Be Grateful

It can be hard to understand why we were given a disease.  I think everyone who has ever suffered for anything begs the question, "WHY ME!" Recently T1Empowerment (a group I started) had a speaker, Karli-Ann come to an event I hosted and she talked about the why me question.  Karli has Cerebral Palsy. I have been thinking about it lately, why was I given type 1 diabetes?  I watched as my sister drank a regular iced tea, thinking to myself why did diabetes choose my body and not hers? Not that I wish diabetes on any of my family members, but one must admit they question why they are the 'chosen ones' from time to time.

The more I thought about this the more my mind started to wonder why I never ask myself, "WHY DO I HAVE A WARM HOUSE TO GO TO EVERY NIGHT!"  and "WHY DO I ALWAYS HAVE FOOD IN MY FRIDGE?" We don't ask ourselves these things because it is so easy to take them for granted.  We have a standard of what we expect.  While some people grew up vacationing in adulthood, we just expect we will continue to vacation (like myself) but there are people who didn't grow up going on vacations, so something like a trip to Niagara Falls is considered a vacation - and there is nothing wrong with that. We all expect things in life, we expect that we will have a certain amount of food available, for some people it's a larger number of items than others. We expect that we will have some sort of job, whether that is something minimum wage level or higher.

When the bad things role in like an unexpected health concern or a loss of job we start to blame. We blame 'God' or whoever we believe in or blame.  We wonder how could this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this (insert here).  When in reality, the bump in the road, is merely a bump in the road compared to all the things we have been 'blessed' with.  The problem is it usually something unexpected and unusual. Something that is deemed a pain or obstacle, while we feel as though we don't deserve it - as time goes on we realize the importance the road block was. Maybe it made you stronger, maybe it introduced you to a community that supports you, or maybe it made you realize how lucky you have been to have a roof over your head and food on the table all along.

Whatever the case is, I think that asking why we were diagnosed with diabetes isn't a bad question to ask, we have to then also take the time to focus on why we have been so lucky to have other things in our lives.  We must be grateful.

Kayla

Self Love

Growing up we are told to love our bodies. We are told that each body is different and that there is nothing wrong with us.  This coming from the people that love us, otherwise we hear a different message from the media like, 'thin is beautiful' 'nothing tastes better than skinny feels...'  But, I want to focus on the goal which is to teach our children to love themselves for all that they are, not just their bodies but their minds and spirits.

I think we all have had moments in our lives or continuous moments where we battled with trying to love ourselves - our whole selves.  I've noticed that people have a hard time picking positives about themselves, but when it comes to negatives it's easy.  I think back to the Mean Girls scene where the girls are listing things they don't like about their bodies - some outrageous like, 'nail beds sucking...' (See the clip for yourself here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhCzRr9EwBk)  Overall, we are our own worst critic.

When it comes down to loving myself, I try hard to focus on the positives that I bring to the table. I try to evaluate myself in a forgiving light. It can hard because with all social media accounts we tend to compare our lives to the lives shown online - which we know aren't always the 'real lives of real people.' Regardless, self love is important. But when it comes to loving your diagnosis - how does that work? Can we love diabetes without being weird about it? After all isn't diabetes a HUGE part of who we are, if not, can we think of it as something that is a part of us.

What made me think of this was hearing that one of the families I know allows their child to say their diabetes is stupid. Diabetes is stupid. I wholeheartedly agree. Diabetes is a constant annoyance in the lives of children, teens, adults and parents alike.  However, half of me wants to say that while diabetes is stupid, I am going to potentially have diabetes for the rest of my life. It is always going to be there. An insulin pump attached at my hip, vials of insulin stored in my fridge, test strips strewn throughout my house, car and purse and physically scars on my belly, back and fingertips, mood swings from happy to sad and feeling like absolute garbage every now and then.  While I want to hate diabetes, I don't know if it is something I can give myself permission to do.  If I said I hated the way my nose was (giving that I wasn't going to spend the money to fix it) I would be having to everyday look at my nose with hate or disgust.  Looking in the mirror thinking, why was I given this nose? it looks so stupid, instead of saying, "My nose is unique" and it "gives me character" or "it could be worse!"

I guess it's all in the matter of perspective. While deep down inside we curse our curves or our nose.  We think our hair is too thin or our laugh is too obnoxious.  We have to remember that from the beginning we were told to love ourselves - for everything we were.  If diabetes is going to stick around for the long run then I guess I have to love it too.

Kayla

Action Plan

NYC December 2014

As I get older I have realized how fast time goes. I remember hearing adults say it all the time as a kid, but never really comprehended it.   Now, looking back, I think it is safe to say that twenty-four hours isn't a lot of hours and thirty days goes by fast.   I try really hard not to wish days away. I think it's different to look forward to a date such as the day my vacation begins or the day the weather gets warmer in Ontario. But, overall, I try to appreciate each day that I am given because we truly won't get that day back.

