Steven van Rij

Last month, I formed a list of the top five bad habits I have in my diabetes management. For the past month, I've been working on breaking these habits to get the most out of my pump and my life. I can't say that breaking habits is ever easy, but I feel this time around was much harder than most. With all that has happened in my life outside of diabetes, I have not focused on my diabetes the way that I like to. So I decided to go back and update the five habits to see if I've curbed any of them.

1. Blind Bolusing- I have certainly worked on this issue the most. I can't say that it is eliminated (nor do I feel it will ever be eliminated). I know I've gotten better about checking my blood sugar before I go out with friends. My usual excuse for not checking when I eat out is that I don't want to check in the middle of a restaurant. I worked on this excuse specifically (because it’s the biggest area) by checking my blood sugar at my house or in my car before I even headed to the restaurant. So far, that’s worked quite well. There are still other instances that I certainly need to work on, but it's one step at a time.

2. Food Choices- I don't think I've worked on this issue at all. With my health problems in the past three weeks, I know I’ve been lazy about my food. Therefore, I haven't always chosen the best food for my diabetes. I think I've tried to cut down my portions, but it's definitely an area that needs a lot of work still.

3. Days Off- I started checking regularly on weekends. There were still some days where I just decided I'm not going to, but overall I've done pretty well with this bad habit. I haven't created an alternate basal pattern. Mostly, my health has affected my blood sugars so much that I just kept telling myself that there was no point in changing anything right now. My next goal with this is to create the alternate pattern for "lazy days."

4. Keeping Quiet- I've certainly opened up about my diabetes. Mainly, I’m becoming comfortable with telling people about the disease in general. I’m also trying to push the realities to the forefront of the effort so that people see that diabetes is not as simple as a shot and a finger prick. I still want to be open about diabetes when my safety depends on it (like telling the drive thru people that it’s an emergency when I'm low). I've opened up more to my friends about the urgency of diabetes, but not to complete strangers. That’s where I want to focus on.

5. Easy Does It- Because of the added stress on my body with my health problems, I've slacked this entire month. Probably more than I should have, but I have to say that I'm kind of proud that I kept myself within limitations. I also realized that I'm allowed to be upset and angry about being diabetic, which has opened so many new avenues. I've stopped feeling as guilty when I hear my dad's A1c is lower than my own (even though I work my butt off for it and he‘s barely stressing). I still fear complications, but I think I've stressed less about the harsh effects of one high blood sugar. Sometimes, I'm going to be high. And I've handled diabetes for fifteen years. I can handle it (and whatever it throws at me) for the next fifteen (or thirty or sixty).

Obviously, I'm still human. I made a lot of mistakes in the past month (and I'll continue to make more). But I also did quite well. I handled an entire health upset on top of my blood sugars (and being a working college student). I'm proud of myself, which just means that I'm going to spend another month striving to hit each goal and lower my A1c. It's an endless story in my life, but at least diabetes makes it an adventure for me.