The night of the first low, I was “good” and treated with glucose tablets.
The night of the second low, I shamelessly treated with a leftover Halloween candy blondie (okay, two of them) that I had made earlier that day.
The night of the third low, I was exhausted. And feeling nothing other than a desire to sleep, I treated with both glucose tablets AND sour patch kids, because my body decided it needed that many carbs in order for my blood sugar to level out for the rest of the night.
By that third night, I was so dang tired. I’d had to go downstairs to get the sour patch kids, and by the time I was done eating them, I couldn’t fathom walking all the way back up the stairs to get into my big, comfy bed. So I just crumbled onto the couch, pulling a blanket over me, and snoozed there for a bit. I probably could’ve curled up into a ball on my carpet and slept just as soundly, even if only for awhile, because I was so spent from being woken up in the middle of the night for the third evening in a row to treat a low blood sugar.
I wish that people knew that diabetes is truly a 24/7/365 condition.
I hate having my sleep – which seems harder and harder for me to get enough of as I get older – interrupted by something as stupid as a low blood sugar.
I hate having to eat in the middle of the night and ruining the minty taste leftover from my brushed teeth prior to bedtime.
I hate that sometimes, the low is bad enough that I get woken up one or two or even three more times in the same night because I’ve got no choice but to consume more carbs.
It seems fitting to write about this – how disruptive my diabetes has been to my sleep over the course of three nights, let alone my entire life with diabetes – during National Diabetes Awareness Month. Because I don’t think the rest of the world really understands that diabetes truly does not have an “off” switch. People who live with diabetes don’t have the luxury of sleeping peacefully without having a single worry about diabetes: It can and will disturb the soundest of sleeps, and it’s frustrating, inconvenient, and annoying every time it does.
It’s that time of year again – National Diabetes Awareness Month!
Did you know that the blue circle is the universal symbol for diabetes? It represents the unity of the global diabetes community in response to the rising number of people affected by diabetes.
I’m not sure if it’s because I work for a diabetes organization now, but sheesh, this month seems to have arrived more suddenly than it ever has. I’d say it’s caught me off guard, but after literally months of preparing for it as part of my job, it’s really just got me marveling over how fast time flies.
It’s also got me reflecting on how I’ve participated in NDAM in the past. Previously, I’ve done daily postings on my Hugging the Cactus Instagram account and replied to various prompts throughout the four weeks here on the blog.
This year, I’m not so sure I have the bandwidth to dive so deeply into the spirit of the month – but that doesn’t mean I’m mentally checking out of it altogether.
Rather, I’m plan on being more intentional in my approach. Instead of replying to daily prompts (that, over the course of the month, start feeling like homework – in other words, an unenjoyable task), I’d like to post when I feel like I actually have something to say. I don’t want to post filler content, I want to post things that are meaningful and capture my feelings about diabetes, NDAM, and the broader diabetes community.
That’s not a knock on the everyday post inspiration that many members of the DOC take part in – I think it’s wonderful that they have fun with it and use it as a very effective way to raise diabetes awareness throughout the month. It’s just that for me, as someone who’s been part of digital NDAM activities for the better part of a decade (!!!) now, it’s time that I mix up my routine a bit and also step back so I don’t spend all of my mental diabetes energy on NDAM in lieu of my actual diabetes care.
Here’s to deliberate diabetes awareness and care this month!
And just like that, we’ve somehow, bewilderingly, arrived at the final day of National Diabetes Awareness Month 2020.
Not sure how that’s possible considering it should still technically be March 2020 (you know, when shit hit the fan), but here we are!
The blue circle…a symbol of diabetes awareness and advocacy efforts.
At the beginning of November, I really wasn’t sure that I was ready to don my diabetes advocacy hat and amp up my awareness efforts for the entire month. I’ve had enough going on in my personal life (spoiler alert: I bought a condo and moved into it at the start of the month) and as a result, I’ve spent much less time on social media and a whole lot more doing my very best attempt at adulting.
