I’m so tired. I’m working so hard in school and I love it, even if it makes me want to break my computer in half or fall/crawl under a table at least once a day (maybe more, haha). But on top of that, as always, I’m dealing with diabetes and mental health. I started a new mental health medication this week, Monday I was so nauseous I had to go home from school early, barely avoided throwing up in the uber on the way home and then crawled in bed and slept through to 7pm… this does not help with being productive at anything. I changed up my breakfast to account for the nausea and now my blood sugar has been CRASHING as soon as I get to school for the past three days, so now what do I do? a million options and a million^2 possible outcomes to consider and I’m just tired. I don’t want to figure this out. I don’t want to be shaking at my laptop in the morning, not able to concentrate. Having to quietly tell a friend that I’m really low, just in case… I hate this. it’s terrible. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy and it’s NEVER GOING AWAY. EVER. this is exhausting. I just want to craw into my bed and never come out. the worst part is these past weeks have actually been relatively good… yes, this is my good. how fucked is that. I’m so sick of this. There has got to be a better way, and that’s why I’m in school to figure this shit out. But my day to day is getting in the way and it’s never going away. fuck this.
Month: April 2016
I’ve been thinking I should probably try to write on a day that I’m not raging and mad at diabetes, so I started writing today and I remembered that there are no days off, there are no days when I am not mad at diabetes, because there are only brief glimpses when I forget or I’m not worried about something… when my current pod expires, what my blood sugar is, if it’s going to stay there, is it affecting my ability to concentrate or do what I’m trying to do, do I have snacks with me, if not where are the closest ones, where’s my kit, is my phone working, if not is my receiver working, if not… wtf, how do I fix this… that all is literally in a minute or less in my head all the time. And I’m supposed to be able to carry on like a normal person, be able to think, get work done, cook, take care of myself, all while making thousands of micro decisions a day just to stay alive. I shouldn’t have to text my parents to tell them that I’m not passed out and dead twice a day when my low BG alarms go off, I shouldn’t have to second guess every chill, every shake… I just mistyped a word, did I just make a mistake or am I shaking from a low I haven’t felt… who the fuck knows — I wouldn’t know without my Dexcom, I don’t feel anything until I’m in the 50s… which is less than ideal. Anyway… this is me not rage-y mad, just regular daily diabetic life mad. There has to be a better way…
another basal adjustment… while I am encouraged overall with the progress I’ve made over the last couple of months with progressive basal rate changes, slowly creeping into good daily ranges, I can’t help but ask why? why am I requiring that much more insulin daily, remembering that increasing by .05 units/hr over 20hrs is really only 1 unit/day … but it’s one unit that I didn’t need before. why the change? “just because” is common wisdom, but I don’t get it… it’s not like my dead pancreas suddenly got more dead… resistance to the insulin? by that small of an amount? I don’t know that seems to be the only plausible theory, but either way I’m irritated by it, and by having to make progressive changes, why couldn’t there be some way to know that I would need to go up by .20 units/hr across the board (except for 3:30pm-7:00pm mystery drop time) and just make that change once, why do I have to suffer through months of incremental changes? From a scientist perspective and a safety perspective I understand why, but as the patient, it’s fucking frustrating to have to be okay with incrementally better when it’s still shitty overall… I don’t know how to fix this, but it should be fixed. I’m adding it to the list… fuck diabetes.
to be totally honest it’s not been a great emotional diabetes week, but this morning I looked at Dexcom Clarity just because I still had the tab open from the other day… and my estimated A1C over the last two weeks is 7.7 down from the last estimate of 7.9 (I know it’s not perfect and this is probably within the margin of error, but it makes me happy so I’m keeping it). I have also brought my average BG down 8 points to 174 which again, isn’t huge, but it’s progress and after the last couple months of what has felt like constant basal rate adjustments and struggling to concentrate in class through ridiculous spikes, hopefully that’s behind me. I’m incorporating more exercise, or at least more movement, in my daily/weekly schedule and trying to be proactive in mitigating lows… overall, I’m declaring a tentative win for the last two weeks… go me!