Food For Mortals

I didn't know this, but apparantely when you become diabetic, you don't need to eat anymore. We have no need to partake of any oral ingeston of any vitamins, minerals, proteins, good fats, or any other sort of nutrition at all. I think that all of my doctors must have neglected to tell me that I now absorb all these nutrients through magical diabetic sunrays or osmosis. Food is now something I have purely just to get fat.



At least that's the way non-diabetics can make it feel to me. I had a blood test on Saturday as my endo appointment was today. The collection lady was chatty and cheerful and my first impression was that I liked her and maybe I would always get my bloods done on a Saturday with her from now on. Unfortunately, my first impression was wrong. About halfway through the collection she took a closer look at what she was harvesting my blood for and out it popped:

"Oooooh this has your 3 monthly average (HbA1c) on it! Will it show that you've been a naughty diabetic?"

She was lucky there was a needle jabbing into my arm. Otherwise my fist might have (Who am I kidding might have? Would have. My fist WOULD have) met with her face.

Besides that fact that her job is purely to stick things into my veins and make me bleed into a little tube and not at all to question my diabetic habits, this is insulting. No wonder diabetics can have a pretty volatile relationship with food at points. The basic gist of it from everyone else is 'diabetic eating = bad. Starving = good'. Do not put anything into your mouth and you have done well.

I should have asked her if she had any alcohol last night, or EVER really and proclaimed she was bad.

EATING IS NOT BAD. That is all I have done that could possibly ever make me a 'bad' or 'naughty' diabetic. I test alot. I don't always write it down and I sort of went to my endo appointment empty handed, but I test so damn much that I could give my endo my ranges before and after each of my meals and what I needed help with. I take insulin for everything I eat. Sometimes it doesn't work out the way I wanted it to, but that's not for a lack of trying. The ONLY thing I could posibly have done to be a bad diabetic is to have provided my body with the nourishment it needs to sustain my life. I wasn't aware I had reached god status and no longer needed physical consumption of food.

And even if I didn't follow the testing and injecting regimen as closely as I do, I am still not BAD, and no diabetic is naughty for it and NOBODY has the right to make these judgments without knowing diddly-squat about us or what we have going on in our lives.

Diabetes Blog Week Day 5: Diabetes Life Hacks

Share the (non-medical) tips and tricks that help you in the day-to-day management of diabetes.  Tell us everything from clothing modifications, serving size/carb counting tricks to the tried and true Dexcom-in-a-glass trick or the “secret” to turning on a Medtronic pump’s backlight when not on the home-screen (scroll to the bottom of this post). Please remember to give non-medical advice only! (Thank you Rachel of Probably Rachel and Kelley of Below Seven for this topic suggestion.)


Diabetes Life Hacks? I probably don't have anything original that I haven't picked up from other blogs or D-forums/chat rooms.

I guess I struggle with remembering how diabetes devices affect my body - like lancing devices, set changes, etc. So whenever I need hacks these are the things I look for. 

For the 1st 6 months I was diagnosed I have a favoured finger that took the brunt of testing. Consequently that finger is now very calloused and require 1 1/2 whole lancing points above my other fingers to draw blood. Eventually I worked out a system where I assigned each finger to a meal or a specific testing reason. My thumbs are for my pre and post breakfast, index fingers for pre and post lunch and middle fingers for pre and post dinner/before bed. My ring finger (and the equivalent on the opposit hand) is for pre-driving checks and my pinkies, because they bleed much more readily are reserved for hypos. In doing this my fingers have a chance to heal and the callous on my favoured finger is slowly softening. 

As well as this, I change my lancet on pay day every fortnight, which is the same day I buy my strips and other diabetes supplies, so I am just able to start with everything fresh. Failing every fortnight if I buy supplies in bulk, I try for at least once a month


My next hack is to remember when I last did my set change as I always forget and will just wait for the insulin to run out. I calculated an average of how much insulin I use per day and I fill my insulin up with this exact amount for 3 days, plus approximately 6 - 7 units for prime/air bubbles. It also helps to curb overeating because I have to remember I have only given myself x amount per day, so if I pig out one day I take it easy the next to save premature set-change.


