Diabetes, life and all that - personal diary

What an absolutely perfect day














I think the smiles on our faces speak louder than any words I might use.

Pavlos

anna29 said:

Great blog and thread Pavlos .
I loved reading this and seeing your journey/photos
in your everyday life, travels,hobbies/interests and
also your own diabetes you handle with such positiveness .

Very inspiring and encouraging I must add

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Participating in this forum has given me so much, education, support, friendship.

This particular thread has served a number of purposes, it has helped me sort out feelings about and to retain focus on my diabetes.

In all honesty though, part of the motive in setting it up was also to demonstrate how it is possible to have a satisfying life despite diabetes.

Being diagnosed with a life long condition like diabetes is such a ground shifting event that it is easy to assume that one's life from then on will be just about trying to cope with this disease.

Being told that you have an incurable condition that will deteriorate over time until you develop some very unpleasant complications is very scary and distressing indeed.

I am naturally a positive person but I hope that my optimism is not the result of denial but grounded on a good grasp of my disease put into action to allow me to control it.

I hope this positive attitude comes through in my posts, which I do try to make us honest as possible.

I hope also that the fact that I am enjoying my life also comes through.

At times I am aware that the thread tends to drift away from diabetes, becoming about photography or gardening or even football.

At the beginning I questioned whether this was a mistake, but I have come to think that I prefer people not to see me as a cardboard diabetes sufferer, as someone defined by his disease but as someone who is a well rounded individual, pursuing his own interests and hobbies at the same time as trying to stay on top of this condition of ours.

If this thread helps to illustrate to even one newly diagnosed that diabetes is manageable and is not all doom and gloom then it will have more than served its purpose.

Once again thank you for your kind words.

Pavlos

douglas99 said:

I'm still of the opinion my life is actually a lot better post diagnosis, as I wouldn't have made any change without the need to.
And the changes certainly opened up a lot more to me as a result.

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@douglas99 this is the kind of positive message that it is important that we promote and highlight to the newly diagnosed.

Having an experienced and well controlled diabetic like yourself come out and state that their diabetes diagnosis has ended up being a force for positive change in their lives must be extremely reassuring.

Of course in your case it has proved so because you were prepared to heed the wake up call, and rather than feel sorry for yourself, you were prepared to put in the hard work and make the necessary changes to your diet and lifestyle. You were also not afraid to experiment along the way in order to find what works best for you

I see from another thread that you are now experimenting with the Newcastle diet. Not sure I could put myself through that but you have my respect for being ready to try it. I look forward to seeing how you get on.

I read in one of your fairly recent posts how you are not willing to let diabetes dictate what you can or can not do ( I think you were referring to how you needed to carb load, in preparation for a subsequently aborted cold water dive you were planning). How to do so would mean that diabetes won.

I found that truly inspirational.

Sometimes we all expend ourselves in arguing about what our favorite diabetic diet is, and I can't help but feel how short we sell ourselves when we do so.

Living with diabetes is about much more than just a choice of diet or of exercise or medication.

It's about having the courage to say this is my life and I will live it in my terms. I may have a condition that I must respect but that paradoxically the more I respect its rules the less constrained I am by them and the more freedom I have to pursue whatever it is I consider to make life worth living for.

Half the battle against diabetes is in my opinion in the brain.

If our mindset is right then we can do wonders. Trouble is often we do not believe in ourselves enough to carry through with our plans or we mistakenly believe that we somehow brought this condition on ourselves through our weakness or that we even deserve to suffer from it somehow.

This is why we need to address emotional issues of the newly diagnosed in our advice as well as the more practical guidance on matters such as diet.

It is no good just telling someone what to eat in order to control his diabetes, if we do not at the same time convince him that he is capable of putting our advice into implementation.

Pavlos

lizdeluz said:

Brilliant posts, all really interesting and inspiring. Lovely pic of the John Rylands. Just wondering why Man City?

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If I told you that I do not rightly know why I chose to follow them so many years ago, would you believe me?

