November 27, 2011: National Diabetes Month

I haven't paid any attention to November being the National Diabetes Month. Until now,I didn't realize how much of my life revolved around maintaining blood sugar, blood pressure, and my weight. I started gathering the paraphernalia I use every day...to simply manage "myself". It sounds scary but it really isn't. It's lots of things though. The numbers aspect of every function I monitor can get to have it's own life. Like, the weight game of numbers was the worst. I would jump on the scales every morning and often it influenced how I felt about myself. I've worked my way out of that game by, first, putting the bathroom scale in the trunk of my car, knowing I would be too lazy, too tired, or too cold to go to the car just to have bad news. It has worked really, really well. I don't own a bathroom scale now and the doctor lets me know every six months how I'm doing. Good news each time, even if it is only a pound, it's going in the right direction!

I manage my blood sugar best by making better decisions on what I eat. The diabetes itself helps me maintain a little bit. If I'm "listening" to my body, the diabetes itself lets me know rather quickly what I need. I keep orange juice in the fridge and sucrose tablets in my purse, the drawer by my bedside and in my desk. I only need them once every few weeks. I'm not insulin dependent but I am on two oral medications to help me maintain. Being diagnosed with diabetes in 1994 has been a journey. I've developed a better relationship with food sans dieting that has allowed me to lose 67 pounds since. I have achieved a weight loss without the numbers problem. The numbers for my blood sugar and even my blood pressure are all about little decisions that add up to little life style changes that add up always. If I get too hard on myself I tend to become anxious, frustrated and angry at myself. Totally the opposite of where I need to be and how I need to feel about myself. I read Diabetes Forecast, www.forecast.diabetes.org,published by the American Diabetes Association and Diabetic Living, www.DiabeticLivingOnline.com, a Better Homes & Garden Special Interest publication, front to back a little bit at a time. A couple of stories everyday. I skip a year once in awhile, just to catch up on the reading. I just realized, I have accepted diabetes and it teaches me how to adapt to my body. Most importantly, it has been because I have been blessed to live long enough to make it my life style, in my own time. Change is always difficult, "myself" is so interested in what makes itself feel good that I either need to distract "myself", pray for the strength or just simply talk to myself, no, yell at myself. LOL But because I gave in to myself often as a younger woman you can see the monitors and medicines I use every day, some twice. The bag is full with today's prescriptions, five more than shown. Yep, that's ten, and five or six are twice daily. I'm not sure I could have done things differently. It takes what it takes.