The other hacks I use most often are about remembering carb counts for things. When I package up sausages I will write on the outside in marker how many carbs are in the serve I just froze so Its not something I have to look up later. Or for cereal I find a small bowl, scoop, etc that is roughly the size of a serving and have attached to it a label with all the cereals I eat and how many carbs is in 1 scoop - so that way  I never have to weight it and can just quickly use the scoop to get out an exact amount of carb. I tend to cycle through about 3 different cereals so the scoop has all 3 written on it and I just move it from one box to the next. 

Not over exciting hacks, but they help make diabetes care just that little bit easier for me.

Diabetes Blog Week Day 4: Mantras and More

Yesterday we opened up about how diabetes can bring us down. Today let’s share what gets us through a hard day.  Or more specifically, a hard diabetes day.  Is there something positive you tell yourself?  Are there mantras that you fall back on to get you through?  Is there something specific you do when your mood needs a boost?  Maybe we've done that and we can help others do it too? (Thanks to Meri of Our Diabetic Life for suggesting this topic.)

Dance Magic Dance! I am a shocking dancer. No sense of rhythm whatsoever. But when diabetes is kicking my ass, my lack of groovin' moves is the least of my worries. So when I'm having a hard diabetes day, I post a few gripes to the DOC, and when I have had understanding and suggestions a plenty thrown my way from amazing people all over the world, I go to groove town. I twerk in my kitchen like no-one can see me (except my bogan back-door neighbours really can see me).

Its not just the dancing that helps - I have a collection of songs that specifically relate to diabetes (at least in my head they do anyway). They're all mostly break-up songs and I sing them to my defunct pancreas. Except for that one random 'The Used' song "Together Burning Bright" which I reserve for when I've had enough hypos that my happy-making hormone is exhausted for the day. On particularly bad days I close all my windows and doors and warble along with Bert McCracken to how everything is going to be AOK at the end of my day:

"I think it's gonna be alright, now
I think it's gonna be okay
Just close your eyes
'Cause we are only sparks
But together burning bright"

Failing singing and dancing, the diabetic rap always makes me want to wrap my diabetes in a bear hug again, cos without diabetes, things like this wouldn't exist:

Dancing doesn't exactly solve diabetes problems...but it makes me happy and gives me energy, which bad diabetes days suck from me hard.

Diabetes Blog Week Day 1: Tell Me a Story

For the 2nd year now I am taking part in Diabetes Blog Week. Today we are supposed to be talking about the diabetes causes and issues that really get us fired up.However, I think I do this on all-to-regular basis and I'm just not in an advocate and cause mood, so I decided to go with the 'Tell me a Story' WildCard instead. 

Write a short story personifying a diabetes tool you use on a daily basis. A meter, syringe, pump, pill, etc. Give it a personality and a name and let it speak through you. What would it be happy about, upset about, mad about?  (Thank you Heather of Unexpected Blues for this topic.)


The dark is all around as I wait, crammed against many more of my kin. We all stand, patient, knowing that one day, we will see the light. One day it will be Bob's turn, or Mary's turn, or my turn.

Outside, I can hear a snap. I am rattled about in my prison. A grubby, pin-pricked finger reaches in. Is this is it? Is it my turn? I cannot bear to stay here, in the stifling blackness anymore. The finger passes me by. Now is my chance; I stick myself firmly onto the warm pink flesh.

Now. The light is everywhere, flooding me with warmth. I bask in the world around me as I am roughly shoved into the care of a higher intelligence. A little care, please. I am here to help, after all.

I tense with anticipation as I see the red shadow near. What I was made to do. Fulfilment. I drink in the deep iron flavour of the blood as the finger tries to steady beside me. I relay the flavour to my God, a very sweet tasting blood. My duty fulfilled.