And despite that, I still found myself immersed in advocacy efforts – and blown away by what everyone else in the diabetes online community was doing.
Daily posts, live IG videos, fundraising efforts, and so much more happened all month long. They were inspiring, educational, and highly motivational to someone like me who was tepid at best about diving into advocacy activities this year. They were definitely enough to encourage me to keep posting for one of the many diabetes-themed Instagram challenges for the month. As minor as it was to write captions each day based on the prompts, it’s still what worked best for me in this weird year.
My big takeaway from this, though, isn’t that I should have done more or that I should feel guilty for doing the bare minimum…no, it’s a reminder that advocacy doesn’t take place during a single month or on one day.
Advocacy is a year-round thing.
I’m proud to talk about diabetes practically every damn day in some shape or form because I think that it helps people in my life realize that diabetes itself is a 24/7, 365-kind-of gig.
And I’ll keep talking and writing and expressing and advocating ’til the day there’s a cure for it.
I crack open the slot on the back of my PDM where two AAA batteries are nestled. I smack them out from their slots, insert two fresh ones, and replace the cover. I wait for the system to power back on and am greeted with a high-pitched beeping sound soon after it’s reactivated…
…and become simultaneously annoyed, confused, and a bit panicked when I see a “system error” message displaying on the screen.
I follow the steps that flash on its display, instructing me to reset the date and time. Once I take care of that, my pod immediately deactivates, aggravating me further. I assemble all the supplies I need to activate a new pod, and once I have it on, I receive a message that I won’t be able to use the bolus calculation function on my PDM for 3-4 hours.
The whole incident was majorly inconvenient, but such is life with diabetes…
Anyways, if you’re like me, you’re probably wondering what exactly happened, and why it triggered my pod to fail.
Error messages on diabetes technology are never something I’ll be glad to see, but they do happen.
Fortunately, I can explain it!
I’ve experienced this phenomenon before – it happens when the internal battery within the PDM (not the AAA batteries) has a problem and stops working the way it should. It causes the system to get confused when new AAA batteries are inserted (because the system shuts off and turns back on) and it doesn’t remember the date or time. Because of that, it can’t identify when the current pod was activated, so it immediately triggers it to stop working so new one can be applied.
It’s obnoxious as heck because it’s a total unpredictable phenomenon, but it is what it is. It can be dealt with in a matter of a few hours, and the best part is that Insulet can be contacted so they can be made aware of the issue and overnight a new PDM – which is what they did for me. The day after this PDM problem occurred, I gave them a call, and within 10 minutes I was promised a new PDM that I would receive in about 24 hours.
So when a PDM system error happens again – not that I actually anticipate it to for a long time – I know the right course of action is to keep calm, follow the system’s instructions, and give Insulet a phone call. In other words? Rolls with the punches, because diabetes is good at directing them my way.
Today is Day 18 of the #TrueDiabeticChallenge that I’ve been posting about on Instagram all month long! I’m using the prompt to inspire the topic of today’s blog post: mental health. Read on to learn how I’ve been juggling my diabetes and mental health lately…
When I think of “diabetes and mental health”, a lot of things cross my mind: Burnout, self-care, and a whole slew of emotions, to name a few of them.
So as I pondered what I’d write about when it comes to this topic – and be totally transparent as to how my mental health is lately as it pertains to my diabetes – I knew that one emotion in particular would be the focus.
Loneliness.
I’m actually a bit envious of this cartoon girl because at least she has a furry friend to keep her company.
For the first time in my life, I’m living alone (mostly by choice). While this new chapter is certainly exciting, it’s also downright petrifying at times, especially when I’m contending with literal highs and lows of my blood sugar.
I struggle the most with being alone and managing my diabetes when I go low. This probably isn’t uncommon among other people with T1D who also live alone and I knew to expect to feel this way to a certain extent before making this transition. But I didn’t realize exactly how much comfort I take in the presence of others when my blood sugar is low.
