happysnappr

I really don't like going to the doctor. The endocrinologist to be specific. Every time I go, I just seem to leave disappointed. Sometimes it's less disappointment than others. Sometimes I'm just so angry at myself and at this disease. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I get mad at the doctor (because OF COURSE, it's HIS fault I'm diabetic!). But mostly, the doctor just makes me feel alone in what I feel.

Today I had an endo appointment (if you didn't already guess). My last A1c was 6.9, my lowest ever. I was absolutely thrilled at that number, yet the perfectionist in me still wanted lower. And I honestly tried for lower (less in the last month or so though). But life got in the way.

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Olivia has had diabetes for almost ten years now. The first few years were a struggle, emotionally and blood sugar-wise. I felt like I'd gone back to school - I had to learn this new language, this new way of life and it was hard.

It's been so long now, though, that diabetes care is pretty much second nature for us. We all look at carb information on packages of food, we're all really good at guessing when that information isn't there. I've talked about this stuff with my family, too. I thought they were on board with it all. I didn't expect them to be as expert as I am (and believe me, I know I could always know more), but I thought they'd at least gleaned information from all of my speeches over the years. (READ MORE)

While waiting for Olivia to take her swim test at Clara Barton last week, I was eavesdropping on a couple of girls standing in front of me. They scared the crap out of me.

They were both talking about how they hated having to take insulin because insulin makes you fat. "It's true," one girl said, "I read it on the internet." The other girl was amazed, but believed her readily.

Then they started discussing how they both let themselves run high - so high that their meters just say HI - in order to maintain or even lose some weight. They both said that they rarely checked themselves, maybe checked a couple of times a week, lied to their parents about the frequency of their checks and made up bg readings. At this point, my eyebrows were practically at my hairline and I was trying to unobtrusively move a little closer so I could continue to listen. (READ MORE)

How often has this question been debated?

Olivia doesn't care what she's called. She calls herself diabetic often. I'm the one with the issue. I always say that she has diabetes. To me, calling her a diabetic makes her only her disease.

On dLife a couple of weeks ago, Jim Turner said that he was always a diabetic, that diabetes was what he thought about, what was going on in the background all the time, no matter what else he was doing. He was, first and foremost, a diabetic.

I can understand that thought process, but I don't agree with it. Yes, diabetes takes up a lot of space in the brain and it's not something that can be shoved aside and forgotten. You always have to take it into consideration. But you take it into consideration along side your life. Your life as a person. A person with diabetes, yes, but a person with a life. A person who is a sister, daughter, student, drama queen and soccer player as well as a person with diabetes. (READ MORE)

As if it weren't bad enough that I'm in a group OB practice and see a different doctor just about every visit, they've added a new doctor to the mix. So today's visit was with yet another doctor, who doesn't know me, and doesn't bother to read the chart...

For eight months now, another doctor, in another office, with another specialty (ie endocrinology), has followed my diabetes. Last OB visit was the first time they wanted to actually see my logs. So this visit I bring them, one chart for pre and post meal numbers, which don't tell the whole story, and another one that shows everything. You know, those lows between meals and the random highs that come out of nowhere.

Doctors who are not specifically trained in diabetes management have no business at all whatsoever looking at my blood sugar charts. (READ MORE)

Olivia heads off to Clara Barton Camp in a couple of weeks. This is her fifth summer attending, so she will become a Bartonian this year. I'm not sure what that means - fellow CBCers, help me out. She is beyond excited. I swear she'd live at camp all summer if I let her (and I had the funds - at $2,000 for 10 days, it's very, very expensive.)

I was initially hesitant to send her to camp. I was worried that she would be lonely, that she wouldn't speak up when she wasn't feeling well, that they wouldn't take care of her the way I do. The first time I left her, for her first mini-camp session, I cried the whole way home. I fretted and worried and lay awake at night, wondering how she was doing.

I shouldn't have. When I picked her up, she was ecstatic. She chattered non-stop the entire way home, talking about the other campers, the counselors, what they did, where they went and "There was a dance, mum! With the BOYS!!" She was over the moon. (READ MORE)