Dream a little dream
I had a dream about my older brother last night.
I haven’t had a dream about him since 1993 when he passed away.
We walked around and talked, and I listened to him play the Piano… and for some reason we checked out his cool coin collection.
It was a really good visit.
Love You Bob.
My Fantasy World
I’ve been telling people I was diagnosed with diabetes October 15 of 2004. But in reality, I was diagnosed August 18, 2000. Almost 5 years ago.
I was 5 weeks pregnant and decided to pull out my old glucose meter and test my BG since I had gestational diabetes with my last pregnancy. The numbers were bad and when I called my OB, they had me come in immediately and by that night I was admitted to the hospital where I learned to inject insulin. And continued to use insulin till the end of my pregnancy.
They did an A1C and it was 7.9. They said that could indicate that I was diabetic before I got pregnant. But, the official diagnosis for some reason was still “gestational diabetes”. I stuck with that.
After our baby was born, my BG levels dropped dramatically. And then in 2002 I had an A1C done and it was 6.1. I thought that was normal and since no one called me asking me what to do about it, I figured I wasn’t diabetic.
What has haunted me the past six months is the first thing my doctor said to me when I had my first visit with him.
“What brings you here today?” he asked.
“I believe I may have diabetes.” I replied.
“But you knew that.” he said.
I argued that I had an A1C done 2 years ago and it was 6.1 and that was good.
He said, “Yeah for a diabetic”.
I know I’ve posted this before.. but it really bothers me. Because if I dig down… I did know. Little bits come back to me from those early pregnancy months when I was being seen weekly to make sure the insulin injections were working. The head OB at Kaiser who told me on several occassions to be sure to follow up after the baby was born. She was convinced that I was diabetic before I got pregnant. I clearly brushed off that notion.
The other day I posted that I haven’t been updating this thing because I don’t have much to elaborate on. That I’m doing so good, blah blah blah. In reality, it had been months since I tested my BG. Months.
And then I got yet another stye in my eye. And then I decided that since I’ve lost 30 lbs and haven’t lost any more, I should start exercising. Then I decided to visit the message boards at the ADA site… and it was a reality check.
Then I got the books I mentioned in my last post and realized… I still live in a fantasy world. A world where I’m only “sorta” diabetic. A world where the diabetes would go away as soon as I lost more weight. A world where I didn’t need to test my BG because I had a good A1C 5 months ago. Clearly I’m doing everything ‘right’.
But I’m not!
“Recent research has shown that some long-term damage to the body, especially the heart and circulatory system, may already be occurring during pre-diabetes.”
That haunts me when I think about the 5 years I was diabetic and chose to live in my fantasy world rather than accept it. It haunts me that even though I’ve accomplished a few minor goals since the first big reality check last October that I still had not fully accepted that I have diabetes.
“Accepting that you have diabetes is the first step towards controlling it”.
That idea has been very hard for me. Over the past week I’ve come to realize how much I’ve still been in denial. That I still clung to a hope that it would go away once I got it under control. And then I realized the other night as I was falling asleep that this is simply not true. I’m a diabetic, and unless a cure is found, I will be a diabetic for the rest of my life.
So I decided to take charge. I’ve been testing more and the exercise, the books, etc. The best way to get this under control is to learn how certain foods affect me. The only way to determine that is to test often. But yesterday I ran out of test strips. I called my doctor and insurance company to find out how to get more. After many phone calls back and forth, my doctor’s nurse said she’d get a prescription from my doctor. She asked me how many I wanted. I told her I’d like to start testing 4 times a day at least. She said she’d have the script for me that afternoon.
Ten minutes later she called me back and said my doctor said no. If I was having to test that much he wanted to see me. I tried to explain to her that it wasn’t so much that I *had* to test that much. Then I choked up and bit my lip to not cry. I didn’t want to pour it all out to her… she babbled on about how the doc wanted to do another A1C and that the insurance wouldn’t cover that many strips since I’m on meds, blah blah. I reluctantly made the appointment thinking I would only go so I could get my strips.
Then I decided I would just cancel the appointment and buy the strips myself without insurance. I came up with a million excuses why I shouldn’t go to this appointment. I even decided since I don’t like my doc I’ll just find another one and start over with another doctor.
Then I realized this is the exact pattern of denial I’ve gotten used to. I have an appointment, I have a chance to talk to him about what’s really being going on, I have a chance to ask him for a referral to a dietician, I have a chance to have some good come of this. And I have a chance to really know how well I’ve been doing since December.
Why don’t I like my doc? Because he said, “But you knew that”. And I took his attitude as brushing me off. But maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe he was brushing off my denial. Maybe he was simply not going to allow me to act shocked. I didn’t like him because he never referred me to see a dietician. Then it ocurred to me that I never asked him to. I didn’t like him because he didn’t give me a target range for my BG levels. But.. you guessed it, I never asked, either.
So I’m going to the appointment. And I will ask the questions I should’ve asked six months ago.
