Thought of the Day

I am not afraid of what might come in the future.
I am sensible instead. I manage things. I organize life so it's easier to manage diabetes. And I forgive myself a lot.

I don't fear, and I don't worry. Why would I spend my precious energy doing that, when I could be living? As things come, I will deal with them. I will grieve, I will be angry, and then I will manage them as a part of life, whatever that life might look like.

I am not afraid.

So I got the synthroid and felt a lot, lot, lot better for about 5 days. I had energy coursing through my body. It was fabulous. Felt like I was on some illicit drug.

And then my darling daughter got the flu. She bounced back in a couple of days. Me, I've had it for a week now and it is only today that I've started to feel like one of the living again.

Illness with diabetes is never fun. On Sunday I woke up with high ketones, zero energy, spent the whole day sipping water and staring blankly at the wall. Now, high ketones would usually call for a emergency visit since I NEVER get them, but since I'd also been eating almost nothing for three days I thought that I would give eating a try.

So, three blood sugar excursions into the high teens later, I had three successful meals and mild ketones. Success? Um, perhaps.

This illness has made me realize how ill-prepared our house is for me to get sick. Particularly in the food department. Dh's mom kindly went off and got us a ton of food so we didn't starve, but in high bg land, banana bread and mueslix just can't happen. Actually, they don't happen in my regular life either. Step one after this: have a lot of food on hand that I can prepare and eat.

I went to the clinic early this week to make sure my cough wasn't anything more dire. I just...couldn't breathe, nothing serious. I know that the receptionist was having a bad day, or perhaps she dislikes sick people. However, when asked to list my medications and sensitivities, yes, I have a list longer than four. And no, you don't need to look at me like that. You know. Like that. Next time I come in with my list of ailments, medications, and "no I can't take that's," I will explain sadly, calmly and quietly, "Yes, I never thought that my life of hard drugs would come knocking so early, but let this be a lesson..."And then I will sit down, pull out my knitting and my tea, and whistle.

Ok, I can see why you might not like sick people. ;-)

And Now for Something Completely Different (But somehow similar)

A man with three...
No.

So I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon. An urgent weekend one. Fun times. Apparently my thyroid is whacked. Might explain a few things: depression, hair loss, foggy brain, tiredness, difficulty sleeping, slight shortness of breath.

I am upset about this. When will this autoimmune insanity stop? Why can't my body stop attacking itself? Doesn't it realize that I kind of need these organs? Organ functioning is a useful thing, hmm?

The good sides of this: would also explain my elevated cholesterol (thyroid wackiness will do that to cholesterol), and my horrible blood sugars of the last weeks (autoimmune attack).

It's been coming. I was subclinical for some time, enlarged thyroid. I knew it was going to happen. It's just...I don't want to deal with it. Once I was healthy. That was four years ago.

Dang it, I was the person who ground her own bread flour in grade eight and recycled and ate organic and used nontoxic cleaners before just about anyone else. Yeah, I know that doesn't earn me any cosmic brownie points when it comes to my health, but when I have done so many things right...why do things go so wrong?

Acceptance

We were at a dinner party. One person said, "So since all of these people you know are getting pregnant, does that make you really want to get pregnant?"

No more than usual.

Someone else chimed in, "Yes, I hear that having a second pregnancy can be really good for peoples' diabetes."

Well, since type one diabetes is not curable, I doubt it would work for me.

Arg. I walked out of the room.

First off, yes, I do want another child. My dh does not. I would be willing to go through pregnancy with diabetes. I think that I have coping strategies for sleep deprivation, though those would likely go out the window when I was actually seriously sleep deprived. But you know what? The decision is not because of my health. I'm not willing to bring a child into a relationship where one partner absolutely does not want that child. And that partner who doesn't want one? Despite the fact that I have diabetes, that partner is NOT ME.

Let's deconstruct. Curing diabetes with pregnancy. Pregnancy is challenging with type one. It doesn't improve things. How can something that pushes your body's systems improve things? And breastfeeding another...while it does lower blood sugar, from past experience I know that all night breastfeeding can also lead to severe low blood sugar.

