Doctor's Office :'(

I went in to the instacare to get some blood drawn for my yearly lab work.  For some reason, (possibly because I hadn't eaten in 12 hours) I just wanted to cry. I'm not looking forward to all of this the rest of my life. I just feel so fragile sitting in a room full of people who all have something wrong with them.  Diabetes is scary. You would think that if a person is scared of complications due to poorly managed health issues, he or she would try extra hard to manage everything efficiently. This is not true. When I'm feeling especially scared, my diabetes management goes out the door. It's a tragic cycle. I get scared, but living with fear is hard on a person, so then I try to just...forget about all of it, not worry, be happy. But when I just "forget all about it" I end up testing my blood sugar two times a day, instead of the usual 8, I pile up my plate of food and estimate my bolus instead of measuring out portions, injecting my insulin and then waiting 15 minutes, I snack on candy and randomly bolus to hopefully cover whatever it is I've eaten over the last two hours, and whatever I might possible eat in the next two. And then I check my blood sugar and get that lovely dose of reality that scares me out of my wits all over again.

The good news is that I want to be better, and I am very determined to face up to my fears. Faith and fear cannot exist in the same place, so from now on, I want to have faith that if I keep my blood sugar under control, I will have minimal complications in the future. This feels much more empowering than saying I'm scared that if I don't keep my blood sugar under control, I'll have complications in the future.

Faith not fear. I won't let my fears take away my control.

Dear Mom

Dear Mom,

I know you only drive me crazy because you're worried about me.

I know you love me, so I try my best to put up with it nicely.

But it's not that I'm not trying. I really am. 

And sometimes I'm really not.

Because sometimes it feels like no matter how hard I try,

something always goes wrong. But then I'm back to trying,

 because I know that it is hurting me when I don't try.

I know you worry about the candy in my purses...and in my backpack...

and all over the floor in my room...and under my mattress.

But you see, I'm worried about the time when I don't have candy. 

Sometimes, things happen, I go low, 

and I don't tell you, because for me, it's part of life,

so I just take care of it

but all you see is the candy. 

Sometimes I try too hard, and I overdo it.

I guess that's what happened tonight. I wasn't trying to be careless.

I really thought today was going to be good. But I didn't make it very far.

So I guess maybe that's why,

 even though we PWDs know that high blood

sugar is hurting us, we sometimes let things run just a little high, 

because even when numbers are 'perfect', 

we're still afraid that maybe we tried too hard, 

maybe we overdid it just a little, 

and maybe this time will be the time we don't wake up for it.

So please don't think that I'm not trying when there is candy around, 

because this is what it's for:

P.S. I love you.

PWD's

So at first when I was reading the blogs of the DOC, I wondered why it was so important to some people to be called a PWD (person with diabetes) rather than a diabetic. I mean, I have diabetes, I don't really care if people call me diabetic to describe that I do in fact have this disease. But now over these past few months I've noticed how I've become a conversation topic. Usually by my mom. I've started getting very frustrated when I hear her talking about me and my diabetes to other people who have no need to know about me, period. Diabetes or not. Those are the times that I want to scream, "I AM NOT A DAMN DIABETIC!!! I am a person with diabetes!" Because when those people leave, they don't know that I love to sing, or that I occasionally draw, or that I graduated high school with an Associates degree, or that I love watching Korean dramas, or that I want to own a cake shop. They leave knowing nothing more than that I am a diabetic. And really, they don't care, because they'll just get to go home and eat their food without checking their blood, and counting carbs and injecting insulin. All it was was an interesting conversation about poor so-and-so's daughter who has diabetes and how terrible it must be. Oh and could you please pass the cake? If people want to talk to me about diabetes, great. But I hate just being the diabetic conversation piece.

Not much going on...

     Not a whole lot going on lately. I mean...it's not like I'm gonna go to the doctor's office and she's gonna say, "Surprise! You don't have diabetes anymore!" I wish, but I know it's not happening. One thing that's kind of random that I've noticed, I have a friend who always flinches and says 'ow' or 'yeesh!' or something like that whenever I test my blood or give myself a shot with the pen. And I really don't like it. Because first off, it doesn't hurt that bad, and second...I don't know... just because I don't like it. I guess it's like, "do you know how much worse this would suck if I acted like that? And you're not even the one gettin' stabbed!"
Obviously this isn't a big deal. It's just a small diabetes related pet peeve I've discovered.

