You Can Do This

Frequency

Frequency is a very interesting thing in Diabetesland. We base our lives on frequency. Frequency is in how many times a day we check our blood sugar, to how many times a year we see our endocrinologist, to how often we exercise, to how many showers we take a day (or week, if you’re kind of a Stinky McStinkerson).

Just like daylight is defined by the existence of night, frequency is sometimes most obvious when it is absent. For example, it’s much easier to spot a day or a week of not checking your blood sugar when you’re accustomed to checking it eight times a day. However, if all you do is one fingerprick a day, then a few days of no fingerpricks at all really doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.

I find that is where I am with sharing my life these days on my blog, in real life, about diabetes and otherwise. My frequency of sharing has diminished over the past long time, where I now find the task of sharing much of anything with other people extremely hard. And I don’t notice when I’m not opening up near as much as I used to, because my normal now is being guarded and closed off from others. I’m even guarded with those that I care about and who care about me the most, with very few exceptions.

But I have so much to share. So I have to figure out how to get past this being guarded baloney. I have to let my defenses down a little, and teach myself how to share Martin World with complete strangers and not so strangers, like I used to. I miss sharing, and I miss the conversation, and I miss the empathy and “Aha!” moments that come with the sharing of a story.

I have to learn how to trust that people aren’t going to hurt me with what I have to share, and have the courage to just put whatever it is that I have to say out there, and I’m finding it extremely difficult to begin. Again.

That is what this post is about. I’m sure I have some very poignant blog posts bottled up in me somewhere. I’m sure I have some ridiculous, hilarious, and emotional posts as well. So much has happened over the past long time that needs sharing. The list is very long, and I have been very selfish by keeping it all to myself. I apologize for that, to you and to me both.

My goal is to start to share again. I have so much catching up to do. I may pull from my experiences today, or I may pull from events that happened months and months ago. The goal is to share, and in the process of sharing I’m hoping that I can beat the demons inside of me that make me afraid to open up. I need the conversation. I need the attention. I need to feel closer to people, rather than so detached. Maybe we all do.

Some of what you read after this post will be diabetically speaking, and some of it won’t be. But it will all be right here at Diabetically Speaking. Because I just renewed my hosting plan. And because it’s me, Martin Wood, and I have a story to tell.

Frequency, to be determined.

 

Low Interrupted

At first, I was thinking that I would toss out this post, or save it for later, in order to respond to the news from the Diabetes Research Institute. I know that a post like this, full of words on a screen, risks getting lost in the mix. But maybe it won’t.

If you read my last post, you know that A-Flizzle surprised me with a birthday trip to Jacksonville to tour the Budweiser brewery, hang out with Jacquie and the gang, get a massage, and go to one of my favorite restaurants in the whole wide world called 13 Gypsies. And my blood sugar spiked sky high. So now you’re caught up. As Paul Harvey would say, this is “the rest of the story.”

I’ve been sitting on this post for a few weeks now. It’s been a really hard thing for me to share. It’s the post I’ve been waiting to write for, like, 23 days.

My blood sugar was sky high, but I couldn’t very well call in diabetic and cancel a quality birthday celebration. Nor did I want to. I bolused for the high, but having been unplugged from my pump for as long as I was, there was really no telling how much insulin it would take to turn things around and get my BG’s back to normal. I knew I would need to feather the insulin over time in small doses so that I didn’t get a big ball of insulin hitting me all at once. It sounded like a good idea, at least. Until it just wasn’t working. Not even a little bit. Not even at all.

So, I did what any abnormal person with a nonfunctioning pancreas would do in the situation: I rage bolused the $h!t out of that high to show it who was boss. And I did too.

Later that night, after we had gone out to a rooftop bar and then to one of our favorite hangouts in 5 Points, Birdie’s, A-Flizzle and I trekked back to our hotel to call it a night. We settled in, I stretched out on the bed, propped my head up on a stack of pillows, and started watching one of the greatest movies of all time that just happened to be on TV that night: Con Air. What? You know you love it!

