Search Results

Marvin and I spent the weekend with my family and doing a lot of driving across the state of Texas. Generally, Marvin is incredibly understanding of my health issues. He's been through many ups and downs with it. He completely gets what diabetes does and is for me.

But Saturday night, he said something that was a little unsettling because he hadn't said it that way before. Sometimes when I'm not feeling well or having a few "bad days" (pain, nausea, fatigue), he'll make a comment that I'm always sick. Nothing concerning though.

On Saturday evening, my stomach was a little upset while we were watching movies at my mom's house. We'd eaten Chinese food for lunch and I think it just wasn't sitting well with me. I'd also gone from low to high in a 2 hour span. I expressed that I didn't feel well to Marvin.

Rating (0) 0

Email this Comments (0)

The one thing that I'm truly exhausted with regarding my health lately are the details of having one chronic illness on top of a slew of hormonal issues. The bills, the prescriptions, the actual supplies...I'm tired of dealing with them all. I'm running out of room in both my actual living space and in my life.

Throughout the month, I spend quite a large amount of time and money organizing and ordering supplies. Sometimes it's insulin prescriptions, vitamins and supplements, and sometimes it's all the hormones that keep changing on my endless list of pills to take. No matter what it is, it gets thrown into the mix of everything else going on with me, which sometimes means that things slip by or end up in disarray.

Rating (0) 0

Email this Comments (0)

I don't expect everyone I've ever met to remember that I'm diabetic. There was a period that I barely told anyone about it, unless I was absolutely forced to. So how could they remember if they never knew?

I do expect my close friends, family and important people (i.e. my coworkers, my professors, etc) to remember that I'm diabetic. After all, most of them see the daily battle that diabetes is. How can you forget that?

But so often, my friends forget. Sometimes I feel like my own family forgets. They get involved in their own lives, their own problems and forget about this portion of my life. Yet, I can't excuse them.

Rating (0) 0

Email this Comments (0)

I met Marvin over a year and a half ago in both our senior years of college. I wasn't looking for a serious relationship, more just a companion to spend Friday nights out on dates until I graduated in May. From our first moments sitting in Starbucks and learning all about each other, I think something told me it would be different with him.

I remember the next day texting a few times back and forth. He wanted to set up a date...soon. And I was playing it cool. I didn't want to fall head over heels, so why did I need to see this guy every night of the week? I knew exactly what I was looking for and a better half wasn't it.

Rating (0) 0

Email this Comments (2)

Most of the time, diabetes is a heavy weight to carry.  It overwhelms the body, the soul, and the mind sometimes.  During sick times, the physical management is challenging.  During healthy times, the physical management is challenging.  During all times, the mental and emotional management is near impossible.

But even with the load of diabetes on my back, sometimes it smiles on me.  Sometimes, it shows me the kindness of others in a way I would never have experienced without it.  Sometimes, it brings the most light-filled, heartening, beautiful people into my world.  Sometimes, it shows me my own true grit, my own ability to overcome extraordinary challenges.  Diabetes opens doors that, without the weight of chronic illness, would stay closed.

Rating (0) 0

Email this Comments (3)

I generally consider myself to be fairly mature for my age. I've attributed my maturity to the experiences I've been through, mostly from dealing with a chronic illness from such a young age. It definitely puts a different spin on your whole life. You consider life as temporary, something to be cherished. You know you don't have all the time in the world.

Despite the maturity, I've still got growing up to do. There are things that diabetes and all my other experiences haven't taught me. I still have the passion and will of my youth to contend against on a regular basis. I'm holding on to pieces of that youth for good reason, seeing where maturity can change life for the worse in some ways.

Rating (0) 0

Email this Comments (0)

Diabetes is a unique disease in many ways.

One way that I never really realized until recently is the guilt it places on the patient.

With other diseases, your doctor is in control of everything. Your medicine, how often you take it, and how much. But with Diabetes, the patient is the one who has to manage it. So when there is a problem, the patient gets blamed.

But is that fair? Sure, I know that I decide if I am going to take my insulin on time, or bolus correctly. I am the one who either chooses to exercise or not and eat healthy foods or not. Those are up to me.

But, tell me this, who is to blame when I take my insulin correctly, exercise, do everything right, and for no reason my blood sugar is 270?

Rating (0) 0

Email this Comments (2)

Nicole recently blogged about her late aunt's battle with the dual diagnosis of depression and diabetes, and wondered why -- with modern medical care available to her, and with prescriptions to deal with both illnesses -- her aunt took neither, allowing her body to destroy itself piece by piece, taking only the medications prescribed to her for pain.

While I don't presume to have known Nicole's aunt Margaret, I can see a number of issues that can complicate the combined issue of self-care and chronic disease in general, and diabetes in particular.

Rating (0) 0

Email this Comments (0)

A friend emailed me this week after someone posted something on their blog implying that his characterization of his daughter's illness as a "bad thing" was wrong.  I've heard this kind of argument before about disability or brokenness.  That somehow, manageable chronic disease (particularly disease that onsets in childhood) can't be a "bad" thing because it's a part of a person - or because it's helped to shape a person.  Well, I call B.S.

Rating (0) 0

Email this Comments (2)