to let myself be defeated. It's a new week, a new day, and another chance to pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again.

 



 

Dancing versus Rock Pushing....at least dancing is more entertaining!



The Pump Club

I believe I've mentioned before that I've been on an insulin pump for the last seven years. If you've never seen one, this is an example what they basically look like:

Well defined abs not included.

 

As you can see, there's a little electronic gadget that looks like a pager with some neato buttons on it and a thin, clear tube that looks like it's taped neatly to a diabetic's belly. The tube is actually attached to a little plastic doohickey (technical medical term) that is inserted under the skin. I believe it is made of Teflon or something, and it doesn't hurt, though it is inserted via needle. In fact, you can poke me right where the insertion set is on my stomach and I can hardly feel it most of the time. For those of you squirming, know that I will take inserting a short, thin tube into my belly once every four days over inserting a short, thin needle into myself four times a day. And now you're squirming even more. Still, everyone who has insulin dependant diabetes should be on one.

 

Since I've been on the insulin pump my over all blood sugars have been better, I've been able to eat more or less depending on whether or not I'm hungry, and I've been able to eat whenever I want and not be stuck on a schedule dictated by when the long acting insulin I gave this morning is going to kick into action this afternoon. It has given me a freedom that I had not had for most of my life, and even though there are times I want to throw it across the room and watch it smash into a thousand tiny little pieces like the fax machine in Office Space, I wouldn't ever be without one again. I cannot stress this enough, and not to sound like a broken record, but everyone with insulin dependant diabetes should really be on an insulin pump.

 

 

Come to think of it, that wouldn't sound like much other than silence. *shrug*

 

Surprisingly, you don't see a lot of people wearing insulin pumps out and about. I know, because I look. Depending on what I'm wearing you may not even see that I have one on. It can be tucked into my pocket, tucked into my bra (not always comfortable but if I'm wearing a dress where else am I going to keep it?), or worn on my belt alongside my continuous blood testing monitor for a real Batman-esque look. The same is true of everyone else who uses one of these. With all the cell phone holders and mp3 players people have these days insulin pumps tend to blend in rather well.

 

But when I do see someone with one, or someone comes up to me because they see that I am wearing one, there's a camaraderie there that is kind of neat. What brand is that? How do you like it? How many days do you get out of a set? It's an immediate thing you have in common. I spent twenty minutes talking to a women in IHOP the other night about our pumps. I was doing a story time at a mall once and one of the dads in the audience started asking me questions about it because he had one, too. I can only think of maybe one other thing off the top of my head that is as good at breaking the ice as an insulin pump.

 

 



I literally added that video just because.

 



The Pump Club is kind of a rotten club to belong to, and it's one that I wish in many ways I didn't belong to, but it's nice to occasionally see someone else with a pump just so I can have a reminder that I'm not the only member. I often joke when my pump beeps that my pancreas is talking to me, or refer to myself as a bionic woman, or say my pancreas fell out of my pocket when my pump does the same, but joking and occasional irritation aside I love the little thing. 



Motivation, Where Art Thou?

The hardest thing about everything for me is motivation. There are twenty four hours in a day, I sleep for about eight of them, spend an hour commuting to and from work, and spend nine hours a day at work. That leaves me about six hours a day to myself, at least half an hour of which I spend getting ready for work. Then you add in making sure the dogs are fed, have their medicine if needed, and making sure I get dinner (which nine times out of ten the husband does) and that leaves me with about five hours. Five hours a day to do something for me.

Remember when we were kids, and our parents made us clean our room, and it was the worst thing ever because it took up so much of our lives to do? If all I had to do these days was clean my room, my room would be clean. I really was right when I was a nine year old on the playground thinking that third grade was as good as it gets.

...there was a little girl who thought being an adult would suck, and she was right.

 

 

In these five hours that I have to myself I usually try to write because that's my thing that gets me through the day- it's cathartic and creative and something that I enjoy doing more than most anything else- but there are days when my muse is on vacation and I literally sit there staring at my computer screen waiting for something to happen. Usually at some point during those five hours I'll exercise, and the hubby usually does that with me, so we get some together time there. I'm a big fan of multi-tasking.

Here's where motivation really comes in to play for me, though. I've been known to sit on my butt for four hours on Facebook doing nothing when there is a list of about 1,138 things I'd rather be doing that I'm just not motivated to do. Like the dishes. Or cleaning the bathroom. Or laundry. Or playing a video game. Or reading. And some of those things aren't actually things I want to be doing, but they are things I know I should be doing. It goes back to that being an adult and how so not fun it can be. One of the nice things about being an adult, though, is that if I feel like slacking on stuff like laundry and dishes, I can. Oh, and now I get all the naughty jokes from Animaniacs, too.

