Women are a popular topic in the news lately! Women's protest, women's empowerment, the birth control/abortion/etc./etc. debate... it's been interesting to watch. It started me thinking on how going to an all-women's school gave me a very unique perspective on what it is to be a woman.
I want to preface this by saying that my decision to attend Wesleyan was never actually because it was all girls'. In fact, this was almost a downside for me when I decided to attend, although I found it interesting and unusual for most colleges of today. I chose Wesleyan because they had wonderful scholarship opportunities, amazingly small class sizes, the faculty and staff was warm, personable and easy to get in touch with and, to be totally and fairly honest, because Wesleyan was in the same city as a guy I was dating at the time (judge as you desire haha).
I heard a lot of mixed things about Wesleyan prior to attending. "It's for Lesbians," and, "There's so much drama! Stay away!" and, "It's a really amazing school." "I can't see why it wouldn't be your first choice." And, from Grandpa, a solid nod of approval, "I like that it's all women. No men to bother you!"
Honestly, it's been the years following my graduation that I've really started to garner a deep and abiding appreciation for the education I received in undergrad. I have come to love Wesleyan more and more as the years have gone on. Wesleyan was full of its ups and downs. It's true, it was very small (less than 700 or so students) meaning fewer fancy amenities, so-so cafeteria food, and not really your "traditional" party or fancy college experience. It was quiet, downright ghost town-ey sometimes, and the weekends even more so. Geese wandered around campus and you could take quiet walks in the arboretum. Foggy mornings walking to class and quiet hallways. The dorms were cute and old and kind of retro, the library was no bigger than many small public libraries. The gym was tiny and no frills, the pool literally looked like something that belonged at the Biltmore estate, and forget Chick-fil-a or Starbucks on campus.
But Wesleyan gave me something a lot better than fancy amenities, quite honestly. Being a female majoring in science, my class sizes were never bigger than about 20-30 students at any given time. Some classes had only 8-10 students. This meant incredible one-on-one time with professors, and it meant we got to do hands-on techniques that some schools with bigger class sizes couldn't do (such as breed real fruit flies and hook up still-beating turtle hearts onto EKG's). It meant, if I had a problem with financial aid or classes, I could just walk in to see who I needed to without having to take a ticket and wait 2-3 hours. And I knew those people personally. They cared about my problems. My professors knew me by name. If I skipped class and they saw me on campus later, they'd hound me about it. The people in the cafeteria knew you and what you usually ate.
And other really unique things: class dynamic are just different when there are no males in the classroom. I'm not saying that having males is a bad thing. But honestly, it was such a safe and comforting space to be surrounded by nothing but other fellow, driven, hardworking females there simply to better themselves. There was less pressure to focus on looks, more space to excel academically. There was a sense of camaraderie and willingness to help your fellow women out. Women felt safe walking around campus - and it was a welcoming environment to really focus on education, not just boys or parties or whatever. There was a sense of empowerment that I think you can only get by interacting with other strong, focused, driven women.
Honestly, while I was going to Wesleyan, I wasn't really big on feminism. I never really have been. But over the years, I suppose I've come to realize that I do support feminism of a kind - recognizing the glass ceiling is there. Supporting fellow women in their endeavors. Supporting women who seek high level professions. Striving to rise up in a career of my choosing with no limitations. I'm a person that seeks success because I want it - not just a woman seeking success. I recognize that women from all different walks of life have different goals and ideals, whether it's stay at home motherhood, doctors, lawyers, CEO's, small business owners, travelers, you name it. There's so much beauty and freedom to pursue what you want. And it's all thanks to brave women in past decades who fought to help make the workplace more welcome for people like me who want to have successful careers. We aren't striving to simply catch up to men. We are equals who will not be held back. Feminism doesn't have to be what you think of it at its extreme: it can just as much be, being thankful for how women have fought for us over the years to change the workplace and give women all the opportunities that any person should have or want. That's why it's important.
Wesleyan helped me see the importance of femininity and womanhood all while empowering me to simply be the best person I could be. It built my focus, drive and confidence and helped provide an atmosphere that felt safe to grow as a person. It encouraged a good balance of femininity and grace, while encouraging drive and passion. Looking back, I had a really special experience, being empowered by fellow women of all races, nationalities and walks of life, striving for their own version of greatness in their lives, striving to be the best they could be. No, it wasn't the typical college experience... but to me, it was the only one I would have wanted. Yes, I had to get used to all-male classes again when I went to grad school (lol).
But Wesleyan was one of a kind, and it made me who I am today: a career-focused, proud, passionate woman who learned so much through having caring professors who took the time to really teach and push me. It was a comfortable place to let myself grow during the transition from a teenager to an adult.
It made me the kind of woman I always wanted to be, and I will always be proud to say I went to an all-women's college!
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
Monday, February 13, 2017
Starving in the Midst of Plenty.
Let me tell you a little something about Diabetes.
It makes you lose weight. Well, sort of. When you picture Diabetes, it seems almost counter-intuitive to think that. You think of sugar and the obesity epidemic and it doesn't seem like that would mesh with weight loss at all. Would it?
Insulin is so great because prior to it, diabetes - type 1, anyways - was a virtual death sentence. Kids would be ordered on bed rest with 200-400 calorie a day diets, while they wasted away slightly less slowly because they weren't taking in any carbs. The carbs that break down into sugar, unable to get inside of cells to give the body energy, caused the body to burn anything else it had for energy. They would waste away until there was nothing left for their body to burn, skeletons of who they once were.
They called it "starving in the midst of plenty".
That's poignant and sad. It always has been to me. It humbles me to think that, if it weren't for modern medicine - that could have been me. I thought my life was horrible when I was diagnosed. And it was a mountain to climb, that's true. But at least I had a chance at life.
I have done a lot of research on Diabetes over the years. They always said to choose research projects and topics that you found interesting, and Diabetes was something I always wanted to know more about. Diabetes was something I could talk about. Educate about. Learn something else about.
That's how I learned about Diabulimia.
(Wait, is that a made up word? No. See the above link). It's not a made up word. It's a new term, not yet recognized as a medical or psychiatric condition. But I found it important as soon as I learned about it. Why? Because diabetes effects a lot of teens. Insulin makes it easy to gain weight. And I know this condition can effect many a person with T1D, especially young women. And the concept of purposely witholding insulin for weight loss seemed crazy to me. But it made so much sense. You see, chronic illness is hard. It's impossibly hard. I probably don't need to tell any of you that.
Invisible chronic illnesses are hard in ways that noninvisible illnesses may not be. Why? Because people brush them off. They don't take you seriously. They don't see the waking up low in night sweats and shakes at night. Crawling to the kitchen for food. Feeling low in the middle of talking to people and having your world just zero in on how awful you feel while you try to find the least obvious way to take care of your low and still let life go on. The cotton mouth from the highs. Trying your hardest to make your blood sugar great but still failing... the bruises... the insulin injections... the pharmacy bills... feeling as though no one understands but yourself and others like you. Feeling, even if just a little bit, isolated from humanity because of an illness you never asked for. Feeling cheated out of something you should have had (such as a healthy pancreas). Diabetes is hard too, because of the stigma. Did they cause it themselves? Their A1C is high. They're noncompliant. It's because they're lazy. Clearly they're trying to kill themselves. They just don't try hard enough.
You don't try hard enough.
You.
Aren't.
A.
Good.
Enough.
Pancreas.
Even though you should have had one that worked in the first place. Even though you never get a break... ever. I even did a presentation on diabulimia once. "The eating disorder no one knows about."
What point am I trying to get at here? That... you'll rarely, if ever, see anyone with a chronic illness that doesn't have some kind of underlying mental issues because of it. Myself included.
I would like to say that I would never purposely skip insulin as a coping mechanism or to lose weight or hurt myself in some way. I'd like to say that, as a healthcare professional especially, who sees the result of not caring for your diabetes almost everyday in patients of my own, that I know better.
This would all be a lie though. A couple months back, I wrote a blog post about how, at my lowest, I weighed 93 pounds because I purposely worked out and restricted my diet to 600 calories a day. I'd be lying if I didn't say that things like that - even if you recognize you have a problem - are still disorders, or problems, of some sort, and they stick with you. Forever. In the back of your head. Diabetes wasn't always the hardest transition for me diet-wise because I was already eating healthy in the first place. My past history and love/hate relationship with food has always remained with me.
I fell into a couple of difficult months this past/last year due to life - and I'll admit, part of my coping mechanism was not caring for my diabetes properly. Just not caring. Not giving insulin for this, or not counting it right, or waiting until the next morning to correct, or forgetting to give insulin for hours, or going a day without checking my blood sugar...I just stopped caring. I did it on purpose for 2 weeks. "To lose 5 lbs. Then I'll be done." And then I tried to fix it, but 2 weeks turned into burnout. "I'm tired of this disease anyways... I'm over it." 2 weeks turned into months of burnout... and then I tried to fix my levels. But I just couldn't seem to get them back to normal. It turned into months of horrible control that I never meant to happen... all because I wanted to lose a few pounds.