I have found that my 'fit challenge' that I have been participating in has been a great way to love every single day a bit more.  Reason being, is that I always wake up ready for the challenge. I want to do well and I want to succeed.  I love writing in my food journal (I can't believe I have actually been writing in it for forty days, and hope to continue after I get back from my vacation.  I love going to the gym (who am I?!) and I enjoy watching the process of becoming more fit.

The biggest thing I am learning day to day is that we have to pick things in life we love to do.  We can't waste time doing something we dread. Somethings yes, we have to do despite not liking it, i.e paying bills, going to appointments or making beds...(I hate making beds).  But, there are big things in life that some of us do because we think we are supposed to do them or we think it's the right thing to do, when in reality we don't have to push ourselves into any box that we don't feel comfortable being in. For example, a lot of people get married and have kids right away, because they feel that that is the next step, but who says we have to get married? Who says we have to have kids right away or at all? Don't let anyone determine your life path but yourself.

M and I recently made a list of things that we want to do, more specifically places that we want to see.  While we are both climbing up in our late twenties (more so him than me...) we have things that we want to accomplish.  We have goals that we want to meet. I think this is so important for overall happiness. To honestly make the most out of each day and not create a list of things you want to do, but actually do them. M is a good match for me because he has the same mentality as me, when I wanted to go to NYC at Christmas because it was on my 'bucket list' he was down to join me.  Likewise, I am willing to help him get the most our of his days.

Time goes by fast and we have to recognize that the more we spend thinking about what we want to do instead of actually doing it - the less time we have to do it. So, on this day of love, start an action plan, what do you want to do? and when will your start to do it?

Kayla

Because I have diabetes....

I rarely worried about diabetes as being something that was going to 'kill me'  I never thought of diabetes as serious.  I don't mean that in an ignorant way. I think it was my way of coping with diabetes.  Thinking of it as something I just have to take care of and everything will be fine. While, yes taking care of your diabetes does result in good health - there are aspects of diabetes that we cannot control, days where our blood sugar sky rockets without warning, or days that a dark cloud seems to hang over our head and we don't manage to our best ability.

When my uncle passed away in the late summer, I looked at my diabetes differently. He also was a type 1 diabetic.  It wasn't diabetes, but he was the one type 1 in my family that I felt I was connected to. Not in a way that we talked about diabetes together (because we didn't) but just knowing that I had someone blood related in my life with type 1, that was travelling and working, and enjoying life gave me something to hold onto.  I had learned that my dad also had a cousin that passed away who was type 1 diabetic.  Realizing both of my blood relatives with type 1 had passed away, I felt this strange sense that I was the lone survivor and that I was next.

It sounds awful, and the thought has been lingering in my head since.  Something that I struggle with on days that I give myself too much time to let my mind wander.  It makes me anxious knowing that diabetes is way more serious than I ever let it be.  That this disease isn't worse nor better than any other disease. This is real life and it isn't easy.

I had an eye appointment a couple weeks ago and all I could think about was if he was going to tell me bad news.  Because I have diabetes he's going to tell me something is wrong with my eyes. Because I have diabetes .... I hate that I even have to think that with every single appointment I go to. Every time I have hives, every time I get stressed, every time I feel sick, every time.

I don't want to cast negative thoughts on myself because of my diagnosis.  I have proven to myself and others that living with diabetes isn't a limitation. But I would be lying if I didn't say there are times when I am terrified that I have diabetes.  I want to live my life the fullest and I have realized the we don't know how 'full' our life is going to be and we can't sit around and wait for the bad to kick in. We have to go one day at a time, and truly do whatever we have been meaning to do. Don't wait. Don't worry and don't let those thoughts take over.

The Quote

When asked my favourite quote, I always give this one, "Everything Happens for a Reason." While I know this quote is smothered on mugs and notebooks alike, I truly don't think it's a quote that can be taken lightly or regarded as some quote people quote when they can't think of a quote...quote.

I was diagnosed March 2009, between finishing high-school and starting college... I had just finished a math course that I decided to take (6 years later and I still haven't found a use for it...) regardless, if there ever was a good time to be diagnosed this was the time. I was working as a daycare teacher-assistant, living at home and graduated.

I often think back to myself, age eighteen, clueless as to what I wanted to do with my life. I had a boyfriend that lived about 20 km away whom I always drove to see.  My life was pretty average, I had a couple close friends and some that would come by every now and then.  I was enjoying my new figure (about thirty pounds lighter than three months previous) hindsight 20/20 it was the 'diabetes diet'  Overall, my goal was to be with my boyfriend forever, go to London for school, come back home after a year and ta-da that's life.