Now. I am finished with the obligations, I can help no more. But I am not ready for this adventure to be over. The world outside my confinement is so big, so bright. As I am wrenched free of my god, I deftly twist and manage to fall. I drop a long, long way and strategically land on a tile in similar colour to my own body. Eyes lumber close, stupidly blinking. However I am a master of disguise. They will never find me. At the first opportunity, I see a dark passage and wriggle away underneath, somewhere I may rest to plan my forays into the world.

I am halfway there when a creature of too much hair sees me. It pounces and attacks, dragging me off to a corner as I fear for my life. It appears my end is not today, as the creature is frightened away by shoe-clodden feet. A foot passes by me and I quickly swing under the footfall of the 2nd step, gripping tightly to a shoelace as it lifts.

I ride to freedom. The greens of the great outside await me. I drop off and into a pot plant. I plan to scale the heights of the washing line and spend my night in a comfortable looking sock. My adventure, the adventure of Harry, a test-strip who dared to dream, is just beginning.

Stigmatic

stigma

ˈstɪgmə/

noun

1. 1.

   a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person.

   "the stigma of mental disorder"
2. 
   

Chances are in your life that you have felt stigmatized. Maybe you just like the colour black, so everyone assumes your part of a dark goth vampire cult, and cross the street just in case you want to suck their blood with a quickly applied straw-stabbed-through the neck as they pass. Or maybe your smart, so you never got picked for the sports team, and the lack of being allowed to play is probably why you're not good at sports in the first place.

Diabetes also has a stigma. It's a stigma that can make it very hard to tell people around us that we have the disease, or let on how hard it really is. Before you knew anyone with diabetes, what did you know about the disease? Did you believe the pretty blonde lady on the T.V. spouting that diabetes only happened to fat, ugly people? Did you hear about your neighbors grand-daughter who was just diagnosed with diabetes and wonder how many family-sized packets of M & M's her mother tipped into her throat to cause it? Did you think that we are all lazy and unmotivated or that we don't care enough to take care of ourselves? Did you think that we are sickly and won't be able to hold down a job or have a future because of health concerns? Did you think we DESERVE it? Do you still think these things? 

The stigma of diabetes is real. It can stop people getting jobs and it can ruin relationships. Diabetes stigma can create social exclusions. It can make us feel bad about ourselves and maybe even begin to believe we deserve everything that's happening to us. Stigma can stop us from learning about diabetes enough to take proper care of the disease.

When I was first diagnosed, sitting cross legged on a crisp clean hospital bed, I asked for a pregnancy test. I hoped it was gestational diabetes. Unsurprisingly, the pregnancy test was negative and I did not have some sort of super GDM given my over 30 levels.

After I was told that no, there was no bean growing inside me, I WISHED for Type 1 Diabetes. I don't believe in a god, but I concentrated all my energy on willing my pancreas to be fully, 100% non-insulin productive. I was very much aware that Type 1 Diabetes was the one with needles, and that Type 2 diabetes had potential to be reversed, or at the very least I could diet control or have tablets every day instead of multiple daily shots of insulin straightaway.

Being that I hate needles, the wish to have Type 1 Diabetes is crazy, right? It's not if you're aware of the stigma. I knew about the diabetes stigma - and I did not want the stigma of diabetes, let alone Type 2 Diabetes - or the diabetes percieved to be made of an inability towards any sort of self-control. A Type 1 Diagnosis meant that I could interject that in uncomfortable situations - I could say "I have TYPE ONE Diabetes" or "autoimmune diabetes" and explain that it wasn't my fault. A Type 1 diagnosis meant I could say "Oh no, That's Type 2 Diabetes that get it from poor lifestyle".

