Advice from Me to Me

Since the breakup, I've been trying a lot of different things to feel better.
I made lists.
I deleted photos on my phone (and changed my phone's background).

I've talked with a lot of people too.
"Is feeling this way normal?"
"When does it stop hurting so much?"
"I don't think I ever want to date again."

I talked to my mom. I talked to my guy friends. I talked to my girl friends.
I don't think I really started to heal until I talked to one of my guy friends from home. A mutual friend of my ex and I. He had been in a rough relationship before.

All of this talking made me realize that I didn't even know what I wanted.
So I formed a plan.
From now on, I am going to date myself.
I'm going to take myself out on dates and adventures that I want to go on.
I like when I can hang out with friends on these adventures, but if they don't want to go with me, I'll find friends while I'm there.

Dates I have now taken myself on:
Going to an Escape Room
Starting a D&D game
Going to the library to look at books and then going to see a band

All of these things made me very happy, even without a date.

I've already made a deal with God.
If I'm meant to be with someone, it's His responsibility to get us together.
Until then, I'm going to just date myself.

Paradigm Shift

I have now experienced a breakup. 

I will not lie and say I feel happy. It sucks. 

I cried in the middle of one of my classes. 

Usually, I segment my crying time to when I'm alone and when I can hide the fact that I'm crying.

But there I was, in front of a classroom of people, crying.
I was so surprised. I had cried by myself. I had talked to people. I thought I had gotten it all out. 

I thought I could talk about it intelligently. 

But I'm glad I cried. 

This whole classroom of girls was so supportive. 

I understood why girls in high school had groups. 

I also understood why girls in high school got so emotional over breakups. 

But I think I'm far enough away from the event to start talking about things. 

I like to analyze and work things out by writing about it, so that's what I'll do. 

It means hijacking this site, but I haven't posted anything diabetes-related in a while anyway. 

You'll be hearing from me soon

DIAGNOSAVERSARY

IT HAS BEEN OFFICIALLY A YEAR SINCE I GOT DIABETES
This is a pre-scheduled post so hopefully I haven't died yet.

This is a day to remember the crazy day being tossed from doctor's office to doctor's office with no clue what was wrong with me with the final stunning finale of shoving a needle in my leg!
The day that rocked my world.
July 14, 2016

Why I Love My OmniPod

I know this is going to sound like an ad, but I promise that OmniPod isn't paying me to say this.

I've noticed that I've started to affectionately rub the OmniPod and say things like "What a good OmniPod! You're so good! I love you so much!" 

There was only one thing that I was really worried about when it came to getting a pump; would it hurt? I have a Dexcom and there's always a 50/50 chance that it's gonna hurt. 

The OmniPod isn't like that at all!

I never have to see the needle. I don't have to physically put in a needle. Everything is automatic.

I tell the OmniPod "I'm ready for the needle". There are six soft clicks and one loud click (that startles me) and then it's done. It's sore for a little while, but the soreness fades. 

And a little soreness is nothing compared to what I had to deal with before. 

My pen shots tended to bruise but with only one "shot" every three days, my bruises have had time to heal. 

There's less work to be done before I eat a meal now. I'm looking forward to going back to college and actually eating a hot meal instead of a lukewarm one. 

Even though the OmniPod is visible, I feel like my diabetes isn't front and center anymore. I could go diabetic incognito for a while if I so chose. 

Of course, I'm still learning how to use this new gadget, but I'm already so emotionally attached to it. If I had to go back to pen shots tomorrow, I would be devastated. The OmniPod isn't invasive, it's virtually painless, and I've actually started to go back to doing the stuff I did before I got diagnosed. I've got several art projects in the works and I'm reading some books for fun. 

But I'm not being paid for this page-long OmniPod ad. I just really love my OmniPod.

I Got A Pump

I have had an OmniPod for a few weeks now and I highly recommend it. It was a struggle to get it though.
My insurance made it very difficult.
I was denied the first time. Then they wanted proof that I was diabetic. So I had a blood draw (which the insurance didn't even pay for) to prove that -surprise, surprise- I am diabetic.
*DING DING DING* Give a prize to that insurance company for making me pay to find out something we all already know!!
But I'm getting bitter and we still have more denial to go!
I decided that I wasn't going to fight to get a pump anymore so it was quite a shock when I got the second denial letter. I thought that the endo office was trying to get it for me still, but in the end, it wasn't them.

