What Brings Me Down - DBlogWeek Day 3
Wednesday, May 14, 2014 at 7:38AM May is Mental Health Month so now seems like a great time to explore the emotional side of living with, or caring for someone with, diabetes. What things can make dealing with diabetes an emotional issue for you and / or your loved one, and how do you cope? (Thanks go out to Scott of Strangely Diabetic for coordinating this topic.)
This is a tough one to write about. Often the things that bring me down regarding my diabetes life change so thinking about which thing to write about turns into a depressing venture.
When I sit down to write I am reminded of diabetes and the complications it can cause because my feet are tingling. I can feel two shoes full of things crawling around and picking at my feet all the time. It is an awful feeling and a constant reminder of how my years of ignoring diabetes was not a two way street.
Currently my bg is a little high. I can tell because I am so thirsty. I check my bg and I'm right, 209. When I am high I cannot help but wonder what other damage this is doing to me. Do I bolus to get it back down or do a wait to see where I am going? It can be so depressing thinking you finally know your body just to let diabetes mess it all up again. Am I going up or down or??
And then I remembered why my bg is high. I woke up at 5AM with a nasty low. A low blood sugar that I treated to stay alive has now gone past my target and I have ended up high. I try to save myself only to put myself in more danger? The constant back and forth of blood sugar numbers brings me down big time!
Ultimately, the thing that brings me down is the fear of dying too early on in my life. My wife, children, and family have gone through enough turmoil and pain in their short time on this planet and I do not want to be the cause of more.
By the time I was 18 I had lost all of my grandparents, my father, and was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Those losses dramatically affected my life. Choices I made and motivations were all shaped around my loved ones lost and my diagnosis.
Am I going to make my daughter's wedding day a sorrow filled one because I cannot walk her down the aisle? Will my son and his son someday go through this blog to get to know the grandfather he never met? Will my wife remarry and move on once I am gone? What about my sisters and my mother?
Dying does not scare me. What scares me is what will happen in the wake to my loved ones.
Reader Comments (3)
I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living, my husband you'll be. I'm very proud of the man I married and the fighter you've become. You aren't just surviving. You're kicking diabetes butt every time you learn and share something new. I admire you so much.
I don't like it when you write this stuff either. It's not the George I know.
I'm catching up on posts a few days later, so I've already written my post with my favorite mantra - which is actually my favorite quote.
"You did then what you knew how to do, and when you knew better, you did better." - Maya Angelou
Diabetes offers us too many opportunities for guilt even when we are doing the best we can every day.
oh, g. hugs from ohio.