That's why going to the doctor was important for me last week. I guess I needed that talk. "Those levels are deadly," I remember him saying, holding up my glucometer with the number "436" flashed on it from the night before. I had burst into tears. I knew they were deadly. This disease was deadly. To your body. Your health. Your happiness, sometimes.
Sometimes, you just get tired. Or you get upset. Sometimes you do dumb things to lose 5 pounds. Sometimes you slip up and your best efforts seem like they get you no where...
You're human. It's going to happen. I'm human.
But I knew I needed to change. Not giving insulin is stupid. Not trying is just as stupid. Yes, Diabetes, managing it properly, takes a lot of effort. It sucks some days. But you know what else sucks? Not just being cheated out of a health pancreas, but a healthy rest of your life. And I don't want to be cheated out of that.
Anyways, I guess the purpose of this post is just to say that I've learned a lot about myself in the past few months. It's not easy to share my struggles, but I hope it can be used for a purpose. I've gotten burnout, recovered, and I'm back on the road to trying to manage my Diabetes well again. But for all the people out there, that also struggle with diabetes - or hell, with something - any problem - I write this because... I think it's important to understand that it's never just a matter of "oh well, you've got things under control now though, right?" People always ask me that and I hate that question because diabetes isn't static. And no problems are static. It's always a careful scale, a balance, that you have to create...and work hard to maintain. And no one has it all down perfect. You're going to slip up. Hey, I slip up. It's a constant journey, a give and take, and you're going to burnout and want to give up sometimes, but you need those moments to come along and snap you back into feeling ready to push through again. It's not easy. And you can spend a lot of time feeling upset at yourself for messing up or not doing things right, and dwell on the negatives, sure. But I think if you realize that we all as humans struggle too, with all our own problems... then hey. It's going to be okay. You're going to make it through this. Maybe a little more beat up than before, but you'll have learned something and come back stronger for next time. Keep on pushing on, or waiting for those moments to give you the shove you need to push again. Don't give up. Persevere.
Even when I go through rough times, which I am apt to do... I'll always keep trying to do this. Persevere. I hope it will make me a strong and wise woman when I am older. And, I hope I will be a healthy one, for having learned the hard lessons now that I need to take care of myself, no matter how hard the struggle. We're all learning more, each and every day. Embrace it. Mistakes and all.
It makes you lose weight. Well, sort of. When you picture Diabetes, it seems almost counter-intuitive to think that. You think of sugar and the obesity epidemic and it doesn't seem like that would mesh with weight loss at all. Would it?
Insulin is so great because prior to it, diabetes - type 1, anyways - was a virtual death sentence. Kids would be ordered on bed rest with 200-400 calorie a day diets, while they wasted away slightly less slowly because they weren't taking in any carbs. The carbs that break down into sugar, unable to get inside of cells to give the body energy, caused the body to burn anything else it had for energy. They would waste away until there was nothing left for their body to burn, skeletons of who they once were.
They called it "starving in the midst of plenty".
I have done a lot of research on Diabetes over the years. They always said to choose research projects and topics that you found interesting, and Diabetes was something I always wanted to know more about. Diabetes was something I could talk about. Educate about. Learn something else about.
That's how I learned about Diabulimia.
(Wait, is that a made up word? No. See the above link). It's not a made up word. It's a new term, not yet recognized as a medical or psychiatric condition. But I found it important as soon as I learned about it. Why? Because diabetes effects a lot of teens. Insulin makes it easy to gain weight. And I know this condition can effect many a person with T1D, especially young women. And the concept of purposely witholding insulin for weight loss seemed crazy to me. But it made so much sense. You see, chronic illness is hard. It's impossibly hard. I probably don't need to tell any of you that.
Invisible chronic illnesses are hard in ways that noninvisible illnesses may not be. Why? Because people brush them off. They don't take you seriously. They don't see the waking up low in night sweats and shakes at night. Crawling to the kitchen for food. Feeling low in the middle of talking to people and having your world just zero in on how awful you feel while you try to find the least obvious way to take care of your low and still let life go on. The cotton mouth from the highs. Trying your hardest to make your blood sugar great but still failing... the bruises... the insulin injections... the pharmacy bills... feeling as though no one understands but yourself and others like you. Feeling, even if just a little bit, isolated from humanity because of an illness you never asked for. Feeling cheated out of something you should have had (such as a healthy pancreas). Diabetes is hard too, because of the stigma. Did they cause it themselves? Their A1C is high. They're noncompliant. It's because they're lazy. Clearly they're trying to kill themselves. They just don't try hard enough.
You don't try hard enough.
You.
Aren't.
A.
Good.
Enough.
Pancreas.
Even though you should have had one that worked in the first place. Even though you never get a break... ever. I even did a presentation on diabulimia once. "The eating disorder no one knows about."
What point am I trying to get at here? That... you'll rarely, if ever, see anyone with a chronic illness that doesn't have some kind of underlying mental issues because of it. Myself included.
I would like to say that I would never purposely skip insulin as a coping mechanism or to lose weight or hurt myself in some way. I'd like to say that, as a healthcare professional especially, who sees the result of not caring for your diabetes almost everyday in patients of my own, that I know better.
This would all be a lie though. A couple months back, I wrote a blog post about how, at my lowest, I weighed 93 pounds because I purposely worked out and restricted my diet to 600 calories a day. I'd be lying if I didn't say that things like that - even if you recognize you have a problem - are still disorders, or problems, of some sort, and they stick with you. Forever. In the back of your head. Diabetes wasn't always the hardest transition for me diet-wise because I was already eating healthy in the first place. My past history and love/hate relationship with food has always remained with me.
I fell into a couple of difficult months this past/last year due to life - and I'll admit, part of my coping mechanism was not caring for my diabetes properly. Just not caring. Not giving insulin for this, or not counting it right, or waiting until the next morning to correct, or forgetting to give insulin for hours, or going a day without checking my blood sugar...I just stopped caring. I did it on purpose for 2 weeks. "To lose 5 lbs. Then I'll be done." And then I tried to fix it, but 2 weeks turned into burnout. "I'm tired of this disease anyways... I'm over it." 2 weeks turned into months of burnout... and then I tried to fix my levels. But I just couldn't seem to get them back to normal. It turned into months of horrible control that I never meant to happen... all because I wanted to lose a few pounds.
That's why going to the doctor was important for me last week. I guess I needed that talk. "Those levels are deadly," I remember him saying, holding up my glucometer with the number "436" flashed on it from the night before. I had burst into tears. I knew they were deadly. This disease was deadly. To your body. Your health. Your happiness, sometimes.
Sometimes, you just get tired. Or you get upset. Sometimes you do dumb things to lose 5 pounds. Sometimes you slip up and your best efforts seem like they get you no where...
You're human. It's going to happen. I'm human.
But I knew I needed to change. Not giving insulin is stupid. Not trying is just as stupid. Yes, Diabetes, managing it properly, takes a lot of effort. It sucks some days. But you know what else sucks? Not just being cheated out of a health pancreas, but a healthy rest of your life. And I don't want to be cheated out of that.
Anyways, I guess the purpose of this post is just to say that I've learned a lot about myself in the past few months. It's not easy to share my struggles, but I hope it can be used for a purpose. I've gotten burnout, recovered, and I'm back on the road to trying to manage my Diabetes well again. But for all the people out there, that also struggle with diabetes - or hell, with something - any problem - I write this because... I think it's important to understand that it's never just a matter of "oh well, you've got things under control now though, right?" People always ask me that and I hate that question because diabetes isn't static. And no problems are static. It's always a careful scale, a balance, that you have to create...and work hard to maintain. And no one has it all down perfect. You're going to slip up. Hey, I slip up. It's a constant journey, a give and take, and you're going to burnout and want to give up sometimes, but you need those moments to come along and snap you back into feeling ready to push through again. It's not easy. And you can spend a lot of time feeling upset at yourself for messing up or not doing things right, and dwell on the negatives, sure. But I think if you realize that we all as humans struggle too, with all our own problems... then hey. It's going to be okay. You're going to make it through this. Maybe a little more beat up than before, but you'll have learned something and come back stronger for next time. Keep on pushing on, or waiting for those moments to give you the shove you need to push again. Don't give up. Persevere.
Even when I go through rough times, which I am apt to do... I'll always keep trying to do this. Persevere. I hope it will make me a strong and wise woman when I am older. And, I hope I will be a healthy one, for having learned the hard lessons now that I need to take care of myself, no matter how hard the struggle. We're all learning more, each and every day. Embrace it. Mistakes and all.
Monday, February 6, 2017
An Important Day.
Writing this post isn't easy. As you'll hear is a general theme for me, it can be hard to open up and admit your life isn't perfect. Mine certainly isn't... it's far from it. And I'm as far from a good patient sometimes as I can be.
