The Road Goes Ever On and On...

It's December. That means it's time for Christmas movies, like "Jingle Bell Love" and "Home Alone" and "Die Hard" and "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring." (There's a wise old magic man with a long beard and elves. Also, some family squabbling, a lot of gift giving, and a snow storm. If that doesn't cry out Christmas then I'm not sure what else to tell you.)

https://giphy.com/gifs/BoxOfficetr-lotr-lord-of-the-rings-frodo-WNwErIxqX18xmm92UX

Beyond that, though, it is the time of year that I find it hardest to stick to any kind of diet and be a good little diabetic. I mean, peppermint bark, candy canes, panettone, Christmas cookies...it isn't as if this stuff is around all year long. Maybe it is, but I certainly don't want peppermint bark in July. Anyway, I feel like this is the time of year when I am least likely to pass on something loaded with sugar. I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but this stuff is everywhere...

Even my desk at work. 

So why blog about this? Because I am feeling particularly bad about myself and need to get it off my chest. This isn't something that's unusual, but it isn't really warranted. I even had a good doctor's appointment yesterday- everything is trending downward. My A1c, my cholesterol, it all looks better than a year ago. I should be happy about it. But I know I can do better if I put myself on task, and, if I am brutally honest, right now the gas tank is empty. The motivation has moved on. The drive is out of gear. The flesh is weak, and the spirit is right along with it. I'm sure this is in part due to the depression I mentioned last time, and the tired I mentioned last time, but I think it's more than that. I just don't know what it is.

I've been struggling the last few years to really get into the whole "Christmas spirit" thing, in part due to all of this. This is, like, a big thing. I read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens every December. We are a three tree household (technically five if you count the Charlie Brown trees, which of course you should). I have stockings hung all around the entertainment nook with care.  I have a Mickey's Toon Town light up Christmas set that I spent way too much on and bought over multiple trips to Disneyland twenty years ago. I even have Disney Princess Christmas castles. I used to watch at least five or six Christmas movies as a matter of course every year. I think last year we got through one, maybe two, and both had Beverly D'Angelo in them. 

https://giphy.com/gifs/filmeditor-christmas-movies-vacation-3o6wraf3EMOKbJGkcE

                                                                             

The problem is that it just feels like work anymore. My attention span isn't what it used to be, and to sit and watch a whole movie seems like a giant waste of time that I should be doing something else, even though none of the "something else" ever gets done, even if I don't watch a movie. I seem to get paralyzed and spend even more time watching the endless stuff that shows up in my YouTube feed. I haven't even kept up on Doctor Who for the last several years. That's really saying something.  

https://giphy.com/gifs/doctorwho-doctor-who-dr-the-fires-of-pompeii-gKkyMq5EYLzxMpDIkg

Wish I was. 

I think this year I am going to make it a goal to watch at least six of my usual Christmas movies and not feel guilty about it. It's the second half of that sentence that is the trickiest, I know. I did manage one movie already, so that leaves five more. This year I got the stockings up, and the trees, but not all the ornaments, and Toon Town is still in boxes in the hall closet...though the Princess Christmas castles are still up from last year.  And quite frankly, I should feel good that I got decorated what I got decorated, and that my doctor is happy with how things are looking on the diabetes front. I need to make a concerted effort to be more Who and less Grinch, more Fred and less Scrooge pre-ghostly visits. 

And I really need to cut back on those Christmas cookies...next year. 

A few words for care givers

We see you.

We see you struggle to act like everything is okay when deep inside you're worried about whether we took our meds on time, or at all. You cook, and clean, and regulate kids and pets, and fix computers and pay bills and run the house as well as hold down a full time job so we are sure to have enough insurance to pay for those meds we sometimes forget to take.  You encourage us when you feel like the world is on your shoulders and you just want to get out from under it. You smile when you want to cry because you know it makes it easier for us.

We see you fight against resentment that you have to do everything, and anger that we're in this situation, and we see you drown in frustration only to shake it off and give out hugs and make sure lunch is packed. We see you roll your eyes when we snap at you for trying to make us take care of ourselves. We see that you're scared because you don't know how long you can keep doing this and you know you may have to do it forever because this stupid disease isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

We see you deal with guilt because sometimes you do feel resentful, particularly when we're being obstinate. We see you deal with self-doubt. You wonder if you're doing enough. You want to ask for help but don't know how, or who to ask. We aren't getting better and you take that personally, as if it's something you have control over even though you know you don't.

