Week Nine - Any End In Sight?

I've definitely been trying to focus on One Nice Thing over the last week and it's kinda helped to some degree.  I had a few photos printed up as part of an early... *ahem*'th birthday present and they looked exactly as I'd hoped.  It'll be nice to have those memories on show if I get round to hanging them within the next five years.

Dubrovnik from the city walls

A view of Ambleside in the Lake District

I'm also squarely looking forward to a week off at the end of this week and spending some time not thinking about email and Zoom.  If the weather holds, we've cracked it.

I also managed to have a diabetes clinic appointment over the phone which was a lot less stressful than trying to find somewhere to park at the hospital and be staring at the walls of the waiting room forever.  Nothing too major to report - still work to do to stave off more hypoglycaemia episodes but as I've said in one of these blogs before - I feel like I'm taking the rough with the smooth when it comes to diabetes right now.

My consultant talked about pump upgrades again and is desperate for me to switch to the Tandem t slim pump and basically set myself up with a closed loop system of sorts that would probably reduce the number of lows.  I'd have to give up my funded Libre and then totally self-fund a Dexcom G6 (for about £2500 a year).  I'm going to take some time to think about it properly - it's a lot of money, but potentially a big difference in quality of life.  If you're using it all together and have any insight, I'd love to hear about it.

This flip side of this week's coin is just the relentlessness of everything.  Obviously this situation is tough for everyone in different ways.  I know I've felt it mentally - some days more than others and some weeks more than others as well.

A calendar image that lined up to today's date (if not day) was a happy coincidence

Having something to aim for makes a big difference and I think that's what I certainly feel is lacking.  Most of the time I don't feel too put out by the restrictions - in fact I think it's lead to some positive changes overall that I really want to hold on to.

But there are times when being locked in that cycle of shower, eight hours of video calls, cook dinner, load/unload the dishwasher, TV, bed feels a bit like Dr Strange battling Dormammu in the time loop (yes we've watched all the MCU films).

There are definitely days where I question the futility of that - if all I'm working towards is more of the same, then is there any point in that effort?  Not in a harmful way I should probably add.  I've always tried to put as much of myself as possible into what I do and I don't feel like I want to pull back from that necessarily, but it's taking a toll right now.

I think the trick here again is to focus on the short term 'ends' and the compress the horizon for everything.  It's all an adjustment for everyone and knowing that I don't always handle the internal aspects of things like this particularly well, I should be more conscious of how I approach it.

Bank holiday next Monday so will inevitably forget to post.

Stay safe x

Week Eight - One Nice Thing

At least I think it's week eight... I know lockdown officially began on March 23rd but I'd definitely been working at home for about a week and a half before that.

Some of the days do have that sense about them and at times it definitely feels like they're merging into an amorphous blob of stuff.  Some days fly by and then others seem to draw themselves out forever.  A three-day weekend definitely helped me reset to a large degree but there's something about this situation that's exhausting.  A couple of days with no alarm and no real need to do very much or even get beyond the garden feel like they've wiped me out.  I'm fairly sure it's down to the mental effort we're expending trying to keep on an even keel.

Most of this last week's diabetes problems have been about keeping out of the red and in the black which I will admit has felt a little relentless at times.  After some extensive research over the last few days, I think I'm close to publishing a paper confirming that bourbon biscuits have little to no effect on blood sugar whatsoever.  I am also implying that they therefore have no calories either...  It'll pass as it always does, but feeling like you're constantly scouring the kitchen cupboards for something to eat can be another layer on top of everything else you're trying to think about.

A couple of things sprang to mind this week.  Firstly that it's felt harder at times to maintain that 'deep breath, think before you speak' approach to communicating, whether that's at home or at work.  I think the current climate (sick of writing that) and how far we are into this way of living gets to us all at some point, and it's almost inevitable that some part of us will snap, however briefly.  It's also easy to have our head down thinking about our own situation, when the reality of it is that everyone has their own version of that too.  I'd like to think I've been generally conscious of that - what feels like 40 hours of video calls a week means you can't help but understand people's circumstances, but it's no bad thing to be more explicit about it in my thinking.

The other thing is really to think of One Nice Thing about the day and try and hold on to it.  After StressControl I tried to write three positive things down from each day before I went to bed as a reminder that the stress and anxiety was always balanced out by other things.  I've lowered the bar a fair bit for the time being, but hoping it continues to make some small difference.

After a couple of glorious days, the weather turned yesterday so we had some ultimate comfort food in meat and potato pie

This was the sunset on Thursday after my dad got taken to hospital (and thankfully discharged with antibiotics about 8 hours later)

Managed to order some Lego that's usually only available from one shop at Legoland in Denmark - they've made it available online due to COVID

It's still a massive set of ups and downs and it's the same for everyone I talk to as well.  In some sense, it's hard to take comfort from the fact that everyone is on this relentless roller coaster, but at the same time it's kinda reassuring that everyone can almost certainly relate to how you're feeling at any given moment, even if it remains largely unsaid.

Safe safe alert safe x

Week Seven - Ups and Downs

On their debut album 'Love, And Other Catastrophes" the aptly named Skint & Demoralised sang about major highs, manic lows and that's a little what this last week has felt like.

When it's been good, it's been really good.  When it's been bad, well... it's been bad.

Having diabetes has felt like a lot more of a job this last week as you'll see below.  Yesterday in particular ended up with me curled up, asleep on the sofa at about 3pm with a nice hypo headache.

I talked about distractions last week and that's still the name of the game right now.  A combination of things mean that I worked til 9:30pm - 10pm three days running (having stopped for dinner and half a film).  Normally I'd be cursing even the need to work after about 6pm, let alone actually doing it, but it felt strangely calm - almost relaxing - to have something to keep my find focused.  It also had the benefit of making me feel almost productive at some point too.

I talked a bit about managing the voices/thoughts last week too and that's still been very challenging at times, particularly when trying to switch off at night.  I'd taken to kind of half going to bed, but staying up til gone midnight some nights over the last few weeks just so I could exhaust myself.  The problem with that is that it's a great short-term fix but long term you end up asleep on the sofa on a Sunday afternoon.

And I think that's almost been a lot of lockdown in a nutshell - some of the short term difficulties can be managed, but I'm not sure I've figured out how to do it in a sustainable way that doesn't just create a different problem to solve another time.

Worth mentioning a few of the highlights as well just to remember the highs as well as the lows:

1. Made Australian Crunch over the weekend - proper throwback to school dinner desserts and one of the best chocolate things going (Galaxy milk choc on top for best effect)
2. Bought a new Xbox and played a lot of Lego Marvel Superheroes with Violet
3. Managed to run 10km (with Violet on her bike) on Sunday - first time over that distance in a year, and awarded myself this medal from a virtual race

Finally, I know I've been really lucky to be able to call on a couple of close friends who have helped me be objective and rational (for me at least) and taken the edge of some of those manic times. I won't name names, but if you're reading this and it sounds like you, it probably is.  Thanks.

I guess the message is the same.  It's hard sometimes, and lockdown life makes it harder to manage and to escape.  One of Violet's favourite quotes is this from John Lennon.  I find it hard to believe in it sometimes and it almost feels a little but trite, but to hear a 10 year old say it every so often does give you some hope

Stay safe x