I can be cheery about diabetes some other time

Hey Everyone,

It’s been awhile – largely because I have been writing and sketching more for other projects, and working full-time and trying to eat well and exercise and maintain healthy relationships. I just read a great blog post from “I Am Begging My Mother Not To Read This Blog,” which I will try to link to this post, because the author could have been reading my mind, and writing it out with more humor and grace than I could. But it did make me realize something that has inspired me enough to get me typing.

I have HATED diabetes lately.

Which is so unlike me.

Because my whole m.o. is to be chipper and cheery about all the great life lessons I’ve learned from having to constantly monitor my body, evaluate my ability to drive, to perform routine tasks like getting dressed and putting on makeup without doing something mega-weird, like putting my blush away in the freezer because I’m low and I’m trying to change my pump and make my lunch to take to work and answer a text about weather or not the roads are clear enough to drive.

I hate changing my pump. For no reason. It’s very easy to do, but I hate it.

I have a secret: lately I’ve been ripping my pod off and going without it for 10 minutes between changes. Just to experience freedom from the robotic attachment, just for a few moments.

Yesterday at 7:30 pm I got a text that my flight that was supposed to take me to Arizona at 5:40 this morning had been cancelled; I guess due to the soft beautiful blanket of February snow that has draped itself over my neighborhood. I was at a bookclub meeting that I had fought to get my blood sugar up in order to drive to. I was in the 50’s for 1/2 an hour and ate some honey on toast and turned my pump down. Finally I was able to leave and go pickup my friend, 10 minutes late, which isn’t much, but seems to be the amount that diabetes insists on setting me back.

I checked my blood sugar when I got the text so I could drive home and start making pointless phone calls, because of course they are not going to reschedule the flight just so I can fly to Arizona for 24 hours. It was something like 248 mg/dl. So here I am in a bookstore saying, “Dammit! I’m so high! This all wouldn’t be so bad if I just wasn’t high!” and then having to say, equally as loud, “My blood sugar, I mean, my blood sugar is high, not me…..cause I’m diabetic, not a stoner.”

Lately, it’s been the straw that has broken my otherwise pretty great ability to make the best and brightest of any situation. It has been the thing that has turned the corners of my mouth down and made me short with people I love. Because I just feel inside of me like a caged animal without control.

On the brighter side (because some habits can’t be broken), reading “I Am Begging My Mother Not To Read This Blog’s” post made me remember that this will pass for me. That probably if I could just walk outside without enrobing myself in layer upon layer of jacket, sweater, scarf for 40 minutes first, I would be able to shake it off. Instead, I am going to have to sled it off, which I think will help both my mind and my blood sugar.

Toning my resiliency today.

Letting My Laces Down for the ATC

(and dreaming of a thru-hike)

I can’t say I’ve thru-hiked the A.T. , yet. Nor can I say I’m the world champion of whipping out a mummy-bag, jumping into it, zipping up, and cramming it back into the stuff sack. But what I can say at least, after the ATC “Kick Your Boots Off” Fundraiser at the Isis Restaurant and Music Hall on Thursday, November 6th, is that I’ve tangoed my way down an A.T. Trail runway made with chart paper and sharpie marker, twirling and jiving over the fourteen states from Georgia to Maine that the A.T. passes through. I can say that I’ve competed in the sleeping bag challenge to be the fastest in and out of the bag, and although I didn’t win, I still felt wrapped up in the spirit and warmth of the crowd, made up of thru-hikers and lovers of all things out-of-doors.

read on below:

http://www.blueridgeoutdoors.com/hiking/kick-boots-appalachian-trail-conservancy/

Carrying the Weight: Backpacking with Diabetes

When I was first with diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, backpacking became yet another line on my mental list of things I’d probably not be able to do now that I was managing such a complicated condition.

Although the first thing they reassured me of (while I was still in the ER, without me asking), was that with the advent of modern technology, I would be able to safely have children, they did not assure me I’d still be able to romp through mountain streams, swim in crystal clear pools, and sleep under the stars. They did not go so far as to assure me that I’d still be able to stretch my skirt over my kayak and paddle all day, or travel to third world countries. Needless to say, the first consolation did not address my main concerns.

Read on below:

http://www.blueridgeoutdoors.com/hiking/backpacking-with-diabetes/

Soaking it up

Are you worried about your pod? My friend asked, as I stood in the sunlight on the sloping curve of the rock we’d been perched on for the past hour.

“Oh, um yeah, my pod. That’s what I’m worried about.” ‘Pod schmod,’ I thought. “No, no honestly I’m worried about the terrifying moment when I hit that freezing cold water!” I can’t lie to my friends for long. “It’s not terrifying! You’re going to love it!” My other friend chimed in from where she sat, hugging her knees, wet hair clinging to her back. Unmoved I replied, “It’s the cold that’s absolutely terrifying, once you know it, and I’ve jumped in once, it can’t full me!”