We see you feel alone. You're taking care of us, and we don't feel well enough to go out the way we'd like. When you do go out with friends and leave us at home we know you're wondering if we're okay. Did we remember to check our blood sugar? Take our heart medication? Or worse, did we accidentally take those two meds together that we're not supposed to and now we've passed out on the kitchen floor? Maybe it's better to stay in after all.

We see it, and we don't say thank you enough, so thank you. Thank you for being the one we lean on when our disease gets the upper hand. Thank you for staying with us even when we're difficult and take our own fear and frustration out on you. Thank you for taking care of us when you could leave. Thank you for not putting yourself first instead- which you should do sometimes.

We love you. We appreciate you. And we wouldn't be here without you.

November is National Diabetes Awareness Month, but it's also National Family Caregivers Month, and while that seems to indicate caring for the elderly I call BS. My husband takes care of me, and he worries about all of those things because of my diabetes. If my sensor isn't working right at night he's worried I won't wake up. He worries about my A1C. He gets me juice when I snap at him because chances are my blood sugar is 52. And I appreciate him for doing it, and I know it isn't easy.

So here's to the people who take care of us, whether we are elderly and need a hand, or have some chronic disease that needs to be monitored, or we have something else that means we need the extra support. You're our heroes.

Seeing the Unseen

Sounds like a paranormal TV show on one of those cable channels that you can never remember the name of, huh? Seeing the Unseen. I'm not talking about ghosts, though what I am talking about is definitely scarier than things that go bump in the night.

I'm talking about not seeing how sick, tired, in pain, or ill some people are because the thing that makes them sick, tired, in pain and ill isn't obvious. Right now you'd never be able to tell I'm a diabetic because I've got my pump tucked away someplace you'd never see it, even if you were looking for it. I've got no physical deformity that identifies me as someone with whom you must be Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant.  In fact, many people are generally surprised to learn that I am a diabetic, as if there should have been some kind of obvious, clear-as-day sign that I'm not normal. But man do I feel like crap today.

Wait, doesn't mal mean bad, or something?

My husband suffers from frequent migraines, but he tries very hard to hide his pain from everyone. I work with someone who has fibromyalgia, and to just look at her gives you no indication of how much she often hurts. A very good friend of mine has Lupus, but on her good days you'd never know she is as ill as she is because you just can't see it. There is a long list of  chronic diseases that hide in plain sight, and hide in plain sight so well that many people over look how serious they are.

I've been thinking about this for a while, and I want to be clear that I'm not comparing diabetes, something which I think is fairly livable, to any of these other conditions based on "how much one suffers" with whatever they have.  But the two major similarities between them and other diseases like them are that 1) You can't tell we've got it just by looking at us and 2) Trying to appear normal is exhausting, because believe it or not pretending to be okay can take a lot out of a person.

Creative Commons / Flickr: qjakeTired usually isn't this cute

When I was a kid everyone knew I had diabetes. It was one of the first things everyone in class learned. "Carla has diabetes. If she falls asleep on her desk let the teacher know." I sometimes used it to get attention, and never more than in third grade when my mom got the whole school involved in the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation (now Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) annual walk-a-thon. I milked that for weeks. But I was keenly aware even as a child that diabetes made me different. I was the only kindergartner with an alarm clock in class that went off when it was time to eat a snack. I was the only one in my class- the only one in my entire grade- that left class a little early to go check her blood sugar and give herself a shot before lunch. And I was the only one who woke up in the nurse's office at some point during the first couple weeks of school because my blood sugar crashed and I passed out in class.

So eventually I stopped drawing attention to it, because once I hit junior high all I wanted was to be like everyone else. I wanted to eat pizza and drink Coke- not diet Coke. I wanted to eat cookies and not miss the last five minutes of whatever class I had right before lunch. I wanted to ride the bus to school and be allowed to sleep over at my friends' houses without my little sister tagging along "just in case." And I sure as hell didn't want to be a human pin cushion anymore. I didn't care for being called Diabetes Girl, either.