I don’t know what it is, exactly…it’s not like I suddenly forget how to treat low blood sugars. It’s not that I ever relied on someone else to bring low blood sugar treatments to me (though I’ve always appreciated that on the occasions it’s happened). And I benefit from having a Dexcom CGM to monitor my blood sugars 24/7 and alert me to sudden changes. So…what gives?
As I search for that answer, I’m going to try to remember to be patient with myself as I navigate my new circumstances. It takes time to acclimate to a new environment and diabetes can make that more challenging. I mentioned self-care at the start of this post…maybe it’s time I start practicing it more deliberately to help make this transition smoother!
The answer to the above question is a big, fat, resounding…
NO.
I’ve written blog posts in the past about questions I’m frequently asked about life with diabetes, but shockingly, I neglected to include this one…which is so surprising because it’s probably among the more frustrating questions.
Don’t get me wrong: Diabetes technology has come a loooooong way, particularly in the last couple of decades. There are options when it comes to insulin pumps and pens alike (that is, if the choices are covered by insurance…that’s another story for a different post). There are tubed, tubeless, touchscreen, CGM-integrated, and waterproof pumps out there. There’s even a couple with intelligent software that can kick in and predict low or high blood sugars. And there are smarter insulin pens available that far surpass the ones I used just 7ish years ago…some can track insulin intake and are bluetooth-enabled.
It sounds like our pumps should be equipped to do all the work for us…but the simple truth is that they can’t.
Our diabetes devices are far from perfect.
No…these two pieces of plastic simply CANNOT do all the work for me. They actually rely on me quite heavily.
Failures happen.
Batteries drain.
Error messages pop up.
When it comes to dealing with diabetes, technology certainly helps us, but sometimes things can go so awry with it that it almost makes life even more frustrating.
Certainly, the reward outweighs the risk; after all, I don’t believe that many people would continue to use pumps, CGMs, etc. if they didn’t work for them the vast majority of the time. I know that I wouldn’t.
But there’s too many variables happening independently of these devices doing their jobs that it essentially guarantees imperfection.
Stress, miscalculated carbs, medication dose/timing/interactions, too much/too little sleep, expired insulin, temperature, exercise, menstruation, alcohol consumption, family and social pressures…these are JUST A FEW of the things that are known to impact blood sugar levels. Just a few!!! I can barely keep track of those factors, let alone how they each affect me…and to expect a machine to know how to do that is placing a little too much faith into something comprised of wires and chips.
My point is that I really wish that people living without diabetes didn’t make assumptions that our lives are easy because of these devices. They are easier, most of the time. But there’s that other portion of time in which a lot of spare mental energy is used on maintaining that technology and making sure it functions the way it should, which is far from easy.
The short answer to the question-as-a-title of this blog post is no, I (we) do all the work for my (our) insulin pump(s)…they’re smart and capable, but only with the input of the people handling them.
On Instagram, I’m participating in the #TrueDiabeticChallenge all throughout November. Today’s post was inspired by the prompt for Day 9 of the challenge – name a song that describes diabetes today. Here’s a song that I think describes my relationship with diabetes today, even though it’s a throwback tune…
I’m a child of the 90s, so you can bet that I listened to a whooooole lot of boy bands and girl groups growing up – N*SYNC, Backstreet Boys, Spice Girls, and Destiny’s Child were just a few of them.
But of course, I loved my solo artists…especially Britney Spears.
Speaking of 90s throwbacks, doesn’t this color scheme remind you of Lisa Frank’s colorfully designed notebooks, folders, and pencils?!
Her first album, “…Baby One More Time”, was everythiiiiiiiing…oh, the NUMBER of times it was played in my house! Like most kids my age at that time, I couldn’t get enough of her bubblegum-sweet voice and catchy-as-heck lyrics/tunes. No matter what your opinion of her has been throughout her contentious career and life in the spotlight, you can’t deny her talent as a singer, dancer, and entertainer.
