Want to hear something crazy?

In one week I will have been on the animas insulin pump system for four years.

Four years ago I was through the moon happy to be off shots. Being on a pump meant being able to set my basals for different times throughout the day, it meant not going low from a lantus spike at midnight and having to stay up and chug an entire pack of juice boxes every night, it meant not staying up until 2am trying not to let my bg drop any further. It also meant the end of those long nights when my mom and I would watch old TV shows or  chat about life while we waited for the next testing interval.

That I have missed.

Not the exhaustion, not being tied to a certain time lantus had to be taken, or feeding the insulin in the middle of the night and fighting highs in the morning, but that time, when mom and I were the only people in the world who were still awake.

I have a lot of beautiful memories of my mother sitting on my bed looking like death. I wish I was creative and could paint the picture for you. They were not exactly happy times, but I remember the strength and beauty that I saw in my mom at those times, and those night when she slept at the foot of my bed were precious in a twisted sort of way.

It was something we shared, our special time together. Not that we didn't spend time together during the day, but there is a special bond between people who have fought death all night and woken in the morning to live as if life was normal.

My insulin pump changed my life. It freed me from shots, and from lantus, but it also took something. While I am so thankful that most nights. I can sleep almost completely interrupted, sometimes I miss those exhausting nights we shared. I am so thankful that I was able to see my mother's love and dedication to me in such a poignant way, and I am so glad that we shared those times.

Thanks mom.

An Up Hill Battle

This week has been rough, when I decided I needed to turn my diabetes management around I knew it would be hard, but not this hard.

I feel like every time I get myself to a decent number, it is time to eat again. And I know that many of the high numbers I am seeing are from food choices I am making (like eating ice cream or cupcakes) but it is hard for me to say no. I do not want to refuse desserts because I feel like then I am contributing to the idea that type one diabetics should not eat sugar. When someone says "Oh but you can't eat this can you" I feel like I just have to prove them wrong.

It is stupid, and I know that, but no one ever said a diabetic's relationship to food is simple. I cannot wait for the summer to be over so that I can escape the parties and 'fun food' and go back to a more normal diet.

So here is to the end of summer (which thankfully is in sight)!  And here is to trying to make better food choices. =)

Managing

I have always hated the term Control, as in "Is your diabetes under control?" 

First of all, it is a rude question. you do not ask someone if their cancer is under control, you just ask how they are. 

Secondly, it implies a straight line. Often the question even comes with a hand gesture, running one's hand in a straight line to further imply that my blood sugar should be steady and constant as a rock. 

Well here is some news; no one's blood sugar runs in a perfectly straight line. Not even non-diabetics. And my blood sugar is not 'under control'. Diabetes is akin to a wild animal; imagine letting a monkey loose in your house, you would not be trying to 'control' it, to teach it to behave, you would be minimizing the damage. You would react to what the monkey was doing as fast as you could, but it would still make a mess, it would be running the show. 

Personally I prefer the term managed; as in I am doing what I am supposed to, and when the monkey starts flinging poop it is not my fault. 

The truth is, I am not managing my diabetes either. When I started college life got very busy, and for the first time in four years I was not surrounded by people who knew I had diabetes. I was not embarrassed by my diabetes, but I started to notice how incredibly inconvenient diabetes was. 

Well this is going to be the start of a new leaf for me. I am starting over, and I am going to share that journey with you because I think it is important for people to know they are not alone, to know that they can get support, and to stop playing the blame game when it comes to diabetes and just blame the monkey.