aiming for grace

weariness.

I've been feeling pretty good lately. My diabetes has been under good control and I've been feeling alright about it all. Feeling like all is well even if I have diabetes. And then last week I had one of those weeks. A spate of high blood sugars without a clear reason why. Was it that meal out with friends that kicked it off? Was it the angle of my site and the fact that the waistband of my jeans kept jiggling it out of the locked position? Was I getting a cold (after all I'd woken up with a sore throat one night)? Was it stress from work, stress from a few high blood sugars? Was it some bad choices I had made? Or just bad luck? After a few days and a few nights up dealing with the roller coaster, I was tired and weary.

What's amazing to me about this, is even though I'd been cooking along well for a such long time, it only took a couple of days into a bad spell and there it was. The weariness. The deep, deep, weariness that I forget about on the good days. There is was like a snap of the fingers. Right under the surface, never too far away.

For some reason, that deep weariness always surprises me.

I've since changed out my site and my blood sugars have normalized and I'm back to feeling fine. I guess it was the angle and positioning of my site. Or maybe I'd hit some scar tissue. Or maybe a I overcame a cold that never came to fruition. Whatever the reason, things are better now and the weariness has faded. And I forget about it again, for now.

nutrition data.

I'm totally intrigued with the amazing site nutrition data. Though it's actually pretty complex in it's breadth and depth, it's goal is to make the science of food more understandable and usable through simple presentation and information graphics. The content on the site requires some time to investigate but the result is hopefully a deeper understanding of what foods do, the value they bring individually and how in the end, they interact together for overall nutritional impact. There are many tools to play with here, to help understand the nutritional value, glycemic index rank, even the "fullness factor" of a particular food as well as to tailor recipes and food combinations to help a person meet their individual dietary goals. They also have a section for diabetes which tells me at first glance that they understand some of the complexity we face in terms nutrition. It's going to be fun to explore this impressive site and see where it takes me. No doubt I'll learn something useful along the way!

really getting it right.

The other day I noticed something about what I notice. I always notice when I haven't done something right in terms of my diabetes. I notice when I don't correct a high accurately or I've over eaten to counter a low. I notice when I over bolus to cover for a treat or on the other hand, don't bolus enough to cover it. I always notice when I get it wrong.

Last weekend I had a bad low after a day full of gardening. One of those lows that feels like I'm never going to recover, sweaty, panicky, desperate. It's usually during a scary low like this that I overate in the immediate effort to get my blood sugar back to normal. Which was the case this time and I knew I'd pay later in the night with a rebound. At bed I was an acceptable 145 but as predicted was up later in the night with a 300+ blood sugar. At night I become very insulin sensitive and consequently need to take less insulin to cover a high than I do during the day. Which can be challenging to remember when I'm groggy and tired in the middle of the night. But this time I did remember and took the right amount for the night and promptly went back to bed. In the morning, my blood sugar was a happy 98 and I set about my day as I normally would. Walked the dogs, took a shower and got ready for work. And then a funny thing happened. I just stopped in my tracks. I realized something I hadn't noticed before. I had got it right the night before, pure and simple. Not wrong but right, as I had done so many times before. What was different this time was I noticed. I actually noticed that I had got it right.

What occurs to me is what a different feeling I'd have about having diabetes if I noticed all the little successes a bit more. Imagine if I noticed more of the times I got it right and celebrated those moments just as enthusiastically as I berate myself when I get it wrong. The sheer number of little successes it takes to keep my blood sugar in control easily outweighs the occasional mistakes. When I look at the picture this way it occurs to me that the noise and pain I've let surround my mistakes may really be out of proportion. If I let the weight of every 90 blood sugar or perfectly counted carb ratio or correctly figured correction bolus have more value in the overall equation of my diabetes control, the times when I don't get it right become so much more the exception than the rule. A small glitch, not a failure. A slip against a backdrop of getting so much right with a difficult disease.

And maybe at the end of the day, seeing it that way would really be getting it right overall!

asking for what you need.

I heard a woman speak recently about the need to ask for what you want, to ask for the kind of recognition and feedback you need from the people who matter to you. It wasn't a long speech, 3 minutes perhaps, but it really struck me deeply nonetheless. Her point was that it's our responsibility on some level, to bring visibility to the things we need, to ourselves and others. Though people might not always respond to us in the way we want, the most important thing is that we've made our needs known to ourselves, out loud, in the light of day. I like that. I think it makes sense.

So in that spirit, I approached my 22nd anniversary of my diagnosis a little differently this time. Normally I don't tell anyone about it. My husband knows and now, thanks to this blog, I can tell my friends in the diabetes OC and they too understand how significant that is. That is normally enough. And quite frankly, the subject is an awkward one with anyone beyond this forum. I've never exactly known how to say to my friends or family that "today is the anniversary of getting diagnosed with a difficult disease". I imagined that they wouldn't know what to say and everyone would just feel more awkward around an already difficult subject and given the significance of the day, who needs that?