A-Flizzle was sound asleep, and I was laying there in bed messing around with my iPad and watching Cyrus the Virus battle The Man of Nomadic Eyebrows from the Land of Forgotten Forehead (aka, Nicholas Cage) for a shot at freedom via a crash landing on the Las Vegas strip (don’t blame me, I didn’t write it) when it hit me. Hard. And I remember every single part of it.

In an instant, I had absolutely no clue where I was. I couldn’t figure out what I was doing, even though I was doing nothing. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t help overanalyzing every next thought that was popping into my head, and I had no control of what was popping into my head next.

I sat up and threw my legs over the side of the bed. My bare feet hit the cold wooden floor. I sat there, in a complete panic, trying to figure out what was going on. I knew what was going on. I just couldn’t quite figure out what was going on. But everything was so serious. I couldn’t figure out what was happening, what was next, what I should do.

I stood up. I walked over to my BG kit, and sat it on the table. I walked off. I started pacing around the room, stomping hard, trying to figure out what in the world was going on. I could see A-Flizzle in the middle of the king size bed, sound asleep. I tried to yell for her, but I couldn’t. No sound would come out. I started hitting my diabetes tattoo, indicating, trying to make noise and get her attention. Anybody’s attention. But it wasn’t loud enough.

And that’s when it hit me: I was low. Really, really low. And I was standing in the room with the one person that I trust more than anyone, and I could not for the life of me (literally) figure out how to get her attention. What would be so simple any other time, to simply yell or reach out and shake her awake, I could not figure out how to tell my body to do. I just knew that this was really, really serious, and I had to figure out something through my garbled thoughts.

I paced around the king sized bed like a tiger walking a perimeter, establishing his territory. Back and forth, from one side to the other, for I don’t even know how long. All the while I’m trying to figure out how to wake her up. I was fading. The panic was wearing me out. I was starting to think about what A-Flizzle would do without me, and how much it would crush her to lose me when she was right there, so close. What would happen to my Hopper (dog), Squirt (cat), and Bindi (A-Flizzle’s dog) back home without me. How their little hearts would break when I didn’t come home from a weekend away. How my Hopper would continue to look for me at the door long after Amanda got home, just waiting on me to get there to give him a doggie hug.

All I could think was, “This might be the one. That one low blood sugar that I don’t survive. The big one.” I was also thinking, “Dammit, I don’t want to go to the hospital on my friggin’ birthday!” I started punching the corner of the bed because I was so frustrated that I couldn’t get my body and brain to communicate and work properly. Then I thought of big ones, like the big earthquake in California that everybody always talks of but hasn’t happened yet. The hurricane that will come and sink Florida. The importance of having an emergency plan, a parachute. A parachute? A PARACHUTE! For when I fall!

No Brain

I managed to figure out that if I passed out from the low, it was my pump that would continue to give me insulin and keep me low. I snatched it from my PJ pants pocket, and unhooked it, not bothering to suspend it, and threw it on the bed. I went over to my bag, and found the glowing bright red rectangle that contained glucagon, and held it tight in my left hand. I knew that if I passed out, A-Flizzle would likely hear me hit the floor, and hopefully see the glucagon in my hand and know what to do. If she didn’t, at least my pump was off, so hopefully I would survive long enough for my blood sugar to come back up naturally before…well, before I died.

As I was digging in my bag for that, I uncovered a Level gel. I ripped off the top with my teeth and managed to get most of the gel in my mouth through the lack of motor skills and shaking that I didn’t realize was happening. Once I got the Level gel in me, and gave it time to work, I was finally able to figure out how to reach over and wake A-Flizzle up to help me. By then I was back on the edge of the bed, drenched in sweat, shaking, still holding the glucagon case in my left hand, and completely physically and emotionally exhausted. Half asleep, her training that I taught her in case I ever go low kicked in, and she was able to retrieve two more Level gels and help me get them down before I had to lay down, else pass out from exhaustion. Still, I wasn’t up to a normal and safe BG level yet.