Being diagnosed with diabetes changed a lot. Not drastically at first, but looking back almost six years ago, it really changed me.  Of course it's hard to say because it's not like I lived this life before non-diabetic. Maybe age, broken hearts and living independently would have also changed me - well for sure it would have. But I can't imagine a change as drastic as diabetes being anything less than life changing.

It changed the person I was.  I went for careless to careful. I went from still to turbulent.  I went from knowing I had a headache because I have a headache to blaming everything on one thing, diabetes.  While I'd like to say that diabetes changed my life for the better (in some ways, yes, 100%) but in other ways not at all.

The quote comes into play because clearly when something happens it is happening because that is the path your life must take.  I believe that we have control of our paths to some extent. I didn't choose to have diabetes. However, those things that we don't decide, happen because they need to.  The relationships you build and break down happen for a reason. All of this happens for a reason.

Sometimes I ask myself why I was diagnosed with diabetes? Mainly when I see bad things pop up about diabetes, like 'early death' or the mere thought of having any diabetes related complication.  I get angry, like to the point where I can't focus on anything else but the fact I have diabetes.  I begin to get anxious about my future as a diabetic and no good ever comes from that.  However, when I really sit down and think about what has come because of my diagnosis, the connections that I've made, the experiences I have been given - I realize that it happened for a reason.

Kayla

Eat, Bolus and Be Merry

Sometimes I wish that it wasn't sugar. You know, it was something like green food colouring or onions because we all know that sugar is the absolute 'sweetest' thing out there. It is in everything - there are carbohydrates in everything - basically. Obviously, not everything but everything that I want to eat.  Especially around Christmas, from the delicious clementines to the advent calendar. When you think about it, everything is a diabetics enemy, and not that sugar is the enemy but when you consider how much effort we have to put into counting carbs for mindless things such as a tiny chocolate in an advent calendar (not saying that I am that precise..at all) it ends up being a task in a half for a diabetic to enjoy the holidays, or dessert, or dinner or breakfast, especially cereal. Why can't we just eat in peace!

Speaking of eating in peace, it is the time of year when you are going to be eating around people you don't normally eat around.  The holidays are awesome for being able to share meals and snacks with family and friends; however, there are always one or two that are slowly but loudly judging you as you put an extra helping of pie on your plate or gasping when they peeped at your meter and it read 25 mmol/L. WHAT! It's the holidays. Isn't twenty-five a magical christmas number anyways.

We know that people are overly concerned about our well being and we love them for that. However,  just as a forewarning; diabetics can handle the holidays without being told how to handle the holidays. And, yes, maybe we won't do a good job, and we will have high holiday numbers and feel crappy and maybe even lash out on you for no apparent reason; however we got this... unless we ask. We got this.

Let us have potatoes, gravy or hershey kisses.  Eggnog with milk.  Fruit cake (or not) brownies and pie.  Let us enjoy the holidays without feeling the guilt of being deemed the 'diabetic' at the table. Let us eat, bolus and be merry.

Kayla

We are Tired

So I took a break from the blog. For a few reasons, one being that I needed a break and second, I had no time, despite taking a break.

The last time I wrote I was doing very well diabetes wise, I was rocking the CGM and I was even counting the carbs in broccoli (which to me is crazy.)  Of course the next week while still wearing CGM I was fighting myself in trying to control my blood sugars which were bouncing up and down for no reason. I was not allowing myself hardly any carbs because I was so frustrated with watching the line fly up then back down several times.  I was frustrated and I still am frustrated with diabetes; which makes me believe with all the technology in the world - diabetes will always be annoying.

Lately, I have been having a battle within myself in regards to my diabetes. As much as it has brought me so much, i.e experiences, friends, connections, jobs.  I still think it is slowly taking all of me. I hate to say that because I really attempt to be positive about diabetes, but I must admit there are moments, lots of moments where I just want to pass it off.  I don't even know if I could pass it off to my worst enemy, I would like to just blow it up. Blow up diabetes.

When I do my public speaking, or I meet with the empowerment group and see the faces of diabetes, I am reminded that I am not alone and likely not alone in my thinking. While we are grateful for diabetes supplies, access to insulin, healthcare and support - we are tired.  We are tired of shots, we are tired of pricks, pokes, pinches. We are tired of constantly judging ourselves for our numbers and what we put in our mouth. We are exhausted.

And while it's refreshing, for most of us have the support and the push to continue. We will always attempt to seek ways of motivation and improvement. We know it takes only seconds to test, but understanding that making the choice to not test is just as easy.  We, including myself have to remember that when we take the time to do those things, that we are showing our love for ourselves and that we are strong for deciding to take action.  But also to remember that when we lack the motivation; that we are not bad people for it. We can never let diabetes dictate the type of person we are.

Kayla