Tag: diablog

That “Thing” on my Arm

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This blog post was originally published on June 12, 2019 on Hugging the Cactus. I’m sharing it again today because when you live with T1D, it’s inevitable that you’ll attract stares – and sometimes questions you’d rather not answer – from people who are befuddled by your diabetes gadgets and gizmos. This one encounter in particular is a great reminder that not all oglers have ill intent…read on for more.

“Yo, I don’t mean to be rude, but what’s that thing on your arm? Looks pretty cool.”

I turned around to face the stranger who was looking at me and asking me this question. It was well after midnight and we were on the rooftop of a fairly crowded bar. It was a balmy, summery night and I was enjoying the atmosphere with my boyfriend and my best friend. I’d had a few drinks over the course of the night, but judging by the state of everyone else on the rooftop, I was probably more sober than most of them.

That “thing” on my arm is basically my pancreas – please don’t stare at it, bro.

I could’ve answered his question in a scolding manner; it wasn’t a “thing”, it was a device that keeps me alive.

I could’ve totally dismissed him and told him to mind his own beeswax, because really, it is sort of rude to point out something on another person’s body.

I could’ve lied and told him it was something that it’s not to get him to stop bothering me.

I could’ve launched into an educational breakdown of what an insulin pump is and why my OmniPod looks the way it does.

I could’ve done any number of things, but instead I decided to say, “Oh, this is my insulin pump. I’ve got it decorated right now with a picture of a lighthouse because I like adding some style to it.” I smiled at him as a way of reassuring him that I really didn’t care that he was asking me, because I didn’t.

My straightforward answer seemed to please this random man. He told me again that he thought it was cool, and then we chatted a bit about where the lighthouse is and discovered we both have a connection to Massachusetts. Within a few brief moments, the conversation was over as we went our separate ways.

It was a perfectly harmless interaction that could’ve went a number of different ways, but to me, it’s all about context. This guy was just asking out of curiosity, and I truly don’t think he was trying to be rude about it. So I answered his question succinctly but good-naturedly, because I felt that was the only way to go about it in this busy party environment. Plus, let’s be real here…had I delved into a discussion about diabetes and devices, this drunk man probably wouldn’t have digested a single detail of my description. (Ahh, I love alliteration.) And another important point? He was damn right, my pump did look cool because of the lighthouse sticker!

But man, how much simpler it’d’ve been if I’d just been wearing my “THIS IS MY INSULIN PUMP” sticker on my pod that night.

Diabetes is All About Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

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“Get comfortable being uncomfortable” is a phrase I first grew familiar with when I developed a more serious workout regimen a few years ago.

My daily exercise usually consists of walking my dog, then spending 30-45 minutes completing a workout video of some sort. While these workouts vary in terms of exercise type, one thing remains consistent among them all…and that is the ferocity of the trainers, who besides showing me proper form and technique, also do their part by shouting motivational phrases as I sweat.

“It doesn’t get easier, you just get stronger!”, “You don’t wish for it, you have to work for it!”, and of course, part of the title of this blog post…”Get comfortable being uncomfortable!”

During a particularly challenging workout, that saying stuck out to me. Suddenly, it was dawning on me that this was an extremely good way of summing up life with diabetes. After all, nobody asks for diabetes to happen to them – it just does, and it’s up to people with diabetes and their care teams (loved ones, healthcare providers, and so forth) to accept it and adapt to it.

Life with diabetes is sort of like walking barefoot on rocks…adapting to and getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.

And let’s be real here: There’s nothing comfortable about diabetes. In fact, there’s a lot of uncomfortable things about it. Constant pokes and prods from sharp needles, interrupted nights of sleep, gadgets that alarm at inopportune and sometimes awkward times…and these are just a few of the things that keep me and other people living with diabetes walking on a tightrope at times.

Despite the often-disagreeable ways of diabetes, it’s important that those of us who live with it find comfort in embracing it for what it is. We can’t change diabetes itself, but we do have the power to change how we perceive life with it. So while diabetes has the ability to make me physically uncomfortable (and frustrated, sad, annoyed, anxious…a whole laundry list of emotions), it’s on me to get comfortable with these feelings and live my best life in spite of them. And like exercise, though it can be an exhausting, challenging, and the very last thing I might want to do sometimes, it’s also something that benefits my body and mind in the moment and in the long run. Why not think about diabetes in the same way, or even move past comfortability with it and into embracing it?

At this point in my diabetes journey, I think I’m mostly there…and therefore happy to say that I am comfortable being uncomfortable.

