Happy Birthday To ME!

     Today I am eighteen.  Wow, looking back I can see so may things I would change and things I wouldn't change for the world.
      I look back a my highs and lows (not referring to BG's) wondering if my diabetes did have anything to do with it and the truth is 80% of the time it was. Coming up in July I will also be celebrating my 9th diaversary... I don't know what to say about that, that I have had diabetes for half of my life and it honestly hasn't been that long, that I know more about this disease than anything, that is has managed to fill every neuron in my brain and it is never going to change. In another nine years on my twenty seventh birthday how different things will be, what will have changed, will there be bionic pancreases around with the little need of carb counting, figuring, worrying; it makes you think.  But really, nine years really isn't that long from the time of diagnosis to now it seems so short I still feel like that lanky skinny girl sitting in the waiting room of my doctors office minutes away from a life changing statement:
                                      " Your daughter has type 1 diabetes "
       To that person that spent three days in the hospital learning to give shots and receive them, to count my carbs and every time I stare at a piece of pecan pie,  the small boxes filled with sugar to represent the amount inside certain foods returns to my mind, to learn how to check my blood sugar, how to check my ketones, and never eat more than 15 carbs at snack and 60 per meal.It was hard, I remember not truly comprehending that this would be my forever, the forever of my life.
        Here I am one year from ten years with this disease and still no cure, ( you know because every diabetic has heard it) don't get me wrong they are close like super close I estimate twenty years or so close maybe less if we're  lucky  but it could still be forever for me.
      A complication can strike at any moment and then I won't have that ten more years that they've been promising it'll be be more like; sorry that sucks for you it doesn't matter if there is a cure tomorrow you body is a train wreck inside and no matter how many legs we take off, kidney's we transplant your out of the draw. Going to the doctor every three months, checking your blood sugar four plus times a day, injection after injection, tear after tear its OVER! I'm exausted.
       As a diabetic I frequently sit and think how differently my life would be without diabetes what it's like to not have this HUGE burden. I understand and do not expect other to understand why a cure is so important. I didn't inflict this on my self, I have it a whether or not I want to or if I choose it ther eis no other option but to do by best. I hate being dramatic, in in fact it drives me crazy when people do but when I say "with out insulin I will die" I am drop dead serious. I hate to think of anyone carrying around the burden of being in charge of your own survival or someone else. That one wrong choice like cupcake and no insulin again will kill me, I could end up in an ICU unit for days, people don't know that. People I know that think they understand, they don't know what it is like to be rushed to a hospital because your in DKA or  how hard it is to sit next to someone and hold them while they over come a bad low or have to go through it alone. But still it ain't all bad.Right....
      Never getting another bag of Halloween candy, and anything than what other people got in there treat bags at parties, missing out on sleep overs and going so low I forget what happened at my own birthday parties or that I had eaten, and waking up unable to talk and going to the ER for DKA two times.
      It hasn't scarred me and I'm sure in the next nine years so much more will change I will experience new thing become a whole new person and diabetes is just part of that. It didn't mess me up not having all that sugar anyways.
        I am not angry at diabetes it did not take away my childhood nor destroy any hope of a happy future I have. I live in denial that I will ever get a complication and know someday I will have at least one healthy little human, its possible and I know I could not be the person I am today without  diabetes, I think it has made me a better person, yup I said it diabetes made me awesome! Now I plan to enjoy cheesecake tonight with my family and hanging out with friends all week to celebrate my adulthood. yay!
       

My No D-Day blog post

In this post I am choosing NOT to talk about diabetes but instead let you know a little more about me without diabetes up front.

Me at midnight having a not so good moment with the cookies. This was just a prank photo I really ate those with wondrous manners. hehehe.