We were deep in the woods cuddling up to a tumbling narrow stream in the Black Mountains of North Carolina. I won’t say just where, because it was nice to have it all to ourselves for so long, but you’ll find it if you look hard enough. On the way we glided by birch and beech and hemlock trees and scrambled over tumbled oaks and tulip poplars. On one of these fallen giants a mushroom forest drew a cloud of flies drawn to the fruiting bodies. Underneath one such brown, dank body was a scalloped tail as long as my middle finger, leading to a copper colored curving form with an almost tiger like head. We soon found our salamander’s buddy and realized we might be outnumbered if we looked closely enough in the cracks and crevices of the decomposing tree, so we hopped over and onward.

After a thorough scramble, hand over hand from one rhododendron arm to the next, we landed in the creek. Hopping and sliding up the mossy rocks we pursued the sunlight and climbed steadily and meticulously. Lunch happened, and it was good, as lunch always is in the middle of a hike. My new favorite T1D approved picnic food is the ‘Epic Bison Bar’ with cranberries. As a protein bar it can’t be beat, but it doesn’t come packaged with sugars and processed fillers, so you can munch on it along with some raw veggies and fruit, and then of course some chocolate, to make a complete power meal. I digress, as food is apt to make me do.

So I have to say, I was at the point, sweaty, a little tired, scraped up to a nice extent, and the water was looking better and better. The light played with the current and sprayed sparkling reflections onto the bellies of overhanging rocks. My desire to leap in, even to the shallow pools, was becoming irresistible.

“Woohoo! We’re here! You’re going to want to come up here!” My friend shouted at me and another of us who were lagging behind. We gathered our packs and made for the final scramble, right in time to hear a plunging splash and squeal as one of our friends who led us to the swimming hole like she were tracing a line on her palm, shot off the slick stone shoot and into a pool 6 feet deep and clear as crystal.

Packs down, I belly flopped in like the poor swimmer I’ve always been and thrashed about wildly in the particular sort of ecstasy that unbearably cold water brings. Invigorated, I crawled out to sun and enjoy stillness, a rare commodity lately.

Stillness happened for a long time, sounds volleying for position: the tumble of the narrow cascade, a rush of wrens and tit mice and snowbirds, the bugs and wind and leaves. Lulled. But I was dreading that rock slide.

You know when there is something fun, slightly epic, but also a little unknown and scary, and you just have to do it? You can’t not do it. I mean you could not do it, you could swim, you could nap in the sun, you could have a perfectly good relaxing time, but there’s that little adrenaline-surging slide back into that pool of icy water and you can’t not do it! That’s how I felt and the longer I waited, the more I dreaded it.

Ultimately it was the mango that provided the final push. Yep, my friends know that I respond to snacks. I’d just about convinced myself that I was low (blood sugar wise) when my friend pulled out her bag of dried mango to share. My gal pals were behind my desire to complete the challenge but none of their goading had worked, until I asked for a slice of mango. As I was reaching for it my friend snatched away the bag she had extended to me, swatting at my hand and reprimanding, “Not until you slide!”

I rose, walked to the edge, and my friend who had guided us all this way, rose too, modeling proper form graciously and zipping down the 5 foot chute. Mango in mind and friends behind me, I sat down and pushed off, flying and arcing triumphantly, plunging, smile on my face, into the pool. A satisfaction slide. The kind of baptism that’s only possible at a summertime swimming hole, taking your breath away and clearing your mind. I came up for air surrounded by friends and and bright green tree tops. It’s the last few weeks they will hold those leaves and they remind me to bask in friendship and the way it strengthens me.

A Daily Reminder

Said one of my trusted councils; that’s what diabetes should be.  A multiple times a day reminder to check in with yourself, to come back to center.  In the groups I lead at work we talk about how you can use gratitude and mantras to help you make taking pills or other medications less of chore, and remind yourself as you do that you are ‘staying well’ or ‘prioritizing your body’ or remind yourself why, such as ‘for my grandkids.’ 

The funny thing about diabetes, is it’s not just 12 times a day.  It’s not every hour on the hour, “Oh what a pain, I have to step outside of myself and address this thing,” it’s always.  It’s not everything, and it’s not all of your awareness, but living with diabetes means that (for me) about 15% – 65% of myself is engaged with survival, with managing my physical condition, and it varies depending on my external and internal circumstances.  So I never set diabetes down and let it go, having to cajole myself into picking it back up.  More, it’s just hard to realize how tired your arms are when you’re still toting something around.