Brit’s been on my mind lately (I know I’m not the whole one – #FreeBritney!), so a few times throughout the workweek, I tend to listen to her music from all sorts of albums she’s put out over the years. I’m happy to report they’re still absolute BOPS today, but what’s more is that I found one that perfectly fit this prompt for me:
Okay, besides being an all-around excellent song with an entertaining music video (yes, that’s Melissa Joan Hart AND Adrian Grenier making cameos in it), it also tooooooooootally describes how my diabetes makes me feel these days. It drives me CRAZY!!! Let’s look at some of the lyrics…
Baby, you spin me around, oh
The earth is moving, but I can’t feel the ground
-Me when my blood sugar is low
You drive me crazy, I just can’t sleep
-Me every dang time my blood sugar interrupts my sleep
Oh, oh, oh crazy, but it feels alright
Baby, thinking of you keeps me up all night
-Definitely NOT alright because I hate when diabetes keeps me up at night and it sure as hell isn’t my “baby”
So maaaaaaybe it’s a bit of a stretch to say this song is perfect for me and my diabetes, because the way Brit sings it and how the lyrics are written, she’s enjoying being driven crazy. But not me! This is one of those songs where I could easily rewrite it and make it an eff-you diabetes anthem.
Really, though, the hook of the song captures it all: YOU DRIVE ME CRAZY.
I can’t be the only one in the diabetes online community who is feeling apathetic (at best) for a month that I’m normally thrilled to celebrate. After all, I love being a diabetes advocate!
But this year…the mere prospect of it just feels like it’s a little much.
National Diabetes Awareness Month 2020 is happening soon…how can this be? Aren’t we still in March 2020?!?!
It’s a little much in a year in which the world is facing a pandemic.
It’s a little much when potentially the most important U.S. presidential election in history is also happening this month.
It’s a little much when I’m dealing with a HELLUVA lot of other things in my personal life – mostly good things, but ones that happen to be highly stressful.
It’s just…when I think of it…how can I approach this National Diabetes Awareness Month with all the enthusiasm that I’ve showed it in past Novembers?
I don’t know how to answer that question right now, but I do suspect that I’ll muster up some of my advocacy spirit once I start seeing posts and prompts from the diabetes online community.
Which makes sense…after all, we turn to one another when we deal with the literal and figurative lows of life with diabetes. So it’s perfectly logical to have faith in knowing that this will be a great November with the trusty DOC supporting me.
November ended a couple short weeks ago: just enough time to allow me to reflect on how I feel about National Diabetes Awareness Month (NDAM) 2019. My experience can be summed up with the following three sentiments:
It was exhausting. It might not seem like it takes a lot of effort to post daily on Instagram, but for me, this was a major commitment! It was pretty tough to come up with an engaging post for every single prompt of the Happy Diabetic Challenge. I wanted each of my posts to not only generate interest in learning more about diabetes, but I also hoped that others would notice the thoughtfully written captions and, more importantly, blog posts that went with a handful of them. I’m not sure if I succeeded, but I was proud of myself for keeping at it. But man, I still feel like I need a bit of a social media cleanse after all that posting, liking, and commenting.
It was educational. This may have been one of the most enlightening Novembers I’ve ever experienced, diabetes-wise. I feel like I heard and listened to many diverse voices in the diabetes community – and not just the T1D ones. In particular, I found myself paying closer attention to T2D perspectives, especially on Twitter. By doing that, I realized that I need to make it a point to be more inclusive when describing diabetes, in general, to others. In the past, I think I’ve made the mistake of talking about certain experiences about life with diabetes in a way that sounds exclusive to type 1, and that simply isn’t always the case. So it’s my new mission to make sure I represent other types of diabetes as best as I can on social media and in person, going forward, so that I can do my part to end diabetes stigma about all forms of it.
National Diabetes Awareness Month 2019 was a jam-packed 30-day period…to say the least.
It was empowering. Although NDAM 2019 kind of kicked my butt in terms of showing me how much I have to learn and triggering a social media burnout, it still doesn’t mitigate the fact that our amazing diabetes online community really comes together during this period of heightened awareness and advocacy. There’s something special about all of our interactions during diabetes awareness month: Whether they’re comments about how one person can relate to another, or a story about how someone changed someone else’s perspective, there’s power in these exchanges. Plus, it’s pretty neat to see how sharing the most mundane aspects of life with diabetes can result in positive change and growth.
