November 14th is World Diabetes Day. I'd been thinking about this post from March 2016 a bit recently and wanted to offer a different perspective when talking about the hard facts of living with a chronic condition. I've lived with Type 1 diabetes for a little of 15 years and every day throws up new challenges and new things to learn.
Diabetes is sitting in your kitchen alone at 2am, eating because you've woken up shaking as your body alerts you to another episode of hypoglycaemia (low blood glucose).
Diabetes is lonely.
Diabetes is feeling like every snack and every meal is a challenge to be overcome. Counting carb values, measuring blood glucose, calculating insulin doses and sometimes just hoping for the best.
Diabetes is relentless.
Diabetes is sticking yourself with a needle about 50 times a week, whether it's finger-prick tests for glucose levels, or a cannula in your stomach to deliver insulin.
Diabetes is invasive.
Diabetes is desperately searching for a shop that sells batteries, because your insulin pump is almost our of power and without it you'll almost certainly be hospitalised inside 12 hours.
Diabetes is frantic.
Diabetes is trips to your GP, to eye screening appointments, to hospital clinics, and to pharmacies.
Diabetes is clinical.
Diabetes is that unquenchable thirst, stiff joints, that shattered feeling and the blurred vision that can only mean your blood glucose is way too high.
Diabetes is tiring.
Diabetes is doing the same thing two days in a row and getting hugely different results for reasons you can't possibly figure out.
Diabetes is frustrating.
Diabetes is being reminded of your own mortality whenever you go for a check up. Your eyesight, kidneys function, feet, and overall sensation are all things you fight to protect and preserve on a daily basis.
Diabetes is serious.
Diabetes is being stereotyped by media more concerned with headlines and sensationalism that science and fact. It's being the punchline to jokes that simply aren't funny.
Diabetes is misunderstood.
Diabetes is planning and packing a bag full of supplies (and spares) for even one night away from home, let alone a proper holiday.
Diabetes is not for the spontaneous.
Diabetes is being susceptible to your environment - knowing that the temperature, time of day, or your level of exertion (to name just three) can affect your blood glucose.
Diabetes is all encompassing.
Diabetes is treating yourself to a takeaway on a Friday night and hoping you get your insulin dose correct otherwise you'll be paying for it in the middle of the night.
Diabetes is hard.
Diabetes is a huge strain on your mental well-being - and with all these things to contend with every minute of every day, it's hardly a surprise.
Diabetes is exhausting.
Diabetes is having friends to rely on who help you through the tough days, and celebrate the successes with you.
Diabetes is a community.
Diabetes is celebrating small wins - like waking up with a 'normal' blood glucose reading which never seems to happen as often as it should.
Diabetes is a success (sometimes!)
Diabetes is an individual condition and doesn't affect everyone in exactly the same way. What works for some doesn't work for others.
Diabetes is like this (for me).
This isn't to suggest that it's doom and gloom the entire time because it really isn't. I can eat what I want, do what I want and manage to look after myself pretty well. But diabetes is very much an "invisible illness" that needs 24/7 management and that's a huge amount of self-care for anyone to take on. It might look easy but it takes a lot of hard work to make it appear that way.
If you've got this far, thanks for reading. Happy World Diabetes Day!
Showing posts with label hypoglycaemia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hypoglycaemia. Show all posts
Monday, 13 November 2017
Saturday, 25 March 2017
Sometimes it doesn't quite go to plan
Last night I had a hypo.
Nothing overly unusual there really. Whilst thankfully not a daily occurrence, low blood glucose does play a frustratingly regular part of my life. This time it was different.
Since gate-crashing the last day of the Diabetes UK Conference a few weeks ago, I've been trying (with a modicum of success) to get back into some better habits with my diabetes. As with anything, it can be easier to slip out of a routine than stick to it.
So Friday night rolled around and in some vague celebration of us both being at home on the same evening, my wife and I settled on a Chinese takeaway (hurrah!) "It'll be 45 minutes" they said. I figured this was another good opportunity to get back into the habit of pre-bolusing for my meals. Takeaway is a bugger to get right at the best of times but I figured I'd give myself a fighting chance and get out in front of it.
