At least life according to the D-monster has been better lately. I was getting frustrated with my numbers and my apparent inability to control them despite all of my effort, so I finally (FINALLY!) took a step back to evaluate the situation. Duh. My basal rate patterns didn't make sense at all, and it took me a couple of months to figure that little piece of information out! I suppose with everything going on, I was just increasing the rates themselves over time without looking at how my overall pattern was functioning (not well, by the way). The day that I realized this, I decided to start from square one and recalculate everything based on the total daily dose of insulin I'd been using. To do so, I had to pull out my trusty "Think Like a Pancreas" book by Gary Scheiner and review how to calculate all of the basal/bolus rates and ratios. With a little math (which I always enjoy--seriously, because I'm a nerd), I had a basal/bolus pattern that was a little more sane looking:
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| Before |
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| After |
It had been so long since I'd done such a complete overhaul that I was a little worried about highs and lows the next day, but everything worked out surprisingly well. It's amazing what a little perspective can do...I was just metaphorically kicking myself for not doing it sooner! My numbers have been much more even, and I haven't had near as many out-of-range results as I was having before. Not that they were horrible before; it's just that I'm kind of a perfectionist and like for all of them to be as close to "normal" as possible--is that so much to ask?!
In other D-news, how about that Artificial Pancreas Project?! I'm so excited that the FDA has started the process that will hopefully lead to approval in a timely fashion. It's such a major step in the right direction for those of us living with T1, and although it's not a cure, it does represent a major advancement in treatment technology. For more on what this means for us, please read this article: Interpreting the FDA Guidance for the Artificial Pancreas
This morning I got a blog update from Jacquie Wojcik at Typical Type 1 in my email, and it was an awesome one. You can read the full post here, but the general gist of the post was about how judgmental people without diabetes can be at times. If you deal with this disease, no matter the type, you've no doubt encountered it at some point--if not more frequently. Even when people don't make rude comments or say anything out loud, sometimes you can feel their judgment anyway. It can make eating in public a psychologically difficult experience, because you know that if you split a dessert with your lunch buddy, there will probably be somebody who is thinking, "She has diabetes, she shouldn't be eating that!" It's not that I mind talking about my disease or correcting misconceptions when people are genuinely interested; it's the ones that try to impress their diabetes "knowledge" and horror stories upon you that can be irritating at times.
I like to think I generally have a good, positive attitude and outlook on life, but even that can be challenged when dealing with this type of thing on a regular basis. I've thought before about printing some of these diabetes etiquette cards for people who don't have diabetes to keep on hand for such situations, but I don't know how well received or effective that would be. Instead, the action I've taken is one I'm super comfortable with: I wrote. I mentioned it in my last post, but for American Diabetes Month I wrote an article for our local newspaper about the myths and misconceptions surrounding the disease so that maybe-just maybe-it will reach those that need to know these things. Like I've said before, even though it's hard, I can deal with the negativity...it's the kiddos who live with diabetes that I worry about. Life with this disease is hard enough without having to defend yourself and your decisions all the time. We already have to micromanage ourselves, so it's no fun when others try to do it for us as well. Like one person in the comments said of Jacquie's post, "It’s amazing how much more people care about/watch what I eat since I was diagnosed Type 1. They didn’t give a crap about what was on my plate before." So very true. The not-so-nice part of me sometimes wants to ask these people, "So just because you don't have diabetes, it's okay for you to eat that third piece of cake?!" But I don't, because I could never actually say that to anyone, no matter how rude they've been to me. In the end, I have to realize that there are some people who just don't get it. I can try to change their perceptions, but sometimes their ideas are so long-held and concrete that there's not much anyone could do or say to fix the situation. So instead, I just try to do the best I can and educate the ones who are willing to learn.
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