That being said, today was an important day for me. Today was my first endocrinologist appointment since August 2014. Yes, you read that right. It's been two and a half years since I have seen a doctor for my condition. My last endocrinologist appointment ended in tears. I waited months to see a doctor, only to be berated for my 7.0% A1C and for not having seen a doctor in the last 6 months (I lived in a different state for college and I waited 3 months to see that doctor). My endocrinologist made my cry, told me I was a terrible patient, and forgot to prescribe me insulin. I never went back to her. It was the following month that I aged out of the Medicaid system. Paying out of pocket for a speciality doctor was expensive, insulin is more than $200 a bottle, and the school insurance, which didn't cover a great deal of the medications I needed at all, was so expensive that I'd have had to take a second, private loan out just to pay for it because it exceeded the amount of federal loans that I could take out (school is expensive, just fyi). So... I decided to just use the insulin I had saved up from the past few years. My pediatric endocrinologist always let me fill the maximum prescription I could, and it was thanks to her that I had enough insulin saved up from the years to last on. I just handled it all with self management... I've always been a pretty compliant diabetic.
Yes, I understand that some people might read that and say, "well if your health was really a priority. You'd have just taken out the loans and gotten the school insurance." And I understand that. I guess I just figured that I'd be okay to use what I had and keep doing what I'd always done. Maybe I didn't prioritize enough. Maybe I should have spent the thousands to better care for myself. Villianize me or no, I just didn't want to take out all of that money in extra loans. Doctors are great, and doctors are there for you. If you have the right insurance and you can afford it. I figured that if I worked hard, I would be fine. I always knew that getting through graduate school would be a long haul and a dry spell of very little to no health care. But I ate healthy for a diabetic, stuck to my sugar free diet, and was sure to take my insulin every day. I kept my A1C below a 7 at least, which is all I could hope for for not being under the care of a doctor, I suppose.
Fast forward time. I opened the fridge after getting back from Europe. My insulin stash used to fill an entire fridge drawer, a shelf, and a butter compartment. It barely took up a corner now. I'd calculated how much insulin I would have to last me when I started graduate school, and I had calculated (roughly) enough to last me until May. I guess I had forgotten that I would need to account for waiting until August when I actually passed the boards and got a job with insurance. I didn't have enough to last me that long. I had finally bent and taken out the loans to get the school insurance this semester, and I had made an appointment back in November for the soonest I could be seen (February). So I waited the long haul until then. I had, honestly, begun to have a lot of problems. For starters, I had a lot of personal problems going on that led me to be a stressed/upset the last semester. And I had burnout... bad. For those that don't know much about burnout: basically, there just comes points in your life when you get really damn tired. Please, set your judgement aside before you think of me poorly for that. I don't really know any diabetics it hasn't happened to, I just didn't ever consider it would happen to me. But damn, if I wasn't tired. Tired of this disease taking its toll on me day in, day out. Controlling so many aspects of my life. I hated it. And so I became lax on my treatment. For seconds, I found myself giving the right amount of insulin for my food sometimes, only to have my blood sugar still be high afterwards with no clue as to why. Was it because it wasn't as potent? My insulin by now had all expired. It wasn't cloudy, but I'm sure it was less potent. I just wasn't doing great with my care, in short.
So, this morning I woke up, full of fear and apprehension that I would get yelled at for my bad blood sugar control - full of hope that I could get more insulin and perhaps not struggle these years as much as I had - and I made the drive to Emory to see the endocrinologist. I filled out paperwork and found myself waiting in the treatment room, a place I often sat in the rolling stool of myself at clinic seeing my own patients, but a place that perhaps I was never at as a patient enough. I felt a special kind of shame, being in the health care field and knowing I should take good care of myself but having failed to do so. I stripped away as much pride as I could. Part of me was worried that this endocrinologist visit would be as bad as the last one.
The doctor walked in, an older man. I hadn't been sure who to expect.
I told him how long it had been since I'd seen an endo. "Well, are you doing ok?" He asked.
"I guess...." I said, overwhelmed by all of the things I felt I couldn't express. How hard and sort of heartbreakingly difficult the last 2.5 years had been. How frustrating the health care system was. How tired I was. My meter ended up in his hand, and he flipped through my awful numbers. "I wouldn't call this ok," he said sternly. I felt ready to cry. This was going to be my last endo appointment all over again. I would have to try and find a new doctor again. I hated this. He left the room to try and get my glucose log downloaded from my cheap glucometer. I burst into tears with my husband in the room, who had sweetly come for emotional support. I hated this disease. I hated everything about it. The doctor came back to me blowing my nose into tissues. I told him the truth: I didn't have health insurance. I hadn't since I started school. I was using insulin that had been expired for 2 years. He asked me what I did. I told him I was in my last semester of PT school. "You're good, then." He typed some info into the computer. "Your job," he said, "Is to graduate, and get a job. And then get health insurance. And never let it go. And you'll be golden. Now don't be like that about this. It's going to be okay." He left while I tried to dry my eyes, and came back with his arms full of insulin samples and a new glucose meter. "This should last you a little while."
He gave me some advice about my injection sites (I wasn't rotating sites enough and the absorption was likely poor where I was injecting - try switching my sites even more and that should help me actually have the numbers to show good control when I give the right amount of insulin for my meals). And he told me that I should be on the pump.
I looked at him. "I... I don't want to be on the pump," I told him. "I really don't." He shook his head. "It's always women that say no to that," he looked at Kris as he replied. He didn't push it any further though. He had me set an appointment up with the dietitian 3 months from today and told me to try his advice. "Your job, is to take care of yourself as perfectly as you can for the next 5 years. Listen, I've never actually been able to say this before - it's always just been talk. But it's a good time to be alive. Changes are coming... and it's going to be much easier to manage this disease in 5 years. There will be closed loop systems. You're 23. Keep yourself perfect, and your life will be much easier in 5 years. It's going to be okay," he told me again. "You had a bad few years, but you're my patient now. Next time you come in - you'll be perfect."
I hoped so. My ears burned a little from the sternness I knew I deserved, but for the first time in a long time - my hands were full of samples and my heart (or pancreas?) full of hope. I had started the appointment ready to bolt out of there, but ended it actually really trusting my new doctor and actually really respecting him. I hope that this is a new leaf for me - and an end to the struggles of the last few years. I left feeling more inspired to control my blood sugars than I had in a long time. I think my burnout has officially ended, and I feel ready to work hard again. Today was a big step for me. I look back on the last few years with frustration. It's hard, being a diabetic with no health insurance. Using insulin and praying all the time you have enough to last you until you graduate and get a job with health insurance. It's hard feeling as though you're alone with a disease you never wanted. Diabetes is hard... which is why I always try to be understanding with my own patients. It's hard mentally, physically, financially. In every way. I hope today was an end to some of those especially hard times for me. Even if it just means having a little extra insulin to make it through, or a helping hand to give me advice about controlling my levels better. There's light at the end of the tunnel, and these difficult past few years? They're almost over. They're finally almost over.
That being said, today was an important day for me. Today was my first endocrinologist appointment since August 2014. Yes, you read that right. It's been two and a half years since I have seen a doctor for my condition. My last endocrinologist appointment ended in tears. I waited months to see a doctor, only to be berated for my 7.0% A1C and for not having seen a doctor in the last 6 months (I lived in a different state for college and I waited 3 months to see that doctor). My endocrinologist made my cry, told me I was a terrible patient, and forgot to prescribe me insulin. I never went back to her. It was the following month that I aged out of the Medicaid system. Paying out of pocket for a speciality doctor was expensive, insulin is more than $200 a bottle, and the school insurance, which didn't cover a great deal of the medications I needed at all, was so expensive that I'd have had to take a second, private loan out just to pay for it because it exceeded the amount of federal loans that I could take out (school is expensive, just fyi). So... I decided to just use the insulin I had saved up from the past few years. My pediatric endocrinologist always let me fill the maximum prescription I could, and it was thanks to her that I had enough insulin saved up from the years to last on. I just handled it all with self management... I've always been a pretty compliant diabetic.
Yes, I understand that some people might read that and say, "well if your health was really a priority. You'd have just taken out the loans and gotten the school insurance." And I understand that. I guess I just figured that I'd be okay to use what I had and keep doing what I'd always done. Maybe I didn't prioritize enough. Maybe I should have spent the thousands to better care for myself. Villianize me or no, I just didn't want to take out all of that money in extra loans. Doctors are great, and doctors are there for you. If you have the right insurance and you can afford it. I figured that if I worked hard, I would be fine. I always knew that getting through graduate school would be a long haul and a dry spell of very little to no health care. But I ate healthy for a diabetic, stuck to my sugar free diet, and was sure to take my insulin every day. I kept my A1C below a 7 at least, which is all I could hope for for not being under the care of a doctor, I suppose.
Fast forward time. I opened the fridge after getting back from Europe. My insulin stash used to fill an entire fridge drawer, a shelf, and a butter compartment. It barely took up a corner now. I'd calculated how much insulin I would have to last me when I started graduate school, and I had calculated (roughly) enough to last me until May. I guess I had forgotten that I would need to account for waiting until August when I actually passed the boards and got a job with insurance. I didn't have enough to last me that long. I had finally bent and taken out the loans to get the school insurance this semester, and I had made an appointment back in November for the soonest I could be seen (February). So I waited the long haul until then. I had, honestly, begun to have a lot of problems. For starters, I had a lot of personal problems going on that led me to be a stressed/upset the last semester. And I had burnout... bad. For those that don't know much about burnout: basically, there just comes points in your life when you get really damn tired. Please, set your judgement aside before you think of me poorly for that. I don't really know any diabetics it hasn't happened to, I just didn't ever consider it would happen to me. But damn, if I wasn't tired. Tired of this disease taking its toll on me day in, day out. Controlling so many aspects of my life. I hated it. And so I became lax on my treatment. For seconds, I found myself giving the right amount of insulin for my food sometimes, only to have my blood sugar still be high afterwards with no clue as to why. Was it because it wasn't as potent? My insulin by now had all expired. It wasn't cloudy, but I'm sure it was less potent. I just wasn't doing great with my care, in short.