The Dazzingly DASHing Drained Battery

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Cell phones, eReaders, tablets, video game consoles, PDM devices…these are all electronic devices that rely on rechargeable batteries in order to keep them up and running. Of all those possibilities, which one do I think has the worst battery life?

Unfortunately, it’s my Omnipod PDM.

The speed at which my Omnipod DASH PDM battery drains is alarming…

It’s particularly unfortunate because the fact that the Omnipod DASH has a rechargeable PDM was one of the more exciting features to me when I first started using it. It always bothered me that I had to remember to keep AAA batteries on me at all times with the traditional Omnipod model (I know, I’m making a mountain out of a molehill with that one, but people with diabetes already have to remember to carry so many “just in case” items on us at all times that something like two measly batteries feels like a big effin’ deal). I also disliked how it was pretty difficult to predict when the traditional Omnipod PDM’s batteries would run out of juice (though I eventually did an experiment that helped me approximate the batteries’ lifespan a little better).

So imagine my delight when I learned that my DASH PDM could be recharged! This would feel like second nature to me seeing as I already own so many electronic devices that run on rechargeable batteries. According to the instructions manual for my DASH system, the battery would be able to last 3-4 days on a single charge, so it was nice to know that I’d have to expect to charge my new PDM only once or twice per week.

But in late September – only 4-6 weeks after I started using my DASH system – I noticed a slight issue. My DASH PDM was only holding a charge for a day, maybe a day and a half. This little problem exploded into a significant headache when I went on a trip to California and my PDM died right in the middle of my day trip to San Francisco, forcing my boyfriend and I to troubleshoot quickly.

I should’ve learned my lesson right then and there and called Insulet when I returned home from my trip, but…life happens. My schedule grew extremely busy, then the holidays were here, then I just…well, I grew complacent with having to recharge my PDM on a mostly daily basis. It’s embarrassing to admit it, but I only defend this behavior in a similar way to how I felt about carrying extra batteries on me at all times because there are simply far more important things to worry about when it comes to living life with diabetes. I was fine to coexist with this short battery lifespan if it meant that everything else in my little diabetes world was working okay – and since it was, I didn’t think to do anything about it…

…until recently, when I decided that maybe I should call Insulet and ask for their advice.

Thanks to their wonderful customer service team, I learned that if I were to use any charging cord or plug besides the one that came with my PDM originally, that might contribute to dazzingly dashing drained batteries. That caught my attention because I definitely wasn’t always using the right cord/plug: Often, I was just grabbing the first thing in sight around my condo seeing as so many other electronic devices can be recharged with the same style of cable.

I was reassured that I was doing all of the right things otherwise – silencing alarms when they came up, putting my screen to sleep when I wasn’t using it, and changing my system settings so the screen was programmed to go dark in the shortest amount of time possible. I was also promised a new PDM if, after a few weeks’ time of using exclusively the Omnipod DASH charger, I noticed that it was still having drained battery issues.

Sure enough, the problem has persisted, so I now owe Insulet another call to get my PDM replaced altogether. Here’s hoping that my replacement will outDASH my bad PDM in terms of battery life…

Spare a Rose and Save a Life this Valentine’s Day

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The world has turned upside down in the last couple of years, but some things remain the same. For instance, we still celebrate holidays and special occasions with those we love. And today just so happens to be a holiday that’s all about love!

Valentine’s Day…whether you adore or abhor the day, it exists. It’s a day that’s synonymous with chocolate, love, and flowers; more specifically, a dozen red roses.

A dozen red roses is a classic Valentine’s gift. But what if you received 11 roses in your bouquet, instead of 12? What if you knew that a rose was spared because the value of that flower helped provide insulin to someone who needs it to live?

I bet you wouldn’t mind getting one less rose in that case. And it might just make you like the holiday a little bit more!

Who knew that the value of a dozen roses could pay for a child with diabetes to live another year of life?

A little bit of history: Nearly 10 years ago, folks from the Diabetes Online Community (DOC) started the Spare a Rose campaign for the organization Life for a Child. This campaign was able to give insulin and diabetes supplies to children and young adults with T1D in under-resourced countries. Starting in 2022, these individuals looked at how they might be able to support all people with diabetes, seeing as the need for insulin and related supplies and care lasts well beyond childhood.

Thus, Spare a Rose, Save a Life was born! Donations to this campaign go to Insulin for Life, a charity that provides resources, education, and advocacy to many of the same under-resourced countries that were supported by the original Spare a Rose campaign.

