Diabetes Blog Week – Day 5 – Accomplishments

Diabetes Blog Week – Day 5 – Accomplishments.

This is my Friday post, published on the DA VIC blog!

We don’t always realize it, but each one of us had come a long way since diabetes first came into our life. It doesn’t matter if it’s been 5 weeks, 5 years or 50 years, you’ve done something outstanding diabetes-wise. So today let’s share the greatest accomplishment you’ve made in terms of dealing with your (or your loved one’s) diabetes. No accomplishment is too big or too small – think about self-acceptance, something you’ve mastered (pump / exercise / diet / etc.), making a tough care decision (finding a new endo or support group / choosing to use or not use a technology / etc.). (Thanks to Hilary of Rainie and Me for this topic suggestion.)

Accomplishments, big and small…

I’m just going to throw it out there, I think managing diabetes every day is an accomplishment in itself! I don’t know many other chronic diseases where you have to juggle so many balls all of the time.

However, apart from the fact that we are all incredibly awesome just for living with diabetes, one of my big accomplishments with diabetes is not letting it stop me.

Now, diabetes will stop some things. I can’t be a pilot, scuba diver or a police woman. Yet seeing as I don’t like flying, am a terrible swimmer and am possibly the least intimidating  person in the world, that’s no great loss

Diabetes didn’t stop me from carrying out my future plans of living overseas and traveling. I was scared it would, newly diagnosed me thought no one would want a teaching assistant who had the ‘bad’*  kind of diabetes.

I travelled to more than 15 countries, with a small backpack and a whole lot of diabetes supplies. I left Australia 9 months after diagnosis to live in England for a year**, where nothing was familiar except the language.

Most importantly, I met students with diabetes and other chronic illnesses. Simply through being open about my diabetes and acting confident enough to inject and test in front of everyone (I injected for a biscuit in Monday morning assembly once…), it meant that these kids felt comfortable coming to me and talking about their own illnesses, which I think is so special.

There was one particular girl with type 1 diabetes who simply blossomed, and by the end of the year was like my little sister. I taught this girl that having diabetes was nothing to be ashamed of or apologise for, and her self esteem grew so much. I believe that is my greatest accomplishment so far with this disease, and if I can continue helping other young people in the future with this, then I will die happy!

*note the sarcasm. No one has the ‘bad’ kind, we’re all different

**this turned into 11 months thanks to terrible mental health issues that meant I had to come home, but hey I nearly got there!

Memories

DBLOG WEEK POST #3!

Today we’re going to share our most memorable diabetes day. You can take this anywhere…. your or your loved one’s diagnosis, a bad low, a bad high, a big success, any day that you’d like to share. (Thanks to Jasmine of Silver-Lined for this topic suggestion.)

You would think that my most memorable diabetes day would be diagnosis, but I honestly think that is another post for another time. It’s long, super personal, and probably deserves a special post of it’s own.

My most memorable diabetes moment? The night I came home from hospital.

This is not a happy memory, sorry in advance.

I remember this vividly. In true nerdy Georgie style I had been stressing about my year 12 assessments while in hospital  (looking back this was probably a way to push aside the fact I had just been diagnosed with a lifelong chronic illness) and thus had not really thought very much about day to day life with this new diabetes thing. Diabetes just seemed confined to my hospital room, it was medical and annoying but hey, that’s hospital in general right?

I came home mid-afternoon, had a nap, then walked out to dinner and sat down at the table.

That’s when it hit me.

I had to inject myself for this.

I had to prick my finger.

I had to count my food.

I had to go against every single feeling that my body was experiencing. I was still terrified of needles, I had JUST got myself out of seeing food as numbers, yet to stay alive I had to throw all of this away.

I had to do this at least 4 times a day, every day, for the rest of my life.

Needless to say (excuse the language) I lost my shit.

I looked down at the roast dinner Mum had cooked and just started crying silently. All my aunt and Mum had to do was look at me and say “Oh George…” and I became a wailing, snotty, waterfall of tears.

I couldn’t talk or verbalise my feelings. I just…I still remember the loss of control I felt over my body and emotions. I physically could not stop crying or shaking, it was like this uncontrollable wave of emotion that just kept dumping me under, again and again. I pushed my chair back from the table, went out onto the porch, slammed the door and ran.

I ran through my suburban streets for about half an hour. In leggings, a t-shirt and bare feet. I ran and cried. It was such a strange feeling, I couldn’t control my sobs or my feet, they kept running and I kept crying. I was just so ANGRY at the world. It wasn’t FAIR. I don’t know what my neighbours must have thought…a 17 year old girl running down the street with bare feet and tears and snot flying out behind her. To the residents of Cheltenham in March 2010, I apologise

I stopped running when I returned to the end of my street. I had scratches all over my feet and legs, and my arms where I had dug my nails in, to try and feel something more painful than what I currently I was. Didn’t work, needless to say.

I came home, got into bed, and slept for about 10 hours. When I woke up the next morning, I felt a little better. I took a few deep breaths, sucked it up, tested and injected, and went to school.