A-Flizzle set a timer on her phone to wake us up every 15 minutes for me to test my BG again. After an hour of that, I was still only at 70. Not too low, but certainly not high enough to go to sleep after such a bad low. I took one more Level gel, and then I was out for the rest of the night. I woke up the next morning at 96. Normal. And completely hungLOWver, worn out, physically and emotionally exhausted from the night before.

I’m thankful that I taught A-Flizzle what to do when I go low. I’m thankful that we have a plan and always know where things are to treat a low, even if half asleep. It’s so important to have something available to treat a low blood sugar, and know where it is even in your subconscious. That is what may save you in the event that you have to build your own parachute. I know it did me. It’s been extremely hard for me to admit to myself, but I know that I wouldn’t be here right now had I not had those gels, known where they were, and the fact that they were easy for me to get into when it was literally life or death for me.

Tomorrow, the DRI is set to share some big news about steps toward an eventual cure for diabetes. I really hope it is everything that we hope it will be. I’d be lying though if I didn’t admit I’m skeptical. Don’t confuse that with negativity. I’m positive that there will be a cure someday, and I’ll be the first one to celebrate tomorrow if there is something to celebrate. I’ve just heard that a cure was coming since my mother was told that there would be one when I was diagnosed at age two, 32 years ago. A cure for diabetes is exactly what every one of us with diabetes, and every parent of a child with diabetes, wants in this world. Nobody should have to see their life flash before their eyes on their birthday because of a low blood sugar like I had to. However, hoping and praying and wishing doesn’t get us closer to that day.

I’ve learned to keep myself grounded in reality. Maybe that’s a defense mechanism so that I’m not constantly let down, but experience says to be patient, diligent, and steadfast today so that we can make it to tomorrow. The absolute best thing we can do is take care of ourselves today, support each other in the diabetes community, both online and offline, and not let our fellow person with diabetes stumble. You can do this, and so can I. Then, when that cure does arrive, whether it’s tomorrow or twenty years from now, we’ll be ready.

Keep Calm And BG On

Friends For Life 2012

Friends For Life 2012

The world is full of both extroverts and introverts; individuals who gain energy and fulfillment through being around and engaging groups of people, as well as individuals who thrive better when they have time to themselves and are not as engaged socially.

There are all sorts of definitions and distinctions of what makes someone an extrovert or an introvert. You could take 20 personality tests and read the entire self help section of your local bookstore and still not have a clear definition of the two classifications for all situations.

For me, that is the kicker. I tend to sort of meander between extrovert and introvert depending on the situation. I love being a part of big groups, sharing information, having both normal and nonsensical discussions, and feel like I’m being included, if not leading the experience. However, I sometimes reach a point where I also need my “me” time to figure things out on my own and reflect, plan, scheme, and let my thoughts run wild without the constraints of appropriateness to the situation.

When I need to be an extrovert, I gravitate toward situations where chances are good that I will be at or near the center of attention. As an introvert, you can sometimes find me in a state of observation, quiet, seemingly on the outside looking in.

I’m like this with diabetes as well. There are times that I am perfectly comfortable wearing the proverbial tights and cape and hooker boots that make up the Super Diabetic persona (hey, it worked for Superman…don’t judge me), educating the masses about the ways of the ‘beetus, managing meals in a single bolus, calculating carb and blood sugar ratios in my head faster than a speeding bullet, and encouraging the newly diagnosed and recently overwhelmed with a healthy dose of You Can Do This.

There are also times when I don’t want to deal with my diabetes, much less try to convince other people that it is easy or that I have everything under control. Sometimes, with diabetes, it’s hard, and I suck at it. Not most of the time, thankfully, but sometimes it is overwhelming and I just need some time to reflect and figure things out.

Friends For Life 2012

This past week I was at Friends For Life 2012, which is this extrovert’s dream come true, yet there were times that I found myself reserved and low-key. I spent quite a bit of time listening and observing, sometimes clinging more to my introvert tendencies to try and figure everything out than clamoring for attention and putting my diabetes on stage and in the spotlight. This wasn’t my first Friends For Life, and I didn’t feel as if I was around strangers that I needed to figure out. I just wanted a fresh perspective, for both myself and my diabetes.