It’s an absolutely wonderful idea that will positively impact – and save the lives of – even more people living with diabetes who need access to vital medication, supplies, and healthcare.

I’ve written about the Spare a Rose campaign for the last few years on this blog because it’s a beautiful way to celebrate a day that makes some swoon and others sick to their stomachs. A common complaint among people in this day and age is that too many holidays are all about raking in the dough for companies like Hallmark; in other words, most holidays have lost their original meaning and have become too commercialized.

So here’s your chance to bring back some significance to Valentine’s Day. In the light of the health challenges the world has collectively faced in the last couple of years, it’s more important than ever that we do all that we can to help people with diabetes access life-saving supplies and care.

Learn more about Insulin for Life, Spare a Rose, and donate here.

An Onslaught of Alerts

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Imagine receiving the same notification on your phone every 5 minutes…over and over again…nonstop until you actually do what it’s demanding to you.

Sounds maddening, right?

Well, that’s exactly what I experienced with my Dexcom app recently. Every 5 minutes on the dot, I got a “Calibration Alert” push notification that told me to “enter new blood glucose reading to maintain your sensor accuracy”. Doesn’t sound like too big of an ask, right? Why not just do it?

Of course I just did it – the first handful of times that it asked. But when this alert persisted to appear on my phone each day, around 24 hours after I’d calibrated my Dexcom sensor, I started to get super irritated. But I was also confused. I shouldn’t have to calibrate my Dexcom, like, ever. The G6 was designed to make it so calibrations are a thing of the past. I only ever even bother to calibrate it within the first few hours of wear if I feel that the blood sugar it’s reporting is really off, and that usually forces it to correct itself and show far more accurate readings fairly quickly.

So why was my Dexcom being so forceful with the reminders for me to calibrate?

Imagine seeing this alert pop up on your phone…every 5 minutes…for an hour…or 3. That’s a few dozen reminders too many.

I knew that my best shot at finding the answer to this question was by going to the people who are intimately familiar with the ins and outs of Dexcom devices – no, not the manufacturers themselves. I’m talking about my colleagues, of course. (One of the best parts about working at a diabetes nonprofit is that my coworkers and I collectively have 100+ years of diabetes experience under our belts and constantly ask one another for advice or wisdom regarding various diabetes scenarios.)

When I asked them if they’d ever encountered anything like this, one person explained that the CGM can get a little confused if, when after the initial two-hour warm-up period, a super high or a super low blood sugar can trigger the system to get stuck – almost like it’s unsure of what it’s reading. This tracked for me because when I started up this particular sensor, the two-hour warm-up period collided with a particularly nasty low blood sugar of 35. That blood glucose value is low enough that the system can’t even pick up the number “35” – instead, it just shows that I’m “LOW”.

So as a result of this, my sensor was likely just in need of calibrations every 24 hours just to make sure it was working properly. It’s probably in the code of the software or something to prompt users to calibrate every day until the system feels more confident about what it’s reading. That makes sense and all, but dang, is it annoying. Sure, I could’ve silenced the alarms a lot faster if I just calibrated whenever I got the first alert of the day, but my schedule didn’t always allow for that. And besides, after 4 or 5 years of using the Dexcom G6, this T1D has gotten used to no more finger pricks; because of that, it’s hard to go back to old habits.

But hey, it has wound up being another diabetes scenario that I hadn’t experienced yet and just another lesson learned, so while it may have been a bit of a nuisance it was also educational. And I’m okay with that.

What I’m Looking Forward to the Most About the Omnipod 5

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I experienced many emotions when it was announced, at long last, that the Omnipod 5 received FDA approval. The most prevalent one was joy: I was elated for myself, my mom, my coworker MJ, and all other people with diabetes who have greatly anticipated this day for what felt like ages. The thought that so much of the heavy weight associated with life with diabetes will soon be lifted off our collective shoulders is one that is thrilling beyond words.

Besides joy, I felt anxious (when will we actually have access to this technology?!), hopeful (the wait is bound to be worth it), surprise (I hadn’t expected the FDA approval this early into 2022), and…relief. That last emotion was probably the one I felt most strongly right behind my joy, and that’s because I’m taking solace in knowing that my secret diabetes struggle will be no more with the help of the Omnipod 5. And this leads me to the explanation of what I’m most looking forward to about the Omnipod 5…

I cannot wait to get my hands on the Omnipod 5…but for now, I’ll have to settle for staring at this promo image of it.