• I love cooking especially french food
• I sing like a crazy person when I'm alone and dance too. When I am in public I just do it in my head.
• I love to shop, I know typical girl right; yeah I'm one of those.
• I like alone time, sometimes Oliver(my cat)joins me
• my favorite place in the whole world is Ireland. It is as beautiful as they say, I've been there twice.
• I am a total animal person but I don't mind cutting up fetal pigs at school.
• I love to write
• I hope to someday be in the medical field (those choices are coming up quick )
• I am a die hard cowgirl :) yep I was raised in the south.

Why I started this Blog

    

      I love to write, well I love to write about stuff I choose to (cough, cough, I hate A.P. English, sorry Mrs. Simmons). I also feel connect in some mystical way to all of the diabetics out there feeling the same crap I do. People who understand the deep, the hard to understand, and the sincere need to live a long life just to prove you did. It is a lot to carry and I do not know personally someone with type one diabetes. I do know someone at my church and there are I think four students at my high school but I don't really know them.

        I have tried to write other blogs before one on my favorite hobby but soon I lost the fire, lost the creativity and didn't feel fulfilled the way I felt like blogging should. So a long story short I deleted it and started this one. I look back to my first posts and see how far I have come in such a short time. I am not saying I'm a great blogger or even a good one but this is how I have learned to cope with my disease.
       At first that is what this blog was for; coping, but now I do it because I utterly enjoy it. I doesn't consume my life but I love to do it. I only spend about thirty minutes to write one blog and sometimes just five or ten minutes. This blog helps me meld my life and diabetes with a tiny bit  and that is why I blog. I don't do it for the page views, or the stats, I do it for the people I hopefully reach to share with them they are not alone because you really aren't.

Oh Ollie....

 This si my new kitty and his name is Oliver. I love him even though he make my eyes scratchy and nose runny he is soft and fluffy and loves to lounge around like me. He is really my moms but he feel like mine. I wanted to name him Gus-gus but nobody but me liked it.. hmmm.
So here I introduce Oliver the cat who for the four weeks he has been in our house has learned to pee on my clothes in my closet floor (incentive, nope) and eats fingers and loves to sleep behind my neck. He is a sweet, feisty fellow but  think we can work with our differences. Is this the start to being a crazy cat lady?

Oh so fabulous

No more picture mom....

I give up

Happy Birthday Daddy! A true D-Dad

     Today is my dads birthday, he is fifty two ( don't tell him I told ya'll). My dad is a special person and he handed me several good genes. And thanks to the fact that heredity can be ruled out of by diagnosis he is not blamed at all for giving me a disease( thanks for that one dad.) My dad is a pretty amazing guy he is very laid back, cooks really good food and works really hard. He some how or another can make people feel relaxed and at ease, he knows how to fix a problem but only problems that require it. He is incredibly gifted at making me feel guily and special.
     I clearly remember my dad being there during my hospital stay. He is the one that held my hand while the nurse gave me an I.V. and he sat through class to learn how to count carbs and care for my now full time job of diabetes. My dad would have been fine to sit back and watch but he didn't, he gave me shots and learned a little math. He did give me shots even though I didn't like it, his hands would shake and squeeze my skin to hard. He went to the pump information meetings and learned how to do a pump site and read the history to check blood sugar readings and bolus amounts. And through the years my mom took on more and more then I slowly began to take over. I do all my own shots now, I do lantus on my own, and write my logs, it was even my desision to go off the pump last July. My dad occasionally helps me count carbs (he is really good at that too) and reminds me to check my blood sugar and do insulin.
     My dad is one of the quiest poeple I know but the only person that can make me smile when I don't want to. He is a source  of assurance in my crazy life knowing he will come home and somehow make me smile. He is the man of no nonsense with wisest advice. My dad doesn't get a whole lot of credit for caring for my disease but in my heart I know he does a very good job and tries to help as much as possible.
This disease is overwhelming and hard to handle. You can often feel alone and tired out; we all have a person and mine is my dad. He is the comfort without a hug and funny without the joke. I love you dad and have many more happy years. You Rock!