So, this morning I woke up, full of fear and apprehension that I would get yelled at for my bad blood sugar control - full of hope that I could get more insulin and perhaps not struggle these years as much as I had - and I made the drive to Emory to see the endocrinologist. I filled out paperwork and found myself waiting in the treatment room, a place I often sat in the rolling stool of myself at clinic seeing my own patients, but a place that perhaps I was never at as a patient enough. I felt a special kind of shame, being in the health care field and knowing I should take good care of myself but having failed to do so. I stripped away as much pride as I could. Part of me was worried that this endocrinologist visit would be as bad as the last one.
The doctor walked in, an older man. I hadn't been sure who to expect.
I told him how long it had been since I'd seen an endo. "Well, are you doing ok?" He asked.
"I guess...." I said, overwhelmed by all of the things I felt I couldn't express. How hard and sort of heartbreakingly difficult the last 2.5 years had been. How frustrating the health care system was. How tired I was. My meter ended up in his hand, and he flipped through my awful numbers. "I wouldn't call this ok," he said sternly. I felt ready to cry. This was going to be my last endo appointment all over again. I would have to try and find a new doctor again. I hated this. He left the room to try and get my glucose log downloaded from my cheap glucometer. I burst into tears with my husband in the room, who had sweetly come for emotional support. I hated this disease. I hated everything about it. The doctor came back to me blowing my nose into tissues. I told him the truth: I didn't have health insurance. I hadn't since I started school. I was using insulin that had been expired for 2 years. He asked me what I did. I told him I was in my last semester of PT school. "You're good, then." He typed some info into the computer. "Your job," he said, "Is to graduate, and get a job. And then get health insurance. And never let it go. And you'll be golden. Now don't be like that about this. It's going to be okay." He left while I tried to dry my eyes, and came back with his arms full of insulin samples and a new glucose meter. "This should last you a little while."
He gave me some advice about my injection sites (I wasn't rotating sites enough and the absorption was likely poor where I was injecting - try switching my sites even more and that should help me actually have the numbers to show good control when I give the right amount of insulin for my meals). And he told me that I should be on the pump.
I looked at him. "I... I don't want to be on the pump," I told him. "I really don't." He shook his head. "It's always women that say no to that," he looked at Kris as he replied. He didn't push it any further though. He had me set an appointment up with the dietitian 3 months from today and told me to try his advice. "Your job, is to take care of yourself as perfectly as you can for the next 5 years. Listen, I've never actually been able to say this before - it's always just been talk. But it's a good time to be alive. Changes are coming... and it's going to be much easier to manage this disease in 5 years. There will be closed loop systems. You're 23. Keep yourself perfect, and your life will be much easier in 5 years. It's going to be okay," he told me again. "You had a bad few years, but you're my patient now. Next time you come in - you'll be perfect."
I hoped so. My ears burned a little from the sternness I knew I deserved, but for the first time in a long time - my hands were full of samples and my heart (or pancreas?) full of hope. I had started the appointment ready to bolt out of there, but ended it actually really trusting my new doctor and actually really respecting him. I hope that this is a new leaf for me - and an end to the struggles of the last few years. I left feeling more inspired to control my blood sugars than I had in a long time. I think my burnout has officially ended, and I feel ready to work hard again. Today was a big step for me. I look back on the last few years with frustration. It's hard, being a diabetic with no health insurance. Using insulin and praying all the time you have enough to last you until you graduate and get a job with health insurance. It's hard feeling as though you're alone with a disease you never wanted. Diabetes is hard... which is why I always try to be understanding with my own patients. It's hard mentally, physically, financially. In every way. I hope today was an end to some of those especially hard times for me. Even if it just means having a little extra insulin to make it through, or a helping hand to give me advice about controlling my levels better. There's light at the end of the tunnel, and these difficult past few years? They're almost over. They're finally almost over.
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
One More Semester.
This is almost it.
We're in class for one of the last times - finishing up fall semester, the last fall semester of school that I'll ever have. About to present our case reports on Friday. Applying for graduation. Applying to take the boards. Taking pictures tomorrow.
I'm surrounded by my fellow classmates, and it's weird. We've all come so far. 3 years ago, I was freaking out about whether I'd be accepted for an interview. Now, we're all preparing to go to our last clinics in January and exchanging stories about treatment and clinic sites and life in between. The 1st year physical therapy students buzz around us, the second years are practicing for their big musculoskeletal competency, and we are practicing skills that a year ago may have made me scratch my head. Talking updated CPT codes, funny ICD-10 codes, how annoying (or helpful) FOTO can be, and gait training with crutches versus gait training amputees. "Have you learned A-P mobs yet? What about strain counter strain?"
It's all delightfully familiar, and fun, and relaxed. My days have some classes and paperwork to do, but for the most part, the stress of exams, of competencies - is over. We have a clinic full of high expectations ahead of us, but we are ready for the challenge. We are making that transition from student to clinician and preparing ourselves to go out in the real world and be independent, practicing doctors of physical therapy. Next semester we will hear our names called at graduation and then we will go out into the world and live our separate lives as professionals.
My life is so much different now than it has been in the past years. I find I have more time for life skills - for every day things, such as going to see movies or play trivia in the evenings. I can paint during semesters, instead of leaving my canvas untouched for the months of classwork. All of those scary classes and long lists of requirements that I used to stare at, wondering how in the hell they were ever going to get done - they are done. I've finished them. I've run the race. I've jumped over the hurdles. PT school has sucked, it's been hard, but it's changed me. It's made me a professional. It's taken my quiet self and, yes, I'm still quiet, but it's taught me how to talk to patients and act confident and teach and to heal. Soon, I'll have a real paycheck. Soon, I'll have decent health insurance. Soon, I'll have student loan payments. Soon, I'll be managing my own caseload of patients.
It's not "eventually" anymore, or years from now. The future I've been building for years now is soon.
And it's been a long wait. It couldn't come soon enough.
We're in class for one of the last times - finishing up fall semester, the last fall semester of school that I'll ever have. About to present our case reports on Friday. Applying for graduation. Applying to take the boards. Taking pictures tomorrow.
I'm surrounded by my fellow classmates, and it's weird. We've all come so far. 3 years ago, I was freaking out about whether I'd be accepted for an interview. Now, we're all preparing to go to our last clinics in January and exchanging stories about treatment and clinic sites and life in between. The 1st year physical therapy students buzz around us, the second years are practicing for their big musculoskeletal competency, and we are practicing skills that a year ago may have made me scratch my head. Talking updated CPT codes, funny ICD-10 codes, how annoying (or helpful) FOTO can be, and gait training with crutches versus gait training amputees. "Have you learned A-P mobs yet? What about strain counter strain?"
It's all delightfully familiar, and fun, and relaxed. My days have some classes and paperwork to do, but for the most part, the stress of exams, of competencies - is over. We have a clinic full of high expectations ahead of us, but we are ready for the challenge. We are making that transition from student to clinician and preparing ourselves to go out in the real world and be independent, practicing doctors of physical therapy. Next semester we will hear our names called at graduation and then we will go out into the world and live our separate lives as professionals.
My life is so much different now than it has been in the past years. I find I have more time for life skills - for every day things, such as going to see movies or play trivia in the evenings. I can paint during semesters, instead of leaving my canvas untouched for the months of classwork. All of those scary classes and long lists of requirements that I used to stare at, wondering how in the hell they were ever going to get done - they are done. I've finished them. I've run the race. I've jumped over the hurdles. PT school has sucked, it's been hard, but it's changed me. It's made me a professional. It's taken my quiet self and, yes, I'm still quiet, but it's taught me how to talk to patients and act confident and teach and to heal. Soon, I'll have a real paycheck. Soon, I'll have decent health insurance. Soon, I'll have student loan payments. Soon, I'll be managing my own caseload of patients.
It's not "eventually" anymore, or years from now. The future I've been building for years now is soon.
And it's been a long wait. It couldn't come soon enough.
Monday, November 21, 2016
Marriage Can Bring Out the Worst in You.
Marriage can bring out the worst in you.
6 months in, I think that can sound like a horrible thing to say.
"You're supposed to be in the honeymoon phase!" "Just wait until you have REAL problems!"
Well, to that I say - people like that don't know how life works.
Life doesn't care about what phase your life is supposed to be in. It doesn't care if the problems of today are easier or harder than tomorrrows - frankly, they all seem hard in the moment.
And that is where I really started to notice that marriage could bring out the worst in me.