I spent years having to tell people about my diabetes right after telling them my name, and like I've said before it defined who I was when I was a kid. In spite of disliking the moniker, I was Diabetes Girl. My Sophomore year of high school the debate team signed up to help out at the JDF Walk-a-thon, and I'd kept my familiarity with the whole shebang under wraps. At some point however, one of my team mates found out, and I can still hear him in my head, talking to his mom who was one of the people coordinating the event: "Carla's one of the people we're helping!"

Well, really.

I won't get into my cynical rant on how little I feel people are helped by things like the JDF or JDRF when drug companies are making bank on us sickies and probably suppressing all research that would enable me to lead an Islets of Langerhans filled life without needles. (Besides, I've probably done it before.) The reason that this moment has stuck out in my memory is that it was just a nasty reminder that I was different in a situation where I wanted to be the same, and now people who had looked at me like I was normal now looked at me like I was someone who needed "helped."

But that was all in the past right?

Even if you take people knowing/not knowing I have diabetes out of the equation, there are just days I feel like crap and don't want to let on. I mean, I'll complain sometimes, but there are many days I just plaster a smile on my face and try to ignore the fact that my blood sugar won't go above 65 or below 325 or whatever. And there are days I'll pretend that I don't want to cry every time I give insulin because my setting went in wrong that morning and it hurts like someone stabbed me in the side. And I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've come in to work when I should have stayed home because the pump beeped all night long and I've gotten little to no sleep. What would be the point?

I guess the point is that even now I want to appear normal. And if I'm bone tired at the end of some days, then those who have it worse than me, and have a harder time appearing "normal" every day, have got to be even more bone tired. And that can be frustrating for their families, who actually get to see the pain and fatigue that is carefully shielded from the rest of the world. I had a conversation with my mom recently wherein she was surprised that my husband had been fighting a major migraine for a few days because he'd been over at my parents' house the night before and had seemed fine. He hides his pain from people well, and sometimes I wonder if people think I'm lying when I tell them how much he always hurts. They probably think he's exaggerating when he tells people how tired I am, too, because I spent most of my energy trying to appear healthy when I feel anything but.

I had to scan through a year and a half of Facebook posts to find this, and while diabetes isn't listed, that "etc" covers a lot of ground:

The Care and Keeping of Carla...probably needs to be reevaluated...

Please forgive any spelling errors...I've got a wicked cool new keyboard that I am still getting used to and anyone who tells you they are all set up the same is quite simply wrong.

Mine lights up, for starters...

I know I've probably mentioned this before, but ever since the husband and I started fostering the Baby (whom we must now refer to as the Toddler because oh my lord do they grow up fast), the care and keeping of myself has sort of taken a back seat to everything else.

Bandit needs insulin. Dogs need fed. Husband needs to know where his wallet, phone and keys are. Baby- sorry Toddler- needs changed, and fed, and now one of our other dogs is giving me cause to worry. Before you ask, I've already had her checked for diabetes, and it's not that. I'm a boss at work (which I suppose could be taken more than one way and is true basically no matter how you interpret that, haha) so I've got work plans and staff issues and projects and other things that I deal with on a daily basis. 

Now, I know that all of this stuff is important but there is plenty of time in the day to make sure I eat, and check my blood sugar if needed, and I can take a few minutes during the day to make sure I'm alright. Usually I do. It's the bigger stuff I seem to be ignoring.

Nothing to see here...move along.

Fact of the matter is, I need to make an eye appointment because I'm over due and I know I need new glasses. I have trouble seeing with the ones I have sometimes because I opted to get new sunglasses last year and used up my insurance on that. (New frames every two years, new lenses ever year as long as they have no "additions" like, oh, I don't know...UV protection. Great plan. It's almost like not having one at all.) I also should probably go see that retina specialist again to make sure my diabetic retinopathy isn't worse.

I have an appointment next week to get an ultra sound and another thing done, and rather than give TMI I'll just say it's not on my thyroid...though now that I'm thinking about it I was supposed to get that ultra-sounded before my next endocrinologist appointment. I think. They never called and I don't even remember the last time I was at the endo, so at this point maybe I'll just forget it again. 

Also, my throat is sore but if you think I'm staying home from work tomorrow because of it you don't know me very well. For one thing, story time doesn't do itself, and for another, a little Aleve and some Halls Defense and I'll be fine.

No no no. We're not there yet.

