How to beat the springtime blues

Springtime blues? “What’s that about?” you ask. After about four years of consistently feeling miserable for about a week every April, I think I’ve finally realized that for me, something about springtime wreaks havoc on my diabetes management.

I find myself suddenly feeling sluggish, cloudy and hungry.

My blood sugar levels go up and stay up, like they’re stuck on a higher plateau.

Insulin just doesn’t bring me down like it typically does and because I’m running higher, my appetite increases and I just want to eat…carbs.

And then all of a sudden the insulin will bring me down like a ton of bricks and I’ll be arrested by an intense low blood sugar.

So…I have some hypotheses. It does make sense to me that the same inflammatory response caused by seasonal allergies would not be so great for T1 diabetes, which by its nature is an inflammation of the immune response. My friends with T1D have turned me on to some research to suggest that springtime is a hard season for many people with various autoimmune conditions.

Spring is also a time of new beginnings, change, waking up from winter and everything suddenly gets so busy. In this space of having so much to do and so little time to do it (and feeling like my head is full of pollen), my typically stress and diabetes management technique of daily concerted exercise hasn’t been as attainable. So I’m here to share – with no guilt – that this week I got a massage.

This was actually my second of two 30 minute massages with Monique Kennedy, who I recommend highly if you’re in the triangle area. Check out her practice: Exhale Massage Therapy – where you can book directly online.

And the name really says it all – exhaling (a topic I’m excited to write more about soon) and its partner inhaling are so hard to prioritize and yet so very beneficial. Since the massage and the reminder to breathe deeply, to prioritize resting and recharging, my blood sugars have been just a little bit more ‘normal.’

I’d love to hear other people’s experiences with autoimmune conditions and spring time and about massage as part of a healthy life!

Choices

On my first day of grad school, my pod alarmed in the middle of an orientation session and I had to rush home, still unsure if the bus I’d chosen was the right one to get me to my apartment. On the way, my iPhone 4 and I struggled with the spotty internet to email my advisor and let her know I wouldn’t be able to meet her – technical difficulties. That’s not really what I told her of course. I explained it all – because you can’t just explain a little bit of diabetes once you get going. It’s hard to just say “My blood sugar was low” or “My insulin pump malfunctioned.” I always feel like I sort of have to justify that statement with, “Oh and I have Type 1 diabetes. And I’m ok – I’ve just got to handle this.” The good-hearted people of the world want to know that you’re ok, which is touching. It can be really hard to give people who want to help and be there for you some reliable protocol to follow, because so much of diabetes is adapting to the moment. So much of it is being in-tune with your own body and responding in what might seem, to an outside audience, like a contradictory way from how you responded before. Sometimes I eat cake, sometimes I don’t. That doesn’t mean that in one situation I’m thinking about diabetes and in the other I’m not. It’s always there, presenting choices or at least weighing in on them.

This post is meandering because my thoughts are meandering right now. If there could be a central theme here, it’s choices and how they fit into our otherwise unpredictable lives. Diabetes reminds me that I make many choices in the day, from how I treat my body to how I communicate my identity, positionality and needs to others. It also reminds me that no matter how fixated we become on one choice or path or reality, our pod could always alarm right in the middle of it and we’d have to respond. This is another diabetes metaphor, but please don’t let that prohibit you from translating it to your own life if you are a person without diabetes (or not, maybe you don’t like metaphors). I’m just grappling with this – the contradiction between writing and reading our lives, both of which (I’m gently arguing), are quite necessary.

Yes, there are ants in my car

Yes there are ants in my car,

because I left a half-eaten honey packet open in the cup holder.

It’s 26 grams of carbs, but I only needed 13 ~ apparently.

And those things are expensive.

No food waste!

The last time I drank a juice box was yesterday.

Safety first means never leaving home without fruit snacks in my pocket

and my monogrammed silver bracelet.

One time on a first (and last) date

I tried to jump a curb on my bike

Which was also a first and last experience

and I didn’t make it over the curb – but I did make it

over the handle bars – and knocked my pod loose.

Which is a weird thing to explain – and an unlikely sounding excuse.

Sometimes I alarm.

Sometimes happiness is an 87 –

Sometimes it’s a fresh supply of test strips.

A hundred small reminders in the day,

that I have to remember not to forget.

Of course if I’m being truly honest,

it’s not so clear what came first…

the diabetes or the ants.

Find your break

This past weekend I went on a run with a friend. I resort to running when I’ve crammed my life so full that I feel it’s necessary to expedite working out. My usual preference is for walking, which I’ve just returned home from.

Here are some of the things I saw on my walk:

White and pink Dogwood blossoms. Dogwood trees have a distinct smell – sweet and earthy.
A black and white cat tiptoeing through an overgrown corridor of leggy flowering grasses.
A mockingbird trilling from a tree limb.
Tightly packed azalea flowers flocking front porches.

This walk and yesterday’s yoga class were inspired by suggestions from two people whose wisdom I value. They suggested that in order to get everything I needed to done, I take a break. Different times call for different sorts of breaks, and lately I’ve needed a computer break. Like my friend, I’ve been losing productivity as one assignment blurs into the next. I’ve been losing sleep too and waking up with high or low blood sugars. These past couple days, stepping away and doing something slowly has made space for me to breathe – which, one could argue, is just another way to practice public health.