When You Have Diabetes, It's Not the Only Thing you Fight.

"Hold on a second," I told Dr. Wendland as I grabbed my glucometer from my backpack. We were in open lab, which follows classes every Monday and Thursday and gives us students a chance to practice our PT schools with the help of some of our instructors. I was going over some of my flexibility drills, but in the past few minutes I had started to feel the slight "after-buzz" of dizziness and heat that follow every movement and turn of my head.

44, the screen read. I grabbed my glucose tabs and walked back to the front where Dr. Wendland was lying on the plinth answering questions to someone. When she turned back to me I shook my head. "I'm 44," I told her, as I popped some glucose tabs and tried not to let the low get to me. I could feel that it was a bad one, though, as much as I didn't want to show it. I didn't want to seem like I was wasting Dr. Wendland's time, who was practicing with me. I know I shouldn't feel bad like something about that - but it's the same thing that happens when I get low in line for ordering Chinese and I don't have glucose tabs, or I'm in the middle of leading kids through games during a birthday party.

I don't have time to be low then. Just because I'm low doesn't mean I can ask people to cut in front of the line to order my food. And interrupting games for a bunch of little girls at a party - while Rapunzel stuffs some glucose tabs in her mouth while everyone is watching - simply doesn't look proper. I get frustrated about the timing of my low in times like that, and I almost feel ashamed that I can't hold it together.
Does that sound silly? I know it does, but know this if you don't already:

You'll be hard pressed to find a person with a chronic disease that doesn't have some sort of mental impact associated with their condition. Diabetes is a mental disease just as much as it is physical. It gets to you, and there's nothing you can really do about it.

"You seem to have a lot of ups and downs," Dr. Wendland noted as a sat on the plinth across from her, chewing. I had been around Dr. Wendland another time earlier that semester, and had a 40 - so I could see why she would say that. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it this second time, but my brain was turning to fuzz and I couldn't concentrate from the low when I tried to think of any of the answers to questions she asked me so I figured I should make myself known. 
I did my best to explain that I was so worried about coming off hyperglycemic that I tended to try and over-bolus to avoid it. I wanted to get my blood sugars in near perfect order. I put a lot of expectation on myself. I would be lying if all of the excessive talk of Diabetes in class didn't get to me, too. All we ever seemed to talk about was Diabetic complications. Imagine having a disease where everyone either a. makes fun of it everytime they eat sugar and 2. Talks about how extremely complicated these patients turn out to be - foot problems, ulcers, retinopathy, carpal tunnel, neuropathy, decreased sensitivity to hot or cold or finger and foot sensation, numbness and tingling, shortness of breath... the list goes on and on.
I know I have the power to control this disease, and Diabetes is a huge problem in our country today - mostly Type 2. And know that I realize people aren't specifically singling me out in class at all. Type 2 is the Diabetes everyone is talking about. But still, it's something that will inevitably get to you over time, and I realized in that moment trying to explain myself to Dr. Wendland that that's exactly what it had done: gotten to me. I explained my frustration that testing your glucose was like taking a static picture of where you are: unlike using a continual glucose monitor (CGM) which will monitor you 24/7, a glucometer can't tell you patterns or what direction your glucose is going in. So when I tested at 175 in class earlier, I ate a granola bar and counted 6 units of insulin to give myself - 5 units for the 25 g granola bar (1 unit for every 5 grams of carbs) and 1 correction unit to bring myself down to 135, or 30 mg/dL. According to my math that should have been perfect, but I must have been headed down the sugar scale because now I sat almost 100 mg/dL lower than I intended to.
Of course, this is just a regular day to me. Lows suck, and no one wants them. But all Diabetics (T1) know that it happens. Some lows are going to be unavoidable.
I told Dr. Wendland I probably get around 3-4 lows a week, which for me is ok. "I notice them almost all the time - around 95% of the time. On very rare occasions I will test and be low and not notice." Dr. Wendland eyeballed Dr. Taylor, who was standing close by. "It's that 5% I'm worried about!" She kind of laughed. My soul sank a little.