So, I'm annoyed that I missed diabetes art day. I'm actually still planning on doing a few peices that I've had bouncing around inside my head. I'll get to them...someday.

Also, today I've started an eggsperiment.
Eggs always seem like a good thing to eat because they're like 1 carb each and two of them is enough to feel like I actually have something in my stomach. I like scrambled eggs, fried eggs, boiled eggs are tolerable. But today, as I was making a couple fried eggs, I opened the cupboard to get out salt and pepper when I noticed the other neglected-looking spices. So I grabbed a bottle of cinnamon and patted out a dash or two over my eggs.
The result? A nice hint of...difference. I didn't add a lot, so it wasn't overpowering, but there were bites that just had a subtle mmmmm in the taste. I also salted and peppered them like normal. The smell from the cinnamon eggs made me think of holidays, but since I didn't add any sugar the taste of the eggs when finished was, like I said, different. And nice.

So now I'm on a quest to try out as many new spices on eggs as possible and find the best ones.

Yay for cake!

My family has decided to have a once a week dessert night. That way, we get a real treat, and then lay off the sugar the rest of the time. Last night it was my turn to choose. I thought about lemon squares, or maybe a pie. But this time...it had to be cake. Not just any cake either. That scandalous chocolate cake, drizzled with carmel and topped with whipped cream and toffee candy.  It was AWESOME. I still got a bit high, like I said, still figuring dose size.

Anyway, I discovered this morning that sneaking a bit of cake is a lot more difficult when you have to decide before hand how much you are going to eat, and then inject for it. But still, soooooo worth it.

And with that, I'm off to banish myself to green bean land. TTFN!

Yo matey, you just stabbed me with your pen.

This is what I think of each time I use my insulin pens.

The Man Who Knew Too Little video

The line happens in the first few 30 seconds of so, so no reason to finish the clip. Unless you really want to I guess.

So I've been gettin' a bit high recently...   Fine tuning bolus dosage. Fun stuff. When my blood sugar is down I don't even need my glasses, but the last two days have been a bit blurry.  I really love that I haven't been needing my glasses. My vision could be better, but it's nice to know that most of my eye problems were being caused by high blood sugar.

First time bolus and Fairy Godmother!

So today was the first time I did an insulin shot before I ate. For the last week or so I've been on a basal 5 unit dose. As well as a low carb diet. My numbers are down from the 550 that I started at, but still not in the normal range, and I am so ready to get it under control! Huzzah! I'm a bit nervous. First I think, "What if I didn't do enough?" and then I think, "What if I did too much?" and so I'm pondering how I feel, and anticipating when I will check my glucose levels.

Anyway. I never thought I would be glad to learn how to jab myself with a needle and shoot myself with insulin. But really, this low carb thing has been......not terrific. Ok, to be honest, it wasn't that bad, and I think I could probably keep it up if I ever need to, but I am so sick of salad. Most salad I really like, it's just that when you only eat salad like 3 meals in a row......bleh. And I know that a 'Low Carb Diet' does not mean eating only salad, it's just that that was always closest and least time consuming. We're still getting our meal planning under control. XD Something that's kinda lame is that we had found some lower carb, cocoa coated almonds, that really are quite good. I took them to the amusement park with me the day after I was diagnosed. I really liked them that day, but after that, they really went downhill. It's like I eat them and my stomach says, "Cocoa Almonds? Diabetes candy." I can't get past the mental block. I associate them too much with the shock of finding out I'm diabetic.

The other thing I wanted to talk about is my.....huh, I really don't know what her real title is......Nurse Practitioner? Her name is Lucinda, which makes me think of the Fairy Godmother Lucinda from the book, Ella Enchanted.

 Awesome book, stupid movie. In the book, Lucinda is a troublesome fairy, but my Lucinda is awesome!!! She had me cracking up! She was so funny and a wealth of knowledge! A very happy wealth of knowledge! It was terrific. She laughed so hard at the things I had written in my blood glucose log (i.e. "well this sucks and I feel like a pin cushion"). And the other lady, Andrea, that I talked to was so nice too! Sometimes in my family circles everyone just wants to tell horror stories about JackBobbyJoe and his son Paco whose distant cousin's cat's son's owner had diabetes and blah blah blah. It was really great to have this two cheerful ladies. Andrea is also a T1. It really made me look forward to my next visits knowing that these two would be the ones I would be seeing. :)