as i grew up i was always told that i could be anything that i wanted to be and do anything i wanted to do as long as i tried. i believed that with all my heart. obviously as i grew i had dreams and ambitions, i wanted to be a doctor or in the army or a paramedic or a teacher or a person on TV.... the list was endless and it changed day to day on occasions.
when i got a little older i realised that there was never a chance of me being some things like an actress or a world famous dancer. i simply didn't have the skills or background to do these things.... but still, i had a whole world full of opportunities.
in the end i decided i wanted to be a doctor of some kind. either in the army or as a paediatrician. throughout secondary school i was told that this was more than possible and that i should keep going for what i wanted.
army medic became my career of choice.... i just needed to get fit enough and i would be sorted. it was gunna be hard work, but it would be worth it because i wanted it that much.
then i was diagnosed.
soon after i realised that i wasn't going to be able to be in the army anymore because of diabetes. i was devastated. it was the first of many blows that the d dealt me in aspects other than my actual health.
another thing i have always wanted to do since i was 8 or 9 was give blood. i wanted to help people who needed those life saving blood transfusions. diabetes stopped that 3 months before i was finally able to.
Ive been on the organ donor register since i was 13.... i signed up for donating all my organs to people who needed them. now the reality is that diabetes could destroy my kidneys, eyes and heart (and the pancreas obviously) so i wont be able to donate them. yeah i can donate the rest of my organs, but i feel like a bit of a let down for not being able to donate everything i signed up for.
then there was becoming a bone marrow donor. to do that you have to be 18. I've waited since i was 14 to do that.... but no. diabetes has yet again stopped that from happening. i think for me this and the blood donating were the hardest blows. watching all your friends sporting huge bruises from donating that week and telling you which colour card they're on for donating so much killed me inside. i wanted to do that. i wanted to be the one in their situation. diabetes sucked for stopping me. and the bone marrow? they are just so short of donors that to not be able to despite desperately wanting to just sucks. there are so many people who can but wont when i would but cant.
basically. I've learnt that you cant always reach the stars and get where you want to be just because you try. things chronic illnesses get in the way and that sucks. but its just part of life so you just need to get over it and move on. I've found a career that i will enjoy, it may not be the one i always wanted, but its a decent one all the same. and i now encourage people to become donors for everything, even if i cant, if i can get someone else to do it surely that's just as good? well. that's what i like to tell myself anyway.
ok. so recently i have been running high almost constantly. i mean. i start off with normal numbers and then as soon as I've eaten (whether i take insulin or not) i end up sitting in the mid teens for the rest of the day unless i literally take a huge dose of insulin then i come back down.....
i don't know whats going on or whats causing it. its a complete mystery. and its completely unusual for me to be like this for this long. it could be stress, or dodgy insulin or illness or miscalculating insulin and carbs or just about anything else. or maybe all of the above... its completely possible.
I've never realised just how bad my diabetes care and education has been though until this week. I've always been quite comfortable thinking i understood what i needed to do if i needed to change anything (although, Ive come to realise, i didn't understand, it was just that i didn't need to really do much before now to affect my levels dramatically and sort any blips)
but then this week I've looked at what I'm dealing with.....
- high levels through the day.
- rapid on a ratio 1u:8g.
- correction factor of about 1u per 2.5mmols.
- levemir of 10u per day taken at night.
- lowish levels first thing in the morning.
to any person without diabetes that is a load of absolute rubbish.... i mean, that's a fair amount of random stuff really unless you know what I'm going on about. but i looked at that and was confused too.... i mean. where do i start making adjustments? what do i adjust them to? and will it work?
being in the middle of transitioning from one d team to another also means that i don't actually have anyone to get advise off of at the moment. I'm seeing a dsn on Thursday, but does that mean i have to deal with this for another week before i actually get anything sorted? I'm not sure if i can do this for that long. its wearing me out.
also. the longer that I'm running high, the more my body is getting used to it. the more my body gets used to the highs, the more i feel hypo at normal levels. that isn't good. not at all..... today i had to drive somewhere and my levels were 5.6 when i left. i felt shaky though so had a couple of glucose tabs to sort it... by the time i got there i was having full blown hypo symptoms (shaking badly, brain fogginess, hunger) so i checked again.... 5.2? i was so confused by this.... but i just treated it as a low with half a bottle of normal coke... i figured i would rather be high and feel normal than be normal and feel low....
this is the thing with diabetes, when what you do works, all is good. you feel smart for sorting it. then it changes and your left in the midst of confusion and random blood sugars trying to figure out which way to turn next. and that's where i am. I'm lost and don't know what to do now...
there are times that i look at my life with diabetes and all that happens with it. i look at the day to day happenings and wonder how i got to where i am.
how did i get to the point where mutilated finger tips didn't bother me anymore?
how did i get to the point where needles and strips lying around was normal?
how did i get to the point where a load of numbers can affect how i think of myself?
i guess i wont ever really know. it just kind of happened. the normality of diabetes just crept up and took over my brain when i wasn't looking.... bit like the moment my pancreas decided to stop working properly i guess.....
but there are times i think about it. times when i collect yet another prescription or book yet another blood test or appointment with the dsn. times when i look at the pile of strips left from that days tests and know that each one of those tiny pieces of plastic represents a number which my day was made of.
