aiming for grace

clinic "decor"

I went in to my doctor's office for my quarterly A1C checkup last week. Every time I go there I'm struck with the question of why hospitals have to feel so otherworldly? I know that everyone there is focused on doing great medical work, which is of course, appreciated and expected by all of us. I go to a teaching, research hospital for my clinics because I love my doctor and know I'm getting access to the best care available for my diabetes and overall health. And, of course, I know that's the point after all.

But the designer in me can't help but wonder why hospital clinic interiors have to feel so much like a Motel 6 from the 70's. Beige, baby blue and pale pink everywhere. Magazine racks stuck to the wall, usually filled with ancient copies of magazines whose subjects you never care about like fishing or condo living or recipes. Everything feels temporary, as if its been designed for people who have already left on a trip...a long time ago. As a patient, I guess I can understand the concept of "temporariness" informing interior choices since none of us really want to be there for very long. But I just don't believe the resulting aesthetics are consciously driven by that as an idea. It seems they have just "happened" due to the function and utility of a medical place colliding with the misconception that beige and pink will somehow make examining rooms feel more warm and inviting. A nice thought, but not true in practice.

Place is really important. It might as well be as cool a place as possible while you're there. And, as it is with most things, it's all about attitude, even if it is at a hospital or clinic focused on the serious and important job of disease evaluation and management. When you think about it, making the place cool is especially important there. Control what you can, right?

So here are some humble suggestions to start the conversation:
• get fresh. Get some new eyes on the place. Get an architecture/interior design class to redesign and/or upgrade the standard hospital/clinic decor. Put a group of young, creative, talented and motivated people to work on the problem. It's a win/win proposition because the clinic gets the design work for free and the students get a real and meaningful piece for their portfolio.
• get some fresh and inviting color in the joint. There are lot's of studies around how much color affects mood. Think about the people who are visiting and how not fun it is, in general, to be there. Think about the poor staff who have to work there day in and day out. And then remember the magic of paint. It doesn't have to be expensive to have a major overhaul of mood and freshness. It's amazing what just a fresh coat of the right color of paint can do. Get a consultant or the kids from the architecture class to help. Not surprisingly, I'd recommend removing pale pink and baby blue from the range of choices, permenantly.
• get groovy magazines. Fill the place with them. Make it hard for us to leave because there is so much to read. Contact some magazine publishing companies to take some of their "out of date" (eg. one month old) magazines off their hands. I've heard that the ones that haven't sold through in retail shops are returned to the publisher. Maybe the publisher would like to off load them and get a tax credit from the donation. Maybe they won't be up for it but it certainly is worth a try. If you've got to sit and wait to get poked and prodded, you might as well catch up on a month old Elle Decor or Vogue while you're at it.
• if there is any kind of budget, invest in some better fixtures and accessories. A nice second hand shop magazine rack, a cool chair with character, a groovy piece of real art. Or maybe ask some of the patients to do some art and have it framed to show off how cool and professional it looks. And remember, everything doesn't have to all match or be expensive. In fact the mismatched stuff is tres chic these days. Just read Ilse Crawford's new book home is where the heart is to get the full scope on this trend.
• also, for a fun read that has great principles that might apply, read Jonathan Adler's new book: My Prescription for Anti-Depressive Living.

That's it for now. We can all keep thinking about it. I know that getting great medical care is the priority. This conversation is just an exercise in making that process of that feel a little bit better.

aiming for grace

I found this quote in the newspaper many years ago and it has served me well in my journey with diabetes. It really is the truth as I see it. And so it goes with dealing with a life with chronic illness. There isn't much you can do about having it but there is a lot you can control about how you handle having it.

I started this book many years ago too, in the spirit of aiming for grace. I took an old book about the propagation of sweet peas that I found at a 2nd hand book store and have been creating small collages about life, including diabetes, throughout. I work on it for chunks of time and then I stop for a while. What has been interesting is the discovery of a pattern, emerging through all the work over time. A pattern of dots and marks, derived from the unending ritual of injections and blood sticks. Small punctures in my body repeated thousands of times, again and again.

