The magazine I work for is not for health-care professionals. It’s not even close to being something read by health-care professionals. Yet the audience deals with health-care and insurance issues on a regular basis. So for me to read and edit a story about wellness or diseases is not uncommon.
 

I have become quite defensive of the truths about diabetes and of making sure people understand the differences between type 1 and type 2. As someone who was originally diagnosed with type 2 and who lived with that label for three years I know the blame that can be placed on the victim.
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I have not had good blood sugar the last four days. Watching the little blips on Dex go crazy high and then plummet below my "low" mark has been nerve wracking to say the least.

What did I eat? Did I not exercise enough? Did I overdo my exercise? Am I stressed? Is it hormones? Is my meter calibrated right? Did I calibrate Dex right? What did I eat? Did I forget to bolus? Did I miscalculate carbs?

What did *I* do?

The last four days I blamed myself for my roller coaster blood sugars. They were horrible, really. Highs so high and not responding to insulin. And then when those highs finally started coming down I felt comfortable enough to eat and my sugar would shoot back up. I think Dex woke me up most of those four nights.

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The lowest A1C I ever had was 5.9. I've been striving to get back there for years. My highest: 9. I continue to strive not to get back there ever again. And yet I can't seem to get below 6.8 and when I do get there I don't stay there for long.

At my last endo appointment I asked K if they were going to do an A1C. I was sorely disappointed when she said that since it hadn't been three months since my last one that my insurance likely wouldn't cover it and that the out of pocket cost was about $50.

"I don't think it's worth it," she said.

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As I stood in the bathroom Friday night, I had to count on my fingers. The math was too much for me any other way. Tuesday, Wednesday... one, two, three. I had to count twice because I didn't believe that I had gotten 11 days out of my Dexcom sensor.

I was still getting mostly good readings, but Friday things had started to get a little farther off than I like and I had put extra tape on the peeling sensor to keep it on as long as I could.

I was beyond thrilled with how things had gone over the last 11 days. I had not often gone over 200 and when I did I knew why. And my lows were kept at bay. I really felt like I was getting out of Dex what I should have been getting out of it all along. I had this goal in front of me to lower my A1C and I felt like Dex was helping me achieve that goal.

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It has been increasingly difficult to get out of bed lately for my morning walk. And even though I feel fabulous after a walk and I know ahead of time how good a walk makes me feel, it’s still been easier to continue to hit snooze or to get back in bed or to blame my sugar level. And I feel guilty for a host of reasons.
 

I haven’t heard from my Drill Sergeant much lately. I haven’t heard that nagging voice screaming at me to get my butt out of bed already. And even on the days when I do walk I haven’t heard the don’t-give-up-now-you’re-almost-there speech. Not even a wimper. I think the Drill Sergeant likes staying in bed, too.

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I’ve really been beating myself up the last couple months about my blood sugar and the amount of insulin I’m taking. I keep seeing both creep up and keep thinking that I’m just not doing enough or being aggressive enough to manage my blood sugar.
 

Yes, I don’t have the healthiest of diets, but I really thought that with more aggressive bolusing and more testing that I should have been seeing better numbers. But I wasn’t. And I kept feeling worse and worse about what was going on with me.
 

I had an endo appointment earlier this week where K (the physician assistant who I’ve connected with much better than Dr. R) kept saying that overall my numbers are just too high. Well, duh, I kept thinking. And continued to blame myself.
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