…and that is sleep. Yes, sleep. More specifically, sleeping soundly through the night, every night. Because my secret diabetes struggle has gotten in the way of that to new extremes in the last several months.

Long story short (I’ll save the long version for an upcoming blog post), my sleep is disrupted perhaps 3-4 times per week due to a low blood sugar. It’s annoying, sure, but part of the problem is my complacency in the matter. As crazy as it may sound, I’ve grown accustomed to the sound of my Dexcom alarming at any hour of the night and rolling over to grab a low snack from my nightstand drawer.

I think it’s been so easy for me to make peace with because of all the diabetes battles I could pick and choose (for example, if I had to choose waking up for lows or dealing with high blood sugars for hours on end any time of day), it’s the one that seems the most painless compared to every other possible scenario. It’s a weak explanation for this behavior, but it’s the best one I’ve got and I think that some people living with diabetes could probably understand (or even relate to) this rationale.

So that’s why I get a little teary-eyed thinking about how the automated insulin delivery mechanism of the Omnipod 5 could help reintroduce truly restful nights of sleep back into my life.

They are tears of joy, anticipation, and hope over how this new piece of technology may very well help me (and countless other people I love and care about) reclaim so many aspects of life that “normal” people take for granted.

You Should Feel Empowered to Advocate for Yourself and Your Diabetes

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This was the message conveyed to me after one of the best endocrinology appointments I’ve ever had, at least in my adulthood.

I’ll confess that I was nervous going to my first endo appointment of the new year. I didn’t know what to expect as I wasn’t bringing any specific concerns with me – besides the fact that I was upset about a conversation I’d had with a different doctor regarding a separate issue.

After the nurse practitioner and I exchanged pleasantries, she sat down at the computer screen that was displaying my record and asked me what I wanted to discuss during our appointment.

That’s when it all came flooding out.

I babbled about how I didn’t have anything in particular I wanted to talk to her about besides the fact that I got a very discouraging message from a doctor who told me I needed to have better control over my diabetes, and that this was infuriating to me because 1) not all of my health concerns can be blamed on my diabetes and 2) it was disheartening to be told by one subset of my health care team that I’m doing great with an A1c of around 7, but to hear from another subset that I’m not doing great and need to work harder. Once I finished my train of thought, I braced myself for a less-than-favorable reaction.

But that’s not what I got.

I’m really glad that nobody walked into the exam room as I was taking goofy selfies like this.

Rather, my NP asked me to explain my concerns in greater detail. She sat, listened, and told me that she disagreed with the comments from my other doctor’s office. It was validating to hear someone who actually does work in diabetes reassure me that, for starters, my diabetes might not necessarily be to blame for any other health issues I was experiencing. She also made me feel better about my A1c and that my track record proves how hard I’ve worked over the years to maintain a 7 (or below) and that it’s not indicative at all of a lack of control over anything.

Best of all, when I sheepishly admitted to her that I’d been embarrassed to write in about the health concern in question, she reminded me that I should always feel empowered to advocate for myself and my overall wellness. It was an incredibly powerful message for her to convey to me, seeing as my self-doubt had manifested itself in full-force over this whole interaction with the doctor’s office. And it’s a message that I plan to carry with me to future doctor’s appointments to help ensure that I do stay on top of my health to the fullest extent possible, while also making my voice heard.

At the end of the appointment, my NP turned and said to me that I’m an inspiration. While I don’t exactly agree with her words, I can’t remember the last time I left an appointment feeling truly understood as a patient living with type 1 diabetes. That’s what’s inspiring to me…the fact that a physician took the time to recognize the hard work it takes to live everyday life with T1D. And the discovery that my A1c has dropped by .3 to a level that I’m very proud to have reached – well, that’s the cherry on top of my first endocrinology visit of 2022.

“You Need to Have Better Control”

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I read those six words, all strung together in a terse message from my doctor’s office.

Not exactly the response I was anticipating when I reached out to them to express concerns over a minor health issue I was experiencing…

Let me back up a bit. In early January, I decided to message one of my doctor’s to discuss said minor health issue. A week went by and I didn’t hear anything from them, so I sent them another message, reminding them gently that I was hoping for a reply sooner rather than later. Several more days pass by and I start to get annoyed, but I still keep everything in perspective: Maybe they’re understaffed at the moment. Perhaps a computer error prevented them from getting my messages. Or they might be just crazy busy with beginning-of-the-year appointments and responsibilities. Whatever the case may be, I decided to message one more time, drawing attention to the fact that my first message had been sent two weeks prior and that if I didn’t hear back by the end of the week, then I’d just call the office to hopefully connect with a nurse.