The above memory is why I get angry at people telling me to “Be positive! Don’t dwell on the bad things!”  Sometimes, you have to let all your bad feelings out to make the good ones seem brighter.

We, The Undersigned

DBLOG WEEK POST #2!

Recently various petitions have been circulating the Diabetes Online Community, so today let’s pretend to write our own. Tell us who you would write the petition to – a person, an organization, even an object (animate or inanimate) – get creative!! What are you trying to change and what have you experienced that makes you want this change? (Thanks to Briley of inDpendence for this topic suggestion.)

This is a hard one!

I really don’t know. I’m not a huge fan of petitions in general.

If anything, I want to change the fact that people make jokes about diabetes. I hate it. I get teary and angry when people ignore, after I’ve explained why I’m hurt, why it’s disrespectful and plain rude. I got into a cyber fight today with a guy on my uni facebook page because he commented on a picture of chocolate (COLES IS SELLING FAMILY BLOCKS FOR $1, RUN DON’T WALK) with a joke about diabetes. I can’t let it go, I dislike being called a party pooper if I call someone out on it.

Not being a party pooper, just making you into a DECENT HUMAN BEING.

Could you petition that? I don’t know. Petition for everyone who makes a diabetes joke after being explained to as to why it’s hurtful to be shot down by laser beams?

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good diabetes joke, but one that is INFORMED and RESPECTFUL…and involves a pun or two.

“You’re a diabadass” “Diabetics are the only people who don’t want to be high” = good

“LOL donuts 4 lunch! Diabetes here I come!” = bad

A petition to stop bad, uninformed, diabetes jokes. That would be swell.

Sharing is Caring

So it’s Diabetes Blog Week, (thanks to Bitter~Sweet Diabetes) and although it’s Week 10 of uni and I have assessments and essays spilling out of my ears, I’ve decided to join in! What better procrastination than to write about stuff that isn’t uni related? It’s my first time, so please be nice

So, the topic! “Often our health care team only sees us for about 15 minutes several times a year, and they might not have a sense of what our lives are really like. Today, let’s pretend our medical team is reading our blogs. What do you wish they could see about your and/or your loved one’s daily life with diabetes? On the other hand, what do you hope they don’t see?”

This is a pretty defunct question for me. I share everything with my health team. Everything. Honestly, my educator knows more about my fears, my habits and my relationships than my family or closest friends do. I want her to know everything, and I hide nothing. She is the only person in the world who knows exactly where my mental health is at.

This might seem weird to a few of you – why would I share such personal details with someone who’s simply there to make sure my hb1ac doesn’t get too high?

But the thing is, diabetes is such an all encompassing, 24/7 disease that it does affect every aspect of my life. I’m not saying my life is run by diabetes – quite the opposite – but it does give everything a certain flavour. Part of managing these disease is not only our day to day management, but also our mental health. Without being on top of it, without letting them know that you’re burning out or can’t face any more injections, how will your health care team be able to help you?

Your team is not there simply to say “Good job, increase your basal” (although they do that fabulously), they’re also there to support you in ways your loved ones cannot. Honestly, if I went in there with made up blood sugars (we’ve all been there, don’t deny it) and said “Everything is great!” when I hadn’t tested in a few days, I’d be wasting everybody’s time.

My team sees everything. They see me cry over sore fingers and injection bruises, get frustrated over my highs, cry some more over being burnt out, and give me a “get your shit together we love you don’t die” talk when I get lazy with my carb counting and end up at 15 all day. They don’t need to “wish” to see everything, or figure out if I’m lying about my blood sugars, because by laying it all out on the table, we’re working together as a team. That’s what we should be. Not a team telling the patient what to to, but the patient with diabetes as part of the team

Why I’m quitting the gym

We all know exercise is fantastic to control our blood sugars, increase insulin sensitivity etc. which is why I joined the gym in the first place. I thought that seeing money come out of my account every two weeks would motivate my stingy ass to pump some iron. I was running every second day and keeping my BGLs mostly in range, but I thought I could improve.

It HAS been good, I’ve lost 10 kgs since joining (through body pump and spin I’m pretty sure!) and gained a lot of muscle and tone…but I just can’t do it anymore. After my contract runs out in a month I’m done.

I go to a women-only gym, not because I want to avoid men or like the colour pink, but because it was the closest gym to me and had hair straighteners in the changing rooms. I think this was my first mistake though, because it seems as though everyone there – instructors and  clients alike – place a huge emphasis on going to the gym to get conventionally “hot”. The place is plastered with posters of size 8 models dressed in Lorna Jane, with bold slogans blasting “GET FOXY!” or “BIKINI BODY CHALLENGE!”.

Do you want to know how I get a bikini body? I put a bikini on my body. My size 14, thunder thighs, 10E, junk in the trunk body. Fuq da h8ers.

