Happy Valentine’s Day, readers. Whether you celebrate the holiday or not, I’d like to make you think about a dozen roses today.
A dozen roses is a classic Valentine’s gift, right? 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 support a child living with diabetes in a less-resourced country?
I bet you wouldn’t mind getting one less rose in that case.
This Valentine’s Day, please consider sparing a rose. Life for a Child is a nonprofit charity that created the Spare a Rose campaign. They’re able to support nearly 20,000 young people living with diabetes by using donations to buy them insulin, syringes, clinical care, diabetes education, and more. Anyone who’s familiar with diabetes realizes that access to care, education, and resources is critical to living a healthy and normal life. No one would want to deny another, especially a child, from having to forgo these resources because of the financial burden associated with them.
Ugh, I don’t know why I did this to myself, but about a year ago, I decided to schedule a bunch of my key doctors’ appointments back-to-back. That means every week for the next three weeks, I’ll be seeing one of my main doctors. Fun!!!
Truthfully, I don’t HATE going to see the doctor. It’s just the waiting and the feeling of being in a hospital-like environment that I detest. And I’ve gotta say, I’m not overly fond of my personal bubble being invaded for the sake of evaluating my wellness, but it is what it is.
First up on the calendar was a visit to the dentist. This is the only doctor I see who never asks about my diabetes, which is very refreshing. But that doesn’t mean diabetes is far from my mind when I go to get my teeth cleaned. My big fear is that my blood sugar will go low in the middle of the appointment, which would make things difficult seeing as I’d have to ask the dentist to stop what she’s doing and let me correct for the low. This would be super frustrating for both parties, as she’d probably have to start her work all over again and I’d have to wait for my blood sugar to go back up to normal.
Fortunately, this fear has yet to come to fruition and my blood sugar is usually fine, if not a little high, at the time of these appointments. And this trip to the dentist was likely one of the easier appointments I’ve got scheduled this month, because I was told my teeth look great. I was also told that my hair is awesome, which made me flash my pearly whites even bigger at the dentist. Yup, definitely the easiest (and CERTAINLY the most flattering?!) appointment I’ll have all month…possibly all year.
The patient’s perspective.
Next up is my primary care doctor. It’s time for my annual physical. This appointment was basically a complete wash because it occurred within the hour of me fracturing my ulna (see a couple posts down). In between my tears, my doctor asked me standard questions and requested to me to fulfill the usual battery of annual lab tests. My blood pressure was a little high during the appointment, but if I had to make an educated guess, it’s probably because I was stressed due to the excruciating pain I was experiencing in my right arm. Just a hunch.
Thank goodness that everything else came back normally, though. Fewer things to worry about when it comes to my health will always be a welcome concept.
I don’t want to count appointment number three on this list, but I guess it’s worth mentioning my trip to the orthopedic’s office – you know, because of the broken bone. I get to have at least two more with him in the next six weeks as follow-ups. Joy!!!
Finally, the last truly pre-scheduled appointment I’ve got is with my endocrinologist. I’m nervous because I don’t know what my A1c will be like. I have an excellent and empathetic endocrinologist, so I know whether it’s good or bad, this reading won’t affect the overall tone of the appointment. It’s just pressure that I put on myself.
We’ll find out what happens before long. All I know for sure is that I’ll be relieved when I’m finally through with all these appointments.
The morning of Tuesday, January 23rd, I took a bit of a tumble. I fell on some black ice in my driveway and managed to fracture a bone in the process: my ulna, which is the longer and thinner bone located in the forearm. I broke the one located in my dominant arm and have spent the past few days in a brace. I’ll get a real cast put on it early next week.
Please enjoy this gratuitous shot of my arm in a brace, featuring the sleeve of my dinosaur sweatshirt.
I waited a few days before writing a blog post about it for several reasons. For starters, I struggled with teaching myself how to type with limited range of motion in one hand. Actually, I struggled doing most things with just one hand. Brushing my hair, putting clothes on, feeding myself…every mundane task has become a challenge. It’s been especially difficult to accept that I need to allot myself twice the amount of time to do just about anything because I have no choice but to move slowly. I’m an incredibly impatient person, so this has been a hard truth to come to terms with. But I’m getting there.
Taking care of my diabetes is also included on the list of everyday tasks that are now tricky. I dislike having to rely on others for help, but I’ve got to say that changing my pod with one hand is far from easy. It feels like I’d be flirting with disaster if I were to hold a precious vial of insulin in an awkward grip as I made an attempt to fill a syringe, then a pod, with my shaky left hand. Fortunately, my parents are more than willing to help me when I need it – thanks guys – and I’m able to do other things, like check my blood sugar, on my own.
The healing process is expected to be about six weeks, so it won’t be too bad. I’m just going to have to adapt to life with one functioning arm/hand. There’s one thing that’s certain, though: I’m not going to let this stop me from doing anything I want to do! (Within reason, of course. Let’s just say I won’t be taking a boxing class any time soon, even though I’d really like to.) Just like diabetes, a broken bone can’t stop me. I’ve even managed to get 10,000 or more steps each day since the injury happened – including the day of the fracture! I could’ve chosen to pardon myself from exercise and stew over the pain, but I wanted to prove to myself that I’m both physically and mentally stronger than my excuses. After all, the rest of my body is in perfect working order. I’ve just got to keep it that way!
One Monday per month, I’ll take a trip down memory lane and reflect on how much diabetes technology, education, and stigma has changed over the years. Remember when…
…log books were a THING that PWD used to track blood sugars?
Log books were pocket-size diaries (of a sort) designed for PWD to keep track of blood sugars, insulin and carb intake, mealtimes, etc. Basically, it was the old-fashioned way of recording blood sugars so that you could bring it with you to your endo appointments so your doctor could review the book for patterns.
I remember HATING having to write down my numbers. I felt like those little log books were contraptions put in place to judge me and my numbers. Imagine an eight year old who felt judged by something like that? It’s just wrong. But I get that they had a purpose to serve, and even when I was little, I knew it was important to write everything down even if I resented doing it.
That’s why I made it more fun by drawing doodles next to certain blood sugars – a frowning face would appear when I was high, and a mini burst of fireworks would find their way next to a blood sugar of 100 (which I now refer to as a unicorn bg, along with much of the rest of the DOC). I also distinctly remember using the log book to keep track of where I was injecting my insulin: “RL” would appear on the page if I was due to give a shot into my right leg, or “LA” for my left arm. These days, I’m really good about swapping sites, mainly because it’s easy to remember, thanks to my pods. But as a kid, it was more challenging, so writing it down helped.
Thankful that my meter tracks my blood sugars for me now (also, that 230 mg/dL would’ve totally gotten a frown-y face back in the day).
Thank goodness for modern meters and insulin pumps that keep track of my blood sugars for me now. It’s so much easier to show up to an endo appointment and hand over my meter for the nurses to download. Plus, doing so means that my doctor and I get to review all sorts of colorful charts showing my blood sugars over a certain period of time, which is more telling and helpful than a doctor thumbing through my log book and murmuring, “I see,” every few moments.
Log books are such an archaic artifact of my diabetes history that I don’t even own any nowadays. I trashed them all, years ago, when I realized that my blood sugars from 2001 were sort of irrelevant to now. Do you still have any of your log books lying around?
Hugging the Cactus 