Reconnecting

This week is a very diabetes-centric one.  Monday we attended the JDRF/Hodia family fun night.  I got to catch up with some friends from the Sail Away in Support fundraiser and we all had fun riding the bumper boats and playing in the arcade.  The kids came home with their usual handful of prizes bought with tickets.  And of course we always love to support JDRF.

 Tuesday was the JDRF Walk Awards luncheon.  I was glad to have the Pretty Lady in My Life by my side as we got to see the awesome job done by all the walk teams to raise a huge amount of money for JDRF.  While I got a bit of a late start and didn't reach my fundraising goal, I was still happy to receive a golden sneaker for my efforts (even if I felt like a giant being the only one on stage over 4 ft), which wouldn't have been possible if not for some of the great people I work with who volunteered their time and joined Team Dia-beat It.  Attending the awards re-upped my motivation to get into next year and really get our team going, hopefully to the tune of at least Gold Level and with sweet Michael Jackson team shirts.  I'm thinking the King of Pop and "No one deserves diabetes, so let's beat it!"  And to finish off the week I will be attending a diabetes retreat, or DTreat, starting Friday and ending Sunday.  I have been having mixed feelings about this.  I am very excited to be able to meet other Type 1's as I feel increasingly isolated as I continue to go through life with T1D.  At the same time, I am at the upper end of the 18-30 yr old range and most of the attendees are former Camp Hodia campers who already have that in common.  Add to that the fact that I am very much an introvert and conversing with new people and large groups does not come easy to me and you start to see why I am a little apprehensive about this.  Nonetheless I am still very excited to get to meet others who understand what a living with T1D means, have more experience with it, and who I think can help me navigate some of the things coming up, like (hopefully) transitioning to a pump.  If all goes well I will come out of this weekend with some newly formed friendships.  All in all it should be a great week.  I find myself wishing for a better organized group for Adults with T1D in my area lately, but in the meantime I am so thankful for the organizations that do exist.  It seems like just when I need a little boost, they have something coming along to give it to me.

When I Grow Up

When I was in High School I knew I wanted to be an architect. Then I realized I had to take a lot of art classes I didn't enjoy, wasn't good at, and wouldn't use.  So then I kinda thought I might enjoy being a teacher, possibly in History or English.  I also wanted to write books of some sort.  Then I met the love of my life, was burned out on college, and wanted to get my real life started.  I took the opportunity to become a retail manager and that is what I still do today.  I don't hate my job but there is really no passion behind it.  Long story short, I have struggled with wanting to know what I want to do with my life and how to get there.  Through the years at my current job I realized I want to work at a job where I can help people.  I considered the Human Resources route but parts of that still didn't seem like the right fit.  After my T1D diagnosis I had a chance to volunteer with several organizations and get a new fundraising event off the ground.  That helped me realize that I am passionate about getting the word out about diabetes and helping to make a difference in that realm.  I was thinking I really wanted to delve into the non profit world.  Then last week I saw this.  ConnecT1D was looking for an executive director.  I was past the deadline to apply and not the most qualified candidate in the field but I read and reread the job description time and time again.  I realized that this is what I want to do with my life.  I want to be a part of the team that is making the difference.  I want to connect with people like me and be involved in the lives of people living with diabetes.  I am passionate about diabetes (how can you not be when it's such a huge part of your life) and I get such a boost in my motivation and my mood when I get the opportunity to connect with people in that world.  Since that day my mind has been consumed with thoughts of what I need to do to get there.  I find myself day dreaming and searching the web for open positions.  While organizations like JDRF and ADA that raise money for research are appealing, what really intrigues me is a group that if focused on connecting PWDs and creating that support network.  I think it took seeing the position at ConnecT1D to realize that.  As I read through all the information on their website and found myself nodding in agreement and wanting to scream out YES!  This is what I've been looking for! I immediately emailed them about setting up an Adult T1D group in Boise and had a great talk with Lara Williamson, the Adult T1D director.  Now I am on a quest.  What do I need to get to that point?  Do I join someplace like ConnecT1D and start somewhere new?  Or do I start fresh right here where I am?  A funny thing happens when you realize what your dream job is and start feeling empowers to reach it.  I pay more attention to my diabetes and take better care of it.  So if there is a job out there that makes me excited and interested every day and makes me more motivated to take better care of myself why would I want to do anything else?

Little Reminders

Sometimes living with diabetes seems very isolating.  I get stuck in this mindset that the non-diabetics around me (so basically everyone) do not understand it takes to live with a chronic disease day to day.  And while it is probably true that they can't understand, I often catch myself feeling that they don't care or want to care about it either.  In reality I know that this isn't true and it's good that I have small reminders now and then.  My ever curious son reminds me with his endless barrage of questions when I check my blood sugar.  "Dad, what is your sugar blood?" or "How does that machine tell your blood sugar?"  Or when he understands allows me to recover after a bad low when all he really wants to do is play with his dad.  Co-workers remind me by telling me they have a bag of emergency candy in the filing cabinet drawer after they weren't allowed to have a community candy drawer anymore.  But I think the biggest reminders come from the Pretty Lady in My Life, most of the time probably without her knowing it.  It is in the drowsy offers for help with a late night low and leaving the wrapper with the nutrition facts out when she cooks dinner.  And it is in her willingness to sacrifice so I can have things that may not be a necessity, but that make my life a little easier to handle.  Since it's so easy to get in that rut of feeling isolated and alone, I am so thankful for the little reminders that come about.