Maybe these aren't really BIG things, but they are a few larger than average things that have started to add up, and between Toddler's birth parent visits on our weekends and the fact that I hate to take off of work for any reason if I can schedule something on a day I don't work, my free time is pretty booked already. Plus, I don't want to spend one of the days I have off to spend with the Toddler sitting in a doctor's office...now, sitting in a Doctor's TARDIS would be something completely different. Then I'd have all the time in the universe.

But I don't. So grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry, and whatever else comes up usually take precedence over calling my endocrinologist to get that ultra sound on my thyroid done (which I don't think needs to be done because it's been done before and nothing at all in my blood work or how I feel or anything has changed since he did it umpteen years ago.  It's just he has a new Physician's Assistant who won't take my word or my file's word for it. I don't want to go take some expensive health tests that don't need to be done, and will probably cost me money, and will definitely cost me time, and get off my lawn.)

A heroine of children's literature.

Eventually I will get around to dealing with all of this and I'm sure all will be fine. I just need to take a moment or two out of my lunch or on a break and call to make whatever appointments I can, and then schedule out over a few weeks so I don't overbook myself. And I will get each thing on my list taken care of...except maybe that thyroid ultra sound. That's dumb.

Growing Up...I'm against it.

As I sit here in my living room this morning with BabyFirst TV playing silently as Baby sleeps, I find I have come to a decision.

I was never a big Will and Grace fan, but this picture my husband put on my Facebook page today accurately sums up how I've been feeling the last two weeks. Being an adult is hard. It's sometimes fun because you have the money and the decision making power, but it will never be as good as being a kid was. Speaking of kids, I went to see New Kids on the Block less than a week ago and for two glorious hours I was 12 again. I was singing along, and dancing, and screaming, and laughing, and the weight of everything in my life that has been pressing down on me was just gone for two straight hours. It really was like being 12 again.

I miss being 12.

When I was 12 everything was either black or white. Good or Evil. Right or Wrong. Now everything is shades of gray and Davy Jones isn't even with us anymore.

I don't like paying bills and my inbox is mostly filled with emails labeled BILLS. I don't like having to clean my house but if my husband and I don't do it no one else will. I don't like laundry or dirty dishes, but they stack up if you ignore them. Nor do I like having to stay home from work when Baby isn't feeling well, but the daycare insists that he be well when we bring him even though that's where he gets sick. I don't like going to the doctor whether it's for me or Baby or one of the dogs, but not going leads to bigger problems I don't like even more. I don't like that I'm tired most of the time because Bandit whines to get up at least four or five times a night and my pump usually beeps at me as if that's the only thing it is meant to do so I don't sleep well, even with the new mattress we got yesterday that so far has lived up to the company's promises. I guess that's what coffee is for.

Being an adult means having responsibilities. Some of those are good- like being the boss. But responsibilities can suck- also like being the boss. Sometimes I want the buck to stop on my desk, and sometimes I want it to bypass my desk entirely. Alas, you cannot always pick and choose what you are responsible for and what you can leave for someone else to deal with. 

I miss Phil and Lem

If I had no responsibilities, I could be in Disneyland right now instead of home taking a sick day. Or I could fly across the county and go see NKOTB again this summer with some of my friends instead of going to San Fran to do work stuff. Or I could sit at home all day every day and actually blog or write another book or exercise and have time to pamper myself and relax more and stress less. 

Uh oh, Baby is waking up...must type faster...

I'm not saying that being an adult is all bad, or that I'm regretting the choices I've made that have led to the responsibilities I have. I'm actually happy with my life. I'm even in pretty good shape health wise. My last HbA1c was only .1 higher than the time before and I thought I did a rotten job of taking care of myself the past four months. Overall things are good. But the dogs need their shots, I need to go to the eye doctor, my husband has been sick, Baby isn't feeling well, we have a couple BIG projects going on at work that I'm not there to deal with and my inbox is still full of bills that are due in the next couple weeks. 

I'm just saying that I need more time to be 12.

The Year in Review

Well, it's been interesting. I've had some awesome things going on, and some not awesome things going on, and I guess everything has kind of balanced out.

The Awesome:

I have an awesome husband, though this has carried over from last year and the year before...and several years preceding that. We're actually coming up on fifteen years of marriage next year (we got married young) and I am grateful to have him.

We thought for sure we were going to lose Bandit last month, and it wasn't until we changed vets and discovered the poor thing has diabetes that he started to get better, and he's better. We're still figuring things out with him, but he's put weight back on and is more energetic, and I don't look at him and think he only has days left anymore. I think he'll be around for a while.