So I tote diabetes or it herds me along or some combination of the two.  And I’ve been trying to let it speak more to me lately.  To integrate diabetes (and when I say that, I mean my entire internal functioning and state of being in relation to my self-management) with my intuition…the seat of confident decision making and self-validation on my path.  And you know, diabetes is proving a handy tool.  It’s bizarre, but my blood sugar knows how I feel before I do sometimes, at least concretely.  And my body lets me know if I’ve come along way, traversed a hard path, used my mind to an extent that might require some real rest, maybe a lot sooner than someone’s body might who wasn’t as in touch with the moment to moment state of it.  Daily lessons with diabetes, I could claim, are what I have access to. 

Which reminds me of another conversation I had with the same wise friend – a conversation out of which came my current personal mantra, “I’m learning.”  The diabetes lesson of today, and maybe we’ll continue these everyday, is: It’s not always the time to make a decision, to move forward.  It may be necessary first, to rest, to absorb, to recover. 

oh mysterious blood sugar…

Oh mysterious high blood sugar and insulin resistance, you come without warning and occupy my space.

Perhaps you travelled with a sunburn that snuck onto my back where my arm couldn’t reach

or with the sleeplessness of this warmer weather, time playing outside and into the night.

Maybe you’re here to tell me the fridge is too cold, that my insulin froze

or that when I was sick and reverted to potatoes and rice for the first time in 8 years, I finally built back up some of that stored sugar that low-carbers lack (can that even be?)

You make me speculate, you furrow my brow.  Perhaps you are simply a cycle – I heard last weekend,

“Worry is a misuse of the imagination.”  Instead of worrying that you will be high for another day, I will imagine it was all these things that have now been beautifully resolved, and the budding springtime with its flowers and sunshine will increase my sensitivity to all things, insulin included.

Image

Ok?

 

If you’re going, to San Francisco

Be sure to pack extra insulin in your bag…

because you’re really going to want to stay a lot longer than you had planned.

5 nights and four full days, no more than two nights back to back on any one sofa or bed, fridge to fridge, I went about the Bay Area.

Average blood sugar of around 125 during the trip, 19 to 26 units of novolog daily from my Omnipod.  Second airport experience with the pod, and feeling pretty happy about how simple it all was.

Importantly I created a ‘travel’ basal rate, which was close but a little under my average normal basal, so that I wouldn’t have to worry about changing the time back and forth on my meter.  Moving around so much and the unplanned nature of travel days made a slightly lower basal rate safer and I just adjusted it up for sedentary travel time.  Luckily there really wasn’t too much of that.

The travel days were full on.  We started at 8 am in Asheville, flew out of Charlotte, and arrived a Detroit layover later in San Fran around 6:30.  It was 8 before I hit my high school best friend’s collective house, an old church made into a home for 25 people, and sat down to a catch up and an artfully prepared salmon and asparagus dinner.  What friends I have.  Bed felt so good, even though it was 3 feet higher than my bed at home, so when I jumped out of it in the night to visit the bathroom I fell flat on the floor.

The next day we relaxed in the sun and then danced into the night.  Blood sugar adapted to time zone differences, ham and cheese croissant for breakfast, snack lunch, and late night moving and shaking.  I was at 36 before going to sleep.  I thought I was feeling strange from jet lag but I really should have been more sure to check every 3 hours or so, just to adapt to that first day.  Consequently I over treated my low and woke up pretty high the next morning.  Despite that I felt re-energized by the night of sleep and ready to move on.

Vacation is not a time to be too hard on yourself for some higher than usual numbers.  I wished I had a second stomach so that I could have eaten even more seafood, tailgate market samples, and, yes…even an icecream cone from Bi-Rite (hazelnut with cacao + roasted banana on a cake cone).  Despite that, all the walking, dancing, and running along the shore kept my numbers in a great range.

Oh and tandem bicycling through Golden Gate Park with one of my best friends, passing out poppies to strangers because the garden crew was going to tear them out the next day, and even making friends with a type 1 who was sitting next to me at breakfast, having that instant connection and getting a local’s perspective on the city.  He is traveling all the way across the world, and I was inspired by his willingness to do it and all the hard work it would take.  But it’s worth it – packing and doctor’s notes and backup supplies are a hassle because good things require a little planning and a little hard work – that’s a lesson diabetes teaches me over and over again. And it teaches me that once you’ve put in that hard work, you’ve got to stop, smell the flowers, and then wear them in your hair.  poppiessf

the path less traveled

There are two ways to talk about this “disease.”  I can say to myself:

“This is so unfair!  I hate having to prick my finger, match my insulin to everything I eat, and think about what supplies I need to have with me everywhere I go and for everything I do!”

or I can say:

“I’m so lucky!  I get the chance to live and all I have to do is monitor my blood sugar, think about what I put in my body, and show up prepared!”

today I choose option #2, thanks to a little help from my friends