Wednesday 30 August 2017

"I assumed it would get better"

I'll be very honest with you, I'm just feeling very 2/10, when usually I'm a solid 8/10.

This blog post is not a super positive one but is an honest one and I really want to document my life with type one diabetes in every which way and for the most part that's incredibly upbeat and fun but today I need an honest chat. I want to look back on this blog and see my progress.

Something I've always prided myself on, been an advocate for and heavily supported both online and offline is the importance of resilience and that actually it's okay not to be okay. Something that has surprised me about starting insulin pump therapy is that those personality traits feel like they have plummeted and at the beginning, I brushed it off and thought 'it's not a big deal' it's just because this is new to me and it's all a bit strange. I assumed it would get better, you know, just teething problems, if you will, but it's not getting better really, in fact it's quite the opposite.

I don't want to just waffle on for 20 minutes although there's a good chance that'll happen but I want to write about how I'm feeling and what I'm doing to try and pull myself out of that because I don't think what I'm feeling is unique, I know there are lots of people that feel this way, but I want to come back to this and see how things have changed. Burnout is not a feeling I am unfamiliar with, but yet every time I feel this way it rears it's ugly head so differently, which makes it hard to identify.

To say I've stopped looking after myself would be wrong and simply untrue, but I guess I've just become disengaged with my diabetes. It's not that I don't care, of course I do, I just haven't given it 100%. I'll lay it out for you, my blood sugars are awful, let's take today for example, BGs ranged from 2.3 - 23.8mmol, with food unaccounted for and a cannula that's been in for to long. That's been my 'normal' for the last few months really and it's finally begun to grind on me.
I feel so sick, all the time.
I tell myself 'it's because you've had a busy day' but people live lives much busier, much more stressful than mine and can keep diabetes at the forefront of their mind. I need to stop with the excuses. As the episodes of extreme high BGs has become more frequent I find my mind drifting to all the possible complications I could have one day, and that terrifies me. You always think 'that doesn't happen to people like me' but actually who am I to say it won't? I've got no idea.

All of these things when I write them down sound so superficial and if someone said them to me I'd say these are just skin-deep things, easy to fix, you've got through it before, but all of a sudden I've noticed how unwell I have been feeling, which is not like me. I've been feeling worse and more and more down about it and last week I just thought 'this has got to stop' because these are no longer teething problems, we are talking 7 months down the line here and I coped better on injections. Although it's not much of a progress marker, my HBA1C has increased since starting on my insulin pump, and that's not what I wanted. So I know I've got to do something about this, it's not just going to magically disappear. Some little things I've been doing is celebrating when my blood sugars are in range, and really taking a moment out of my day to recognise how good I feel.

I realised there was a problem when the crappiness began to permeate into other areas of my life, I've gradually stopped engaging online, became slow with replies to messages and emails, let my blog sit without regular posts. Don't get me wrong, life has become incredibly busy this year and it won't slow down now for a long time but I could have made more time for engaging with the peer support available. I stopped engaging because I feel like I don't have anything to say and I'm never that person.

I didn't want this post to sound like a massive moan because that's not what I want this space to be, but I've got to be honest with you, I am feeling pretty crap at the moment, I don't feel good in myself and I think that is starting to creep into other areas of my life. I'm trying to be quite proactive about this and put myself back on the right path.

5 comments:

  1. Sorry to hear you're not doing so well. But you're not alone, so don't think you have to fix it all by yourself. Get some help from whoever you trust - friends, family, even your diabetes team! You know they will be glad to give you whatever you need.

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  2. I commend you for sharing these thoughts. It's easy to tell ourselves what we're feeling is not as important as what others deal with, when the truth is there is no comparison. This is just our/your truth. My son has Type1 and we have to deal with these types of emotions from time to time. I'd love to talk to you more about this subject. If you're open to it.

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  3. I tweeted to you earlier and decided to read this post. I really do feel for you. I've been put on a pump, twice, and have had very far from good experiences with them. Granted I tell the doctors I am not normal and recently proved to the latest endocrinologist. She as much as told me she is ready to pull her hair out with me as I do not fit any "normal" treatment parameters. After 40 years of living with this continuous life rearranging disease, I have learned to take what comes. Some things I can control and, well should control better, but not all are in the realm of man's control. I have retinopathy in one eye. That is all I have as far as diabetic complications. I do have many other problems unrelated to diabetes. Have learned the last few years that I have a short list of (as in more than one) broken bones, been ill with infections 2 times so bad the doctor was not sure he would see me again, and have lived with grossly out of control blood sugars most of my adult life. A good chunk of childhood also. I guess my point to all this is diabetes is never fun and always hard. Not just on us but our loved ones too. Finger pokes, shots, doctor visits, and a whole slew of things make our lives more,..........interesting? than normal person's. Take heart you are not alone in this. We take care of our own. If you need or want to chat email or messenger (just remember I live on the other side of the pond, just who decided to call it that anyway)do so. Chin up and keep pushing forward. If for no other reason than falling backward is known to be painful. Been there done that more than once. Cracked a rib falling backward but that is a story for another time. Hope things get better. My pump experience did not work out but I know of people who it has changed their lives for the better greatly. Take care Amber Rose.

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