Diabetes is Kicking my Butt

It's hard to be a person with diabetes who is so completely involved in the diabetes community. It's hard because on the outside you can easily appear like you've got your stuff together, but in reality you're fighting with yourself to stay on top of your diabetes.  For me diabetes has always (by always I mean since I was diagnosed) been apart of stream of thought.  I have created my own little diabetes empire all while attempting to be a good diabetic or at least get by without having to visit the E.R or cause too many family or friends grief with uncontrollable blood sugar mishaps.

For the past ALMOST four years I feel in a way I have been 'faking' diabetes by going through the motions, but not really sitting down to get to know what my diabetes actually is. I mean, I know exactly what diabetes is and I know what it's like to live the life of a diabetic, but to be honest sometimes when I hear about other type 1's that experiment with basal rates, record blood sugars to find patterns and seriously only drink 1 single juice box when they're low - I instantly feel like I have just some how squeaked by each year I've had type 1.

Tonight I was lying in bed thinking about a lot of things. I guess when a new year hits this happens. You start googling stuff like 'how to lose weight fast' and 'how to reward yourself for good behaviour, so you keep on doing good things...'  all of these things that make you feel like you do have a chance to start something new or improve in some way or another.   I started thinking about how I've felt like crap all day. How my blood sugars have been high and I feel like I have been drowning my body in insulin. I was thinking about how I feel so hungry right now, but know that when I check my blood sugar it's going to be too high to even think about having a snack before bed.  I was thinking about how diabetes was kicking my butt.

I flicked my lamp on and sat up in bed and checked my blood sugar - thinking, 'hey it's 2013 and if I think about checking my blood sugar, I am going to check it.'   My blood sugar was 10.3 and I thought "diabetes you're a pain in ..... "  I grabbed my pump wanting to just throw it away, but instead let it know my blood sugar and let it tell me it needs to once again give me more insulin.   This is when I needed to grab my lap top and begin writing because I knew that thinking about all this again while trying to sleep wasn't going to make for good dreams or a good sleep at that.

I really, truly know that there is much worse out there. I know that I am lucky to have been given something that has medicine, has support and is covered (for the most part) in my country.  But, MAN! I am sick and tired of this disease. I am so tired of how it makes me feel, tired of fitting it into my bra, tired of having to get up in the night, tired of filling reservoirs, tired of talking about bolusing, and tired of its ability to kick my butt - seriously!

I guess this is my diabetes burn out - something I heard about, read about, was talked to about... but wasn't sure when it would happen.  I mean, it's one of those things where you know that you have to deal with it or it's going to deal with you - but on the other hand you think of how nice it would be to live without it, to be so ignorant to not know what a pancreas is or what insulin does.  I'd love to not know.

I doubt that I will ever be one to experiment with my diabetes, or start reading the latest articles on the next cure, but I do know that I need to start thinking about diabetes just a tad bit more on my end of things.  I know that I need to check more and that taking care of my diabetes is important if I want to accomplish the goals I have for myself.   I guess I just need a little more motivation, or maybe I just need to blog about it more, to keep myself from losing the fight.

Kayla