So I survive finals week and begin the summer. My mother and I visit the town my grandparents live in (since I'm working at their local library this summer) and we get lunch at this little cafe. I'm getting my pen needles out and my meter and I see this guy looking at me. I expect him to say something rude, but instead, he tells me that his daughter is T1D and that, by chance, the girl sitting behind me is also T1D. We start to chat and he tells me his daughter has an OmniPod and he insists that it's worth the fight. It would make your life so much easier. Afterward, my mom asks me whether or not I want to start fighting for the pump again. I told her, only if we get a new insurance.

We come home to a letter from OmniPod.
The last rejection.
You only get three rejections.

My pump was approved.
OmniPod had kept fighting the insurance company and they won.
They told me that I had been doing everything right and that I really did deserve to have this.
That I deserved to have it just a little bit easier.

Everyone I've met from OmniPod has been so sweet and understanding.
10/10 for customer service!
But I have even more good things to say about OmniPod! Keep an eye out for more blog posts!

4th Sunday of Lent

Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born diabetic?
Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God may be made visible through him.

Of course, I am neither a man nor was I born diabetic, but you get the idea.
This was all I could think of at mass today. Why is there suffering in the world?
Innocent people are accused unjustly. Families struggle to make ends meet. Young people get an incurable disease.
I know of several adults who seem personally upset that I got diabetes.
So why did it happen? If no one wants this for me, why did I get diabetes?
Was it some wrong that I did?
Neither she nor her parents sinned; it is so that the works of God may be made visible through her.
That's all I hope to achieve.

I've Failed Lent

Lent has always been my favorite season. It always seemed so full of mystery to me as a child. I loved eating fish and the silence at the end of mass and going to stations of the cross. Stations of the cross especially. Every year, I would find a particular station that would speak to me and something tough I was going through.
Lent was a time of spiritual quiet. It was a time to look at myself critically and at the end, come to a decision.
But I think it's safe to say that I've failed Lent this year.
Every Friday I have forgotten not to eat meat. Hours after I would realize the huge mistake I had made. "But you're exempt! You have diabetes!" Both of those are true statements, but I can't help but feel like I failed. "Elizabeth, you have to put your Dexcom in every Friday. Of course you forgot about not eating meat. It's understandable."
These are all things I've told myself too. I just can't help but feel like I've lost some piece of me. I've lost the Lenten piece of me. There was a part of me that could gather up my past in a neat little package. There were the "Eras of Elizabeth". First was Rochester Elizabeth then Homeschooled Elizabeth then Middle School then High School. And each Elizabeth had something to learn and focus on and then accomplish. Middle School Elizabeth is still the Elizabeth that had the roughest time and learned the most. But this College Elizabeth has diabetes. College Elizabeth is going to have diabetes long after college. There's nothing to accomplish. There's nothing to get over. There is, however, going to be a lot more of this.
On one hand, it's kind of like Lent for the rest of my life. But then, where is the wonder in Lent? I enjoy a good doughnut now and then, but I would never want a doughnut every day.
I guess what this all comes down to is that I miss praying. The proper response would be "then pray more, ya idiot!" And I should.
I should.

Lent, T1D, and Jesus

I will admit that I've been angry about having diabetes. I'm angry because I had no choice in whether or not I got it. This disease has been out of my hands from the beginning.
And I've been angry at God. Well, not totally angry. Mostly just angry about these circumstances.
And as I've mused about my situation, I become more thankful for my faith.
I believe that God became a human being and suffered just the same as you or I. I mean, Jesus didn't have diabetes, but he did go hungry. Jesus wore a crown of thorns and I prick my fingers every day. Jesus bled and so do I. Suffering is a part of humanity.
As we continue into Lent, we should remember that we are not alone in our sufferings. We should strive for imitation of Jesus and look to the saints, our companions, for guidance.
Many blessings,
Elizabeth

----
Am I going to start posting on a regular schedule again? Probably not until summer.
Am I super pumped about Lent? Yes, I am! It's my favorite season!
Am I disappointing you with a single post and then more silence? More than likely.