To cut a potentially tedious story short, the food arrived late, I didn't check my levels before I took my insulin and I had an utterly rotten hypo. I've had a few bad ones before. I've sat on the bathroom floor at 2am for an hour chomping on Glucotabs like there was no tomorrow. I've eaten jelly babies and watched my levels go down instead of up. But I've always remembered those experiences - cautionary tales are often the best right?
This one was different. I remember eating a couple of marshmallows that my wife brought me (but I don't remember eating the others she gave me from the bag). I remember accusing her of stealing my glass of water (which I had in my hand) and I remember picking my dinner back up (but don't ever remember putting it down). It was almost like an out of body experience in a way. I knew I was hypo the entire time, I remember going through the motions of fixing it all, but at the same time I feel like I can't remember any of it. The best I can liken it to was like waking up from a dream.
This isn't a sob story by any means. Just another cautionary tale to add to the list. Taking my insulin without checking my blood glucose was, at best, misguided; more likely downright idiotic. Not checking my glucose until the food arrived was equally foolish. Trying to fix a hypo with chicken chow mein is simply an experiment that need never be repeated.
It's a reminder to me, at least, how fragile the equilibrium with diabetes can be. It's the saddle point we're all subconsciously trying to ride as much as possible. It doesn't take much to knock us from that point of safety. As is often the case, my idiocy was my downfall this time.
I'm not blogging as frequently on here. I maintain it's only worth writing when I've got something to say. My Diabetes UK blogs still get published roughly once a month and if you're interested, you can find them on their blog site
Nothing overly unusual there really. Whilst thankfully not a daily occurrence, low blood glucose does play a frustratingly regular part of my life. This time it was different.
Since gate-crashing the last day of the Diabetes UK Conference a few weeks ago, I've been trying (with a modicum of success) to get back into some better habits with my diabetes. As with anything, it can be easier to slip out of a routine than stick to it.
So Friday night rolled around and in some vague celebration of us both being at home on the same evening, my wife and I settled on a Chinese takeaway (hurrah!) "It'll be 45 minutes" they said. I figured this was another good opportunity to get back into the habit of pre-bolusing for my meals. Takeaway is a bugger to get right at the best of times but I figured I'd give myself a fighting chance and get out in front of it.
To cut a potentially tedious story short, the food arrived late, I didn't check my levels before I took my insulin and I had an utterly rotten hypo. I've had a few bad ones before. I've sat on the bathroom floor at 2am for an hour chomping on Glucotabs like there was no tomorrow. I've eaten jelly babies and watched my levels go down instead of up. But I've always remembered those experiences - cautionary tales are often the best right?
This one was different. I remember eating a couple of marshmallows that my wife brought me (but I don't remember eating the others she gave me from the bag). I remember accusing her of stealing my glass of water (which I had in my hand) and I remember picking my dinner back up (but don't ever remember putting it down). It was almost like an out of body experience in a way. I knew I was hypo the entire time, I remember going through the motions of fixing it all, but at the same time I feel like I can't remember any of it. The best I can liken it to was like waking up from a dream.
This isn't a sob story by any means. Just another cautionary tale to add to the list. Taking my insulin without checking my blood glucose was, at best, misguided; more likely downright idiotic. Not checking my glucose until the food arrived was equally foolish. Trying to fix a hypo with chicken chow mein is simply an experiment that need never be repeated.
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| Image boosted from the Wikipedia article in the link below |
It's a reminder to me, at least, how fragile the equilibrium with diabetes can be. It's the saddle point we're all subconsciously trying to ride as much as possible. It doesn't take much to knock us from that point of safety. As is often the case, my idiocy was my downfall this time.
I'm not blogging as frequently on here. I maintain it's only worth writing when I've got something to say. My Diabetes UK blogs still get published roughly once a month and if you're interested, you can find them on their blog site
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