 

 



Seriously, how did they get away with this?

 



But when it comes to diabetes, if I'm not motivated to do what I'm supposed to, that ends up in the realm of very bad things. For a long time I wasn't motivated to take care of myself the way I should have. I was bulimic in high school, but I wasn't sticking my finger down my throat. No, I was purposefully not giving myself insulin so I could eat what I wanted and still stay skinny. Too skinny as a matter of fact. For a while after I got on the pump I was pushing 200 lbs. because I ate whatever I wanted and didn't exercise a lick. It really took me wanting to get in shape before I started to closely monitor what I was eating and how much I was exerising and find a balance. It didn't matter how many times my mom brought my weight up, or how often I dodged cameras because I always hated how I looked in pictures, and it certainly didn't matter that I knew I'd not only feel better about myself and be in better control of my diabtetes if I took care of myself. I knew what I needed to do, but I had no motivation to do it.

 

What finally motivated me? Wanting to have kids helped. Wanting to set a good example so my husband would be healthy, too, has helped. Going to Disneyland and seeing how unhealthy so many of the people around us were helped. It was a lot of things, actually, that added up to me finally finding the motivation to make my health a prioirity. And while I slack some days, and don't always get off my butt and exercise when I should, I am more motivated than not, and that's a good thing.

 

 Now if I could just get motivated to fold the mountain of laundry on the spare bed... 



Back to School!

I was kind of a nerd in my youth. I really enjoyed school once I was challenged there and not bored out of my mind. (That's another blog.) I went to a year round elementary school, so the longest amount of time I had between grades was three weeks, as opposed to the traditional three months kids get now. I never minded though, because I really did love school. I loved the smell of new paper. I loved the new pens, the new pencils, the new erasers and backpacks and lunchboxes. I loved getting a new Trapper Keeper.

 

iPad? I don't need no stinkin' iPad.

 

Inevitably, I would end up in class with at least one of my friends, and my teacher would end up being pretty cool. We'd be assigned our text books, start working on our new spelling words, load our desks with our new stuff and life would be exciting and new. Of course, inevitably, I would also end up passed out on my desk at some point during that first week, too, and likely one or two more times before the end of the year.

 

Controlling diabetes is an art. Little things can make big differences in what your blood sugar is going to do. And being crazy excited over starting a new school year is not a little thing. My parents usually went down to the school and talked to my new teacher before the first day, so at least he or she wasn't totally unaware what was going on, but I can't imagine how scary it must be to have one of your students pass out on her desk before you're even sure of everyone's name. It wasn't a picnic for me, either. I'm not the most outgoing person in the world and passing out on your desk is not the best way to make a first impression on a room full of your peers.

 

As a kid I wasn't always aware that I was going low, either, so I'd be copying spelling words or doing math or something and then the next thing I knew I'd be coming to in the nurse's office while a class of Kindergartners marched past me with wide, inquisitive eyes on their way to art class. Dad worked nights and Mom didn't work at all, and we lived less than a minute from school, so one or both of them would be there, too. I probably had my parents show up at school more than any other kid, and I was a good student. You might even go so far as to call me a goody-goody.

 

 

Look at me, I'm...never mind. I wasn't that good!



In spite of the fact that I knew a massive low blood sugar was coming I always looked forward to the first day of school. I couldn't help it. It's a fresh start and a chance to learn new things and those are things that we don't always get with that kind of regularity as adults. Most kids don't appreciate that their youth is filled with promise and hope. When I was a kid, I thought for sure I wouldn't always have diabetes. Now I'm pretty sure that I always will. When I was a kid, anything was possible, and I could be a movie star-author-astronaut. Now I see limitations and struggle to think creatively around them.  The first day of school was always the first day of the rest of my life and the rest of my life was full of possibility.

Philosophy aside, it was also the people there that that made school fun. The office staff knew me by name. My teachers were all wonderful, from Kindergarten all the way through 5th grade. I loved my music teacher, my art teacher, and I will throw down with anyone who claims to have had a better P.E. teacher than I did. I credit the school librarian with instilling a love of libraries in me that (combined with a love of Reading Rainbow) set me on my career path. I was a very lucky child and I remember being on the playground one day in third grade and suddenly realizing this is as good as it's ever going to get. I'd better enjoy it now. I did.

So, here's a big, long overdue thank you to the staff and teachers who worked at Bill Y. Tomiyasu Elementary School during the six lovely years I spent as a student there. I'm sorry for freaking you out every time I passed out in class and I promise, it wasn't on purpose!

Go Dragons!