My last doctor's appointment went well, and my hemoglobin was 6.7 so I'm doing a lot better than I thought I was diabetes wise.

w00t.

I asked about the generic insulin thing, and they told me that it's basically the same thing as what I've been using, so I'm not going to worry about that. The blood testing strip thing I've still got to deal with, and cancel the automatic reorder that Medtronic does before I get charged for the whole order. I don't think they carry strips for other machines so I'll have to call the doctor's office and get them to either write a plea to the insurance company for me or prescribe me something that the insurance company will cover. This Christmas season has seen me eating more cookies than is necessary so I'll definitely need to get back on top of my game to keep that 6.7.

We got our first foster care placement, and baby has been a sweet and loving addition to our home. I wish I was allowed to share pictures because that smile would light your world. Being a parent has been about what I expected, though whether or not I was really prepared for that remains to be seen. It seems to have done good things for my blood sugars, which I had not expected. Running after a crawling baby counts as exercise, I guess.

I got to see New Kids on the Block four nights in a row this summer. I doubt I'll ever be able to swing that again so I'm glad I got to do it at least once, and I'm glad I got to hang out with some friends I don't get to see much. It was a lot of fun to scream and sing along and feel twelve again!

Work has been good. I like my job, I like the people I work with, and I think the next year will be more of the same there- only with new carpet! (It's going to be a major undertaking but I'm ridiculously excited about it!)

The Not So Awesome:

Well, I've still got diabetes, and now Bandit does. My husband still has headaches. And foster parenting is hard- harder than I had anticipated. There is a lot more to it than just parenting, and I don't know that I'd recommend it to many people because I think it takes a certain type of person to handle the emotional roller coaster that comes with it. We want what's best for baby, and whether that means staying with us or going back home remains to be seen, but either way I hope that baby will be happy and healthy. Time will tell how things will turn out!

Note to self: get a TARDIS.

I hope you all have a happy end to 2014 and a great beginning to 2015!

Sleepless Night Ramblings

I feel like sick has taken over my household. First baby was sick, then husband was sick, then I got sick, and I haven't been able to kick it. I'm on antibiotics, I'm choking on phlegm, and boy am I tired. I cannot wait until I'm healthy again.

Of course, that's never going to happen. You know. Dia-frickin-betes.

It's kind of funny, actually, that it is only NOW occurring to me that having diabetes basically means I am never "well" or "healthy" in strictest terms. Maybe this has occurred to me before and I just forgot- which is even funnier. How do you forget something like that?

I missed my last endocrinologist appointment because I was sick. I mean, I probably could have dragged myself down to get my blood work and gone in for it, but the numbers would have been all skewed. I have no clue what my numbers are since it's been six months, maybe, since I've had blood work done, so I'd really like them to be as accurate as possible so I can see just how much having a baby in the house has effected (affected?) my health.

Yes, even this English Major is guilty of a few of these. #BestWeirdAlSongEVER

 

I know how having a baby in the house has taken it's toll on other aspects of my life. It's a lot harder to pay attention to the dogs and give them the attention they are used to, and especially with Bandit this has become a problem because of his deteriorating health. Every now and then my husband and I realize that in the near future we may have to make a very hard choice, and it's eating me up inside.

 

I am also awake at unholy times of day. Like, 6 am. Who gets up at 6 am? I don't think I got up at 6 am when I was in high school and had to catch the bus at 6:40! I like to sleep in, and I'm a night owl. Or at least I was. Now if I'm awake for Blue Bloods on Friday night it's probably because I'm changing a diaper and have been woken up to do it. On the weekends it used to be common for me to not get up before eleven am at the earliest. Now that's when I put baby down for his second nap.

 

I'm still not eating a whole lot, and we've started to eat more fast food because it's easier than cooking. My poor digestive track is not happy with this (or perhaps it's the antibiotics?) I've lost about six pounds and seem to be maintaining there, so that's something. Hell, if I had the energy right now to get on the exercise bike for ten minutes I might start losing it again...but energy is something I am in short supply of these days, and   I try to conserve it for things like "having to go to work" and "chasing after the baby who just learned to crawl" and "Oh my GOD, how does one infant create so much LAUNDRY?"

 

If you get this, well done. If you don't- sorry.

