Health Haiku WTH!

Okay my first reaction to this assignment was very simple….WHAT THE H E DOUBLE TOOTHPICKS is a haiku…let alone a HEALTH HAIKU.  Looking this up on the web (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/haiku) I discover a haiku is “1. A Japanese lyric verse form having three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables, traditionally invoking an aspect of nature or the seasons.

2. A poem written in this form.”

I gave it a shot several times and the bottom-line is that this ISNT FOR ME!  I write poems…but this style absolutely does not fit how I learn or am!  So guess what IT AINT HAPPENING!!!!!!!

Hmmm, sometimes though this is how I feel about diabetes. It cramps my style and I want to scream THIS AIN’T HAPPENING.  Diabetes has a way of just messing with your head sometimes.  It doesn’t want to play by any sort of order or rules. It is a disease where very often your EFFORT does not equal the OUTCOME.   Some days you can do EVERYTHING that you have ever been advised to and still you run 50 points higher!  There is no rhyme, no tempo, and no cadence. 

This is where I fall back on my dad’s words “It is what it is, and it will be what it is”.  I have done my best, I have put forth great effort and I fell short. I now simply have to ride it out and see where it takes me!  I then have to take it ONE SET OF NUMBERS AT A TIME.  No focus back, no focus forward, it is just simply being with it.  It is not giving up or even giving in to it, it is just waiting patiently till the disease decides to play nice again.    I do my part to the best of my ability but then I have to let go of trying to control the outcome.

If I don’t do this I drive myself crazy!  I will sink into despair and self-pity.  Depression will surround my every move, but if I can keep my head wrapped around that I have done my best and that is all any of us can truly do then it helps me to not blame myself!  I shouldn’t have eaten this or that.  I shouldn’t have done that much exercise. I coulda/shoulda/woulda myself to death!

I have but 2 words for those days…DIABETES SUCKS!  Then I say to myself  “LET IT GO…you did your part”.   

We can shoulda/woulda/coulda all day long with this disease or for that matter any disease….sometimes we just have to know WE DID OUR BEST and let it go!

Health Time Capsule

Today I am making a list of items for a time capsule!  This will not be opened until April of 2112. One hundred years from right now!  All of the items that will go in my time capsule will be items that that I am currently focused on with my health!

First in will be a bottle of INSULIN!  After all this is the nectar of the gods that rule my life!  It is the thing that I MUST HAVE every day of my life from here until the day I die!  Along with that will be all the necessary things that go with the insulin.  Needles, pump supplies, insulin pump, ketone strips, carb counting books, daily blood glucose log book, and we can not forget the blood glucose monitor!  I will have to make sure the lancet device has a clean needle…. wonder if One Touch test strips will still work in a 100 years.   Ohhhhh…. and I cant forget batteries!  After all when you have a chronic disease like T1 diabetes…every gadget known to help us requires 2 AA or AAA batteries.  Also cant forget all the assorted cables to those gadgets…heaven knows that companies can not agree on which cable connector to use so they each make their own and you must have all 87 of them to track your progress! Lastly in the diabetic container will be a bottle of glucose tabs…those nasty things that I absolutely despise because I don’t and never have liked candy!  I cannot eat them with out my face screwing up like I ate a sour apple!

I should also include a picture and write up of my 2 favorite diabetic alert dogs, Bravo and Radar.  Bravos picture will of course be a very serious one of him alerting while Radars will probably be one of him lifting his leg on a sign that says Diabetes!

Since I have the diabetes thing covered I should now turn my focus into all the other diabetes related things that I have to pay attention to even if I do have good control!  Things like heart disease, high cholesterol, eye exams, foot checks, infections, and dental

hygiene…because as we all know diabetes causes EVERYTHING !  If something is wrong with you the doctors are going to blame the diabetes!

Also included will be a copy of my insurance policy and all of the claims paid out over the last year.  I just hope who ever opens it has a legal degree! 

Speaking of opening the capsule I wonder what their reaction will be to all of this stuff!  I will not even venture to guess their thoughts on these archaic things.  All I know is that I hope and pray that by 2112 that diabetes has been removed from the list of diseases! That the cure was found and it no longer affects anyone’s quality of life!  I just pray it wasn’t a April Fools day joke!

Tattoo

For those of you that know me, you know I don’t usually act without good reason.  I seldom do things on a whim!  This past week I did something totally out of character for me.  I GOT A TATOO!!!!!!

It isn’t any tattoo… it is a medical alert tattoo!  I had been thinking about getting a tattoo, as I hate to wear jewelry.  It seems like when I do wear jewelry, it is constantly getting tangled up in something…a dog leash or my hair are the 2 favorites.  When that happens it often hurts.  I know that I need to have something that would warn EMS or other pertinent individuals that I have diabetes but I just hate jewelry!   So my solution to this was a tattoo.  I talked to my doctor, I researched a reputable artist, and I made sure that it was a clean environment!