I really needed a week with people with diabetes. There is something extremely special about food buffets that have carb counts on them, not being looked at strange for whipping out a BG kit and pricking my fingers in public, and people that understand what a glucoaster is and are riding it all week right along with you.

Now that I’m back home, I’m putting together my thoughts on some things that I learned this past week. From all the things that can come with diabetes beyond just insulin, to amazing things that people with diabetes can do, to challenges with the FDA, observations of parents of children with diabetes, and even the diabetes online community in real life, I’ve got plenty to think about and share. But first, I need a night to rest after a week of staying up until the wee hours of the morning every night. After all, nobody goes to Friends For Life to catch up on sleep.

The New World Of Martin

Back On Track

188. That is the number that greeted me Saturday when I stepped on the scale to see just how bad things were. After making significant progress in losing some of my heft, making as much progress as getting down into the mid-170’s by June of this year, at the beginning of July I had a bad diabetes moment, and despite my intentions to throw myself back into exercise and eating low carb, I’ve really lost focus.

My clothes fit a little more tight than they used to, and certainly more tight than I want them to. I look at myself in the mirror and I’m not happy with what I see. I want to look and feel sexy, and make the mistake of asking my reflection for my phone number when I walk by. I need to get new clothes too, as most of my clothes are well worn, some even with holes in them. But I refuse to go buy them when I’m at a weight and size that I’m not happy with. I don’t want to buy the size clothes that I am. I want to buy the size clothes that I want to be.

I’m also tired all the time. I don’t really sleep that much, and when I do it is restless and dream filled. Part of that is because I’m stressed all the time. I feel like I have for more to do than I have time to do it, all the time. It’s not just work, or life at home, or people I need to see, or things I need to do. It’s just the culmination of everything. It’s as if I can never get enough accomplished, and despite my generally optimistic view of the world, lately I feel frustrated because I end every day with a list of things I didn’t get done.

My eating habits are just plain gross since July. When I had my seizure, I really chewed up my tongue and mouth. For two weeks I could only eat soft foods like macaroni and cheese, applesauce, soft cookies, breads, and sometimes soup if it wasn’t too hot. Because I could barely chew or move food around in my mouth with my tongue, it completely broke down my low carb routine that I had been sticking with and was doing so good at keeping up. Now, because my routine changed, I’ve gotten accustomed to foods that I can eat fast, because I don’t have a lot of time to stop and put together a meal that is healthy and good for me. Rather than a breakfast made of something in the 20 grams of carbs or less family, I end up grabbing the blueberry or banana nut muffin that is 58 grams of carbs, just because it is fast, easy, and available. Rather than opt for a healthy salad or protein heavy lunch and taking time to pause and use both hands to enjoy it, I end up with the carb loaded option that I can eat with one hand so I can continue working with the other.

Emotionally, because I feel so far off track, I’m not happy. Sure, I still have a good time with friends, when I can find the time to get to hang out with them at least. A-Flizzle and I still enjoy doing things together. It’s not a social unhappiness, but rather a disappointment in myself for putting back on nearly all of the weight that I was so proud of myself for losing in the first half of this year. I don’t like the way I look, and I don’t like the way I feel.

So, all that said, the first step is looking at the situation objectively and admitting that there is a problem. Now what?

I looked over my 2011 goals, and I still have a lot of work to do, but I’m not severely off track. I got my A1C down, I joined a gym and started taking spin classes to have a group of people to regularly pedal with, I paid off my insulin pump, I’ve gotten to have adventures in Washington D.C., New York, New Orleans, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, and I celebrated 30 years with diabetes and jumped out of an airplane.

I still struggle with wearing my CGM every single day, I haven’t ran a 5K, I haven’t made it to the dentist yet this year, and obviously (given the topic of this blog post) I haven’t made it to my goal weight yet.