I spend all day trying to help people not be in pain at work, it's hard to find 5 minutes to rub my husband's calves/back/shoulders.
I have time for other people but my most inpatient, worst self can be present when it comes to hanging out around my husband.
Passive aggressively folding laundry not bothering to ask him for help because, you know, I want him to want to help, not feel like he has to help.
Sometimes he tells me the same stories and I grumble about how "I know" and skip to the ending.
I'm sometimes short with him when I shouldn't be.
When a job doesn't work out, and you sit on the couch wondering how you two are going to grapple paying bills with half as much income, and you're fighting to figure out if it's human error or if it's God's will somehow trying to teach you a lesson.
When you're trying to plan your life together, and you realize the sheer depth of what it means to have your failures and shortcomings be the others' shortcomings, and how deeply yours and your spouses choices impact each other - that's humbling. That's hard.
Yes, folks, marriage brings out the worst in you. My worst behaviour is around my husband, and I'm ashamed to say it. There have been times when I am more polite to complete strangers than I am to him.
So, this brings me on to my next caveat before you go thinking "Wow Lacy, you're a horrible person."
Yes, marriage can bring out the worst in you. It's totally true: Every little flaw you found in your friend/boyfriend/fiance before: They're going to be there and if they drove you crazy then, you can bet they'll drive you batshit crazy once you're married. My point though:
I can be a nice, polite, charming person. I can also be a positively selfish, horrid person. My husband literally loves me nonetheless. He loves me the same whether I'm that nice person he met at swing dancing, or if I'm the person bickering at him over some silly, stupid thing that only married people would find it worth their time to bicker about. I literally got in a fight with my husband because he accidentally put my princess dress in the dryer. What's amazing is: it doesn't matter. He shows me Christianly, Godly love daily through his love of me, through good times and bad, and for that, he's a wonderful leader for our tiny family of 2 people (and 5 pets.)
It is so easy to fall in love, but marriage makes you work to understand what the true meaning of love means. It means that, even when you're tired, inpatient, pissed off, short fused: you choose to love instead of knocking the other person down, even if it may be easier to do that. When you are angrier than you have ever been (and trust me, that time will come), you have to literally will yourself to forgive, even though it may seem like that person is the least deserving person in the world at that moment (trust me, they aren't). Sometimes your spouse isn't going to act like a good person. Your job is to still see the good in them. Sometimes it's easy to want to blame the person you're with for absurd things simply because it's the easy thing to do! Don't do that, either. It's not your job to knock them down. The world will knock them down. It's your job to bring them back up. Uplift them.
Marriage can bring out the worst in you. But marriage makes you work hard to be a better person so that you become a better version of yourself than you ever could be alone.
Cast aside the selfishness, the thoughts of "me". Marriage isn't the place for that. This has been hard for me. I'm such a prideful, independent person. I pride myself in having it all handled and doing things just particularly my way. (Maybe it's not perfect, but it's perfect because it's my way). Independent work - independent savings - independent drive - independent, self-made life plan - independent free will. My belongings. My stuff. My choices.
It's easy to be those things or proclaim possession of your things. What's not easy is surrendering your independence in some ways. No, ladies, this doesn't mean you have to become a subservient housewife. It means that you let someone into your life to share those things with you. Our way. Our savings. Our belongings. Our life plan. Our decisions.
It's not easy to swallow your pride and say that marriage is not an always perfect, beautiful fairytale of people who build lives together and go on fun adventures and always agree on what to watch on Netflix and always offer to rub the others' feet and do each other's laundry (lol). But you have to swallow your pride. Because that's how you become better: you set your pride aside, accept that you don't know everything, and you accept the lessons that life gives you. Let life sift you and see if you are more wheat or chaff.
Marriage isn't for you. It isn't about you. And it's easy to spout those things when you're not going through hard times and when you feel blissful and happy. But when life pounds down on you hard, and makes you make hard decisions that impact both of your lives very early on, that is when you fully come to terms with this statement. Hard times will come, early on or in between or later. They will come. They test you and show you your weak points. If you get through them, you learn together. We are married for God's glory here: our marriage is to display that glory. To mirror marriages after Christ's relationship to his bride: the church. This requires harder things of us than we ever imagined, because contrary to what society might tell you, we don't get married solely to make ourselves happy. That is not the point at all. It's to show you a great, powerful, incredible love, full of ups and downs and the decision to weather the storms come what may. That it is so difficult, humbles you to think of how much love God and Jesus have, to so freely give love despite their bride's constant shortcomings.
It's through working to build our marriage in a manner that reflects this kind of love that makes us better people. That teaches us to set our selfishness, our pride, our blame, our pettiness aside, and open our minds to something greater than we ourselves alone could ever have thought of. We do it for God - and we do it because we so greatly love the person we vowed to love forever, our best friend, our closest companion, the one person that will love you despite the good and bad, that will work with you tirelessly and help you become better. You do it because although there are hard times, there are infinitely more beautiful ones. Waking up to your loved one's smile every morning. Sharing in their victories. Driving through the mountains singing songs from the early 2000's together. Being on the same side in an argument with someone else. A dancing buddy. Your Netflix and chill partner. Laughing til you cry together. The inside jokes. Sharing one life together: a life so full of meaning you can't imagine it without the other person.
It is humbling. It is hard. It is backbreaking work, but it can also be the lightest weight to carry when you do it with your best friend. It is fun. It is beautiful.
It's the greatest journey I (we) have ever been on. And I know that despite its hard times, despite my own shortcomings and the bad sides of me: it's making me, us, better than ever before.
6 months in, I think that can sound like a horrible thing to say.
"You're supposed to be in the honeymoon phase!" "Just wait until you have REAL problems!"
Well, to that I say - people like that don't know how life works.
Life doesn't care about what phase your life is supposed to be in. It doesn't care if the problems of today are easier or harder than tomorrrows - frankly, they all seem hard in the moment.
And that is where I really started to notice that marriage could bring out the worst in me.
I spend all day trying to help people not be in pain at work, it's hard to find 5 minutes to rub my husband's calves/back/shoulders.
I have time for other people but my most inpatient, worst self can be present when it comes to hanging out around my husband.
Passive aggressively folding laundry not bothering to ask him for help because, you know, I want him to want to help, not feel like he has to help.
Sometimes he tells me the same stories and I grumble about how "I know" and skip to the ending.
I'm sometimes short with him when I shouldn't be.
When a job doesn't work out, and you sit on the couch wondering how you two are going to grapple paying bills with half as much income, and you're fighting to figure out if it's human error or if it's God's will somehow trying to teach you a lesson.
When you're trying to plan your life together, and you realize the sheer depth of what it means to have your failures and shortcomings be the others' shortcomings, and how deeply yours and your spouses choices impact each other - that's humbling. That's hard.
Yes, folks, marriage brings out the worst in you. My worst behaviour is around my husband, and I'm ashamed to say it. There have been times when I am more polite to complete strangers than I am to him.
So, this brings me on to my next caveat before you go thinking "Wow Lacy, you're a horrible person."
Yes, marriage can bring out the worst in you. It's totally true: Every little flaw you found in your friend/boyfriend/fiance before: They're going to be there and if they drove you crazy then, you can bet they'll drive you batshit crazy once you're married. My point though:
I can be a nice, polite, charming person. I can also be a positively selfish, horrid person. My husband literally loves me nonetheless. He loves me the same whether I'm that nice person he met at swing dancing, or if I'm the person bickering at him over some silly, stupid thing that only married people would find it worth their time to bicker about. I literally got in a fight with my husband because he accidentally put my princess dress in the dryer. What's amazing is: it doesn't matter. He shows me Christianly, Godly love daily through his love of me, through good times and bad, and for that, he's a wonderful leader for our tiny family of 2 people (and 5 pets.)
It is so easy to fall in love, but marriage makes you work to understand what the true meaning of love means. It means that, even when you're tired, inpatient, pissed off, short fused: you choose to love instead of knocking the other person down, even if it may be easier to do that. When you are angrier than you have ever been (and trust me, that time will come), you have to literally will yourself to forgive, even though it may seem like that person is the least deserving person in the world at that moment (trust me, they aren't). Sometimes your spouse isn't going to act like a good person. Your job is to still see the good in them. Sometimes it's easy to want to blame the person you're with for absurd things simply because it's the easy thing to do! Don't do that, either. It's not your job to knock them down. The world will knock them down. It's your job to bring them back up. Uplift them.
Marriage can bring out the worst in you. But marriage makes you work hard to be a better person so that you become a better version of yourself than you ever could be alone.
Cast aside the selfishness, the thoughts of "me". Marriage isn't the place for that. This has been hard for me. I'm such a prideful, independent person. I pride myself in having it all handled and doing things just particularly my way. (Maybe it's not perfect, but it's perfect because it's my way). Independent work - independent savings - independent drive - independent, self-made life plan - independent free will. My belongings. My stuff. My choices.
It's easy to be those things or proclaim possession of your things. What's not easy is surrendering your independence in some ways. No, ladies, this doesn't mean you have to become a subservient housewife. It means that you let someone into your life to share those things with you. Our way. Our savings. Our belongings. Our life plan. Our decisions.