It worries me too, but it's not something that can be avoided.
I then went on to explain that I ate very healthy for the most part - limited alcohol and most processed sugars, starchy carbs. I told them I ended up eating a lot of the same things, because it was just easier to manage my sugar when I already knew what those foods did to me on a regular basis. It sounds ok in living, but I realized it sounded kind of shitty when I explained it out loud. I found a slight pinprick of resentment welling in me for Diabetes again, but I pushed it down. I had to sit down one more time to rest before finishing off practicing flexibility, then I went home for the night.

In hindsight, I felt bad that I couldn't explain myself better. But it's hard to convey the mix of feelings, helplessness, emotions and stubbornness about caring for yourself when you have Diabetes.  The fear - the worry - the what's to come? is so real that it almost makes life worse to live than the disease itself. Dr. Taylor's words echoed in my head when I couldn't quite sense the movement of Dr. Wendland's spine raising during one of the flexibility tests - this is the point at which the test should terminate. "How is the feeling in your fingertips?" He'd asked - and I said, slightly shocked that he'd asked it,
"Oh! Well, it's fine - I don't have neuropathy. I just tend to not use enough pressure," which was true. I had been having to train myself to not have such a light touch with people.
I could feel fine. I could. Could I?
I touched the car window as I drove.

Did it feel slightly less cold? Could I not feel temperature as well with my fingertips? Did I type worse and miss keys more because of my fingers? It was too soon to get complications and I managed my Diabetes well enough, right? My A1C has never been as low as I want, but since being diagnosed it hasn't been over 7.5, and that's why I'm continuously striving to make it better and lower.

But it worries me, don't you know? It worries me so much.
The tingles in my feet, my hands when I drive the steering wheel - and the fact that I have to catch my breath a little every time I go up stairs, no matter how fast - or sometimes when I leap out of bed in the middle of the night or morning my heart pounds fast and I get slightly dizzy - my always-cold hands or feet - they worry me. It makes me upset, because I have always treated my body with care and tried so hard to make sure that I manage my sugar well - but the fear is still awful sometimes. Or reading that Diabetes shortens the average lifespan by 5-8 years sometimes. 5-8 years is a long time.

I hate what this disease steals from me and what it gives me in return. The fear that someday this disease will physically limit me because of any complications it does to my body is something ever present, and each day I just fight and fight to try and make sure that doesn't happen.
Maybe it won't, but I was feeling particularly down about it yesterday and even today. No matter how competent I am, or how well people think I manage my Diabetes, the dark side of my disease lurks on the back side of my mind near constantly, haunting me with the scary thoughts of complications and heart disease.

We all have our own demons to battle. These are some of mine.

Why, Deep Down, I'm Thankful For Having Diabetes (Despite What a Pain It Is)

It's November, and since it's the month of being thankful, I thought it only appropriate if I wrote this post on why, deep down, I am thankful for Diabetes.

My disclaimer is the same thing I've been spouting since blog day 1: Diabetes is a terrible chronic illness to live with. Every fiber of my pancreas, and being, hates it. Diabetes interrupts my life at the most inconvenient of times - during tests, in the middle of work surrounded by children who all want balloons (at.the.same.time.), during walking when I have run out of snacks.
Worrying about where I'm going to get my insulin or test strips from is stressful. It effects almost every decision in my life. Travel is complicated - so is my future career. Will my career provide insurance? How long can I stay out of the country on a trip could be effected - what if I have an emergency? Will my medication be ok? I have to take into account how certain activities will effect my blood sugar - certain exercises and where I inject. Adjust for changing insulin needs in my body. Count every carbohydrate I eat.

But Diabetes, like it or not, has become an integral part of my life. And trust me, when I say that it is integral, I mean I am certain that everyone that knows me is probably sick of my soapboxes on Diabetes, Diabetes treatment, insurance for Diabetics, exercise with Diabetes, what I don't eat with Diabetes, how T1 is different than T2, new clinical trials, etc., etc., etc.
But if you have a disease ticking alongside your life, present in your mind and in your body as often as you blink, and has become that close a part of you -

That's kind of just what happens.