Burning Out

I don't know when it happened.  I think it was a process of one thing adding on top of another until, all of sudden, I feel buried by everything living with diabetes requires.  It is kind of strange, really.  My overall mood and general outlook has been improving thanks to the help of some medication adjustments.  Mentally I have been feeling better than I have anytime in recent memory.  But on the diabetes front things are going slightly awry.  Looking back I think the beginning was using the last Dexcom sensor from my stockpile accumulated after my deductible was met last year along with the realization that I would not be able to afford to buy more for a while.  Although the alarms could be annoying, the data could be overwhelming, and I would often make myself feel guilty whenever the graph ran into the red, the ability to see where my blood sugar was at a moments notice and react accordingly as well as not having to rely on my horrible memory to get blood sugar readings was invaluable.  A short break from the CGM is always welcome, but long term it leads to me being in the dark about the overall effectiveness of my diabetes management.  I first noticed that things had begun to slip around the 4th of July when we tool a small trip to the town where I grew up to see some family and friends.  Throughout the trip I found myself forgetting to bring my insulin places with me.  In the past I would either return to get it or eat something I knew wouldn't effect my blood sugars too much.  On this trip I usually just brushed it off and even usually forgot to check my blood sugar and take a correction bolus when I got home.  That started me thinking and last Thursday, my third diaversary, I took some time to really think about how I'm doing and evaluate where I am at with my management.  What I ultimately decided was that I have let things slide considerably.  It started with not checking my blood sugars post meal.  That has always been a struggle.  I get busy or I just plain forget.  That, in turn, led to not checking my blood sugar before meals and then to forgetting to check my blood sugars in the morning.  I realized that there have been stretches where I have gone 3 days without a single blood sugar check.  (This post from Kerri Sparling was unbelievably timely.)  In addition, I have found myself just using wild guesses for boluses instead of actually counting carbs.  This can be a dangerous thing, especially given that I usually don't feel my lows until it is at a scary level (like in the 30's).  But the thing I am most disappointed in myself over is putting off my insulin doses.  I am pretty vigilant about my basal injections.  If I forget it at bedtime I always get it the next morning.  However, I have been pretty hit and miss on my bolus injections.  Some of this is from having lots of little snacks here and there and not thinking about taking insulin for it.  Some is because I get pulled away right before I eat or often in the middle of my meal, or both while I'm at work.  And sometimes it is just silly things like not wanting to lift up my shirt and have to tuck it back in at work or just plain not wanting to deal with a painful injection, and those have been more frequent as of late.  I have a common thought when I check and find a high blood sugar; do I want to subject myself to the pain of another injection or wait until I eat again?  More often than not the answer is to wait.

Step one is admitting you have a problem.  I admit it, I'm burned out.  So now I need to find a solution.  I have tried using BG tracking apps, setting alarms, making promises to myself, and none of it has worked.  So my new goal is to find a way to get back on the CGM and eventually a pump.  The first step in that process?  Finally get in to see and Endo.  From there, who knows, but at least I am acknowledging the problem and starting on the path to a solution.  One step at a time.

Unaware

Two nights ago, just after crawling into bed, my blood sugar dropped from above 200 to under 70 over the course of an hour.  My CGM alarmed for a reading of 64 just after 11 pm.  Then again for a reading of less than 55 a few minutes later.  And I didn't feel a thing.  When it was still showing a reading of 40 a while later I decided I'd better do a finger stick check and was sure that my sensor was off because I didn't feel the slightest bit low.  CGM said 40, bg meter said 49.  Pretty close.  Then, last night around midnight, I was awakened by a low alarm.  I vaguely remember looking at the screen and seeing a red 63, silenced the alarm and went back to sleep.  I don't remember any more alarms, but there must have been more because looking at the graph this morning the low continued.  Until the graph disappears all together.  When I grabbed the Dexcom this morning to check my levels as I do every morning it was turned off.  At some point in the night I tired mind must have thought the best way to get the alarms to stop was to turn off the receiver.  Genius move, Craig.  Not only do I not feel my lows, now I am turning off the one warning system I have in the middle of the night.  Why do I not feel low at all?  I read a lot about people feeling the effects of bg below 50 or 60 and not being able to function and yet I can fall to 40 and not even realize it if not for the CGM.  I don't know which is scarier, reacting in a way that shows some pretty frightening physical symptoms or not reacting at all.  What happens on the day I don't have my CGM on or if I can't afford it?  Am I going to drop low and not know it until I am unconscious?  Of notice too late to react?  Or even worse will I be driving and drop low with now warning and become a danger to others?  Will my kids be in the car?  Just one more thing that scares the shit out of me.  One more thing the haunt the recesses of my mind as go throughout the day and one more thing to think about before I go to sleep.  Am I going to wake up tomorrow?

DBlog Week: My Favorite Things

I have to admit that I hard time writing every day for the last week and an even harder time reading ALL the posts, but I did read a lot and there were so many great posts.  It was great to see that I'm not the only one who gets bogged down in all the details or finds myself in a funk that I can't get out of.  The posts by Pancreassassin, Mike Hoskins, and Six Until Me, along with so many others showed me that even those who seem like seasoned vets deal with some of the same things a rookie like me does.  This piece by Chris Clements was one of my favorites from poetry day.  The SNL spoof and these limericks had me rolling on the floor.  I didn't get to put as much in to some of the posts as I would have liked and I didn't get to read everything, but my first DBlog week was great.  Being a pretty new blogger I loved to see my page counts go up and get some comments from others in the DOC.  It's great to know that I'm not the only one out there and that some of the things I write resonate with others the same way so many of the posts I read do for me.  Thanks for a great week DOC.

DBlog week: Saturday Snapshots

I was going to take pictures all day yesterday and have this post up this morning but that didn't happen (12 hour work days make me forgetful) so then I was going to take pictures all days today, however I only got a few.  But here's what my day looked like!

On top of that there was fixing the water in the garden and cleaning the garage.  All in all, a successful day, just not blog wise