It's not easy to swallow your pride and say that marriage is not an always perfect, beautiful fairytale of people who build lives together and go on fun adventures and always agree on what to watch on Netflix and always offer to rub the others' feet and do each other's laundry (lol). But you have to swallow your pride. Because that's how you become better: you set your pride aside, accept that you don't know everything, and you accept the lessons that life gives you. Let life sift you and see if you are more wheat or chaff.
Marriage isn't for you. It isn't about you. And it's easy to spout those things when you're not going through hard times and when you feel blissful and happy. But when life pounds down on you hard, and makes you make hard decisions that impact both of your lives very early on, that is when you fully come to terms with this statement. Hard times will come, early on or in between or later. They will come. They test you and show you your weak points. If you get through them, you learn together. We are married for God's glory here: our marriage is to display that glory. To mirror marriages after Christ's relationship to his bride: the church. This requires harder things of us than we ever imagined, because contrary to what society might tell you, we don't get married solely to make ourselves happy. That is not the point at all. It's to show you a great, powerful, incredible love, full of ups and downs and the decision to weather the storms come what may. That it is so difficult, humbles you to think of how much love God and Jesus have, to so freely give love despite their bride's constant shortcomings.
It's through working to build our marriage in a manner that reflects this kind of love that makes us better people. That teaches us to set our selfishness, our pride, our blame, our pettiness aside, and open our minds to something greater than we ourselves alone could ever have thought of. We do it for God - and we do it because we so greatly love the person we vowed to love forever, our best friend, our closest companion, the one person that will love you despite the good and bad, that will work with you tirelessly and help you become better. You do it because although there are hard times, there are infinitely more beautiful ones. Waking up to your loved one's smile every morning. Sharing in their victories. Driving through the mountains singing songs from the early 2000's together. Being on the same side in an argument with someone else. A dancing buddy. Your Netflix and chill partner. Laughing til you cry together. The inside jokes. Sharing one life together: a life so full of meaning you can't imagine it without the other person.
It is humbling. It is hard. It is backbreaking work, but it can also be the lightest weight to carry when you do it with your best friend. It is fun. It is beautiful.
It's the greatest journey I (we) have ever been on. And I know that despite its hard times, despite my own shortcomings and the bad sides of me: it's making me, us, better than ever before.
Monday, November 7, 2016
Can't Be Perfect.
I can’t speak for anyone else’s life, but regarding myself,
I feel as though I may spend entirely too much energy convincing myself that I
lead this “perfect” life, when in all reality, there are a lot of aspects about
my life I don’t love. Now, there’s a fine line between what I would call this
pursuit of convincing myself of perfection – and choosing to be optimistic and
happy about my life. I’m a become proponent of leading an optimistic life. I
have been through the whole depressed (teenager) phase, and it’s not an
alleyway of life that I’d like to find myself going down again. What’s more, I
find that it’s simply a better use of my time to focus on the good, the happy,
the positive – and to set myself up to operate under a mindset of what I can
change in order to make life better, versus moping about what I do not like. I
value action so much. When I am distressed, I find myself loathing talks
sometimes… they seem so useless. Like, I could be spending this time doing
instead of speculating. Talk is nice, but what can we do to fix this now?
Activity and action are such a comfort to me. That makes me a bad, inpatient
conversationalist sometimes. That makes me harsh sometimes, because I demand
action from those I love to ease my own distress. Just ask my husband – it’s
not always easy to be around me. And I feel bad about that sometimes, but just
find myself thinking that it’s so easy to get caught up and feel helpless in
this world where so much is out of your control. That sometimes – it’s simply
soothing to focus on what I’m not helpless to change.
But still – it’s so easy to fall into that “wanting to be
perfect” trap! It’s all too easy to screen your life through social media,
taking photos of the good times, occasionally being “candid” about the things
we don’t like as much, gleaming important lessons through these things for the
sake of being open and real to an audience, but still reluctant to share the
real things about us that make us feel insecure. Man, if I had a dollar for
every one of those things, I’d never have to gripe about not having insulin
again. This is something I’d like to improve about my own life, but again, I can’t
speak for anyone else’s. I just think that we’d save a lot more energy if we
were more honest and open with ourselves. Looking at my own life, I can find
prime examples of this.
My life isn’t always glamorous. Newsflash – no one’s is. And
we shouldn’t stress about it not being that way. And as a result, I get cranky,
I snap at people, sometimes I get mean. I get human. I love visiting new places
with my husband, going on adventures, but you don’t see the times I tiredly get
home after working 10 hour shifts and then I get cranky with my husband and
myself as I try and clean for the next two hours muttering about how I clean
all the time.
I’m convinced every girl has these thoughts - yeah: Sometimes,
I don’t like my weight. Or how I look. I'm constantly comparing myself to others and it makes me unhappy. I’m happier with where I am now – but I
used to be a lot skinnier, and with being on insulin, sometimes it’s just
really hard to lose weight. Or maybe it’s just me, and insulin doesn’t have as
big of a role in it as I would like? Do I like to cast blame on that? That’s an
ugly part of me I confront a lot. My husband brought me home a burrito once and
I irritatedly asked him to make me a sandwich because I didn’t want to eat the
burrito.
I’m 23 and I still spell sandwich wrong way more than I
should. And restaurant.
I like to talk about my accomplishments because I’m proud of
everything I’ve fought to do. But damn, if I don’t feel like it sometimes makes
me a worse person. The kind that forgets to call people enough or reply to
texts or have the energy to chat with them when we’re hanging out. The kind that neglects personal growth or
relationships with others in exchange for having a full schedule and trying to
climb the success ladder. My ambition gets in the way a lot. The tired days
when I feel stretched way too thin because I’ve worked 7 gigs but still have a
54-60 hour work week ahead of me interning. The times when I’m on my phone but
shouldn’t be because Kris is trying to have a conversation with me. Sometimes,
I need to learn to put the work away and just focus on the now and the people
around me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful for the work, but a lot of me seems
way too caught up on trying to accomplish things, to hang successes on my “mental”
wall. It lets things slip through the cracks on accident sometimes. The other
side of the coin I get lazy after working a lot and end up procrastinating on
assignments, or not calling customers quite on time., or being late to things I
said I’d be on time for. Life is just
hectic!
My walk with God – I forget to trust him all the time. I
rely on myself too much. Don’t like to give up control of my life. I’m
stubborn. Kris and I are now (thankfully) getting back in the habit of going to
weekly church. Not just podcasts. It’s good for us.
My internship has got me down a lot this semester because I’ll
be honest: A lot of the time I just don’t feel good enough, or smart enough, or
charismatic enough to be a good PT. Sometimes I see patients and I’m trying to
treat them and I have no idea what to
do. The stakes are higher when you’re dealing with real people. Sometimes
they tell you stories so sad you go home and sit in silence just thinking about
the weight of those words. Sometimes you feel like you’re never going to get
there, you’re never going to be that good. Sometimes I feel like I’m not making
a big enough difference, especially with difficult chronic pain patients, and I
feel as though all my schooling has gone to waste. Did I choose right? Am I in
the right profession? Will I be satisfied with it? Is it truly my calling?
Maybe it’s healthy to constantly question things. Maybe. I’ve questioned all of
these things in my pursuit of finding career fulfillment.
And Diabetes… that’s the worst of all. I want to you to
think that I’m in control. I want to be. But I’m so insecure and bad at the
Diabetes thing somedays. Somedays, I let my blood sugar run high… sometimes I
just don’t care enough. I let it run high for two weeks recently. I shouldn’t
have, but I did. I’m too tired to deal with it somedays. Yes, I know the
complications that can be a result. But burnout is a real and unfortunate thing
that all of us diabetics succumb to sometimes. The insulin store in my fridge
is getting lower than it’s ever been and I need to figure out how to get more
soon. But part of me is afraid to go see someone for it because what if they
yell at me? Tell me I’m irresponsible because I haven’t seen a doctor in over 2
years now? No insurance – no time. Fear and disappointment over knowing I
likely can’t afford a visit and the monthly insulin anyways. Maybe I just didn’t
order my priorities correctly these last few years, and I should have tried
harder to get insulin.
Bottom line – none of us, least of all me, are the perfect
person, the perfect wife, the perfect worker bee or student, the perfect Christian,
or diabetic, or whatever you may be. We all have slip ups time to time, and they
can be extremely irritating. I think it’s good to take step back and focus on
the bad along with the good sometimes though. Healthy for us. Helpful to remind
us how to become better people and prioritize what we want to change.
Sunday, September 4, 2016
I've Worked All Throughout College, Partly Because of Need, Mostly Because I'm a Workaholic.
Ever since I was a little kid - I wanted to be a princess like my mom. My mom would come into the office dress in silky light blue, hair curled in wisps around her face, black choker around her neck. I'd always ask her, "When can I be a princess?" To which she said, "Once you get your braces off."
Well, getting my braces turned out to be a long, drawn-out, 5-year procedure that involved many awkward years of school photos.