For me, the pain was the equivalent of a road rash and hardly worse than all the finger sticking I have to do to test my blood sugar.  It is on the inside of my wrist on my right arm and it is 1 ¾” wide and 2 ½” tall.  I like it so much that I have decided to do another one on my left wrist!  The next one is my own design, but that will be a later post!

Below is a picture of the tattoo!

Just One of Those Days

Just one of those days!  Why is it that lately ever day seems like one of those days?  I am tired, my dogs are tired and we all have had enough of the low episodes. 

Diabetes affects every person differently…I get that.  I just would like to be a tad more normal for once.  The lows I am having appear to have NOTHING to do with what I eat, how much insulin I take or didn’t take, stress, or activity...although I have those lows sometimes…but they are different.  The lows I am having come out of nowhere and run me over like a freight train.  I have had 3 of these occurrences since Friday.  Each time they happen it gets harder and harder to harder to recover from them.  They leave me extremely tired and washed out.  My brain is in horrible fog for days after one of these kind of lows and when I have 3 in a row… I don’t even have words to explain it feels.

What bothers me even more is the toll that I see it having on my dogs…particularly Bravo.  Bravo is as wiped out as I am, but he never leaves my side unless I force him to…and then he isn’t real happy about it.  I go to work and put him on place in my office behind the counter and he sneaks in to lie at my feet.  I put him in a port-a-kennel at the house and he barks, whines and digs at the kennel to get back out. The scary thing is that as long as he is acting this way I know that I am not of the woods yet.  On a ‘normal’ day he would go in his kennel or on his place and curl up and go to sleep until I called him off.  I look at his face and I see him graying before his time and I wonder if as grateful as I am to have him if somehow I am being a horrible person for asking or allowing him to do this.   

I don’t know…maybe I am just tired or fogged out today.  I know the tone of this is very down.  It is just days like this that I realize what a gift Bravo and Radar are.  I realize what hope they bring to me.  I just wish we could figure out what is going on so they didn’t have to work so hard.

Diabetes Expo

Yesterday I attended the Diabetes Expo at the South Towne EXPO Center in Sandy, UT. I would love to tell you about all the amazing things that I saw……….but to be honest we only made it down 2 isles. Then we spent the next 4.5 hours talking about Diabetic Alert Dogs. I have to tell you I think I may have found my true calling in life!

Sometimes living with diabetes makes you feel rather alone. You really can’t eat all of what other people without diabetes eat. You really do have to pay a lot of attention to health matters. You really do need to have a plan for just about everything. No matter how bad you want it…….you really are a little different from everyone else.

This quote is from the Deseret News in Salt Lake City and is rather sobering: “Some 500 Utahans die from diabetes each year, and 124,000 residents have the condition, according to the Utah Department of Health Diabetes Prevention and Control Program. Another 45,000 are believed to be diabetic but don't know it yet.” (http://www.deseretnews.com/article/0,5143,705287451,00.html) According to the US Census Bureau the population of UT is about 2.8 million. Math is not my strong suit but that means about 6 percent of the population has this disease and what is scary… is it is growing. Why can’t a cure be found????

Anyone diagnosed with this disease has a story. My story is that while I was formally diagnosed as a type 2 in 2000….my body has never responded as a type 2. I did the diet thing, I watched what I ate, I exercised, I was put on medications that didn’t help and I saw the dietician. I listened and took what I could…but what I learned is that diabetes affects each person a little different and there is no end all solution. I learned if you are outside the typical bell curve with a disease it is hard to get answers! I gave up on the medical profession and decided to “do it by myself”. I read everything I could get my hands on and made many changes…but it wasn’t enough. Last September I started on insulin and recently went on an Insulin Pump. Diabetes is a disease that is always and ever changing. Each day I reevaluate how I am doing and whether changes need to be made. Slight changes can have big consequences. A friend was telling me her 3 year old granddaughter has diabetes…and she announce to everyone the other night…that she “didn’t want to have diabetes no more….to take it away”. How do you respond to that???? I don’t want it no more either! However, better me than one so small!

Honestly, I hope and pray for a cure. However, the cynical side of me says it won’t happen. Too much money is being made off of diabetics. I don’t mind paying my own way but when you have to choose between basic necessities and medical care isn’t enough ENOUGH? When your health insurance exec makes 24 million a year and the same company refuses claims based on “you exceeded your $2500 durable medical goods”. Good grief!

I have a disease that makes me mad…I have had medical professionals that made me mad…I have an insurance company that makes me mad…that is a lot of mad. For me, I can either remain mad or I can do something about it…but what????

I have to find a purpose, a reason to keep fighting this….yesterday I think I might have found it…at the Diabetes Expo. I found it in hearing the countless stories of others who wanted to know more about Diabetic Alert Dogs or who just simply wanted to pet my dog! I am not sure how it is going to look exactly…but I know my love and knowledge of dogs, my love and knowledge of people, and my HATE for this disease is somehow going to come together to be used for good….to help others.

While I may not have seen much of the Expo…………I sure found a lot of myself!