It's been quite a while since I've added to the book, so maybe I will again soon. In the meantime, here is one of the spreads that I have so far.

dance to one song a day

I'm not a great dancer, but I love music. I love how it makes me feel when it's played loud. I can feel it in my stomach and it always makes me want to move. In the spirit of aiming for more joy in my life, I think it would be great to dance more. Nothing fabulous, just more moving to groove, dude. I'd love it if I could dance for a 1/2 hour a few days a week which would not only be more fun but also great exercise. I walk between a mile and two miles every day with my dogs, which works well for my diabetes control. But I'd love to be able to dance too...not like a competitive aerobics class kind of thing, but rather a place to move and sweat and feel alive with others. I like the idea of more reasons to play the Gorillaz and Madonna and Beck and the Ceasers and the Killers and En Vogue.

So my question is how do I do that with diabetes? How do I do more exercise it if I don't do it every day? I have been able to carve out the 1/2 hour every day, rain or shine, to walk. It helps that the dogs get me going and I feel guilty if they don't get their walk. But that 1/2 hour a day is about all I can rely on, given my schedule. To add another 1/2 hour of more intense exercise on random days poses some problems beyond time. It's the inconsistency (of intesity and time) that kills me. One day with increased activity, one day without means low bloodsugars on the days I do it, high ones on the days I don't. I know it takes experimentation to find out how to make it work. But man the ongoing "planning of fun" is pretty depressing. And not doing new things, because of all the planning and experimentation it requires, becomes very seductive. It's so easy to get deterred. I started swimming last year and it was great, but I couldn't do it consistently enough and as my body changed because of the increased activity, my bloodsugar control went out the window. Out of control diabetes usually manifests for me in interupted nights with unexpected highs and lows. It only takes a few nights in a row of this for me to loose my motivation. I get tired. And get to where I will do anything to just feel rested. So I walk for exercise. Which works, but is boring. I'm just reticent now, to try anything new. It's not exactly relaxing to be doing something different for "fun" and have it become physically harder to manage my diabetes.

But I yearn for more physical activity, spontenaity and fun. How do I do that? Beyond the reticence I just described, I have also found that trying something new can be a very solitary and confusing process. Frankly, I feel like I'm guessing through most of it. In the spirit of seeking out help in adding more physical activity to my life, I have talked to people who know about exercise and have found they never seem to also know about diabetes. I have also talked to the people who know about diabetes and always seem to speak in generalities about exercise, but never have the time to focus on my specifics. I've read books and articles, researched the web. At the end of the day, I'm left to trying to piece it all together which is hard and scary and full of pitfalls. I feel like I need a knowledgable coach who gets the complexity of diabetes and exercise. It would be great to have someone who is there with me through the process, to help with motivation, frustration, anxiety, set backs and ultimately, to share in the success.

Or maybe, in the absense of that, I just need to start slow, dance to one song a day. I could do that. And then maybe bump it up to two songs a day once I've figured out how to manage the impact on my body. Maybe, as usual, it's all about the pace. I can start small with one song a day. 7 songs a week, 7 dances a week, is 7 more than I am doing now. That sounds like a veritable party when I look at it that way, and that party certainly adds up to more joy. So I guess for now, I will plan to ease into the dance fever.

the right pace

Last night I had a birthday party with my best friends. It was fabulous. So fun and funny and happy. I literally woke up smiling this morning. I was thinking about how I just want more of that feeling. More laughter, good food, celebration, stories, joy. We stayed up late, ate well and laughed alot. It was true unbridled fun for me.

And then I thought about the idea of pace. That life with a chronic illness like diabetes requires a real sense of pace. I may want more of what I experienced last night, but I couldn't maintain too much of it without some real impact on my diabetes control. I know no one gets everything they want in terms of fun, but I also know that I am determined to move to joy as much as I can. And though it's not necessarily about less, it is about being aware of the balance that I have to shoot for with this disease. I've found over the years that my diabetes behaves kind of like a childs top. When it's going well it's balanced and I am capable of lot's of speed and adventure and energy. And then something tips the balance and it gets all wonky and hard to maintain the equilibrium. It also takes time to reestablish the balance and that's when I get bummed, because I like the energy I feel when it's going well. I start to feel sorry for myself that I have to deal with it all.

My goal now is to figure out the right balance between pace and fun. Or maybe to approach them as an integrated thing rather than as a trade off. I'm not a big fan of slow but I also know from experience that it is key to keeping the "top" going in a balanced way. The question is how do I get more joy while maintaining pace? Or maybe the idea is really accepting that I get more of what brings me happiness WITH pace. What would that look like? The goal is to figure out what's the right pace to have more of the unbridled fun. Because in the end, isn't all this effort to be healthy about having more of the joy?