I remember my first party: I was 14, it was a glamour party, and I was able to help with the stations and getting kids dressed while my mom face painted. I had been practicing my face paint skills with my mom for the past year, and I couldn't wait to get out and start doing parties myself. I started doing princess parties, my first princess being the classic "Blue princess" aka Cinderella. "No eyeliner," my mom would say, as I got ready. My mom or my dad would still have to drive me to parties, but that was okay. The first party I ever drove myself to was an Ariel party. My mom made the balloons for me, because I couldn't twist yet. She got me a little Aquacolor face paint kit - it was tiny, like the size of a colour pencil box, but I loved that kit and was constantly practicing face painting on myself. I wanted to be good at this. I wanted to be a princess. I was proud of the work, too - I've always been a saver. I saved my first $1,000 from the time I was 12 years old, because I literally saved every bit of money that people would give me for holiday and birthday gifts. I'd meticulously save up the money I made from princess parties, not touching my bank account all through high school. (I was spoiled, of course, I didn't pay for rent or for food unless I went out. I whined about paying for gas for my truck. I wish I only paid for gas now!)
I spent 3.5 years working for my mom in highschool. The work was perfect for a highschool/college student - only on the weekend, the occasional day care during the week. It made (Better) money than a part time job you'd work all week, with only two days of work. I knew in Senior year of highschool that I was going to move up to Macon when I accepted my letter of acceptance to Wesleyan college. I talked with my mom about taking the plunge into getting my own gigs up there. Even if I only got one, two, four jobs a month - that would be some extra income I could use for necessities, food, even for fun. It was perfect. Except, I was terrible at talking to people! I dreaded phone calls. I advertised on a website called Gigmasters and I clearly remember that first summer. Gigmasters sends bids that clients submit to vendors. Once you submit your bid, it is helpful to call potential customers in order to try and book them. I acutely remember submitting my bids, awkwardly calling people I'd never met or talked to in my life and asking them if they wanted to book a face painter/princess (now balloon artist!) My mom had taught me a couple of simple balloon animals and I also took it upon myself to watch Youtube to learn more and build up my balloon animal portfolio. Terrible as I was on the phone, I managed to book maybe two or three gigs over the summer. Fall rolled around, and I started school at Wesleyan. I remember one excited afternoon where I managed to book three gigs in a day - and two gigs per weekend that August! I was so proud of myself for doing it. Gigs started to become more steady - I'd get jobs nearly ever weekend from then on out. Occasionally, my mom would take calls for me and book events. But, I started consistently placing bids for clients, calling them, writing up invoices, taking photos of my costumes, practicing balloons. I wasn't new to doing parties - I was new to entrepreneurship, but gradually, the calls started getting easier and easier.
I learned a lot of things the hard way the first year or two. Such as, take deposits - before you end up driving all the way to a party and getting cancelled on! Some people, I'd call on the phone, and they'd yell at me! Some people were just plain awkward to talk to.
But I learned, and soon started a steady stream of business that kept me working each weekend, and I'd have to take weekends off to go visit home soon enough. I started getting good reviews. Booking more. Buying costumes. Regularly ordering supplies. Talking on the phone like a pro. The business that was supposed to only be a one to four gigs a month type thing, turned into a full blown, steady stream of weekly business with 3-6 gigs a weekend. Weekdays were filled with calling potential clients between classes, doing invoices, practicing more balloons. I started advertising on some more websites. Getting better clients, bigger gigs, regulars.
The entrepreneurship and the love for what I did made me a workaholic. I loved saving up more and more money from my gigs - I was still very meticulous with saving. I loved starting to explore Georgia, seeing the state. And the fact that it was in my own hands just... I don't know, it made me assume this kind of responsibility that I felt blessed to have at my age. Running a business is hard, and it's frustrating, but it's incredibly fulfilling and gives you incredible freedom. Doing events changed my personality from someone timid and introverted - to someone still introverted, but someone that could be extroverted, that could be driven, that could be a go-getter. A business woman. I loved that title. I loved the work. I couldn't have done it without my mom, and I've been incredibly blessed for that. I couldn't have done it without the gift of my truck from my grandparents, and I'm so blessed for that, too. I'd like to say I did it all by myself, but that's a boldfaced lie. I'm still proud, though. Proud that I took those gifts and made them into something sustainable.
Give a man a fish - feed him for the day. Give him a fishing rod - feed him for a lifetime.
My mom never coddled me. Once I was out of the house, I was on my own. Even in highschool - if I wanted things - I paid for them. But my mom gave my something that I will always attest is infinitely more valuable: She gave me the skills and the tools to become a business woman, and for that, I will thank her more than I ever would have been able to had she just given or bought me things. In metaphorical terms, he gave me the fishing rod that made me a fisherman. This business has shaped my entire personality as a woman: I am fiercely independent, I live and breathe capitalism and free economics, I love researching tax policies, and I have a damn good work ethic. I've seen different cultures, developed a love for people of all backgrounds, all races. Shared in their joy at different events. Made little girls giddy with joy over their favourite princess coming to visit them. I've been to beautiful houses in rich buckhead - wealth I could never imagine - I've played the chicken dance with a birthday girl in a wheelchair in the middle of a rainy pecan tree farm in a crowded trailer. I've taken events for deaf children only to be told, to my shock, that I'm the only vendor who was willing to accept the gig. I've learned the art of people, and that's an invaluable lesson that has helped me in physical therapy. I don't worship money, but I value it for the hard work that it represents. I understand the value of it now that I've worked for it for years and years. I value the independence that saving money since high school has given me. I am not rich, but I am comfortable. I live sustainably. I am self-made, and I revel in what that freedom and knowledge has given me. To me, working gives me the freedom to do what I want when I do take time off. I can go out without worrying what my bank account balance is. I can buy nice things. No, I don't have insurance to allow me to get insulin whenever I want, but I take comfort in the fact of knowing that I have a cushion in which I know I can buy insulin when I need it.
Of course, there's a dark side to all that, too. Going through college, I did take it too far. I'd skip out on important events, or work holidays, just for an extra dollar. Friends/significant others would get mad at me for that. I was stingy for a long time before I learned balance. And what's more... I fell victim to a lot of jealousy, which is something I do not say proudly. I love that I work for all of the reasons I've stated above. But I would get jealous, watching friends be given money, or taken on shopping trips with their mom. Their parents giving them money. I shouldn't have, but I did. How come they were just given these things, while I came home Sunday nights, back aching and drained from events? I would brush people off as lazy, many times unfairly. It was so silly of me to get jealous of petty things like that - but for a long time, I did. I did get too obsessed with chasing the dollar and working, and I knew it. Even when I had saved up enough that working on weekends wasn't always necessary - I found it hard to turn down gigs and still found myself working weekends, missing dinners, being late to things I'd promised I'd be at. I skipped out on a lot of college events - candlelighting/alumnae ceremony at college, pep rallies, the like. I found myself working for the sake of working, unable to turn down people requesting me to work their parties. I'd pledge days off to people and then cave and book something at the last second. I almost killed myself in a car accident on the way to work one day. I've gotten tickets because of speeding to gigs. The idea of having no money in my bank account scared me, and I literally slaved through weekends and even skipped classes a lot just to work gigs to ensure that never happened. I'm not brilliant, but I consider myself reasonably intelligent, as I've been able to get good grades all throughout college. Before I worked every weekend, I had incredibly good grades in college - I'd make a game of memorizing the study material after reading it multiple times and see how many 100's I could get on exams in class in a row. Tests were easy. At Wesleyan, I would take a good grade - but a lower grade - in exchange for working. No, it wouldn't be the highest grade I could have gotten if I'd studied weekends. But I took pride in the fact that I could still get the grades I needed while working. In grad school, I took it a little too far - I probably needed to work less, study more, because I was distracted and the school work was harder and I made the mistake of thinking I could coast. My grades did suffer. I had to cut back on working.
If I could go back and teach young, budding entrepreneur Lacy, anything - it would be to chill the f*** out. Maybe not sacrifice so many experiences and holidays. Drive slower. Study a little harder, work a little less. Rest... don't take only one day off per month. Don't be so stingy with money. Never put money and work before relationships and people. These are all lessons I've had to learn the hard way, and I'm glad I've learned them, but I wish I had known them before. I'm a workaholic. I have my reasons for being so, and my party business is one of my proudest accomplishments. I've had so many gifts and firsthand insights into the human experience, and I'm so wealthy in those experiences, so blessed to have seen what I've seen, to have lived what I've lived. I find purpose in what I do, it's hard work, but I would never have put myself through all those long days if I wasn't passionate about the work I was doing. My advice to others? Obvious, of course - don't be like me and make work the first thing in your life. But, value your accomplishments, and value to merit of a hard days' work. Use the tools you've been gifted with, whether it's a skill your family taught you, or something else. We, as humans, are so incredibly capable and we are built to do things we never thought ourselves capable of. Work will always be hard - but if you love it, you'll find it worth it. Do something that makes you grow as a person. You are capable of more than you give yourself credit for, if you push yourself. You've got the tools to make it. Work hard. Love life. Be a fisherman.
Well, getting my braces turned out to be a long, drawn-out, 5-year procedure that involved many awkward years of school photos.
