insight – Hugging the Cactus

One thing that I love about Hugging the Cactus is that it encourages me to check out other diabetes bloggers’ content. It may be more difficult to come by these days, as most diabetes content on the Internet can be found on Instagram and TikTok, but I’ll always enjoy the written word format (and can definitely appreciate the time and energy put into a single blog post).

Plus, I’m always struck by how other diabetes bloggers are able to articulate some of the complex emotions around diabetes, in ways that I’ve struggled to do but certainly have been able to relate to.

Take, for example, Renza’s recent post about her personal battle with diabetes.

I won’t do it justice – you should really read the full post here – but in sum, Renza talks about how words that invoke battle are used widely across the diabetes community (think “warrior”, “fighter”, “army”, “challenger”, etc.). We are asked – no, demanded – to wage a war against diabetes in rhetoric all over the place, meaning that we must always fight to maintain “ideal” blood sugars, A1c, time in range, and all the other numbers associated with diabetes. But as Renza puts it, no matter what the metrics may be, diabetes remains. There’s no way to defeat it, which makes militarized language around the matter that much more infuriating and paradoxical. What a massive burden to place on the shoulders of a person living with diabetes, to ask them to fight with all their might against an enemy that can’t literally be defeated…but one that perhaps is open to a resolution of sorts.

To quote directly from Renza’s post, because she said it best:

“To be at war with diabetes is to be at war with myself. I can’t divorce myself from my diabetes – it is me and I am it. We are a tag team, a group package, a two-for-one deal. I don’t get a say in that, and no one else does either, no matter how much they implore me to fight.

It’s not a battle with diabetes that I need. In fact, it’s the complete opposite. It’s finding peace. That’s what I want to work towards – a peaceful existence that doesn’t add more burden.”
Renza Scibilia

I had never thought about it that way before, but as I continued to read Renza’s post, I marveled more and more over how she was able to put into words a feeling that has gnawed at me for many years now about trying to win a never-ending war against diabetes. Why should I be so focused on winning, when it’s more so about learning to live in a peaceful coexistence with a condition that I know is here to stay (until we get that cure in 5 years, wink wink)? Why just accept that I am fighting an unrelenting fight, when in reality it will take much less of my valuable time and energy to seek harmony with diabetes?

Thank you to Renza for such an honest, insightful, and surprisingly optimistic post that challenges conventional thinking about the “fight” against diabetes.

I like lists. I like them so much because I like to pretend to be an organized person who always has tasks to complete (the former is definitely false, while the latter is pretty much absolutely true). I also like lists because making one feels like an accomplishment in itself, and who doesn’t like feeling accomplished?

Freedom is the atmosphere in which humanity thrives. Breathe it in. — What can I say, I’m a list girl. (But not a hand model; that’s definitely not my perfectly manicured hand in the above photo.)

So I must admit that I felt pretty damn good about myself after making these two diabetes-related lists, because not only do they pull weight as blog post material, but they also help me understand something about me and my diabetes. So here they are:

List of things I should do on a daily basis for my diabetes:

Check my blood sugar using my meter 6-8 times per day (upon waking up, before I go to sleep, before I eat a meal, and in-between meals to make sure I’m on track)
Change my lancet (LOL)
Look up carb counts for every meal using apps and/or nutritional facts
Monitor my Dexcom carefully and do fingerstick checks when I disagree with it
Take a correction bolus for every blood sugar that’s over 150 mg/dL
Eat plenty of fruits and veggies AND drink plenty of water

List of things that I actually do on a daily basis for my diabetes:

Check my blood sugar whenever the heck I feel like it; after all, my Dexcom is usually accurate
Change my lancet only when I remember, which is like…once or twice a month
Eyeball my plates of food and make “educated guesses” on carb counts
Monitor my Dexcom OBSESSIVELY – sometimes even every 5 minutes, depending on the situation – and freak out when it doesn’t match my fingerstick checks
Take a correction bolus for blood sugars that are 200+ only
Eat what I’d like (which, in addition to fruits and veggies, is a wide variety of things) and drink probably not quite enough fluids

When I compare these two lists, I come to the same conclusion: I am lazily in control of my diabetes. I know exactly what my current routines are and just because they aren’t the “right” ones, it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m doing anything “wrong” in terms of my diabetes care and management. Sure, I’m not doing anything the textbook way, and I admit that I’ve gotten a little lazy with things like carb counting and correction bolusing, but so what? The important thing here is that I can recognize the areas where I need and want to improve.

For starters, I’d like to stop depending so much on my Dexcom. I want to learn to check it less – maybe take it out half as often as I do now – so I can strengthen my ability to recognize low and high symptoms. I’m also hoping to use measuring cups and nutritional information more often to make better informed decisions when it comes to how much insulin I give myself at mealtimes. It’ll add a few extra steps to my day, but these are habits that I followed for a long time and that are worth reintroducing to my routine.

As far as everything else goes, I’m not going to sweat them too much…of course, it will be nice if I remember to change my lancet more frequently and be more proactive about correcting high blood sugars, but really, these are matters of minor concern. I think I make my best diabetes progress when I take things one step at a time, so that’s just what I’m going to do.