JDRF Atlanta

    Woohoo it is summer; time to get summer jobs (if you are a teenager) or just keep doing your normal thing with a nice vacation scheduled at a beach far from the office soon. As for me I am sticking it out I have a job :) and wouldn't mind having a second one, everyone tells me I'm crazy for wanting a second job along with my 45 hr. week already but hey I need to buy things to live and really need a car when I get my permit in June. But of course I am an over achiever and well I signed up to raise five hundred dollars for JDRF Atlanta and get a team together to run for a cure. Oh yeah my schedule for the next school year is scary and volunteered for my churches children's choir
     But we all deserve to be busy it is more interesting that way. I would love to go to Tybee or Jekyll sometime hopefully save for climbing gear and make stuff to sell on etsy. I like busy summer it keeps me ready for school plus my mom won't let me work during the school year. Bummer cause those climbing ropes are darn expensive. Oh well who has time for being relaxed and being bored out of their mind, not me.  But I am super excited about the Walk to cure IT. I can't wait to see who walks with me.  And of course I am already thinking of t-shirts. Hmmmmm navy and lime green sounds good to me.Have an amazing day.

My diabetes control, is that an oxymoron?

     I love how I feel when my blood sugar is in range. I love how much I can do when my body is in perfect glucose range. But it is one big time consuming deal, I feel it is always on my mind and I never seem to be able to forget about it and if I ever do some one is there to remind me that I have a disease. Sometimes I want a bag of MnM's from the vending machine, sometimes I get a little thirsty, running an extra mile won't hurt me, and yes I DID  TAKE MY INSULIN!. After everything is said and done I am who I am and though my life is literally consumed by this seemingly large cloud I smile because it isn't cancer, I laugh because I can walk, and love because someday there will be a cure. Right now I sit here thinking how nice it would be to have a snack but I refrain because I don't really want to take a shot. In the end i will find a meduim we all are happy with, a way to make sure I don't die or live to uptight about it all.
     Last Friday I went to my endocrinologist. And if when you saw those words in your head you went du-du-duuuu, so did I. I never really look forward to those visits because for the past five years I have not had the est A1c's. My highest ever was 13.4 and my most recent was 12.9. I was really happy to see it come down but not happy where it was. I want to some day have children, and not die from kidney failure or suffer with nerve damage. These have really been on my mind lately so I decided to cut the crap and just do what I need to do.
      So far my whole body hates me for going from an almost always high to a almost constant low of around 40. I have gained ten pounds ( side affect of going from no insulin to constant) and all my teachers are worried because two to three times everday I turn pale white stubble out of the room to the nurses office and come back thirty minutes later. I f I thought I could hide it I was dead wrong, everyone in school knows now. My math teacher made a big scene in class when she asked me what my blod sugar was and I told her It was forty one she flipped out then treated like I didn't now what to do even though I ad taken tablets she still made me go to the nurses office where I dozed for about an hour. Turns out my sugar only got up to 79 around dinner time I guess she was right.
    I eat a whole lot of jello and peanut butter these days but someday I will thank myself..........I hope.

So This is How It Begins

     OK so it isn't really the beginning for me I  have had diabetes for eight years and I have done every type  of treatment you can imagine; even raw food ( no it doesn't cure it, yeah I felt pretty dumb ). I love discovering new foods and places and adventures to take. I want to travel the world  and even though that might sound corny it is more different than you might think. I want to see a lot of the amazing places everyone wants to see, i.e. Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, Tuscany, laadeedaa. What I really want to see is life's unknown secrets, the tiny shop in the corner, old streets with beautiful houses, theaters only known to the locals. Still corny I know...

     But most of all I hate diabetes and if it drives me to the ground I will beat it, fight it, and cure it. A little far fetched, but I think it is a secret mission for all diabetics, parents of diabetics, friends and sibling of diabetics. We all want the same thing, This thing gone! So while we wait we will find each other and build a tower of hope for all because our lives with needle suck!
                                                                                                                          - Anna Gwen