I should preface this by saying that it's Diabetes Week (8th to 14th June 2020) and so while this won't entirely depart from the mental well-being stuff I've talked about for the last three months, I was reflecting on my experiences specifically with diabetes more than usual last night.
I was trying to remember how old I was when I got got diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. I always start by telling myself it was the October of my graduate year at university as I remember it being a fairly isolating experience in many ways. But that's not true. The date I mean - it was isolating in a lot of ways. I remember trying to explain it all to a couple of my course-mates (and fellow 5-a-side colleagues) and how lower GI stuff like Shreddies would help. "Shreddies - keeps diabetes locked up til lunch" still makes me smile. But that must have been the start of my third year which was October 2001.
And that means next year will be 20 years with type 1 - half my life. After that point it'll be something that'll be the bigger part of my experiences, not the smaller part. Those 20 years without diabetes would always be a static thing, but soon that block of time will become a decreasing minority.
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| Memes for all occasions |
Looking back at the start of this adventure I was woefully ill-placed to deal with it - not that there's ever really a good time to get diagnosed with a chronic condition but still... A few ridiculous things really stand out from those first few months. I remember being told to make sure I'd eaten before playing football at university so I'd cram all sorts in before a match and wonder why I was sky high afterwards. I started off on mixed insulin so there wasn't really a concept (that I'd be told about at least) of correction doses so I just lived with it.
When I switched to basal/bolus a year or so later, that felt like a little more freedom, but I was still walking around with way too little knowledge in my head. That's diabetes knowledge for those giggling at the back... While I finally had the tools to finesse my own self-management, I didn't have the understanding. One unit for 10g of carbs seemed to work, but I'm sure it took years for me to ask what would happen if I did insulin without food and finally understand if my levels were high I could just do insulin to fix it. Seems so obvious now, but it was alien to me for so long.
And (as I gratuitously wield my crowbar) it got me thinking about other paths I'd not taken because of things I didn't know or was scared of finding out. Opportunities I didn't take, places I didn't go, girls I didn't ask out, invitations I turned down... all because I was unsure of myself or scared.
I think what it made me realise (at nearly 1am...) is that the stress and anxiety that I've really only consciously started to be aware of has actually been around for a really long time. Looking back, some "coping" mechanisms have been fairly common over the years (however cringe-worthy they were and how hard they are to let go of), some of the anxiety symptoms probably date back over 25 years.
So I think there are a lot of things I wish I'd known. All the stuff I've accumulated over nearly 20 (TWENTY) years of living with diabetes would obviously have been hugely beneficial way back in 2001. But I've been struck again by how much the mental aspects have been so important. Not just in terms of missing out on lived experience, self-confidence or self-esteem, but that overlap with managing the physical bits.
I had a conversation with someone recently about how easy it feels now to instinctively know what my insulin doses should be, and that the textbook answers don't reflect what I intrinsically know to be true about my own care. But whilst that trial and error, and learning from those mistakes has been tough at times, it feels easy in comparison to understanding and managing things that aren't tangible or don't manifest themselves as physical problems to solve.
I don't know... it makes sense to me, and if you can relate too, that's good. Happy diabetes week. Until next time
Stay safe x
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