times like this really make me think. i mean, when i pick up that prescription after 2weeks since the last one and i think..... that's 200 stabs of the finger. 200 different numbers which fit together to make part of my day..... that's another 5 cartridges of insulin which contain 1500u. that's another 1500u that I've taken to keep my sugar levels in check (or not so in check as they've been recently).
that's a tough thing to think. its tough thinking how much things have changed and how quickly time moves. how fast you learn to adapt to a new way of life. but that's just it. things change constantly and we adapt. its the way life is and nothing is going to stop that.
so we live and learn.... things change and we just bump along with the waves doing what we need to do to get by.
have you ever felt like life is just one big show and your simply acting out a part in it? putting on a mask to show the people watching what they want to see? i have, in fact. screw that. i still do.
some days aren't like that at all. some days i can feel the 'real' me coming out, doing everything that i would love to say or do with a genuine smile on my face. but that's the problem. its only some days. other days i slip and slide, struggling to stand on a patch of ice that's caught me unaware.... its these days I have to put a mask on when I'm around others so that everything looks ok when on the inside I'm just crumbling, crying, wanting to reach out but not knowing how.
i hate that i do that. but then from past experiences people just don't care. they see that your sad a lot and just back away slowly not wanting to get involved in the problems that are so obviously there, not realising that doing that makes the situation worse, makes it harder for me to trust others, harder for me to let them into my head and making me slip on that mask more and more.
i wear my mask far too often. often enough for me to believe that its the real me, the me that doesn't have a care in the world, but then it slips. it slips off suddenly and I'm left, stuck like a deer caught in headlights, staring horrified at whats underneath. I'm left looking at the mess that my life really is and has been.
people say that you can just move on, leave the past in the past and just forget about it. but its not that simple, especially when the past bleeds into the present and future, when something triggers a memory of the rubbish you've tried to leave behind and rips open the wounds from before so it feels raw again.
i think its a matter of you cant understand until you've been there yourself. but until you have, you have no right to judge the people who are in that position. its not as easy as switching on and off. its like a bad smell you just cant get rid of. it lingers unchanging until enough time has passed that it starts to clear just a little.
i have my good days, bad days and in between days.... that's just my life.
this is the result of fruit juice this afternoon. this is why i don't drink it often. screw you diabetes for ruining the enjoyment of one (or maybe two) glasses of the stuff.
this last week has been tough on the old diabetes front... this week alone has caused more tears and frustrations about diabetes than ive had in a while.
but i didn't realise that what I've been going through for the last few months was diabetes burnout. i just thought that i was being silly and struggling unnecessarily.
its really difficult to explain to someone what I've felt like for the last week or two. theres so many conflicting thoughts and feelings that nobody could ever understand unless they've gone through the same thing. like, I've been taking insulin and testing, but not been bothered by whether I'm high or not... and then I've wanted to give up and stop the whole lot, but i know i cant so i battle on. but battling on isn't always the best thing to do, for me it just makes things worse, much worse..... battling on means that i just bottle everything up, because to look happy on the outside means keeping everything on the inside where it just eats away and makes things worse.
so this week.... its been a disaster. moving to uni has been the worst thing ever diabetes wise. especially as I've had to change gp and diabetes team meaning that in the middle of this burnout, I've just not wanted to sort any of it. and i still haven't sorted any of it. now that's been a problem. a really big problem. this week i ran out of rapid insulin. not the end of the world cos i had some insulatard (longer acting mixed insulin) left, but enough of a disaster to mean that until yesterday i was running high almost constantly..... why yesterday? because yesterday i decided to go to the pharmacy to see if they could give me an emergency supply of novorapid (rapid insulin) but this stuff isn't cheap if you don't have the prescription for it, i paid out £16 for 2 cartridges of the stuff.... normally i pay nothing and get 5 cartridges at a time.
so my challenge for next week? get my gp sorted so i can get prescriptions again. i don't wanna be paying out for anything else. especially test strips.... but as far as the burnout goes, I'm gunna have to take stuff slow so i don't overwhelm myself with it and fall even further down than i already am. because it really does suck feeling the way I've been.
Today is no D day, a day where people who normally write about diabetes write about something different.
I liked this idea, it gives you a chance to meet the people behind the blogs or twitter accounts, after all we are more than a chronic illness...
so I've decided to tell you a bit about me :)
ok. so I'm Tara, I'm 18 (19 in a few months) i finished college this summer and I've just started uni in chichester to do maths and teaching (nuts right?) but so far i like it :)
I've got 3 younger sisters and 2 younger brothers. although, my brothers live with my dad.
i love most animals, and we have cats, guinea pigs, a rabbit and a hamster at home (bit like a zoo sometimes)
i have a huge fear of most things that fly.... mainly birds, moths and flies, but yeah, don't laugh if you hear me scream ;)
i love listening to music.... especially when driving.... windows down, music up and singing along... beautiful (maybe not though if you actually hear me) :)
i love kayaking... i haven't done it in a while, well, 2yrs... but its amazing, definitely a sport that I'm at least half decent at.
I'm fairly shy when i meet new people, but then i can be quite loud around friends and family :)
i hate saying goodbye... even for a little while...
chocolate is one of my ultimate weaknesses, no chance of me declining it if I'm offered some
I've got some amazing friends.... from secondary school, college and even a few already in uni :) these are people that i reckon i wont ever say goodbye properly to.
so yeah, that's me... I wouldnt say im interesting, pretty or amazingly wonderful but I'm me, and that will have to do
