Tuesday 30 October 2012

Happy Anniversary!

I've got a couple of blog posts about healthy living/a plant empowered diet/etc in draft mode but this one especially needed to happen today.

I've been focusing on this last assignment I have to do for my legal professionals course and it's doing my head in, so much formatting and rules to follow. Argh. But, I thought that I would take a chill pill and write this blog post. :)

It's my Diagnosis Anniversary today! Later on this afternoon/tonight I will have officially reached 9 years with this chronic condition. And I call it a condition because I don't like talking about Diabetes like it's a disease. For me using the word disease turns it into a weakness. And it's only recently that I've come to terms with the fact that this condition I have, is really, my greatest strength. Friends often think I'm scatter brained and unorganised. Some part of that is true... but I think I seem unorganised because I have this thing, this condition that I constantly have to take care of. I have to make sure I carry around my insulin, meter, sugar, snack, money (in case I need to buy sugar or snack). I have to think about everything single piece of food I put into my mouth. For breakfast this morning I had a banana and blueberry smoothie, so I had to work out how many carbs that was and how much insulin to inject, I needed to know what my blood sugar level was and how much insulin to inject if it's too high. I have to figure out when I can have lunch because I need to make sure there's a 2 hour gap between injecting insulin. And there's even more. I know that I'm not unorganised, not at all, I'm someone that is constantly balancing all those things every single day. 

I like to think Diabetes is about balance more than anything else. Image credit: Here

And so, things like where my phone and keys are become less important. Because I know where my insulin and meter are. It's exhausting. But it's my life and it second nature to me now. Being able to to juggle all this and still be standing is my greatest strength. It hasn't always been something I've seen as a strength but over time I've stopped resenting my Diabetes and starting thanking it for making me a stronger person. 

I've taken huge leaps in the last few months with how I deal with my diabetes. I'm trying to be more open about it. And making sure I'm testing more. I used to hardly test my blood sugar at all and now I'm sitting on that 6 - 8 times a day average. But changing how I look after myself hasn't meant that I was on an 8 and a half year holiday. It's been a constant companion with me. The main change is just really really focusing on what I'm eating, how many carbs and actually working it out (you know, instead of guessing!). I've found the website Calorie King (AU) to be a super help as it is an Australian version so has a lot of the same brands as NZ.

I'm not really even sure where this blog post was going, or how it turned into a ramble about my organisation skills. But all I know is, 9 years ago today, my pancreas stopped working. And I'm beginning to be okay with that. Dealing with Diabetes and learning to love it, isn't something that happened over night for me. But I'm getting there. 

For now, it's back to reality and finishing my assignment writing a notice of opposition to an interlocutory application:



Cheers,

S.

1 comments:

Jonah said...

The two hour gap is only supposed to be about corrections! You should be able to inject for food as often as you want, you just don't want to correct for high blood sugar when you already have insulin in your system that will (hopefully) be dropping it.

For me, the diaversary is about diagnosis and getting on insulin, because I know for a fact that I'd had undiagnosed diabetes for a while first, and that totally sucked, so it's a day for celebrating insulin. I figure, I've been on insulin six years... and I've probably had diabetes for somewhere between seven and eleven years, possibly longer.

Anyway. Good on you for continuing to improve after nine years.