And I'm thankful, in a way. Because it has changed me. I think twice about things. I focus heavily on my health and the things I put into my body. I have an issue to stand for. Something to fight for. I have hope for a cure. I wear blue on World Diabetes Day. I get to have cool experiences where I meet T1's in public or simply have the satisfaction/excitement of seeing someone with an insulin pump or CGM on their person. I am part of a Diabetes Online Community that lends amazing support to this disease we all fight. I can even relate to T2's, in a way, because I understand how hard it is. I'm not just telling them how important it is to check their sugar - I'm living it. This will help me as a healthcare provider someday.

Diabetes, I still hate you. I hate how you level me and turn me into a weaker version of myself. I hate the times I slump to the floor, sweaty and shaky and low, heart racing. I hate waking up in the night drenched in sweat, or the sickly sweet, dry-mouth feel of a high. Being sleep deprived in the morning from it. I hate thinking twice about you when I go out or before I exercise or giving shots in the car over bumpy roads and the big bruises the insulin shots leave on my skin and the pincushions that my finger pads are.
I hate crying over worrying if I'll have insurance or not, or dealing with the frustrations of Medicaid and trying to get coverage and trying to get fair coverage that might actually cover my medications.
I hate doing and being stressed about all of this in addition to all of the other things I am stressed in life about.
I hate feeling as though my life is lived in a glass box and I am trapped. Everyone can see me but they don't know what it's like to have the wall of an invisible chronic illness separating my life experience from theirs, or how quietly, hellishly frustrating it is. T1 Diabetes is a personal hell from which you can never escape - you either live with it, or you die from it.

And that's a solemn thing.

Diabetes turns us all into fighters. Not even because we want to be, but suddenly, we are thrust into a world where we have to be. We fight for ourselves, because no matter how sick your body is telling you you are, you want to spend your days fighting it, telling it it's not so that you don't become sicker. You want to live life just as much to the fullest as everyone else living without a chronic illness. You don't want to be cheated of that life just because you got the short end of the genetic chromosome/environmental factor/whatever causes T1 Diabetes stick.
We fight hard, and we fight relentlessly, because Diabetes takes no break. If you take a break, your body will only suffer more - and the results can be there in mere minutes, hours. It only takes one skipped or forgotten insulin dose to send your sugar skyrocketing, or one forgotten insulin pen to ruin all your plans, or one bruise on your leg or abdomen to make you self conscious about wearing a swimsuit.

We don't become fighters because we want to be, but eventually Diabetes makes you a stronger fighter than you ever were before. You become stronger than you ever thought possible. You push your limits.Even when you are weak, even when this disease tries to break you, everyone that wakes up every morning, day after day with a chronic disease - with any illness or chronic disease - is making a choice to give it their all. We don't do it for recognition, most of us don't get recognition at all. We just do what we do because we share a common thing: a love for life, and a thankfulness for it that transcends the difficulties and pushes us forward. I believe that anyone that has to fight this disease has at least a whisper of that common thing within them.

And me? I'm thankful for that opportunity to be a fighter. I am an advocate, an educator, a self-made expert on this disease. I am one of the mere few that has the burden of fighting it, but I stand for something bigger than myself for doing so.

And wow, isn't that something to be excited for and truly thankful about.

 

I Can't Do This On My Own (And I Don't Have To).

Work, school, Medication, Bills, Type 1 Diabetes.

I have a lot of stuff to do... 

and generally, if I am to give myself credit, I'd say that I'm pretty good at being an independent, self-sufficient, semi-competent adult. 

I'm 21 now - I enjoy a drink after a long day. Sometimes, I can't get my blood glucose quite right. Or I turn up the music real loud in my car and sing as tears fall down my face because I'm so overwhelmed by the sheer much-ness of it all. I make a lot of mistakes. My search for "find the most efficient way possible" leads me to cut corners or be sloppy sometimes. Most of the time I feel like a mess - but I can get things done, and I guess that's what matters.

My life isn't the hardest or the worst life you will ever hear about. But, I have a lot to handle, and have handled a lot from a young age. 

And I feel proud. I have accomplished a lot for my age. I feel I could have done more, but I look back at my accomplishments - graduating highschool with my Associates Degree, managing a business in college with my mother's guidance, starting a decently sized mutual fund at 19, getting into PT school at 20. Overcoming all of the obstacles and challenges and emotional turmoils I have been through. I've done it, I've triumphed, and I've pressed on. I see what I want from life and I go after it, and I will always do this, so long as I have fight in me left to give.