I know my dad, although a keen football fan, he was a very good goalkeeper himself in his youth, who if my mom is to believed turned down the chance of playing for one of Cyprus's leading teams because it would have meant giving up smoking, was not a supporter of any one English team. Had he been a supporter of an alternative English team, I suspect that, like many others including my own son now, I would have followed in his footsteps.

Most people in Cyprus are supporters of one English team or other, in addition to supporting a local team. Especially then but I suppose even now, the gap in class between the two leagues was so great that the two leagues felt completely segregated and there was therefore no sense that by having a favourite English team one was being any less
Lloyal to the local team one supported.

English football was extremely popular even then, I am talking about the mid to late seventies when at the age of ten or so I first became interested in it,weekly highlights were shown on tv every Thursday and live radio commentary of the second half of a game was available on BBC World Service on Saturdays.

These were the times of Liverpool's dominance so most of my peers were Liverpool supporters, there were also a lot of United supporters (of coarse) and a sprinkling of Arsenal and Spurs supporters ( probably kids with relatives in the large Greek Cypriot community in North London). But I knew of no other Manchester City supporter.

Now City had a decent side in the late seventies, finishing 2nd in 1976/7 and 4th the following year and were playing some very attractive attacking football with players like Asa Hartford, Peter Barnes, Joe Corrigan to name but a few, so I guess wanting to stand out from the crowd, I chose to follow them.

A decision which did come to cause me a lot of hardship over the considerably less successful decades that followed. My best friend at school was a United supporter.

In all honesty the only time I ever came close to regretting my choice was that final game of the 2011/12 season. City were playing QPR, who were themselves fighting relegation that season, at home and a victory would mean that City would rest the title from United on goal difference. Any other result and United would retain the title.

I sat down to watch the game on tv with my then nine year old son, who knowing no better, was supremely confident. Having grown up in the rich tradition of great City f**k ups, I was less so.

When QPR took the lead my son started getting upset and when they scored a second to regain the lead, he was visibly distraught. I actually had to ask him to leave the room and stop watching. Now I knew that the only reason he was even a City supporter in the first place was my own choice to follow them so many years ago so...

My son never did actually get to see Dzeko's 90th minute equalising goal or that magical Sergio Aguero winning goal deep into injury time that finally secured the title for City ( second only to my son's birth in my list of happiest memories, although we will not let the wife know that ).

I did call him back in at the final whistle though for the celebrations.

Pavlos


Sent from the Diabetes Forum App

connie104 said:

I am sure you and your son will share being fans of Man city for many years to come. Our son lives in the UK but has been brought up as a Chelsea fan and ( he's now 27) and he and his dad are constantly texting each other on match days about the team result etc. I am not a great fan but love it when they win as everyone is happy !

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Hate to admit it but my mood is affected when City fail to win.

Silly I know letting a game get to us like that!

By the way I found it touching that you cared enough to look up the game's result yesterday.

Thank you.

Pavlos

Home sweet home!



Eleven hours and two time zones after leaving our hotel in Manchester this morning, we finally walk through our front door.

Going away may be exciting but returning to one's nest is reassuring and comforting.

Pavlos

Blood sugar tonight 5,1 mmol

Morning level at 5,6.

Ginger puts in an appearance and demands to be petted.





Feeling too tired and decide to return to bed for an extra hour's sleep then feel too guilty about missing my morning walk.

I decide to get up and go on a shortened walk.

I don't want to get in the habit of having a lie in.

My body says I am a fool.

I suspect it is right.

Pavlos

I set out on my morning walk with reluctant limbs and a mind still cloudy with the need for sleep.

Like a lizard sunning itself up on a summer rock, I let the warmth of the morning rays soak in, smooth away goosebumped skin and energize me back to consciousness.

I look at the suburban scenery around me, with eyes that grew more used to the more northern sights of Manchester over the last few days.




The differences are striking and, if I am honest, not entirely unwelcome.

The openness of the scenery, visibility stretching to the distant Pentadaktylos mountain range, feels liberating after the more closed-in urban horizons of Manchester.

The biggest difference though is the sheer intensity of the light.

Everything seems "more" somehow. The sky is bluer, the trees greener, the shadows darker

It's like someone adjusted the controls on a television screen.

I loved my time in Manchester but I realize that I am now glad to be back home.