 

I *could* be napping right now. I probably should be. But I have a work related meeting at Starbucks at nine, so I'd best be getting dressed.

 

Can you sleep in the shower?



Parenthood

So...I'm a mom. A foster mom. And I've been a mom for less than a week.

What the hell am I doing???

Don't get me wrong- Baby is adorable. And he's a good baby- rarely cries, is happy a lot. And so far I think I'm handing the feeding-diapering- being spit up on thing okay. But the honest truth is that I'm not sure I have the wherewithal to do this for the rest of my life at this rate. I'm completely overextended. And I know, I know, everyone is telling me it's rewarding and I'll get used to it and everyone feels overwhelmed at first...but I don't think that's really my issue.

Bandit has been getting sicker the past few weeks- lots of whining, trouble walking, and on even more meds than me. My husband has had a migraine since the day Baby came into our lives and even though he's the rock I'm leaning against he feels like he's not doing enough. Shiva and Rosabel are both visibly needier and have changed some of their behaviors. I've missed almost a week of work and we've been trying to get daycare and pediatrician visits and birth parent visits scheduled in a week. And if I've eaten 1000 calories a day since last Monday I'll be surprised. And maybe it's that way for everyone when a new baby comes into their life.

But I'm a diabetic, and right now I'm last on the care scale. Baby, husband, dogs, work, me. And I know I'm not going to be able to keep this up because I'm tired, and my blood sugars have been low, and I'm losing weight (yay!) but in a bad way (boo!) I honestly don't know what I'd do without my husband and my mom. Single mothers? You're ranked above the police and fire fighters in my hero book right now.

Aaaand, Baby has been awake for this whole thing, but has been really good while I've been freaking out about the dog (who is going to the vet) and sitting here looking like a snotty, sobby mess. So it's time to go and probably change him, probably feed him, and maybe we'll read a book. Star Wars ABC is around here someplace.

Following in your owner's footsteps is no way to go through life, puppy

So, in my quest to be more positive, the road I've taken had proven to be paved with multiple challenges, one of which is the fact that when using Internet Explorer I am unable to load pictures into my Google blog without resetting everything according to my husband's instructions. This last weekend has proven to be a bigger challenge than even Internet Explorer.

Let's set the stage...

This is Bandit:

Bandit is our half Pug, half Labrador Lug. He's 13 years old, loves people food, and takes full possession of the bed whenever he can, even if we humans are in it. He is one of the sweetest and most adorable dogs I've ever seen. And Friday night he scared the tuna salad out of us.

If you haven't heard of ODV and you are a dog owner, take a moment to acquaint yourself with it now. If you don't want to take the time to read the article, ODV is Old Dog Vestibular disease and it looks like your dog is having a stroke. Stand in one place, spin around until you are so dizzy you almost can't stand, and then try to walk in a straight line and you get an idea of what a dog feels when he suffers through this. There's not much of a treatment for it other than giving them something to quell their upset stomach and then...wait.

Unfortunately, neither my husband nor I had ever heard of this so Friday night I was sure that we were going to have to put my baby down, and I was a hot mess. The emergency vet gave us three possible diagnoses (in worst case scenario to best case scenario order): Brain tumor, encephalitis, ODV. If it wasn't ODV then we were looking at losing him, and I was not ready to hear this.

Very long story short, a bunch of Xrays and blood work and $1000 later we had a rather impressed vet telling us that Bandit was in remarkably good shape, all things considered. His x-rays looked really good, and all of his blood work was in a normal range....except his blood glucose, which was 199, and waaaaaay out of the normal range for a dog.

On one hand, relief that my dog is going to be okay. On the other? Oh shit my poor dog might have diabetes. I can't even get him to take pills without wrapping them in cheese- how the hell am I going to give him shots????

We made an appointment with his regular vet a couple days later and much to my relief his blood sugar was normal, and we chalked the high up to stress from not being able to see straight and throwing up every five minutes. Still, it got me thinking about what would happen if we had kids or one of the dogs did eventually end up a diabetic. Would I be the ideal person to take care of that? I mean, when my mom was handing carb counting and insulin and everything I was in the best shape of my life, and as soon as I took over I was on the fast track to complication town. I'm still trying to break bad habits I acquired in high school. I am doing better with taking care of myself, but add in a little stress and I'm eating donuts for breakfast. And I really don't have the hang of bolusing yet, though, to be fair, I don't think anyone does.

Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you bolus completely wrong and don't know why

I think I would do well taking care of someone else, though. I understand better than anyone without diabetes would, that's for sure. And I'm pretty up on the tricks you can use to make it look like you're taking care of yourself when you're really not. I can also see that while I cut corners with myself, I wouldn't with my kid, or even my dog. Hell, it might even make me take better care of myself to set a good example. Plus, if I'm going to be carb counting for someone else, I may as well do it for me, too. Right?

On a far more serious note, while I was freaking out over my dog two people I knew through other people ended their lives by choice. I don't know what was going on in their minds, and I don't know what all was going on in their lives, but I do know that suicide doesn't end your pain- it just transfers it to someone else. So if you are depressed, or if you know someone who is, just do a quick Bing or Google or Yahoo search and call for help. Please.

Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-273-8255

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

A New Perspective

So last week, huh?

I wasn't going to write about it given my penchant for being flippant, but then I got to thinking that maybe I needed to just for my own cathartic reasons. Writing is my therapy after all. But I promise I'll at least try to not wax too much philosophic.

Monday the 15th my husband and I were eating lunch at a Chinese restaurant celebrating my doctor telling me I don't need to be on crutches anymore when the TV stopped showing soap operas and started to show the bombings at the Boston Marathon...which New Kid Joey McIntyre had just finished running and where I knew there were people I know cheering him and others on. For one horrifying moment I had no idea who was alive or dead (fortunately they are all fine and uninjured and back online where they belong.) Who really gives a shit about crutches?

Wednesday, after some dumbass sends poison to the POTUS, a Texas fertilizer plant blows up in an explosion that for both my husband and I immediately conjured up images of nuclear bombs. It also reminded me of when the PEPCON plant blew up in Henderson when I was a kid...only there weren't residential areas backed up right next to it because it was a rocket fuel plant for God's sake. One of my coworkers has friends in the fire department in West, Texas, and the last time I talked to her there'd been no word on them. I kind of have to walk with a cane. Big whoop.

Late Friday night another of my coworkers got word her brother had been killed by a drunk driver at about 5:30 pm. I feel really guilty complaining about anything right now.

And yet I still do, because we as humans are inherently selfish and as long as it didn't happen to us there's a little part of us, maybe the five year old us that never goes away, that thinks, "What's the big deal? It didn't really affect me, so business as usual, right?"

But that's NOT right, because even though I didn't know anyone who got hurt in Boston it is still my favorite city the way Paris is some people's favorite city. And though the people I know in Texas all seem to be okay, there's a whole town that's half gone because the "it won't happen to me" mentality of people stacked a lot of flammable crap in a place with other flammable crap. And even though it wasn't my brother who was killed senselessly by a twenty seven year old woman who was drunk at 5:30 in the afternoon and walked away from the accident without a scratch, I am still almost paralyzed with fear when my husband leaves for work in the morning because I've been reminded that life is not guaranteed, and that it can be taken away from you in less than a second, and there is not really a damn thing you can do to control this.

This week has reminded me all too well of not just my mortality, but the mortality of everyone I love. Like Mr. Bennet says in Pride and Prejudice (I'm paraphrasing here) I'm sure that this feeling will pass sooner than it should and I'll be back to my whiney self in no time. But for now I am going to try to not be that negative whiney girl I usually am, and hopefully I can stick with it for at least as long as I've been off of caffeine (which has been since February if you care to know.) If nothing else, I'll try to follow this advice...

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?

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!

How to Scare the Sh*t Out of Your Husband In One Step

I almost died this morning.

I didn't, obviously, and it wasn't some sort of near-hit car accident or some real car accident where I miraculously walked away without a scratch. No, this had everything to do with my diabetes and an epic failure.

Epic. Failure.

*Bashhead*...for when even *doublefacepalm* isn't enough

Epic failure involves me so out of it that I apparently (because I don't remember doing it) did a blood test at 6:30 am and it was 36 and I went back to bed. Epic failure is me so out of it that I physically assaulted my alarm clock so vehemently that my husband heard it on the other side of the house but I still didn't get up (and might need a new alarm clock). Epic failure involves my husband coming in to the bedroom, telling me he loved me, and me not responding at all.

To say my blood sugar was low would be like saying the sky is up.