But if I was really to step back and tell you what the crux of it all was, my triumphs and successes and the things I have overcome really wouldn't be anything that has to do with me.

Because I didn't do all of this. I couldn't have done any of it on my own. From a young age, my mother guided me and taught me to work hard to achieve my goals. She pushed me past my limits, challenging me to succeed when I was simply resigned to settle for failure. She never let me do that. My mother showed me drive, passion and excellence in everything that I do. My mother has a will of steel, and she taught me to live the same. She doesn't settle - she sets out and she succeeds or she fails trying. And even then, if it doesn't work out, she's already planning out the next steps of what needs to be done. My mother didn't baby me. My family hasn't always been able to help me the most financially, but what she did do was teach me something harder but infinitely more important, and that is how to be self-sufficient. She taught me a skill (entertaining at parties) and with it I have done better than I ever would have done had she simply paid the way for me. I learned how to make something from very little - and with that skill, I know that I will always be okay. We have our ups and downs, but my mother is the most amazing woman I know.

I couldn't have made it into PT School without help. Naive, arrogant me applied to only two schools last year - and in light of other candidates applying to the extremely competitive programs, I was good, but I wasn't the best. When I messed up my application to Mercer and had not even an interview to show for 3 years of striving to get into this program, I resigned myself to the fact that I just wasn't going to grad school this year. My chances of getting into UCF were slim. I walked into work at Wesleyan one day and my boss Mary Anne sent me to her supervisor Steve, the VP of Admissions at Wesleyan. I knew Steve fairly well - I'd worked in the same office for 3 years now. Steve wrote a letter tot he VP at Mercer, who wrote a letter to the supervisor of the PT program at Mercer. Magically, when I had been told there was no hope of obtaining an interview - it was too late after I had failed to properly submit my application - I received a letter inviting me to the last interview a week from then. 

I made a huge mistake and maybe I didn't even deserve to get into PT school - but with the help of others, it happened, and here I am almost a year later.

I can think of so many other times when I couldn't have made it through - or wouldn't have wanted to - without others pulling me through. When I got Diabetes, my friends and family rallied around me and supported me. They visited me in the hospital, wrote on my Facebook wall, gave me positive feedback on my blog. The proverbial question I asked in the hospital then went from "Sure I'm alive, but with a disease like Diabetes is this life even worth living?" to, "Why would I ever let Diabetes stop me from living my one life to the best and fullest?". When I got in my car accident last year, my family helped me get back on my feet (albeit it was a rocky experience). My friends gave me rides, encouraged me and sent me uplifting messages. My friends and family and complete strangers reinforce, build me up and uplift me at so many twists and turns, and without them life would be truly black and white. The people that I love and the people that love me make life so worth it. I am so grateful for all of the kindnesses I have ever received, because without those big and little things, truly, I'd be nothing.

And truly, I am thankful to God, because most importantly - thanks to him I will never have to do this thing called life on my own. If I were to examine my actions, my mistakes and flaws and be solely reliant on myself then to get me through the day to day of life - I'd just as soon give up. I am inadequate, incompetent, not strong enough, not capable enough on my own to do this. But with the backing of others - and with the fact that God is my father and he promises us strength and hope in him - I know that God will never put more on my plate than I can handle. God created me with all the skills and the capacity to obtain skills through my life experiences, that I will never have to worry! Yes, even though he tells us not to be anxious, I will have my days and my moments where I am still overwhelmed, anxious, worried.

But the important thing is that I always know there is a light at the tunnel. And even in my darkest moments - in my despair, in my worry, in my overwhelmed times - the people I love and that love me are there, and God is there -

That makes all the difference, because never will I have to walk this journey called life alone.

And that's the important thing for me to remember, because although I will say that one my my best characteristics is drive and resiliency,
I remember that I fight not only for myself,
But for you guys, too. You make my life worth the fight. Strangers, and loved ones alike - living life with fellow human beings, who all struggle like myself - is both a comfort and a source of empowerment in and of itself. Thankful I am.

Happy Guy Fawkes Day, all -

- Lacy.