I remember my first party: I was 14, it was a glamour party, and I was able to help with the stations and getting kids dressed while my mom face painted. I had been practicing my face paint skills with my mom for the past year, and I couldn't wait to get out and start doing parties myself. I started doing princess parties, my first princess being the classic "Blue princess" aka Cinderella. "No eyeliner," my mom would say, as I got ready. My mom or my dad would still have to drive me to parties, but that was okay. The first party I ever drove myself to was an Ariel party. My mom made the balloons for me, because I couldn't twist yet. She got me a little Aquacolor face paint kit - it was tiny, like the size of a colour pencil box, but I loved that kit and was constantly practicing face painting on myself. I wanted to be good at this. I wanted to be a princess. I was proud of the work, too - I've always been a saver. I saved my first $1,000 from the time I was 12 years old, because I literally saved every bit of money that people would give me for holiday and birthday gifts. I'd meticulously save up the money I made from princess parties, not touching my bank account all through high school. (I was spoiled, of course, I didn't pay for rent or for food unless I went out. I whined about paying for gas for my truck. I wish I only paid for gas now!)
I spent 3.5 years working for my mom in highschool. The work was perfect for a highschool/college student - only on the weekend, the occasional day care during the week. It made (Better) money than a part time job you'd work all week, with only two days of work. I knew in Senior year of highschool that I was going to move up to Macon when I accepted my letter of acceptance to Wesleyan college. I talked with my mom about taking the plunge into getting my own gigs up there. Even if I only got one, two, four jobs a month - that would be some extra income I could use for necessities, food, even for fun. It was perfect. Except, I was terrible at talking to people! I dreaded phone calls. I advertised on a website called Gigmasters and I clearly remember that first summer. Gigmasters sends bids that clients submit to vendors. Once you submit your bid, it is helpful to call potential customers in order to try and book them. I acutely remember submitting my bids, awkwardly calling people I'd never met or talked to in my life and asking them if they wanted to book a face painter/princess (now balloon artist!) My mom had taught me a couple of simple balloon animals and I also took it upon myself to watch Youtube to learn more and build up my balloon animal portfolio. Terrible as I was on the phone, I managed to book maybe two or three gigs over the summer. Fall rolled around, and I started school at Wesleyan. I remember one excited afternoon where I managed to book three gigs in a day - and two gigs per weekend that August! I was so proud of myself for doing it. Gigs started to become more steady - I'd get jobs nearly ever weekend from then on out. Occasionally, my mom would take calls for me and book events. But, I started consistently placing bids for clients, calling them, writing up invoices, taking photos of my costumes, practicing balloons. I wasn't new to doing parties - I was new to entrepreneurship, but gradually, the calls started getting easier and easier.
I learned a lot of things the hard way the first year or two. Such as, take deposits - before you end up driving all the way to a party and getting cancelled on! Some people, I'd call on the phone, and they'd yell at me! Some people were just plain awkward to talk to.
But I learned, and soon started a steady stream of business that kept me working each weekend, and I'd have to take weekends off to go visit home soon enough. I started getting good reviews. Booking more. Buying costumes. Regularly ordering supplies. Talking on the phone like a pro. The business that was supposed to only be a one to four gigs a month type thing, turned into a full blown, steady stream of weekly business with 3-6 gigs a weekend. Weekdays were filled with calling potential clients between classes, doing invoices, practicing more balloons. I started advertising on some more websites. Getting better clients, bigger gigs, regulars.
The entrepreneurship and the love for what I did made me a workaholic. I loved saving up more and more money from my gigs - I was still very meticulous with saving. I loved starting to explore Georgia, seeing the state. And the fact that it was in my own hands just... I don't know, it made me assume this kind of responsibility that I felt blessed to have at my age. Running a business is hard, and it's frustrating, but it's incredibly fulfilling and gives you incredible freedom. Doing events changed my personality from someone timid and introverted - to someone still introverted, but someone that could be extroverted, that could be driven, that could be a go-getter. A business woman. I loved that title. I loved the work. I couldn't have done it without my mom, and I've been incredibly blessed for that. I couldn't have done it without the gift of my truck from my grandparents, and I'm so blessed for that, too. I'd like to say I did it all by myself, but that's a boldfaced lie. I'm still proud, though. Proud that I took those gifts and made them into something sustainable.
Give a man a fish - feed him for the day. Give him a fishing rod - feed him for a lifetime.
My mom never coddled me. Once I was out of the house, I was on my own. Even in highschool - if I wanted things - I paid for them. But my mom gave my something that I will always attest is infinitely more valuable: She gave me the skills and the tools to become a business woman, and for that, I will thank her more than I ever would have been able to had she just given or bought me things. In metaphorical terms, he gave me the fishing rod that made me a fisherman. This business has shaped my entire personality as a woman: I am fiercely independent, I live and breathe capitalism and free economics, I love researching tax policies, and I have a damn good work ethic. I've seen different cultures, developed a love for people of all backgrounds, all races. Shared in their joy at different events. Made little girls giddy with joy over their favourite princess coming to visit them. I've been to beautiful houses in rich buckhead - wealth I could never imagine - I've played the chicken dance with a birthday girl in a wheelchair in the middle of a rainy pecan tree farm in a crowded trailer. I've taken events for deaf children only to be told, to my shock, that I'm the only vendor who was willing to accept the gig. I've learned the art of people, and that's an invaluable lesson that has helped me in physical therapy. I don't worship money, but I value it for the hard work that it represents. I understand the value of it now that I've worked for it for years and years. I value the independence that saving money since high school has given me. I am not rich, but I am comfortable. I live sustainably. I am self-made, and I revel in what that freedom and knowledge has given me. To me, working gives me the freedom to do what I want when I do take time off. I can go out without worrying what my bank account balance is. I can buy nice things. No, I don't have insurance to allow me to get insulin whenever I want, but I take comfort in the fact of knowing that I have a cushion in which I know I can buy insulin when I need it.
Of course, there's a dark side to all that, too. Going through college, I did take it too far. I'd skip out on important events, or work holidays, just for an extra dollar. Friends/significant others would get mad at me for that. I was stingy for a long time before I learned balance. And what's more... I fell victim to a lot of jealousy, which is something I do not say proudly. I love that I work for all of the reasons I've stated above. But I would get jealous, watching friends be given money, or taken on shopping trips with their mom. Their parents giving them money. I shouldn't have, but I did. How come they were just given these things, while I came home Sunday nights, back aching and drained from events? I would brush people off as lazy, many times unfairly. It was so silly of me to get jealous of petty things like that - but for a long time, I did. I did get too obsessed with chasing the dollar and working, and I knew it. Even when I had saved up enough that working on weekends wasn't always necessary - I found it hard to turn down gigs and still found myself working weekends, missing dinners, being late to things I'd promised I'd be at. I skipped out on a lot of college events - candlelighting/alumnae ceremony at college, pep rallies, the like. I found myself working for the sake of working, unable to turn down people requesting me to work their parties. I'd pledge days off to people and then cave and book something at the last second. I almost killed myself in a car accident on the way to work one day. I've gotten tickets because of speeding to gigs. The idea of having no money in my bank account scared me, and I literally slaved through weekends and even skipped classes a lot just to work gigs to ensure that never happened. I'm not brilliant, but I consider myself reasonably intelligent, as I've been able to get good grades all throughout college. Before I worked every weekend, I had incredibly good grades in college - I'd make a game of memorizing the study material after reading it multiple times and see how many 100's I could get on exams in class in a row. Tests were easy. At Wesleyan, I would take a good grade - but a lower grade - in exchange for working. No, it wouldn't be the highest grade I could have gotten if I'd studied weekends. But I took pride in the fact that I could still get the grades I needed while working. In grad school, I took it a little too far - I probably needed to work less, study more, because I was distracted and the school work was harder and I made the mistake of thinking I could coast. My grades did suffer. I had to cut back on working.
If I could go back and teach young, budding entrepreneur Lacy, anything - it would be to chill the f*** out. Maybe not sacrifice so many experiences and holidays. Drive slower. Study a little harder, work a little less. Rest... don't take only one day off per month. Don't be so stingy with money. Never put money and work before relationships and people. These are all lessons I've had to learn the hard way, and I'm glad I've learned them, but I wish I had known them before. I'm a workaholic. I have my reasons for being so, and my party business is one of my proudest accomplishments. I've had so many gifts and firsthand insights into the human experience, and I'm so wealthy in those experiences, so blessed to have seen what I've seen, to have lived what I've lived. I find purpose in what I do, it's hard work, but I would never have put myself through all those long days if I wasn't passionate about the work I was doing. My advice to others? Obvious, of course - don't be like me and make work the first thing in your life. But, value your accomplishments, and value to merit of a hard days' work. Use the tools you've been gifted with, whether it's a skill your family taught you, or something else. We, as humans, are so incredibly capable and we are built to do things we never thought ourselves capable of. Work will always be hard - but if you love it, you'll find it worth it. Do something that makes you grow as a person. You are capable of more than you give yourself credit for, if you push yourself. You've got the tools to make it. Work hard. Love life. Be a fisherman.
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