Stumble It!
Wayback Wednesday: Diab-entity Crisis
As a sort of addendum to this Monday’s post, I can’t believe I wrote the following testimonial four whole years ago. Ever more confirmation that the more things change, the more they stay the same:
Diab-entity Crisis
Sometime in the middle of last week, as I was gazing at my blog banner and mulling over my next post, I had a kind of out-of-body sensation for a moment: Am I still the same person who started this blog nearly two years ago? Do I still feel the same way about my disease that I did then? How many years do you have to have diabetes before the “marvel” wears off? i.e. before you’re officially “burned out,” I wonder?
Really, now: How can I continue to be informative and witty about this @#$! disease when I am so increasingly disgusted with it?
So much of what they told me at diagnosis seemed surreal at the time: you’ll need to count up the nutritional content of every morsel you eat; you’ll need to check your blood XX times a day with this contraption that should never leave your side; you’ll need to inject this substance over and over again, but not too much, or you’ll get the shakes and possibly pass out. YOU ARE KIDDING ME, RIGHT?! Meanwhile, my little toe felt numb last week and I was in a frenzy over nueropathy… Who’s life is this, anyway??
And then came the reader comments from last Thursday’s D-Blog Day post: Cindy echoes my sentiments, saying, “this is not my life… I had a life established that I enjoyed and now someone replaced it with this life that is not mine.”
Suzanne replies, “I remember those feelings just post-diagnosis — ‘This is not my life!’ I felt that my body was a foreign entity for at least 6 months post-diagnosis. I still have days, but I feel like I’m ME again. I think it takes time and a whole lot of support from friends, family, and particularly other type 1s who know what you’re talking about. Hang in there.”
God, it’s good to know I’m not the only one. I get up every morning and test, fuss about my breakfast carbs, especially if I’m planning to work out. Then if I don’t go low, I check again a short while later… sometimes take another shot for correction. By then it’s nearly lunch time and the whole thing starts all over, and so on. When did my life become all about this @#$! blood sugar disorder?
Then again, I’m not fishing for sympathy here. Because on another level, my life is most certainly not all about the diabetes (although you couldn’t tell that from my writings, ay?) I am a busy working mother of three incredible girls. I volunteer at their school, attend a monthly Book Club and have a magical partnership with the Love of My Life. We travel a fair amount and spend good quality time together both at home and all around the breathtaking SF Bay Area. So life is good, too.
It’s just that I’m forcibly obsessed with my blood glucose levels. And they are not cooperating! And I really and truly cannot remember what I used to think about pre-diagnosis. I guess we’re all doing as new dLife columnist Karen Hargrave-Nykaza suggests, Learning a New Normal. It’s called the Diabetes Roller Coaster ride.
It’s hard to find balance. Sometimes I will think, “WHOA! Diabetes is taking over our lives…it shouldn’t be like this! We can’t let it be all we think about!” And then later I think, “WHOA! I haven’t been obsessing over the boys numbers lately! I am a bad mom…I must be becoming complacent, and I’m sure I could I be doing better with their sugars if I focased more on diabetes as a whole!”
I can’t let myself win. Normal? We’ll never be normal. Things that are important to us, are not important to 95% of the world. I can’t remember life before diabetes. What did I worry about then? Whatever it was…it wasn’t worth worrying about.
Posted by: Meri | December 16th, 2009 at 10:03 amWell, I remember life before diabetes. I remember not agonizing over my bloodsugers. I remember dancing the whole night away, jogging till exhaustion, picking up an apple and a cookie, feeling just about better than perfect, having warm hands and feet, 20/20 vision, laughing about nonsense, feeling bad for other’s because they wouldn’t take my offer of sweets.
I have diabetes, that’s a fact.
Posted by: DS | December 16th, 2009 at 11:24 amI hate this disease, that’s a fact.
I face it every moment of my life, even when I sleep.
It’s not me, that’s a fact.
It’s just an effliction that I have. Damn it.
I am much much more than it is.