Now that I’ve reflected on it, I’m ready to put the insanity of NDAM 2019 behind me…and feeling thankful that I have another 11 months to prepare for NDAM 2020 to make it an even better experience for myself and others.
It’s November 29th which means it’s day 29 of the Happy Diabetic Challenge! Today’s prompt is about diabetes goals. I decided to use this as an opportunity to share and set my diabetes goals as National Diabetes Awareness Month draws to a close…
Goal-setting sounds like an ambitious activity. It implies that goals will be met, and we all know that sometimes that just doesn’t happen.
Why? Occasionally, we set goals that are simply unattainable. As an example, let’s pretend that you have a goal to lose weight. Well, if you tell yourself that you can shed 20 pounds by next week, then you’re setting yourself up for failure – ‘cuz it’s unhealthy to lose that weight so quickly, not to mention practically impossible.
But setting a goal to lose those 20 pounds over the course of, let’s say, two months…that’s FAR more realistic. You give yourself a workable time frame in which you can accomplish the goal and you can take small steps each day to work towards it, rather than doing anything extreme or overly difficult in order to meet the goal.
It’s always very satisfying when you can say that you’ve met a goal you’ve set.
That’s why they say it’s important to set SMART goals. The acronym stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. Goals that are set with this criteria in mind are far more likely to become a reality, so with that in mind…I’m going to share and set a few diabetes goals for myself, right now, that I hope to accomplish in the coming months (think of it as an early diabetes-themed list of New Years’ resolutions.)
Goal #1 – I’d like to go back to checking my blood sugar with my actual meter at least 4 times per day. I’ve come to rely on my not-always-totally-reliable Dexcom a little too much. And since I have a well-stocked stash of test strips, I figure that it makes sense to use them before and after each meal, as well as when I’m not sure about my Dexcom’s readings.
Goal #2 – Change my lancet weekly, instead of monthly…ish. This is the other underused diabetes supply in my possession. As long as I decide on a particular day and time to do this quick little task, then I think it’ll be easy to follow through week after week.
Goal #3 – Stop snacking on “free” foods. I need to get it through my semi-thick skull that there’s no such thing as free foods when it comes to diabetes! I used to be able to eat a short stack of crackers, a handful of popcorn, or a bite-size piece of chocolate at any hour of the day and notice a very minimal bump in my blood sugar levels. This sure isn’t the case these days, and I want to set myself up for success by making sure that when snack cravings strike, I have plenty of water or gum on hand to help distract from faux-hunger pangs.
These goals may seem very minor to you, but for me, they’re all examples of some things that I truly think I need to address when it comes to my diabetes care and management. And the fact that they are “easy” makes them that much more attainable: It won’t take much for me to incorporate them into my routine, but over time, I’m bound to notice a difference (especially when it comes to that last goal).
Also, I think it’s wise to avoid setting overly ambitious goal – at least for the time being – because I’m not seeing an endocrinologist again for another month. When I do have that appointment, I’ll have a much clearer picture of what my diabetes goals should be as we approach 2020, and I can go about formulating a plan as to how to pursue them.
And on that note, this blog post wraps up the Happy Diabetic Challenge posts on my blog for National Diabetes Awareness Month 2019. I hope you enjoyed them, learned from them, or at least got to thinking more about your own diabetes as a result of reading them. I’m proud of myself for sticking with the challenge for the month, but boy, was it an exhausting 30 days of nonstop diabetes advocacy! I’m looking forward to December: It’ll be a nice change of pace to slow down and appreciate time spent with loved ones throughout the holiday season. I’ll still be blogging regularly throughout the month, just a little less intensely.
Hoping you had a wonderful Thanksgiving no matter how you chose to spend it, and wishing you continued success with your diabetes as the holiday season gets into full swing.
Hugging the Cactus 