The main thing that drives me crazy about these comments is the desire to cure me. People with any chronic illness work on accepting it. That's all you can do. Yes, you can work to manage it and work and hope for a cure. But a lot of this is about acceptance. It really is. And you know, those people with the good intentions who pat you on the shoulder and tell you that it's not so bad, there will be a cure next year? They don't help.

An imaginary cure is useful for people. It provides a way to sideline the situation. You will be cured. You are cured. Everything is fine. I've solved the problem. You're no longer dealing with this. Let's move on now.

Carefully-honed acceptance is a fine, fine thing. It's not a default emotional position. It's something I've worked on and thought through. Let it be.

Not so bloggy lately

For some reason, over the solstice and Christmas season I came down with a bad case of the midlife meltdown. Current obsessions include the upcoming climate crisis and how this is going to impact all of our lives. I'm also railing quite a bit against any things in my life that seem to enforce a structure on me...or limit my options in any way.

Despite an absolutely grotty day of blood sugar, I'm finding the day to day grind of diabetes to be somewhat mindless. My resolution is to test more often to cross-check my sensor, though. Sometimes it is bang on, other times it's rather off. I used to test 15 times a day with no sensor, and I'd like to get back at at least 8.

Anyway, with all of my current survivalist and permaculture tendencies, I'm opening the application process for an insulin tree. I figure, I've got to be able to grow it in my backyard if I can't grow it in my pancreas, right? Maybe I can grow a pancreas vine while I'm at it.

Must go to sleep, I think.

Busy, busy and bananas

The last couple of weeks have been crazy busy.

We measured the giant diabetes ribbon that I'm hoping to turn into a world record. 195 metres of it. Yee haw. The world's largest grey draft catcher, as someone kindly pointed out. I'm dismantling it and turning into smaller diabetes ribbons (smaller being ... oh, 8 feet tall when looped into a ribbon). These will hopefully go on display at different events across Canada. This was the weirdest thing I've ever done in public: measuring a giant stuffed knitted thing in the town square with the mayor on a rainy November day. I don't know if my husband will ever get over the public embarassment!

It's one of those times of the month (there are a couple!), and my blood sugar has been bordering on low all week. I got so sick of it today that I - get this - ate a banana. With no insulin. Hah! What an act of defiance! Taking a stand, I am! Or...something. It worked, anyway. Finally my blood sugar went up, even a little high.

I'm doing my annual cookie baking too. I've been doing this for 16 years now. I've baked my way through university finals and papers, writing my master's degree, travel plans, morning sickness, diabetes, a newborn, and now I'm baking with my preschooler. Sniff, sniff. My mom wondered why I didn't give up the bleeping baking when I got diabetes. Well, it's not like I eat ALL of it! I don't always like the labor involved, but I love seeing all of those baskets of cookies ready to head off to their future homes and tummies. People like cookies. I'm one of those people. And diabetes be fill-in-the-blanked, I am going to eat a couple now and then. Just keep me away from the fudge, please!

Life in pictures

Once upon a time, I was a geography student. And one of my professors talked about how tourists like to frame reality the way they want to see it. We take photos that avoid the garbage lying on the ground near the pyramids, we take the picture of the pyramid.

I've been framing a few photos today, and there is one that I really like. It was done this spring and dd and I are hugging each other. The only thing is that since I am holding dd, my medic alert bracelet hangs down from my wrist. It's really obvious because it is in the centre of the photo.

So I have not framed this photo. In fact, I didn't even enlarge it, even though it's one of my favourites. And no, I can't crop it.

Why should I want to crop it? Why should I want to avoid it? What's so wrong and ugly about this bracelet? If it were any other bracelet, it would just be something that I was wearing, right?

I suppose that I am still trying to edit diabetes from my relationship with dd. In some ways, it's an integral part of that relationship. Goodness, we did go to run a marathon in Iceland for the Diabetes Association this summer...and spend a year fundraising for it. And she is certainly aware that I must stop and test, stop and eat, stop and count my carbs.

But my attitude has been that life is normal, life continues as normal with slight modifications that may continue to be modified over time, as needed.

And perhaps my bracelet is too much of a reminder of the harder side of normal. The thing that I don't want hanging between us.