Tanisha the guru!

Well, she may not be a guru, but it sure is nice to know someone who has done this before. She was diagnosed when she was 19 and has been keeping an eye on me. I thought I would share her humorous message to me:


I wanted to welcome you to the world of diabetes, type 1. I have some good news and some bad news...The good news: unlike type 2 diabetes, your diet doesn't need to control your life. Eating less sugar and carbs isn't going to make your pancreas start working again. Sorry. But, this means that you can still eat like you normally would. Eat a snow cone with syrup on it! Go at it!! You'll need to take insulin with it to make sure that your body gets to use the sugar instead of chilling in your bloodstream, but a sense of normality should remain about your life. You'll just need to start checking your blood sugar before you eat anything and before bedtime to adjust for your broken pancreas. But it had a good run, right? Don't be angry with it. It still does many other things, so try to reassure it so it doesn't get a complex.
Now, for the bad news...most people don't know the difference between type one and type two diabetes. This means that you may get harassed about having a nice ice cream cone on a hot summer day. They are wrong of course. Unfortunately most people don't understand that your condition can't be controlled by diet and exercise. Can we blame them? Yes, we can! I take a firm stand that others should become knowledgeable prior to judgment...but that's just me. Of course, if someone does decide to reprimand you, take that opportunity to educate them. You don't have the same problem as their Aunt Sally who is 57 years old and weighs 450 lbs.

My main point is that one sure way to become overwhelmed with your new diagnosis is thinking that you need to change everything! You'll just have to monitor your body more than others do. Of course, I'm not saying that you should go on an all pizza diet and eat 20 candy bars a day. It's common sense to eat a healthy diet regardless of any health concerns, but don't think that you can't have sugar and now have a ton of restrictions. It'll take some adjusting and getting to know the Caitlin inside *literally inside*. You'll learn how much stress increases your sugar, how being sick also increases your sugar and all the special nuances.

I hope you've been reading up on the new you! =) I just got a bit concerned about what you'd been told and were thinking about your condition when I saw your post about the no syrup in the snow cone. There's no need to deprive.

I hope your doing well and would like to be kept up to date on your treatment and how your doing if you don't mind. I also was wondering if you're going to come up to the Diabetes Specialty Center at some point?

Diabetics...Unite!!!


And the message I sent back:


Thanks for your concern. :) With the snow cone, it was because it was only the day after I had been diagnosed and my numbers were still really high. Yeah, a few people have been confused about the type one versus type two. My grandparents recorded like an hour and a half long lecture about diabetes that they saw on TV. And of course they wanted me to sit down and watch it, but only a little ways through it became pretty obvious that the guy was only talking about type 2, and so I was saved from finishing the rest of it. But hey, it had some good info.

I gotta tell ya, every now and then I've scowled and jabbed at my guts and said, "Pancreas! >:P " So it cracked me up to have you tell me not to be angry with it.

On Monday is the first time I will be meeting with a diabetes specialist and he'll teach me all the do's and don'ts of sugars and carbs and insulin, because right now I'm just on a really low dose once a day. We also haven't seen the final results from my blood tests. Apparently one test made it look like type one, but another test looked like type two. So who knows?