Acceptance is hard.
Wagons are too easy to fall off of…
I wouldn’t say that I have fallen off the wagon, but I’ve definitely been teetering since Hawaii. So, I’ve started an exercise … ‘plan’… if you can call that. Basically, I ride the exercise bike we bought last summer at a garage sale till it hurts me. Which is about 10 minutes. ha. Seriously though, I do at least 10 minutes no matter what and hope to continue to increase that to 15, 20, etc. I need to start out slow and work my way up.
I’ve still not lost any more weight… but I have started posting again on the diabetes support boards. And today I picked up what looks to be a promising book: Fix-it and Forget-it. I love my slow cooker and use it whenever I can, so I think I’ll enjoy this cookbook.
I also picked up The First Year Type 2 Diabetes: An Essential Guide for the Newly Diagnosed. This was highly recommended on the diabetes support board. I’m 6 months into my first year of being diagnosed, but I know I still have a lot to learn. And then I found this little pocket journal where you can track your carbs, exercise, etc. I hope to get some use out of it.
I’ve also tested twice in the last couple days. Shocking, huh? Once the other morning before I ate (FBS which = Fasting Blood Sugar). It was 138. Not good. But then I tested before dinner today and it was 119. Not too bad.
Today I’ve done more to educate and prepare myself for this life of diabetes than I’ve done in the past six months. Go me.
Sun ‘n Fun
We had several nice days last week, where the sun was shining and it was fairly warm. It made us all itch for summer. We’ve had so much rain this month – which is much needed so we shouldn’t complain.
The plan this weekend was to get some more yard work done that we started… um.. over a month ago. Maybe longer? Well, Friday afternoon, it was sunny and warm, when suddenly over the radio came an emergency broadcast about a severe thunder and lightening storm and urged everyone inside. Well that freaked me out a bit. I’ve never heard them interrupt the radio for a storm. Not around here. But it went on for a full minute. So, we gathered the kids inside and shut off the tv’s and computers. Ten minutes later there was a loud thunder that vibrated the house. Then about 5 minutes later another smaller one. Then a smaller one… and that was it. I was completely unimpressed. *shrug* (Why the emergency broadcast??)
But, it did start raining and there was no end in sight. So much for yard work this weekend. It bummed us out. We just got a new basketball hoop for the kids to play with and they haven’t got to play with it much… and both Jack and I were itching to do *something* this weekend besides stay home and stare out at the rainy weather for yet another weekend.
So Jack came up with the idea to go to Seaside. Even in the rain there’s always fun stuff to do there. So I called and found a hotel that had a room, and an indoor pool, so as soon as I got off work Saturday, we headed out.
We didn’t get there till 10 pm, but the kids were all awake and excited so we got situated in the room. Cody didn’t like the room at first. He said it was scary. Not sure what about it was scary to a 4 year old, but, he wasn’t impressed. He kept asking why were in this ‘new house’. Once situated, we rented a Jackie Chan movie from the hotel lobby and watched it till we feel asleep.
Sunday morning we awoke to sunshine! It wasn’t exactly warm, but it was pretty out. Went to our favorite restaurant at Seaside, “Pig ‘n Pancake” and had a great breakfast then set out to have some fun. First the arcade where we won lots of tickets to trade in for prizes. Then Jack, Kevin, and I played Fascination. We walked up and down the main strip looking at stores, then it was time for lunch. We grabbed Taco Time for lunch to take back to the hotel room, so we could change into shorts for the beach.
As I said, it wasn’t exactly warm. Most people walking along the beach were in coats, hats, etc. But us? We had on swimsuits and shorts. The kids jumped into the freezing ocean and played for a good 1/2 hour and amazingly didn’t come back shivering. I stayed back with our stuff and never got wet, but I was cold. I kept asking if they were cold and they were like, ‘nah’. They built sandcastles and then it was time to go swimming in the indoor pool at the hotel. Luckily we had it to ourselves the whole time we were there. There was a hot tub too. We swam for 2 hours! After that we were all worn out.
We went back to the hotel to rest a bit, shower, pack up, etc. When we left the hotel it had started raining. Perfect timing. We were going home after dinner anyway. We went to Girdles for a fantastic meal, then headed home. We picked up Randy from Ralph and Denise and were home by 10 pm.
It turned out to be a great weekend. 
Here’s some pictures.
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PW: ph0t0$
Whew 2.0
No one was mad at me today. In fact, upper mgmt had my back and all is good in that department.
So… Jack hurt his back. It’s been hurting him for weeks now actually and today he started physical therapy. While I love him dearly and feel really bad that he’s been in pain all this time, (love you, honey!) I am having a really hard time not saying, “I told you so!”. See, a few weeks ago Katherine hurt her knee. She’s not Cody-sized anymore. She’s the size of a (young) adult now. But he hoisted her on to his back anyway and carried her around. I told him not to (she was able to walk). He said bah. And he has been paying for it ever since. 
Get better soon, Jackson!
