Let’s talk about the D…Diabetes that is.

As you would have already read, I’m a type 1 diabetic. From an outside perspective taking care of diabetes may seem like a fairly easy thing to do but in reality, it’s a complete pain. It only looks easy because we’ve had hours and even days of training in it as well as just years of taking care of ourselves under our belt.

Type 1 diabetes is where your body fails to produce insulin. That insulin is normally used to regulate your blood glucose levels. My pancreas is essentially a useless organ just chilling inside me. Taking care of diabetes is a daily thing, as well as, one that happens throughout the night. A 24/7 type of deal. Luckily, with modern medicine, it makes it somewhat easier. There are a few things diabetics continuously monitor and do throughout the day which are counting carbohydrates, making sure our glucose number is within normal range, and giving ourself insulin.

Every three months we see a doctor to make sure our A1C (a cumulative number of all the glucose numbers for the 3 months) is low and in normal range. When I was first diagnosed my A1C was in the 15’s, which is extremely high and let the doctors know I have diabetes. It lets the doctor know how we’re doing as a whole without doing the math themselves for the three months. Within normal range for a diabetic is a blood glucose of 100 to 120. Keeping a number between those levels is what we work daily to do, however, it doesn’t always go that easy. A typical day for a diabetic is that every time we eat, we check our number, count the carbohydrates, and bolus (give our self) insulin through a pump (a small device that mimics some of the ways a healthy pancreas works. It delivers continuous and customized doses of rapid-acting insulin 24 hours a day to match your body’s needs) we wear. We change where we wear the site and insulin every three days. If we bolus too much, it could lead to having a low glucose number and we need to eat food to spike it up, but at the same time, making sure it isn’t too much food that it spikes it to a high glucose number. As well, if we bolus too little insulin our number goes high and the way we handle those is by bolusing more insulin, which is done by our pump giving us the difference of what we’ve already given ourself to counteract the high number. Normally the way we check our blood glucose is by a meter which we still do about 5 to 6 times a day sometimes more depending, but we also have a CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitor) we wear that like its name, continuously checks our glucose number and speaks to our pump so we can see our number 24/7.

It, as well, alerts us on if our number trend is going high or going low so we can counteract it. Another way you can tell if your number is high or low, is because of the symptoms that come with them. When your number is high, some symptoms are headaches, tiredness, irritability, frequent urination, and increased thirst. However, some symptoms when your number is low are weakness, sweating, irritability, blurred vision, pale skin, and shaking of the hands. These are symptoms I get when I feel high or low and can vary between diabetic to diabetic.  

Diabetes doesn’t take a break, we have to always keep our minds on what it’s doing, if we’re in the normal range, and reading our bodies. It plays with your body after having a high or low and sometimes multiple highs or lows, it makes you tired. It can really affect your mood and even make you frustrated cause sometimes your number just isn’t doing what you want it to do.

Now imagine all of what I explained above just waking up every day and redoing it for the rest of your life…it gets tiring. I’ve had diabetes for 13 years, and I do take care of it, but there are definitely times I wish I could pause it for the day and just not have to worry about what it’s doing. To just eat carbs and not have to bolus for it. A lot of the time not eating something is easier than risking it spiking my number. Don’t get me wrong, I eat but I’m probably a bit more selective in what that is, some foods just don’t seem worth it. When you know you’ll have to be taking care of something for the rest of your life and there be no near full ending to it, there can be times you hate having it and wished you weren’t the one with it. I normally sleep it off and start all over again the next day with a better mind set. Kind of a restart, in a way. I think at times it’s okay to think that way but more so to get it out of your system so it doesn’t become your thinking all the time. With something that doesn’t have a cure, you can’t have a negative mind set and you can’t wake up waiting for one. All you can do is wake up, take one day at a time, and take care of it. What we don’t take care of in the present, has detrimental affects on us in the future and if I can prevent those, I will try my absolute best to do that. So, if you’re going through something, and it doesn’t have to be a daily thing, I want to encourage you to take it one day at a time. If you’re having a bad day and just wish things were different, remember, that’s okay for a little bit to get it out, but sleep it off, or just do something for yourself. It’ll be okay.

HEADS UP!! If you haven’t noticed, I’m writing about when things happened to me in order. That being said, my next post is on the accident and some pics being posted are going to be intense and graphic. I will have them at the end of the post, but wanted to give you a heads up just in case you get unsettled with open wounds and blood.