Tired

Lately, I've had just enough energy to take care of my school work and take care of myself, but that's about it right now.
I'm gonna postpone my posts for the time being.
(Sorry guys)
I have lots of stories (trying to get test strips, running out of bolus insulin, looking forward to getting a pump), but right now I need to take it one day at a time until I start to have some free time for this.
Good luck to my fellow diabetics!

Brave-Pancreas

I had a glazed donut the other day.
It was the most amazing thing I had eaten in a long while.
I nearly cried it was so amazing.

I still get a lot of "you can't eat that" comments.
Once, my uncle just looked at me sadly when they made a dessert I really wanted.
I believed that I couldn't have the things I wanted because I wanted them.
I knew I was wrong, though.

Tonight, I had a creamsicle. It's this drink at my college. It's basically orange sherbert, vanilla ice cream, and milk. It is the most heavenly drink on the planet earth. I highly recommend it.
But bolusing for drinks, especially drinks that don't have openly posted carb counts, is difficult.
And because it's difficult and because it's a lot of sugar, I resigned to the idea that I would never be able to have another creamsicle again.
But tonight, January 29, 2017, I treated myself to a creamsicle.

This disease has been filled with sorrow and disappointment and fear of failure.
But I will not let it ruin my life and take the small joys away from me!
If I want a creamsicle, by golly I am having that creamsicle!! Because this is MY LIFE!
No stupid disease is taking away my joy. Sure my blood sugar is high now, but tomorrow I might have a low. Tomorrow my numbers will be different. Tomorrow, I can go back to eating salads and behaving myself and striving for good blood sugar.
But tonight...
TONIGHT WE LIVE!!!

(By the way, Brave-Pancreas is a reference to Braveheart. I know, my humor is incredible.)

Bare Truth

Diabetics are not healthy.
Our bodies do not work in the way they were intended to work.
I get frustrated because I'm so broken sometimes. I should have this blood sugar right now but I don't. Is it my fault? Am I a bad diabetic? My friend who is diabetic has better blood sugar than me. Does that mean she is a better diabetic? Can I judge that?
My numbers will not look like a "normal" person's numbers.
That's not my fault; it's a fact of diabetes.
Am I doing everything I can to be healthy?
I try to.

I want to please people. I want to please my doctors. I want to please the people who care about me.
I want them to be happy and proud of me.

Sometimes the numbers are good and it's not because of anything I did or didn't do.
Sometimes the numbers are bad and it's because I did something specific.
The numbers will always change. If I sit around worrying about the numbers all day, I will never have time to live my life.
---

For the time being, I'm only going to update on Mondays and Fridays! See you soon!

Gratitude

With everything that's going on in my life and in this world, I thought that now might be a good time to start a gratitude journal.
My cousin gave me this great little 90-day gratitude journal so I decided to start filling it.

"But Elizabeth, how can you be grateful when all this political upheaval is going on/ you have diabetes/ the world sucks so much/ etc?"
Well, my depressing yet kind-hearted friend, no day is without its ups and downs, but if we focus on the disappointments of the world, I don't think we'll ever be happy. Ya feel me?
So it's time to appreciate the small victories and to start seeing the positives!
I'll see you all next time.

Photo Time!

I have some pictures to share with you today!
Here's a picture of me a week or two after I got diagnosed:

I was gaining weight, but I was still really skinny.
Look at those legs!
You can't tell in this picture, but my arms are really skinny too. I had no muscle on them which made it almost impossible to open doors or lift a jug of milk.
I don't have my glasses on because my eyes were readjusting with the insulin and instead of being nearsighted, I was slowly getting far sighted. Of all the things that happened to me, that was definitely the weirdest!!









Here's a picture of me I took last semester:

You can really see the difference in my legs.
Look at those babies! They're like tree trunks!
I have glasses again because I'm nearsighted once more. Honestly, I missed my glasses. It felt weird to not wear them.














I still look over these pictures sometimes. I just can't believe it took me so long to notice what was happening to my body. The weight loss, the thirst, I just thought I was stressed out by school and that if I came home, I would be fine. It's still unbelievable to me.

Who Moved My Pancreas?

The other night my blood glucose level was pretty high (I had had a bad day and so I was rewarding myself with some pie). So as I walked around my room, willing my blood sugar to go down, I read the book Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson.