As i carry on with my walk the evidence of recent torrential rain is there to see.


What was dry scorched earth four days ago, is now big puddles of rain, giant mirrors reflecting the morning sun.



I have to fight the urge to run in and disturb their perfect stillness.

What would be cute behavior in a five year old would be down right strange in a fifty year old unfortunately.

I settle on bouncing a rock on the surface of one of them.

I manage to complete my usual route, all 5,3 km, which I find myself feeling quietly proud about.

I am rewarded with a reduced count of 5,1 before breakfast.

I take a couple of minutes to look around the garden.



Yes, life is returning to its normal routine.

Now on to work...

Pavlos

Socrates the great Athenian philosopher was once asked how one should recognize an educated man.

I found his response interesting and of relevance to dealing with diabetes (although of course not restricted to it).

In responding he made no reference to education as the gathering and accumulation of knowledge and information.

Education, he said is a matter of behavior…

So, who did he consider to be educated?

"- Τhose that can manage their misfortunes instead of being managed by them

- Those that face all events with bravery and a sense of reason

- Those that are honest in all their dealings

- Those that can deal with unfortunate situations or unlikable people with losing their good intentions

- Those that can control their pleasures in life

- Those that do net let misfortune or failure defeat them

- Finally, those that do not let success or fame corrupt them "

Wise words indeed and so reminiscent of Kipling's inspired verse, written two millennia subsequently.

"If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son! "

There was an element of defiance about my morning walk this morning; a bloody minded stubbornness that I would not give in to the urge to just take it easy and sleep a bit longer on this colder-feeling morning.



In part this was fueled by fear, a worry that once I start making excuses for myself, once I start taking it easy I will fall back into bad habits of old.

So I convinced myself to get out of bed, put on my shorts and teeshirt, with hindsight perhaps a truck suit would have been a better idea, and got myself on the path once again.



My morning walk ritual is proving much more than just a bit of exercise.

It's a chance for me to take my foot off the accelerator enough to allow myself the chance to notice and appreciate what is around me that, in my mad rush to get to work, would normally have passed unacknowledged.

Slowing down to a walking pace serves also to allow my mind time to process ideas, images,concepts even feelings into more coherent thoughts. It is the product of this process that usually finds its way into this diary at the conclusion of my walks.

This probably is part of the reason why I feel that anyone reading probably has a better idea of who I really am than a lot of my colleagues or even friends.

From the distance and anonymity offered by a virtual forum such as this it is easier to let walls down and offer glimpses of one's real thoughts, feelings even sensitivities and vulnerabilities.

I must admit that I find the openness it offers liberating.

The fact that people have been kind enough to respond positively to what I write, is all the more rewarding to me precisely because I feel there is so much of who I really am in this diary.

Someone was kind enough on another thread to half-jokingly refer to me as a hero for what I write.

Of course I am nothing of the kind but I could not help but be flattered and the subject was still playing around in my mind during my walk this morning.

Heroes are self-sacrificing, while what I am all about is self-preservation.

Heroes are courageous, while I am still fighting the terror of what this condition could do to me, still fighting against my own demons of complacency.

So no hero!

Never a hero!

The best I can say in my defense is That I try not to let the fear win, I try not to let it dictate the agenda to such an extent that I lose sight of what is important to me.

Staying alive is important to me.

Staying healthy is important to me.

But not as important as what I want to stay alive and healthy for: my wife, my son, the very joy of living itself.

Pavlos

This week has not been the best so far.



My days, just like my morning walking sessions, have just been something I go through rather than a source of much pleasure or satisfaction.

Everything feels a bit flat, just going through the motions, convincing one leg to step ahead of the other and then repeating again one monotonous repetitive step after another.

I suppose it's the day after the ball syndrome following our holiday last weekend.

I can only describe it as feeling like a juggler trying to keep too many pins in the air, an actor trying to act in two plays at once, while caring for neither, while being indifferent if the pins stay up or not.

I hope that the weekend will give me the jolt I need to snap out of this mood. It's not like me to feel so grey and I do not care for it one bit, to be honest.

At least my sugar levels are behaving 5,7 mmol today.

Pavlos