Me after D

Day 7 of Diabetes Blog Week: Life after a cure.

My biggest issue with this whole diabetes mess is how much I have to think about it. It's not one of those things where you pop a pill once a day and you're good. Doing math at every meal and snack. Remembering supplies. Waking up low in the middle of the night, what should I eat? How do I treat perfectly so I wake up not high and not low? Planning a pregnancy over a year in advance. Worrying through nine months of pregnancy. Will diabetes affect my child? My husband? Do we have enough money for supplies? Insurance nightmares. A1Cs. Complications. SWAG-ing. Etc, etc, and so on.

It is mentally. Freaking. Exhausting!

So what will I do the first day I don't have diabetes? Well, even though this is a magical, hypothetical land where a perfect cure exists, I'd probably check my blood sugar. A lot. I kinda feel like I'd be paranoid after almost 20 years of diabetes that my sugars would run rampant if unchecked. Of course I'm pretty used to feeling my highs and lows, so I'm sure I'd be able to tell if my sugar was outta whack, but still. I'm pretty sure it would take a couple of days for it to really sink in. Not only that, I also think it would be pretty sweet to see gorgeous numbers after meals, snacks, desserts, crazy days at work, etc without any interference from me! ;-)

Other than that, I'd freaking take a break from all the worry and annoyance. It would be so nice to just relax! Sometimes I feel like I never can just goof off, relax, take a break. Even on vacations, my mind still has to be sharp as I chase my sugars all over the place. (For me, new environments and routines tend to mean crazy sugars until I get it figured out.) Even if I said I didn't care about my sugars and ate whatever I wanted and never paid attention to boluses or postprandial blood sugars, it would only take a few hours before I would pay the price. I have both the luck and misfortune of feeling my highs pretty severely . . . and they feel awful. So it's a double-edged sword, it's either "no rest for the weary" or do what I want and feel like crap. Not much of a trade-off.

So as lame as this sounds, the number one thing I would do, is NOT WORRY ABOUT IT. Take a break. Relax. And know that everything will be okay. I don't really feel like diabetes keeps me from doing the things I want to do. If I really want to eat that yummy fill-in-the-blank, I will. I'll SWAG it and follow my sugars. So there isn't any one magical thing I would eat or drink or do. Just being able to make any of the decisions I already make everyday and not having to worry about all the different possible consquences would be heavenly.

Diabetes will always be a part of me. It helped shape who I was growing up, for good and for bad. I can thank it for making me a taaaad OCD and also for making me pretty good at doing math in my head. It helped me be more disciplined and more self-aware. It also took it's toll, taxing me both mentally and physically at times.

Even if (when!) I'm cured, those parts of me will still be there. What diabetes will never let me do, though, is not worry about every single decision I make. My mind has to be ON 24-7. And I look forward to the day I can turn it off, even just for a second. . .

~Layne

PS: Well, that about wraps it up for D-Blog Week. It's been fun, y'all! Loved meeting all the new (to me) folks. See you next year!