It's the story of four creatures, two mice and two littlepeople, and how they respond to change.
When they lose their cheese, the two mice move on to search for more cheese but the two little people respond differently. They both have a hard time dealing with the change, but one manages to move on and change himself.

A lot of this stuff is hard to relate to with diabetes. Enjoy the change? I think that no matter how good I'll get, I'll never enjoy stabbing myself with needles.
Though one section really hit home with me.

"Sometimes things change and they are never the same again. This looks like one of those times. That's life! Life moves on. And so should we" (Johnson, 45).

Getting diabetes at this time in my life was both good and bad. It's good because I'm old enough to be responsible for my numbers and making sure that I'm doing what I can to be healthy. It's bad because I remember what it's like to not have diabetes. There's a very clear BEFORE diabetes and AFTER diabetes. Things have changed and even if they find a cure tomorrow or the day after or five years from now, I don't think I'm ever going to be the person I was before diabetes.

Endo Office Frustration

I've been going in for a lot of tests this week.
LOTS of tests.
My boyfriend even took me to the lab to do a urine test. (He's such a good sport.)

And then I got the results.
They called me and said "Your numbers for your microalbumin are high but they're not as high as they once were. We want you to do a 24-hour urine test. We're going to mail the lab slip."
I'm going back to college in a few days so I don't have much time for peeing in buckets.
And how high is high?

The range my microalbumin should be is 5 to 100. When I was diagnosed, it was 2000. It's currently at 973. That high of a number could mean that I could get kidney disease.

So I call them and say, "Can I just come in and pick up the bucket?" "Oh, yeah! Sure."

We get there and I just want to go in, pick up the pee bucket, and get out. I sign the forms, get approved, and go into the lab. The nurse ushers me into a seat and brings out one of those tiny urine cups. "Oh no, I need the bucket. I just did the random urine test yesterday," I tell her. "The form says a urine sample. You'll probably need to go up to the endo office and get that fixed," she responds. How frustrating! And then the nurse says, "Do you want to do the blood sample before you go up?" BLOOD SAMPLE? I already did my blood sample!!! No no no no! The whole form is wrong. Thankfully my mother was there to calm me down and explain things to the nurse.

So we go up to the endo office. "The lab got it wrong. That form is right," the endo secretary tries to insist. Thankfully one of the nurses was around. She takes the form back and gets it fixed.
All I needed was a stupid pee bucket that I don't even want. I don't even want to do this.
The nurse comes back with a new form. "There are some new nurses here that must have messed it up." Sure. Cover your own butt.
The blood sample was still on the form. "No no, I don't need this." The nurse crosses it off.
I take the form back down to the front office.

Now, you'd expect the story to end here but it doesn't!!
I ask the front office, "Do I need to go through registration again or can I go right into the lab?"
One lady looks at the paper and says that the nurse didn't initial where she crossed off the blood sample and that I was going to have to bring it back up FOUR STORIES to get this NURSE TO INITIAL WHERE SHE CROSSED OFF!!! TO GET A BUCKET! FOR PEE! I could get my own bucket to fill with pee and it would be FASTER THAN THIS!
Then the woman I usually see at the front office comes over and says that the paperwork is fine. Just go into the lab.
And the nurse at the lab tells me, "I'll take care of the labs that you didn't do. I'll take it off of the insurance." And they give me my pee bucket.

I don't know what I hate more, the diabetes or the endo office.

Doctor's Office Visit

Just got back from the doctor's today and I'm happy to say that I am the proud owner of a healthy A1C of 6.9. The diabetic is now doing fine and resting comfortably.
At first, I was kinda upset. My blood sugar is supposed to be at 6.5 to be considered "healthy". Normal people have lower blood sugar. If 7 is a little high, isn't 6.9 skimming the surface? Am I getting a B+ for blood sugar when I should be getting an A?
But forget all that. I was diagnosed 7 months ago. I had an A1C of 14. I'm still learning how my diabetic little body ticks.
Anyways, it's Friday so that means a new Dexcom sensor which means a new pep talk. I've been getting progressively less stressed putting it in. This time, I said "Let's do this!" before I put the sensor in. I think it really helped.
Happy 2017!
Let's do this!