But as I say, I decided to try something different this time, thanks to that little 3 minute talk I heard the other day. I decided to let my brother know the importance of the day even though he's never really engaged with me much around my disease. My brother and I haven't always been super close though he's really important to me and I know we love each other a lot just the same. I was 27 when I was diagnosed and had already lived separately from him for many years. In a weird way he, like the rest of my family really, understands intellectually that I have diabetes, but practically speaking has no idea what that really means. He's never seen me struggle with low blood sugars or curse the inevitable highs. He's never watched me take a blood test thousands of times over or insert a new pump site, or rip one out either. No, my brother really has no reference point as to what the last 22 years have really been about.

My brother lives in another city so I emailed him last Thursday about something else we'd been discussing and then at the end of the note, simply mentioned that today was my 22nd anniversary of my diagnosis of diabetes. I said I was proud of how I'd handled it but sad about the experience too. That was it. I pushed the send button and went off to a day full of meetings. When I returned to my desk around 4:00, to my surprise, a gorgeous bouquet of multi-colored tulips was there to greet me. My brother, who has never been good at remembering birthday's or anniversaries, my brother, who is not demonstrative in that way, did the absolute, perfect thing. He noticed and acted. Because I'd opened up the possibility for him to do so, he did so. Because I let him in on my world, he had the chance to be kind and supportive back. He didn't have to know the details, he just had to know what was important to me.

On the card that accompanied the bouquet there was a note from him saying how proud he was of me for doing so well with this difficult disease. To say that I cried is an understatement. The fact that he understood this and that he felt pride in my approach, meant so much to me. I know it sounds silly, but I really didn't know that he felt that way. We haven't talked about my diabetes much in the past so to find this out, to see it in words and gesture, really made my heart skip. One small act of sharing, allowed for another act that not only made my day better, but also taught me something important about my brother. Even though he hasn't been a part of my day to day struggle, he has noticed in his way. I guess the world isn't always how it appears at first glance. I guess it's worth asking for what you need every once in a while. In this case, it most certainly was!

carrying on.

Today is the 22nd anniversary of my diagnosis with diabetes. I am proud of how I've handled it but also so sad to that it ever had to happen in the first place.

This vintage British World War II poster from sfgirlbybay, which I have framed in my office at work, sums up my overall attitude about diabetes these days. Maybe it's because my mom is British so it's sentiment resonates deeply in my dna, or maybe it's just because it feels like it's the only choice I have, but there you have it. 22 years. Keep calm. Carry on.

healthy vs. normal.

For years people have said that even though I have diabetes I can live a "normal life". I've struggled with this idea for a long, long time but thanks to a bit of an epiphany a few years back I no longer feel that normal, in the most normal sense of the word, is really my goal. Though I know most people mean well when they say this kind of thing, for the longest time I reached for the state of normalcy that they were referring to and that I'd had before diabetes. I reached for it and failed dismally in the process, because of course it wasn't possible. And even though people do mean well when they talk about the "normal life" I lead as a diabetic, in the process of saying it, they are oblivious to (and unintentionally negating) all the hard work it takes to appear so "normal". Normal went out the window with 6 shots a day for 16 years followed by 6 years of life on the insulin pump, countless blood tests and the analysis of pretty much every ounce of food I've eaten and every moment of exercise I've done in the last 22 years. What's normal for me now is anything but normal in the way other people talk about it.

No, normal defined that way is not what I work so hard for anymore. Healthy is my goal now. Healthy with diabetes. Healthy in spite of diabetes. Healthy even because of diabetes. I want to be healthy and happy and comfortable with my life as it is now. My goal is to have wholeness and vibrancy and well being become my normal, and to not worry anymore about being "normal" like everyone else.

eat the rainbow.

I was one of those kids that hated vegetables and fruits. Unfortunately, I remain that same type of person as an adult, though I know better than to avoid them in my diet. I try to eat the few types of fruits and vegetables I actually like as much as possible. My nutritionist says I'm ok with the types I like, as long as I eat them more often. So I am and it's getting easier to do so, though I doubt fruits and vegetables will ever be tops of my favorites list any time soon.

Nutrition is so very complicated as a science and as a diabetic, there's so much to consider when thinking about food. So much of the time eating becomes a chore or source of fuel or connection to bloodsugars and not a source of pleasure or sustenance. So I like it when nutrition is presented in a simple, straightforward way, which helps make it easier to do the right thing when it comes to what I eat. Which is why I'm loving the nature matching system by tattfoo, a project that frames up nutrition as color, "as a reminder to consume your daily recommended doses of color. The shades of color displayed at farmers’ markets are more than skin deep, reflecting the inner potential of every fruit and vegetable; intense colors might even be called nature’s nutrition labels. They get many of their colors from phytonutrients, compounds that play key roles in health and reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer. The more colors come together at a meal, the better. Sadly, marketers of junk food apply the same technique used by nature to pollinate seed to their nutrition-deprived product. Color is a device that can do good or be deceptive and ensure the pollination of unhealthy eating habits. The colors on the placemat shown below are all actual food colors, taken from photographs of various fruits and vegetables. Match your meal to the placemat—it is truly a rainbow connection."

What a smart, simple way to think about food. I love it, plus it sounds so much more fun and doable than the usual "eat better or you'll be in trouble" feel of most of the talk we hear in this culture around nutrition. Add more colors to your meals! Eat the rainbow! I actually want do that!