I’m making an effort to be transparent. I want others to know that diabetes isn’t easy, but there are other things in life with and without diabetes that are also challenging. I’m going to get back on track. Maybe it’s shallow, but I want to look in the mirror and like what I see, so much that I throw dollar bills at my reflection.

Starting yesterday, I’m back in the gym. My BG’s are better when I’m active and working out, my disposition is more positive, and in time it will all translate to a lower number on the scale and a higher number on the miles I can go on my bike and the things I can accomplish with my body. I have to make time to do this, for me, and I have to stick with it, stay motivated and encouraged, and share my progress. That means my friends on Twitter and Facebook get to endure my constant status updates about my gym adventures, how I’m in spin class, working on my core, flexing in front of the mirrors, and looking like a complete amateur with my weak self trying to bench press and look all hard in front of all the juice heads.

I may not accomplish every one of the goals I’ve set for 2011, but I’m okay with that. If you achieve every single goal you set, you’re not setting them high enough.

I will feel better about myself and my body. I will get back to liking what I see in the mirror, enough so that I sneak my reflection a high five or a wink when nobody else is looking.

Right now I’m telling myself, “Self! You can do this.” And I will too.

The New World Of Martin

Cake Balls - by Catherine Jane Vancak

Amazeballs

At DTreat in Tampa, Florida over the July 4th holiday weekend, I got to meet some incredibly special people with Type 1 diabetes. It wasn’t their diabetes that made them special, or that they had superpowers, or even that they had three hands and could magically put in an arm site for their Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) sensor without having to ask someone else for help. (Okay, maybe that last one is just my wishful thinking.)

What made these young adults special were the fantastic things that they were doing with their lives while living with diabetes. The majority of the folks there were college students, who were preparing for awesome careers in their not-so-distant future. There were young adults there who were transitioning from college, who were getting prepared to or already dealing with diabetes in a full-time job role. I looked around, and I saw lawyers, nurses, teachers, psychologists, dancers, librarians, social workers, and even baristas. (Believe me, if you don’t think a barista is an important job, apparently you’ve never been around me in the morning before I’ve had my coffee.)

Two weeks after DTreat, I got a notification on Facebook that I had been tagged in a photo by my friend Catherine Vancak. Because I’m a complete photo whor…um, opportunist…and I like to be in as many of them as I possibly can (just ask Scott Johnson), I traveled over to Catherine’s page to see what Kodak moment I had been captured in this time. That’s when I found the shot of her balls. (Yeah, you try working that line into a blog post and get away with it…that just happened!)

Cake Balls - by Catherine Jane Vancak

Cake balls! Made by my friend and bolusing ballerina ball baker Catherine Vancak.

While in Tampa, I was asked to speak to the group about how to connect with others who live with diabetes, the Diabetes Online Community (DOC), and ways to take the DTreat experience home. One of the things I talked about pulled from my own personal experience of not having anyone with diabetes to connect with for 28 of my 30 years with Type 1. I stressed to my new, pancreatically challenged friends the importance of not letting the opportunity that they had to connect pass them by. I encouraged them to exchange phone numbers, email addresses, become friends on Facebook, follow each other on Twitter, sign up for TuDiabetes, or Juvenation, or get involved with Students with Diabetes. Whatever way they could to keep in touch.

I wish so much that I had had the opportunity to know more people with diabetes earlier in my lifetime, and that makes me eternally grateful for those that I have become so close with in my life now.

Catherine had made these cake balls, and had tagged each ball with the name of a friend that she had met at DTreat that she had gotten to know and who had made an impact on her life with diabetes. They were her way to connect. To me, it was a clear indication of how important it is to have other people with diabetes in our world, and the positive impact we have on each other.

As Catherine said, “I need to make more balls so I can add more diabetic friends!”

Don’t we all.

——————–

P.S. – Remember I mentioned that there were dancers at DTreat? Catherine is a trained ballerina, with Type 1 diabetes. Proof that with diabetes, motivation comes from what we can do, not from what we can’t do. Dream big. There is nothing you can’t do with diabetes.

Catherine Vancak - Ballerina

Catherine Vancak