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.

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One of the challenges of dealing with diabetes is our tendency to ascribe a number of aches, pains, and other medical troubles to our elevated (or wildly-swinging) blood glucose levels. Whether it be unexpected fatigue or snippiness, blurred vision, a perceived increase in thirst or change in urinary frequency, and we start thinking "highs, lows, and complications".

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My pump sites have just not been cooperating lately.  No matter where I put the canula - it ends up hurting.  A lot.  Enough so that I complain about it. 

To give you an idea of what it takes for me to complain - I am a girl who has had external fixators drilled into a bone in my arm for eight weeks and who refused pain killers (other than Tylenol) after two days.  I'm not a sissy.  Not at all.  So these sites are causing me more than a little bit of turmoil.

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Kerri Morrone

I did an insulin pump infusion set site change this morning, by the ubiquitous lamp light on the dresser. My fiance (seven weeks until the wedding!) and I were talking about thresholds for pain and how I don't have much tolerance for emotional pain but my threshold for physical pain is high.

"I know. You can stick yourself with needles all day long but you freak out if you see a spider." He grinned at me.

"I know that needles aren't going to try and crawl on my head at night, that's for sure." (READ MORE)