Of course I don't feel this way and I never ended up throwing any Type 2 Diabetics under the bus (I hope we're all well aware that Type 2 is much more complex than 'I ate bad'. Genetics, anyone?). I explain the differences between the 2 when asked about my diabetes but never lay blame to anyone with diabetes. And these days I know that the stigma affects Type 1's just as much as Type 2's. I just happened to know that Type 1 was autoimmune beforehand due to a cousin having Type 1, and so I preferred to pick this stigma instead. 

The fact is, I was aware of the stigma even before diagnosis and I knew I didn't want to spend three quarters of my life defending my pancreases right to an early retirement and the shame it might cause me. No one should be made to feel this way. 

So get on board with the Diabetes Stigma Project and support! If you can't do that, then at the very least next time you hear someone saying something about diabetes, blast the bejesus out of them and set them straight damnit! (But don't wish diabetes on them or anyone they love because that's just not fair. Diabetes isn't fair to anyone).

Flu Shots! Get Your Free Flu Shots!

I make it sound fun, right? Like going to a circus. But instead of seeing acrobats contort into weird shapes, you get to have a cold metal object twisted into your arm. So I would say its only half as fun as the circus.

But no, seriously, I'm gonna advocate the flu shot here. I have had one faithfully for the last three years. And not only because I don't want to sound like a hypocrite when I mention it to our patients at work. Originally I only started getting them because after I was diagnosed with diabetes, they were free. Having been a student for 4 years previously, if there is free stuff, you take it. Regardless of how useful it may be. Although I do see now how that mind-set could probably lead to some hoarding issues later in life *cough*10 surplus meters *wheeze**hack*.

Now I get them because I actually believe they help. For the past 2 years, it has been my fiance who brings home the colds and other seasonal illness goodies with the bacon. Even though I'm the one who works at a medical centre. So I can only assume flu jabs are good for things besides dead arms.

So if you haven't already, guys seriously, take advantage of the 1 free thing this disease gives you, and overrun your GPs with requests for free flu shots. Given the effect of illness on our blood sugars, go get the sucker-punch to the arm and save yourself a few highs, some ketones here and there and a vomit-induced low or 2.

Just don't let the untrained nurse give it to you. I don't know who taught my girl how to give shots, but she somehow got confused between keeping the needle still and wreathing it around in my tricep like she was in death throes with an arm-shaped croc. I had to laugh when  after she was told by my GP that I had type 1 diabetes, she felt the need to tell me not to panic if it came up with a red dot and/or bruise. It's OK love, I got needle spots sorted.

While your at it - push your needlephobic husband or wife into the nurses room and lock it behind you so they can get their flu shot too. Don't mind the terrified screams and frantic scrabbling sounds coming from behind the door...its just a needle after all. In 3 days time they'll have forgotten it ever happened and be happy that they are saving themselves and others around them from fluey badness.

EXPOsing Diabetes - Redlands Event

This past Saturday I took myself for a harrowing drive down to Sheldon College in Redlands. By harrowing I mean I drove for 20 minutes with a frozen GPS and a steadily-shining fuel light reminding me that I shouldn't stray too far from civilization.

Eventually I found my way to Sheldon College - with 15km of my reserve fuel left to spare - and gambled over to the registration desk for EXPOsing diabetes.

EXPOsing diabetes events are 1 day information exhibitions run by Diabetes Queensland for Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetics. I think I read that more than 300 attendants came along for the day - with about 30 odd of us being Type 1's. The seminars were separated for each type which meant that the programs were tailored to each specific type and their particular program needs.

The Type 1 program that I attended was fantastic. Each speaker addressed us in warm, friendly tones and allowed us to ask plenty of questions; although doubtless this was easier for the Type 1 group as we were a much smaller group than the Type 2 group.

The lectures were informative and I learnt something new from every one of them, and began to consider things about my Type 1 that I hadn't before - like I might be asking for an inclusion to go to an exercise physiologist in my next care plan, as exercise is something I have always struggled with with my Type 1. The seminar on diabetes and driving, given the recent law changes was exceedingly helpful in dispelling some diabetes and driving rumors and myths - and to clarify what was the real deal. That HbA1c under 9% your doctors keep threatening you with is in actual fact just a guideline and not a hard and fast rule - but was put in places for obvious reasons such as the fact that you may be experiencing more tiredness and an inability concentrate with a higher HbA1c.