Luckily, it didn’t come down to that because within 48 hours of me sending that third message, I finally heard back from someone. And this someone said something that left me a bit gobsmacked:

“…with an A1c of 7 – you need to be better with your control.”

Life with diabetes often feels like this image – like you’re the only one in the control room of a command center that dictates whether or not you live. And yep, it’s exhausting.

I couldn’t believe what I’d just read, for multiple reasons. For starters, I’d mentioned in my first message that I *think* my A1c was right around 7, but I couldn’t be sure because it’s been a bit since I last had my A1c checked. So clearly, by reading the response from my doctor, nobody had gone in to check my records or look up my historical A1c – which may or may not have provided them with better context so they could answer my question better, but that’s besides the point. What had me most irate was the fact that I’ve been told – time and time again – that I’m doing a great job with an A1c around 7. I’ve had endos and nurse practitioners alike tell me that I don’t need to make any major changes and that I’m too hard on myself when I express a desire to get a lower A1c. So to have a completely different medical professional make a snap judgment right then and there that implies I do not have control over my A1c is obviously in direct conflict with what I’ve heard from others. How maddening is that?

Furthermore…I’m sorry, but A1c does not paint a complete picture of my “control”. I believe, along with many other people in the diabetes community (including medical professionals) that time in range is where it’s at. The amount of time I spend in range is leaps and bounds better than where I was in college – and honestly, so is my A1c.

This is why it’s incredibly frustrating to me that this person handled my health issue as though it was directly related to my diabetes and their perception of my lack of control. The three-sentence, curt reply to my initial message didn’t exactly help matters either, though I’m trying to not read too much into that…after all, you can’t gauge tone via written message.

I’ve decided the best way to handle this whole exchange is to bring my issue up again when I see this doctor later in the year. I’m not going to reply in the message thread, because I don’t see how that would cause any good, but I will bring this up when I go to see the nurse practitioner at my endocrinologist’s office at the end of this month. While she likely can’t fully help me address my health concern, she’s bound to provide me with some insight and some actual helpful advice that won’t involve her jumping to conclusions about my control. We’ll see how it goes.

For now, I will just have to try to keep my head held up high by taking control of the situation, if not my diabetes.

The Best (and Worst) Insulin Pump Infusion and CGM Sensor Sites

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This blog post was originally published on Hugging the Cactus on April 1, 2020. I’m sharing it again today because it’s actually one of – if not THE – most popular blog post I’ve ever written. Maybe folks find it helpful as they ponder trying new sites or maybe they’re simply curious to learn what has and has not worked for me. Don’t worry, I spill all the details on everything – read on to get the full scoop!

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Like many other people with diabetes, I wear two devices on my body at all times: my insulin pump (my pod) and my continuous glucose monitor (CGM). And I’m often asked whether or not these little gadgets are painful.

Fortunately, the answer is that most of the time, they aren’t. I rarely feel it when my CGM sensor or my insulin pod’s cannula pierce my skin, which makes the whole experience of wearing them a lot more comfortable – and much less dreadful when it’s time to rotate sites.

Speaking of sites and pain, though, I admit that there are some sites that, for me, tend to work better than others. The following are the different locations I use for my pod and CGM sensors, in order of what tends to be best to the worst. My stomach is my preferred spot for my pod AND my sensor.

Stomach: This is the site at which I have the best insulin absorption, so it’s a clear winner for me when it comes to my pod placement. I also find that it almost never hurts when I press up against the pod (e.g., when I roll over in bed in the middle of the night) when it’s on my belly. The same is true for my CGM sensors, which also seem to be the most accurate when they’re placed on my abdomen. I guess there’s a reason why the stomach site is the only one recommended by the FDA for the Dexcom CGM (which is what I use)!

Lower back: I have yet to try my CGM here, but I often place my pod on my lower back without issue. This site can be trickier to navigate because if I forget that my pod’s there when I’m getting dressed in the morning, I can come precariously close to accidentally knocking it off – and I have in the past. Plus, the pod can rub up against me in an unpleasant way when I’m working out; specifically, doing any sort of abdominal exercise on the ground. But it’s not something I can’t tolerate, and the insulin absorption in this location is just too good in general for me to pass over it altogether.