I was completely unresponsive and had zero control over my body. I couldn't sit up. I couldn't answer questions or even speak. I couldn't remember my dogs' names. My husband, who has dealt with this before and called the paramedics on me a time or two, knew what to do, but he's not too man to say he was scared. I was scared. Nothing is scarier than a low blood sugar like that.

No, not even this.



I cannot adequately describe what it is like to have a blood sugar so low that you have no control over your body. The closest I can come is to say it's a lot like being a sober person in a drunk person's body. I was consciously aware that something was very, very wrong, and I knew that my husband was concerned, but there was nothing I could do about it. It's one thing to be too drunk to remember your middle name, but it's another thing entirely to have your husband asking you if you remember it and screaming it out loud in your head...only to have him pour more orange juice down your throat because you just stared at him blankly and didn't say anything. I sat there thinking to myself that this might be the one that does me in, and I didn't even have the ability to tell my husband I love him. That is scary.

The thing is, I cannot remember for the life of me what I did differently last night that might have led to a low of these proportions. My husband checked my blood sugar several times, too, and even he said it wasn't that low (by the time he checked it at about 7:30 am it had gone up to 40 something.) Normally I wouldn't be a zombie unless it was significantly lower than that. So how do I make heads or tails of things and ensure this never happens again?

Sadly, I can't. All I can do is change my basal rate in the morning so I'm less likely to go low, make sure that I check it before bed and not depend on the continuous blood glucose testing device (which I've been told time and again not to do anyway), and hope that this will be enough.

Some of my best friends pitched in and got me Disney gift cards for my birthday, and while I was looking at the Disney Store website I saw this artwork. I thought it was cute (Donald is my favorite, after all) and showed it to my husband, who immediately smiled and said, "That's us."

It's now hanging on the wall in our house.

www.disneystore.com

Tomorrow is another day, one I am grateful to have, and I'm not going to let today get to me. And I'm truly grateful I don't have to do it alone. Thanks honey.

It's a dog's life

I've been sitting here watching my cairn terrier puppy play with a rubber chew toy this morning, and in spite of the fact that she has destroyed more things around the house than I care to admit, she is so innocent it makes me smile. The way she bounces around the room, tossing her toy in the air, her tail wagging at breakneck speed as she pounces on it is absolutely adorable. Rosabel isn't even a year old yet, and while I know that makes her a snotty little second grader in dog years, she's still just a baby to me. I can't imagine anything bad happening to her without getting all teary eyed. Other than destroy two pair of shoes, a few power cables, and my carpet, she really hasn't done anything wrong in her life. Oh, well there is that pouncing on our heads thing to wake us up...

She only looks innocent



We have two other dogs, too, both about twelve years old. Shiva (a bit pull mix) still bounds around the house like a puppy and is more likely to stand over her food and guard it than eat it, but you never met a dog that wanted love more than she does. Bandit is half pug, half Labrador retriever, and unfortunately he inherited a lot of bad pug characteristics. For one, he has breathing problems. For another, he whines incessantly about nothing, which can get annoying.

They're plotting something.

Whenever Bandit has a breathing episode I can't help but compare it to my low blood sugar reactions as a kid. He just looks at me so helplessly. He's had these issues for his whole life, and yet every time he starts to wheeze he gets scared. All he has to do is swallow a couple times and he's fine, but even as an adult dog he doesn't do it without some encouragement from me or my husband.  In so many ways he's a just a kid who wants his mommy to make the bad stuff go away.

I know having dogs isn't the same thing as having children, but since I don't have human children my dogs fill in, and all I want is for them to be happy, healthy, and to feel loved and safe. And when Bandit starts to wheeze he doesn't feel any of those things, except maybe loved because I always come running to be with him. In a lot of ways it's exactly like my parents running to my rescue when my blood sugar would crash when I was a kid, or my husband running to the rescue to take care of me now. It may not seem like much when paramedics are being called and everyone is scared and things seem chaotic (that's a worst-case scenario though; usually it's just "Go drink some juice") but having that love is so incredibly helpful. I've had lows that were so low they didn't even read on my monitor, and  so long as I had family that loved me there to help me through it, they weren't half as scary as 55's that I had to deal with on my own (and "on my own" includes being at work surrounded by people.)

I think Bandit agrees with me, though pant pant whine woof whine could just mean he wants me to get up off the couch and feed him.