On December 23rd I will acknowledge the diagnosis of this quite challenging condition and it will be my 45th year. This diagnosis happened five days after my 10th birthday. It doesn’t get easier, it just gets different. I’m happy for all the stupendous progress in technology, but there really are few upsides to the disease (there are a few) and there are still times when I feel unbelievably sorry for myself, especially during low blood sugars. And other days, I actually congratulate myself for surviving and surviving well. But it’s been a bitch and this time of year is particularly difficult. Before diabetes? I worried about having to share my birthday with baby Jesus, and getting the short end of the stick and when things are tough I just focus on that little stupid princess worry which is a lot easier to deal with than diabetes. Happy holiday!
Posted by: saramy | December 16th, 2009 at 11:35 amMost of the time I am able to avoid dwelling upon its unfairness and I manage T1 as a matter of routine. My constant interest in forums, blogs, technological advances of CGM and pumps, and potential cures is my way of ignoring the relentless, never-ending charade of finger-sticking, shots, and wondering what how my bg is doing today.
Posted by: David | December 16th, 2009 at 11:59 amI just told a very good friend of mine that yesterday I had a horrible day, a complete meltdown. My morning blood sugars make me get up extra early to take a little Apidra to blunt my rapid blood sugar rise. And somehow, this seems to have not been the case before.
“I have about one really bad day a quarter” I told my friend. he was surprised, “But you’re always in such good control,” she said. Yes, that’s the side most people see, but we all know there’s another side – that’s the exhaustion and the never-ending observation of every activity moment-to-moment. How diabetes can be infuriating, overwhelming, not cooperative, and I’ve had it 37 years.
I don’t remember life B.D. (before diabetes). I was 18 when I got it and I’ve lived twice as long with it. I’ve found a way to integrate it into my life most days, which yes makes it the “new normal,” in my case not so new. Most days are pretty O.K., an then it bites. “I’m so weary of the constant calculations,” I cried on my husband’s shoulder. And then I went to sleep. Today I’m OK again, my numbers are cooperating (god only knows why) and my spirits are back. Such is diabetes-life.
Posted by: riva | December 16th, 2009 at 12:58 pmI think you are the same lady who posted 2 years ago….just much more wizened (sp?)right…. you were pretty smart then, but now you are flipping brilliant.
2 years of blogging and 730 days of being D …..still trying to do your best (as are we all). The good news is that along the way these last 2 years you have helped and inspired and motivated a lot of folks to live a better life. Your honest insights and support to the D community have earned you loyal followers and supporters in the D’ world. Folks know they can trust what you say. I think that’s good stuff……
Posted by: Bob Hawkinson | December 16th, 2009 at 1:57 pmCheers, Bob
After 12-1/2 years with type 1 diabetes, and years of tight control and feeling mostly okay about being diabetic, I FINALLY got burned out. I realized this while I was at a pre-Christmas cooky exchange and presented with a table full of yummy-looking cookies. I’d planned to be good, eat nothing, just maybe a teeny bit of eggnog and otherwise, black coffee. But confronted with that tablefull of yummies I collapsed mentally. I so, SO wanted to have one of each. Or maybe even two. And not worry about its effects on my BGs. In the most fervent way, I wished I did not have diabetes. But…here I am. Diabetic. And I’m determined to reach old age with all my parts working, so…it’s back on track. After a slight detour. (It took 2 days for my BGs to recover from my cookie binge.)
Posted by: whimsy2 | December 16th, 2009 at 5:24 pmThere’s something to be said for learning to love D, after all, it’s now part of us, in whatever form we have it. Resistance is futile, right?
Wrong, wrong and more wrong. It’s relentless. Each one of us decides every day what we do now that has an effect on now and on the future, whether that’s 20 minutes or 20 years.
I had the burnout in the early 2000s and then I got a pump. Totally changed my life. Now I’m just freaked out about not having it one day. But it’s still relentless. Reading about others and D makes it somehow not so isolating.
Posted by: Sue Rafati | December 21st, 2009 at 1:29 am