I was also really happy with the inclusion of the seminar that dealt with more of the mental health side of type 1 diabetes. However that's a blog for another day.

I was honored to sit among Type 1 Diabetics who had had the disease much longer than I have - including 2 Kellion medal recipients. I think I was actually hands down the youngest person in attendance - which didn't phase me. The ladies that I sat with ranged in age from (I think) late 20's to 70's...but the thing about a disease like diabetes is that it can create mutual understanding and friendships between vastly different age groups. The attendance of willing participants proved that you have the capacity to learn and better understand the disease you live with at any age!

Overall I commend Diabetes Queensland on the institution of the EXPOsing Diabetes programs and would recommend anyone who can to attend one - even if you think you know everything there is to know, I gaurantee you you will walk away with at least 1 piece of knowledge about living with diabetes that you didn't have before.

They also have stalls set up by meter, pump and other such companies for you to check out the available products and chat to about if you're thinking about say, moving onto a pump. As an added bonus for me at the event I walked away with a free pump skin from Medtronic Diabetes. I'm happy as pie (I can only assume that being as delicious as they are, that pies are happy). My pump looks vibrant and pretty and I have a renewed interest in mushing buttons to record everything that happens every second of my life (as you are expected to do when you have diabetes).

Help! I think there's a Diabetic in my house!

A guide to recognising the signs that you may be living with a diabetic

• You find these babies everywhere: Yes, even in the stove. Or your shoes. Or the clean washing. Probably in your hair if you have dreadlocks. Maybe in your hair even without dreadlocks.
  
• When numbers come up in any sort of print or screen media, you see your diabetic smiling or frowning, depending on if it's a 'good number' or not. 
• You regularly play a game where you guess the amount of carbs shown in anything on T.V or in movies
• You run out of sugar and your diabetic brings out a stash from their bag
• Mysterious blood spots appear on crockery items and car steering wheels 
• Sometimes you wake up spooning a bag of jellybeans
• At 3am, you hide under the blankets when you hear crazed animal eating noises coming from your dark kitchen
• You used to have spare storage spaces. Now if you try to open your cupboard, you have to duck to avoid being hit by flying syringes/canula sets
• There's sugar remnants all over your fitness gear
• You have more sharps containers and sharps in your house than a needle exchange. And you find yourself explaining to guests that you don't really deal drugs...it just looks that way
• ...but your neighbors actually do think you deal drugs because they overhear conversations about getting high and shooting up
• Every so often the adult you thought you moved in with regresses to the likeness of a 2 year old, demanding to be fed, crying, and unable to speak to you in proper sentences
• You once hired out and tried to watch the Blu-Ray version of 'Hansel & Gretel'. All of a sudden you felt a massive pain to the side of your head and came to to see a monster screeching and smashing the disc into shards. You then had to pay the video store a replacement fee. 
• You can no longer indulge in baking cookies laced with poison as the weekly treat
• The suspect diabetic wears a weird 'box' that they refuse to take off, and it frequently beeps during the night, keeping you up at all hours. The suspect diabetic sleeps through this. You wonder if its perhaps a lullaby-making machine that helps them sleep.

The Value of Health

Diabetes is an expensive disease. My ailing bank balance is testament to this fact. I pay for things I shouldn't have to consider at my age. I don't like handing my hard earned cash over for a small canister of strips that will me last me 5 days. Last financial year my diabetes cost me 1/10 of my total gross earnings for the year.

At the same time, I am very very thankful I am ABLE to buy these strips, and at the subsidised NDSS price. Yes, I would LOVE a health care card to help bring the price down, especially as I am considering study again and know that the only way to support my disease is to work full time and study full time (I've done 4 years of uni already, I am not spending a second more back at uni then I have to). Which will probably take a massive toll on my body and mind. So yes, a health care card might mean I could work part-time.

