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Life with diabetes

It really is enough to say I've got T1 diabetes and a fellow sufferer nods and says "yeah", smiles and we know we understand each other.
 
A winner badge just isn't enough for you!! I think I might have been tempted to smack her.... verbally of course
 
Mel dCP said:
I’d like a day off from having to make complicated dosing calculations with a potentially fatal drug and not having to make life or death clinical decisions Every. Single. Day.

Just one day off. Please?
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That's the real thing really @Mel dCP , it's just not being able to totally switch off. Sometimes I think I'd just like to get rat ***** and go to bed and sleep.
 
Making lists is useful. Everyone has too much to remember but there's absolutely no reason to think that you'll make a major mistake. That's just you compounding a little issue. Lighten up and write it down and take the strain off your brain @NoKindOfSusie
 
It's a disease @NoKindOfSusie and everyone else. I agree, you can't fight it really but you can address the bad sides and kick them into line. It doesn't have to get into your head unless you let it. I'm not doing that.
 
Rusne said:
Does it become automatic?
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Hmm, interesting question. I think it does after a while.

A rough analogy might be when you're learning to drive, you're having to put a lot of thought into changing gear, managing the clutch, and then after a while it's something you don't even think about, you just do it.

It's quite right that newly dx'd are encouraged to think about the various factors involved in carb counting and dosage adjustment, including the subtler aspects which are often not apparent at the start, like differing time of day ratios/GI load/whether trending up or down/pre-bolus etc.

All that can seem overwhelming and newbies think their lives are now going to revolve around spreadsheets and mental arithmetic.

But, just as with the gear analogy, practice, practice, practice, and it just becomes sort of instinctual.

When you've been doing it for a while, we're still doing those calculations, but we just do them much faster and with more confidence that they're right because we've done it so many times in the past.

Of course, this being T1, it doesn't mean they are always right - it still throws wobblies - but we're usually not disastrously wrong, and that's good enough.
 
Its a disease that we can be in control of.... I cant think of another critical illness that is possible with...even asthmatics have to carry puffers and wont know until they are heading downward.. they dont have an airflow meter to warn them in advance. Cancer... not determined before and no way to know what is happening unless you have a brca1 gene and want to opt for mastectomies and ovary removal.
Some horrendous diseases like dystonia and nothing can be done to stop it progressing. My friend cannot weight bear, no ability to open clenched hands, hoisted in and out of bed, no colon, no bladder and just bags....and couldnt eat more than fortisips for 3 years and left in bed to rot for 21/2 years. Now, thanks to her perseverance and technology and better healthcare services she is independent to a degree (despite carers and nurses) and can drive again.

We can moan, and I have. I would moan anout my 3.30am injections but compared to my friend being woken by a nurse at 3amand having skin checked for bedsores and bags emptied and nurses thinking they should tell her about their lives at 3am in morning. Well actually, I have no reason to moan...
I can do jab and rollover and sleep, my friend can't.

Yes, constantly aware and planning everything but personally I think I'm a better person for being a T1.. I dont think I would have been so health conscious if I hadnt had T1.

We have one life and boy, when my hubby recently died suddenly at 51 and no apparent illness ever, well I am just appreciative that I have had good monitoring of my life and health. It is important to live,laugh and do the best you can, no matter what..
 
I’m not a better person as a result. I lost my science career as a result of it and I feel really bitter about that.
 
I don't know if I'm a better person or not, I lost a good job as a toolmaker a long time back, due to a contract change putting me on shifts, but I was at fault for signing the contract on trust, and with hindsight I really shouldn't have punched the manager in the disciplinary meeting but you live and learn and it was a cracking shot with me having lost a stone in weight in a month...

I've certainly had some adventures over the years I've had sugar and learned a lot of lessons the hard way, but then I was always pig headed (my old mums description) many years before I got sugar, probably due to being an adopted kid, I'd not have lost my job if I'd not had the illness and maybe gained a couple of county rugby caps, but only maybe. I'd not have done the single parent gig if I'd have been working, and that was certainly as unplanned as I was unprepared, but it was an adventure

I still wish I didn't have it tho....
 
NoKindOfSusie said:
I know that this is a very popular attitude on this forum but please do not project that on everyone else. I think you must have been an amazingly unambitious person if that is true.
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Nope, certaily not.. top management in distribution previously!!! I mean a better person with my empathy towards other humans, my kindness towards people and help to others... not marerialistically or in ambition... I am driven to help othsrs that are less well off in health and wealth than me...
 
Mel dCP said:
I’m not a better person as a result. I lost my science career as a result of it and I feel really bitter about that.
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But have you learnt and taken other directions and on alongsr term basis, this may not be the loss of a science career but a step in a different direction.

This is a strange comparison but I hope that you will see that we can choose to see things negatively or look at the positives from negativity...
My husband and I took vitamin tablets for decades.. many for good heart health. At 51 he suddenly died of aorticdissection,just 9 weeks ago. My first thoughts were to give up tsking vitamins,as they didnt do any goid for him..however, thinking logically...they may well have kept him healthier for longer...so seeing the positive about a negative can be gained..
Also, my hubby got badly neglected when taken in to A&E...it was dire.really bad. However, looking at the positive.. the death rate for this problem is high and recovery is not good.... so the neglect may well have actually been a kindness in some way. No way would my hubby have wanted to be ill on a long term basis at just 51. Full recovery is rare and this may well have been the best outcome for him. He would not have wanted to be ill longterm or short term.... so asmuch as I am devastated... and cannot believe the dire state of hospital care (none) but perhaps looking at things positively it may have actually been kindness in a strange way that events happened as they did.

Oh and I do love to moan... at my dog, at the state of the tv progeammes (dont watch it at all since hubby died).. at decisions hospital people make etc and yes, when I almost lost my licence thru diabetes etc but no longer about having diabetes... I really see the positives that I am, whom I am. Theres a good book I am reading currently and enjoying "the subtle art of not giving a f*ck"...
 
The way you are thinking is so increadibly mature, it is almost a bit uncomfortable. I wish I could see things like you do and maybe some time in the future I will. I think the point is that how we think leads us into worse or better place and thinking t1 sucks, that it takes something away from you, leads you into being grumpy and bitter. It is hard not to (for me) but at least I can try..
 

Believe me, I have been grumpy and bitter at times but I think its only now I have lost my soul mate and having survived this ill ess, complicated colon &stomach and 2 breast removaks that I realise that life isnt all about sadness and gloom...

Every minute of joy counts...
 
You are one brave lady.
 
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