Daibetes Blog Week- Share and Don't Share Day 1

Guess what??? I am participating in Diabetes Blog week this year and I am super excited to let you peek into my blog and help me raise awareness. Here is the link to the whole list here.
 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?

 

6 am First check of the day. 41. Shaky, dizzy, light headed, raspberry glucose tablets.

7am Shower, don’t forget to hook up pump, then breakfast, check blood sugar, 201. Bolus, correct.

8am Check again 101 its safe to drive

9am Check again two hours after breakfast blood sugar 399 hmmmm

11am Lunch: check blood sugar 169 WHAT! I really aim for a 120 before blood sugar

12 pm do insulin bolus for lunch, ouch that burns

2 am Did I do insulin?

3 pm am I hungry or am I low? Check 57 yep over corrected for that slight high

4 pm Check again before you drive 124 we’re okay

5pm snack: deli meat today no carbs for me

7pm Dinner check 306 I think meat now has carbs avoid scolding from mother dad and dog.

9pm Night time shot and insulin 588 HOLY CRAP I forgot about dinner insulin now I’m sick and I have ketones, guzzle a bottle of water go to bed

12 am wake up I need to pee

2am wake up I need to pee and I am soooo thirsty

3 am wake up go pee now is time to check blood sugar 290 wow I should have checked my ketones I need new insulin

4 am change out insulin in pump lay down and try to sleep a little more.

6 am Check blood sugar 37. Why do I always fail?

To those who see the outside this is just a glimpse into living with my diabetes. It is a very consuming thing I try really hard at  and even though my efforts sometimes fail I have to do it again the next day. I will get no breaks and I have fully accepted all the responsibility that comes with it it just sometimes it wears you out .

Living with diabetes is a battle but one I will win. Insulin is not a cure and it will never go away. I did not get it from eating to much sugar or KFC I can eat what ever I want just with moderation and with the insulin to balance it out. No special diet or pill can cure me and I can have children. This is Type 1 diabetes.

Don't lecture me!

     My mother and I spend a good bit of our time together talking. Talking about school, choices, college, friends, other people (That's bad I know) and most of all, diabetes. The other day as she was cooking dinner I sat at the island and we discussed moments that change you as a person. I asked her about a certain childhood experience, if that was what made her different from her family. She said yes and we talked about moments that come up and change you forever. You never know when but they'll come and you will be better for it. I keep wondering about the people who will momentarily come into my life and change me forever.
    Two Christmases ago I was in the hospital with an A1c of 13.6 and I was pre-DKA and I felt like I was dying. I had gone so long without my lantus my bodily literally began eating my muscles and storing all the excessive sugars in my organs . I don't doubt that if my mom hadn't thought to look up the symptoms that I had I probably would have died. It wasn't a 24 hour virus, My body was sick and dying. I remember the abdominal pain being so bad I cried to my mom that I couldn't take it and I needed to die. After spending all day in C.H.O.A. emergency room one endocrinologist from my doctors office that I had never met came to check me out of the hospital and gave me the lecture of my life. It is one thing for you to hear it from your mother over and over, or your friends and family, but a doctor you don't even know it's different and sticks with you.
      This doctor did not sugar coat the issue, she told me that if diabetes made me angry, to do something to change it , become a scientist and cure it if I have to. She said a lot to me and now here I am two years later much healthier and you can tell. If you look at pictures of me then and now you can tell. I LOOKED sick. The thing many people say about diabetics is they don't look sick, I did and I felt awful as well as had bad depression.
        Diabetes is a huge monster in our lives and we fight it , every day, with no brakes or vacations. We are bullet proof ,we are stronger than people realize, because we can fight this disease.
     Here is an exert  from a MyGlu blog, I think was one of those moments that change you, empower you, and give you a little strength (at least for me it did);
     For example, have you ever felt like you’re the one telling your doctor about a new way of potentially tackling diabetes? “I think I might need to adjust this correction factor,” or “I heard about this new device called a CGM and I’d like to try it.” I am a firm believer that we are our own doctors. Usually when we’re given a prescription most people will know how much they have to take and at what time of day. Ha. Funny, because I certainly don’t have the letters MD after my name, yet I have decided how much insulin to give myself millions of times. There is no “take this twice daily” labeled on our insulin vials. This is why we are so powerful. 
      Make sure you read every day of her experience, it really gets you excited. I can't imagine having that kind of control without the mind games. Thank you Anna for sharing this experience with us, what I would do to be able to try out the bionic pancreas. :)

My Endo Appiontment

So  on Wednesday I had a doctors appointment in Atlanta. I knew my sugars hadn't exactly won the best Readings Award, but hey I wrote them all down honest to God.
   Some I had missed some were pure neglect and others were ehhhh. I was nervous and shaky worried out of my mind about what the endo would say. I love my team of really amazing doctors. They always help keep the lectures at bay and help me with my silly pointless problems. They get it and I am not all that sure why.
   First there is Dr. Baldwin, she is very nice and funny but extremely helpful and professional. When she says so I trust her. Next is Stephanie, I adore Stephanie she is smart, young and pretty and she always encourages me and never scolds my horrible sugar sheets but helps me figure out where I went wrong. Susan is my dietitian and she is amazing and incredibly knowledgeable of diabetes. At my last appointment she told me to call her aunt Susan. Pretty neat team along with some terrific nurses.  I really wanted to see Stephanie this time around but I didn't get to, I saw a new dietitian, one I had never met but had worked there for ten years.
   I wanted to discuss CGM'S (continues glucose monitors) she didn't know anything about them. I want to discuss  my licence and she completely through me under the bus and told my mom with my A1c she would not recommend it and I lost it I bursted into tears. I sobbed like I just saw my puppy get ran over by a semi-truck. I think I freaked the poor woman out because she jumped up and left the room. My mom hugged my neck while I sobbed for a few seconds and told me I made her cry too. I was pissed, pissed at the world, pissed at myself. I wanted more than anything to be independent; to be able to drive myself to school on August sixth. Why couldn't I push myself to be the best, the best at my disease and my body, do what I have to and reach that seemingly unattainable goal. People make it sound so easy like it is as simple as a shot and finger prick when in fact it is the skill of balancing out your body in so many ways you can't imagine. People often lack understanding of our invisible disease....
   " Oh you want to eat that slice of Ice cream cake? Go ahead but nothing you can do will keep your blood sugars from being through the roof in an hour." (my body)
   " You have diabetes? My grandma does to, but you don't look fat?"
   " My mom has to take medication for that too, she hates taking those pills. Do you hate taking the pills."
   " At least all you have to do is take a pill to fix it."
   " You at least have a cure, since you have insulin."
   " Oh I hate shots, I could never do it, I don't know how you do that."
I want to be someone inspirational. I want to change what people think of diabetes. I want to be able to drive. Is that to much to ask?

   Something as simple as a driving test is simply impossible to achieve because I am just not good enough. I know I am not alone with the whole teen driving thing and I do not have the only disease that keeps me from driving ( epilepsy too) but please, please let me drive.
   In the end that is it it isn't that the new dietitian said I couldn't get my liscence, she simply said she didn't recommend I get behind the wheel of the car and drive ( I technically still could go and get mine) it was the fact she pointed out that I have failed at my disease and this is one of the first of many complications that come with my disease. She encouraged me (they seem to always) to try harder at management and to try to find a solution that works. So point closing, she is not the first person at that office to make me cry, I have been trying as of late to really work on my sugar control, and I miss having a diabetes person that I can relate too. I also have a job to earn money for that car.