Additionally, the emphasis on diet is really getting to me. I spend every single day of my life counting food – that’s how I treat my diabetes, that’s just how I roll. I’d rather ignore all those numbers as soon as I bolus, but the gym makes food and numbers omnipresent. Instructors talk about how “bad” certain foods are, how many calories we’re burning, and I usually end a class feeling deflated, fat, and super guilty about the pasta I had for lunch before the gym. Why should foods be bad? (Why are bad foods always so extremely delicious? Surely calling sticky date pudding “bad” is a bit of an oxymoron?!) It’s like my Catholic guilt, but instead of feeling guilty about my moral sins I’m feeling guilty about my dietary sins. WHY should I feel guilty about a delicious homemade plate of lasagne?

Essentially, I’m sick of instructors telling me that food is only there to be burnt off.

I’m at the gym to be healthy. I may not conform to society’s version of what healthy should look like, but my doctor says I’m healthy and that’s good enough for me. I have a great a1c, fabulous cholesterol and perfect blood pressure.  I don’t want instructors telling me how to get rid of my flabby arms or massive thighs because you know what? That ain’t going to change. When I was 16, weighed 10kgs less than I do now and danced 10-15 hours a week, I still had huge thighs and an arse the size of a bus.

I don’t like my gym telling me that I’m not healthy just because of my size. My body fat percentage is higher than average, my BMI puts me in the morbidly obese range. On paper I look like the worst diabetic in the world. But in reality – I’m fine. I spent months in recovery trying to stop seeing food as numbers and as the enemy, and although diabetes knocked that around a bit, I’ve still made headway on that. I don’t want the gym undermining my efforts!

I have nurses, doctors and endos talking to me about my body constantly. I don’t need my gym telling me I need to ‘lose more, do more, BE more!’ when the people that know what they’re talking about think I’m fabulous.

Owning Up

I’ve just finished Week 4 of uni. This means that I’ve spent the past 4 weeks awkwardly looking around whenever my pump goes off.

“What was that noise? Haha yeah who would still have a Nokia 3310?!”

(spoiler: that prehistoric beeping noise is me)

Owning up to that noise isn’t as simple as saying “Oh, don’t worry, it’s just my insulin pump”. In a perfect world, my tutorial would smile and nod in a knowledgable way, say “Oh! Ok!” and we’d get back down to business. However, because most of the world don’t know that pumps actually exist, it gets a bit more complicated.

I’ve tried owning up to it a few times, but it never went well. People ask what it is, I say that I have diabetes and it’s my insulin pump, someone asks what an insulin pump is…before we know it my tute is knee deep in discussing insulin requirements of a young adult and my tutor is steadily getting more pissed off because no one is paying attention to his slideshow on the conjugation of the present subjunctive. Sorry Maxime.

Additionally, the thing about my course is that I’m never with the same people each semester. My uni is one of the biggest in Australia, thousands of people do Arts, and it is very unlikely that I’ll see the same people again. I don’t mind telling someone that I’ve begun to be friends with, but that’s more a Week 8 or 9 thing, not when we’re all still sussing each other out! I can’t be bothered! One tutorial a subject, four subjects a semester, twelve weeks in each semester, three year course – that’s two hundred and eighty eight (I think? I dropped Year 10 maths) classes in which I may need to go through my diabetic introduction, and really, I’m there to learn! Honestly, I just don’t feel like telling people that I have diabetes unless a) I’m hypoing all over them and need help or b) someone makes a fat diabetes joke. You should see me breathe fire when b) occurs…

Don’t get me wrong, I love educating people! I love telling people about type 1 diabetes, how it’s different, why it requires a lot of work etc. However I only tell them when they ask. Unfortunately I can’t hide diabetes, it’s a visible ‘invisible illness’, if that makes sense. People are genuinely curious when I prick my finger, which I completely understand. It’s not that I’m ashamed of having it, or don’t like educating, it’s just that I meet a lot of people in my day-to-day life and that sometime I get tired of explaining why I’m beeping. It’s nice to feel a little normal sometime, you know?

I just don’t like going on and on about it in front of a lot of people in one room. In my experience, that always defines me as the ‘diabetic girl’, which I hate! Once people are aware that I’m diabetic, suddenly my sneaky BGL tests and priming in class are noticed.  I suddenly feel judged for my food choices, whether people mean it maliciously or not. I find myself trying to eat my Tuesday morning blueberry muffin in short bursts, stuffing as much as I can in my face before someone turns around and says ‘Wait, aren’t you diabetic?’

Side-note: It’s weird, it doesn’t seem to matter that however many times I tell someone that my pancreas is just mechanical, and I can eat hot chips/ice cream/etc. if I want to, they still feel the need to comment.

But really, above all, I hate that being diabetic usually becomes my defining feature in my semester long relationship with the people in my classes. I don’t want that to be my defining feature. I haven’t owned up to the Animas beep in my Italian class yet, and last week signora Rossi said ‘Georgie, you’re always smiling! You read this role play out with me, I want to see if you can be grumpy. Va bene?”

That’s what I want my defining feature to be, a smile and a positive attitude, not my crummy pancreas.