@tigger I'm exhausted just
thinking about everything you've got on your plate at the moment - and that's really speaking to me, because very often in my case it's just
one extra thing to do,
one extra commitment,
one ball in the air too many and BOOM suddenly
nothing seems to work.... You've
just gone back to work - and that extra ball has knocked you. The ball will find its way back in with the other balls, and you'll be a tiptop juggler again - but it's going to take just a little while.
Give the balls a chance. I'm wondering whether your feelings of failure are because of your - shall we say -
zealous concern about your control, when I feel that perhaps that concern is a
symptom of the overwhelm, rather than the
cause? I'm sort of looking at it from the other direction, if you see what I mean.
I have always really overdone the control thing - it's always been the 'be all and end all' of my three decades of diabetes existence, and it's only in the last 10-13 months that I have felt that control will be better...... IN THE FUTURE. My control is never perfect 'now'. Every test it's like 'hmmmm, could do better', or 'hmmmm, why is that high/low/not high/low/*** is going on?' - take your pick.
The whole not being hard on oneself thing is, I feel, the hardest. I mean, we've both had it drummed into us, haven't we, since the 1980s, that we need to do this, do that, keep between two lines, etc etc, to avoid all the potentially lurking complications...... but what we are not told is that at the same time we need to operate as real people, as human beings, as normal members of society, with partners, families, jobs, commitments, nights down the pub, the odd curry. It's a paradox - be hard on yourself to 'succeed' diabetically - but at the same time don't be hard on yourself. If anyone has the answer to that little impossible equation then I'd be very grateful! Frankly it does my head in when a member of my diabetes team tells me not to be so hard on myself. Talk about mixed messages!
Back to the specifics (sorry, I love an essay) - your sites are being troublesome - sorry to hear that. I've not been pumping long, but found very quickly that the right-hand side of my tummy is a total no-go zone for my cannulas - so I've been rotating around the left side, but also using my spare tyre around the back. Although I'm slim I do have a spare tyre, and I go right down to below waistband level to sometimes right up on my actual waist (it smarts a bit on entry when it's that high, but oh boy the absorption rate is good) and I alternate sides. And having it round the back means it's waaaaay more out of the way than I was finding it round the front - much less risk for me of tripping over the hosepipe. And because I'd never
injected round the back (despite having an amazing osteopath I fear the resulting cricks in having to 'pinch and stab' at those angles would be beyond even her!) it's pretty much virgin territory for shoving insulin into.
Despite basal testing not being an option for you at the moment (btw I've only ever done ONE lot of basal testing - shhhhh - and that's not because I'm perfect and nailed everything first time, it's because life's got in the way, and hey, I've not managed it) it might be the case that you can recognise patterns without doing basal testing, and make little adjustments to either your basal or your bolus and then see how that goes. That's what I've been doing - the Libre is a Godsend for seeing where you're at, and recognising where the patterns are, but goodness me like you I get SO SICK of wanting that line to be flat the whole time. Is my line ever flat? Hmmm, let's count some flying pigs and some blue moons....
I think you're doing an incredible job. Four kids, including a brand-new one - huge respect! Your husband's away. You've just gone back to work.
And you know what? Even though you're not happy with the Libre line, your HbA1c is spot on. I know you'd like to have fewer hypos and hypers, and a steadier line, but small steps to gradual changes will get you there. I
know how hard this is. I
know how hard you're working. And I
know you're doing an incredible job. Just remember to be kind to
@tigger.
Love Snapsy x
PS Don't forget - to quote A A Milne - that
the wonderful thing about tiggers is that tiggers are wonderful things!