But I am getting off topic.

As a receptionist at a private practice, I cannot stand it when, after I have told people the price over the phone pre-appointment, people whinge and moan and bitch about the prices to my face at their consult. If people are aware of the price beforehand, I'm not sure what they think it's going to achieve besides making me feel uncomfortable as I wait for them to end their tirade. Everyone has the option to go through the public system if they don't want to pay out of pocket and you are never forced to go through private system. Some people have tried to justify this to me because they say the public system has a long wait time. I understand this, and I sympathize. But what no-one seems to understand is that that is what makes the difference between private and public medical care systems. If all private practitioners suddenly bulk billed everyone, everywhere would have a long wait time.

I also wish people would understand the amount of time medical practitioners spend scraping out a living as a student to become doctors. If I studied for 15 years after high school, I would want to be paid well for it too. Hopefully people can appreciate this relativity.

But the thing that gets me the most is the value that people place on their health. Sadly, it seems people are happier to pay for a new TV than a consult with a brilliant doctor who could help to ease their suffering, or help restore their sight to help them watch their sparkling new TV. As a person with diabetes I place the utmost importance on my health. I happily pay for private doctors, test more and therefore pay for more test strips than the average diabetic, see my diabetes care team whenever requested because I am the one seeing the benefit to my health.

With all of diabetes' added costs I too save where I can. I see a bulk-billing GP (which sadly, under Tony Abbott, looks as though it will no longer exist soon - something I am strongly against as it will just put more stress on hospital emergency departments and also exclude people who are too poor to afford it, such as the homeless, from accessing even basic heath care. Not to mention that having a chronic illness means I see my GP an average of 20 times per year). I use a care plan to see my mental health team and diabetes educator. I get my yearly optometry tests bulk-billed.

I'm not asking everyone to go and join private clinics. The public system works just as well. I'm just asking that people place a higher value on sustaining their health than a new pair of $200 shoes. Those shoes will be out of fashion next season. Your body is the only one you will ever have.

Happy 2 Year Diaversary.

When I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes on a Friday afternoon I was put in hospital overnight and told that I would be there all weekend because there were no diabetes educators available until Monday. I was supposed to go to a friend's baby's 1st birthday on Saturday and regretfully had to cancel. Mostly because they wouldn't let me out of hospital until someone became available who could show me the correct way to poke myself in the stomach with sharp, pointy objects.

That person never materialized and I was released into the wild with 5 pens of NovoRapid and 5 pens of Lantus and no idea how to use them, or anything to do the actual poking with. Thankfully my endo appeared in the wild non-diabetic outside world and heaped upon me many many needles with which to cause myself pain. Lantus burn, anyone?

So every year I get an invitation to a birthday party for a small child I have met a handful of times. And I always wonder why it is that, mixed in with the excitement of being able to go to K-Mart and hang out legit in the toy department while I shop for presents, I feel dread when the invitation arrives in my mailbox.

Vaguely, in the back of my mind, I know it means my diaversary is coming up. I don't know why this causes a black, tangled ball of dread to knot in my stomach. Perhaps its because I feel that with every passing year of having diabetes, I am closer to complications. The doctors tell you that a good HbA1c will help to prevent complications, but that's all it can do. Help. There is zero guarantee that I will never develop complications, and the longer you have diabetes, the more time to develop complications in. But that's a downer. I hope that as the years pass, I will be able to watch this beautiful little girl grow up, and not associate it with a reminder of the 1st time I laid a lancet to my index finger. This year, I distracted myself by eating a Tardis Cake which stained my mouth blue for the rest of the day. Pretty awesome stuff. And a good thing to associate this time of year with.

Does anyone else have diaversary reminders?



Happy Birthday Sweetie. And Happy 2 year diaversary to me - starting it with a BGL of 4.5. :)

27 - 03 - 2012