Upper arm: I wear my pod and CGM on my upper arms sometimes, but they don’t always adhere well for some reason. Getting dressed can be even more problematic for me if I forget that my sites are on my arms – I’ve totally ripped off pods and sensors when I’ve been taking off and putting on clothing. And for a long time, my CGM sensors would make me bleed when I inserted them in my upper arm. I never figured out why, and the problem seems to have gone away, but it definitely made me a little more wary about using my arms as a site (PLUS any devices I wear on my arms are highly visible, and I don’t always like it when people stare at them).

Thigh: Hands-down, the worst site for my pods are my thighs. For starters, wearing denim jeans – especially if they’re skinny jeans – are such a feat when wearing a thigh pod. The fabric pushes up against the pod in such a way that I prefer wearing dresses, skirts, or leggings for the three days that I have a thigh pod just so I can be more comfortable. And speaking of comfort, it’s tough for me to get into a cozy sleeping position when I have a thigh pod because I like sleeping on my stomach sometimes, and there’s just too much pressure up against my pod when it’s on my thigh. And for me, it seems that insulin absorption just isn’t great on my thighs (maybe because they’re on the muscular side). BUT, I will say…I recently tried a CGM sensor on my thigh for the first time and I didn’t hate it! The accuracy was good and it wasn’t in the way as much as a thigh pod (I keep wanting to type “tide pod”) would be. I’ve only had it on my leg for a few days now so I don’t know yet how the adhesive will hold up, but I’ll find out.

Spots I haven’t tried yet (but want to): On social media, I’ve seen people wear Dexcom sensors on their forearms (eek), upper butt cheek (tee-hee), and even on their calves. And pod placement can get even wilder with spots in the center of the back (HOW can people reach back there) and, um, the upper-breast area (one word: ouch). While I don’t think I’ll ever work up the courage to try some of those spots, I am curious about others.

The bottom line is, though, that the sites that work best for me might not work as well for you. (The same thing can be said for my worst sites.) But it is important to remember, above all, the importance of rotating sites…even though I’m clearly not a huge fan of pods on my legs, I’ll still suck it up and place them there because I know that I should be careful of scar tissue buildup.

It just makes the pod-and-sensor-change days that much more pleasant when I can move them from a disliked site to a favorite site, anyways.

T1D and “What If?”

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For me, my type 1 diabetes, anxiety, and the phrase “what if” go hand-in-hand. Or maybe in this case, it should be sweaty-nervous-palm in sweaty-nervous-palm.

In the past, I’ve written about how I believe there is a direct connection between the way my anxiety manifests itself and my diabetes. There’s no denying that the two are related. But another thing that ties the two together in a neat, worried package are these two simple words…”what” and “if”.

Of course, those two words are often followed by a series of other words that turns everything into a full question that is born from my anxiety. The questions all follow the same formula: What if X, Y, or Z happens? Questioning whether something will or will not happen will inevitably trigger me to convince myself that a less-than-desirable scenario will occur, leading me to slowly spiral as I ponder how I can possibly handle said less-than-desirable scenario.

Not following me here? I’ll give you an example. Take my incident last week when I mistakenly gave myself 10x more insulin than I intended to take (10 units versus 1 unit). When I was processing the gravity of that mistake, I asked myself, “What if I’d given myself 100 units? What if I’d been alone when all this happened?”, causing me to think about how much more dire that situation would’ve been and sending chills down my spine. It’s not fun to go down a path like that, yet for much of my life I’ve forced myself to face many “what if” scenarios that have never even happened because my anxiety lead me to that line of thinking.

After 24 years of T1D, though, and living all of my years with anxiety paralyzing me every now and then, I’m trying harder to challenge the “what ifs” and stop allowing them to rule my life, not just my perception of my diabetes.

“What if…”

I guess this is my public declaration, or vow, or affirmation, or whatever you’d like to call it that I want to be better about knocking those “what ifs” out of my way when I feel as though T1D or my anxiety are limiting me. I’m hoping to stop thinking about diabetes as a condition in which I’m held back by “what if” scenarios or one that aggravates my anxiety; instead, I want to have it be more autonomous and separate it from the negative thinking that all too often interferes with my everyday life. I’m just tired of thinking about diabetes with a “worst-case” mindset, so what if…what if I take back control of the “what if” and say “what if I have a really great diabetes day today? or “what if I know more about managing diabetes than I previously thought I did?”

Changing the overall tone of those what ifs sounds like hard work, but it also sounds like worthwhile work. So I’m challenging myself to do it, stick to it, and think…what if I could change how I feel about my diabetes and anxiety, and grow to love them for how they’ve made me stronger, more independent, and brave?

What if, indeed.