The shitshow that is a part of me forever

I want to give you a quick overview of a companion who will literally be the death of me someday.

Diabetes mellitus type 1.

I could write about a lot of topics that my heart is burning for, but diabetes is like.. the center of my life.
It is a chronic illness and thus permanent. It keeps me busy, at day and night. It is a full-time-job,only that I can not take a break and it will not  refrain from demanding attention even while I am on vacation.

It does not care for my personal needs, the diabetes monster, so I have to care twice as hard about me and my mental and physical health.

In Germany, about 80% of the population suffer from at least one kind of chronic illness. Diabetes, rheumatism, dialysis treatment or even alcoholism. These are examples for sicknesses, that can not be cured yet.

My diabetes got diagnosed pretty early on, in September 2008. It is almost my ten-year anniversary by now. But for a major part of my life, I kind of cared less and less- it was a depression that took over and was not recognized for years and would have still not been noticed if I didn’t speak up about what I suspected. It is a result of a lot of thing, but mainly bad blood sugar levels. Worsening blood sugar and HbA1C (long term blog sugar level) resulted in worsening depression resulted in worsening blood sugar. Missing motivation is a big part of my life too. Which is mainly the fault of Diabetes, I guess.

It is an enemy. Did you know that diabetes is actually the only sickness you can die of long-term and also pretty short-term? Too low, or too high for not even a day and you fall unconscious, then comatose, then dead. Too high in a longer term, speaking of years, you can go blind, lose arms and legs through amputation , and ultimately die because your organs will no longer do. Rest aside that a dead organ is the culprit in the first place, a pancreas that your own body attacked. Imagine, what a betrayal!!

Like I said, I ignored it for some years, the highlight of going three weeks (!) without using my blood sugar meter, which is, as my doctor put it, suicidal (and yet didn’t come up with the idea that I might be mentally not really up to the task) and by now I already notice the symptoms. Sometimes, my legs feel numb. Or two or three of my fingers. My eyesight got worse. I get more and more forgetful and unfocused. And I definitely do not like this development. But I did not really took counter-actions either. At least up until now.

Now I not only do own a working FreeStyle Libre again, which made headlines at the end of 2014, because you do not have to prick your finger and draw blood to control your blood sugar but simply have to scan a sensor that it permanently on your body. I tried it last year for a short time and was really amazed, but then I had a hard time renewing the order because a lot went wrong, but now, finally, I have it on me again and I do feel reborn. It has a huge effect on my daily life and habits. I now regularly control everything. It has a lot of pros and cons and it is definitely not for everybody but I love it and may even rely too much on one little piece of modern technology.
Anyway, this acquisition was just half of the deal that helped me get back up in the saddle.

The online diabetes community also has a huge part in making me rethink my old ways. Through some research during my current apprenticeship in a local newspaper did I discover the blog pepmeup  by the lovely Steffi, and from then on everything was history.
No seriously, why didn’t I think of it earlier. The diabetes online community seems to be really strong and I browsed through a lot of blogs, german and international ones alike,  and I felt… understood. I could relate. They struggle through the same things that I do. I won’t beat myself up for not discovering this wonderful world earlier, but the next best moment to start is now, isn’t it?

To come to an end, all I needed was the reminder that yes, diabetes is a part of me but no, I will neither ignore it anymore nor let it define me.

 

Xoxo,
Coco