11/10/2005

Accommodations

Thank you everyone for all your gracious comments and support. I shed a few tears reading your comments and really do feel like I am not alone. Reading your comments also made me wonder whom this brave and strong girl is. She can’t be me.

When I have a low blood sugar episode like the one yesterday that left me crying at my desk because I couldn’t complete a simple letter requested by my boss, I just don’t think I can do it. My mind hazy and thick with pressure from not enough blood getting to my brain, thoughts so jumbled they would not translate in to spoken words, hands shaking, hot and sweaty; all I could do was cry. I was scared that many more lows like this at work could possibly cost me my job. I continued to blubber uncontrollably because I hate diabetes so much at that moment that I wished for any other ailment. Anything but this.

“Cut me out of this role. I can't play it anymore.”

These lyrics from Better Than Ezra mimic how I feel about the big D. The role is not a good fit for me. I am too laid back, too reckless and far too undisciplined for the role of a diabetic. This role should have gone to someone who is stronger than me. To someone who is able to just build a bridge and get over it, as my husband likes to say. You should have given this role to a person who does not have the mental block that I seem to have. Give it someone who is better equipped to play the role.

I like the idea of accommodating diabetes rather than accepting it. Acceptance somehow feels like resigning yourself to fate or the role of the victim. Accommodate, yeah, I think I can do that. Almost as if I am providing housing, make that temporary accommodation, for diabetes and the nicer the lodgings I provide the less it will complain. Make no mistake, though, I do not share my body with this disease by choice, but I think I can accommodate it until there is a cure.

So here’s to being the Ritz Carlton of bodies for diabetes to use, for the time being.

11/09/2005

my very first post

Recently I stumbled upon the many great blogs out there written by fellow persons with diabetes and got the thought that perhaps it would help me to write a blog. Since today has been dubbed D-blog day I thought it would be an appropriate time to post my blog. So here goes….

The basics:
My name is Melissa. I am 31 and have had Type 1 since I was 9 (well, actually 8; I got out of the hospital the day before my 9th b-day). Since June of this year I have been happily married. We live near Cleveland, Ohio. Work is full-time and pretty boring but I am going to school part- time to change that. My favorite past time is reading and I am a dork who loves the library. We share our home with my cats, Pokey & Rodeo, and his beagle, Angel, all of whom bring us both joy and at times frustration, but they are worth it. I love kids and have 3 nieces and a nephew plus one on the way who are the best! Every single day is a struggle with diabetes.

For the first time in many years I am really trying to accept, tame and live with the disease instead of fighting it. It is not going away & I am only hurting myself. I often feel like I have made it this far with no visible complications by pure luck. Yeah, sure I had great care when I was younger, I had an amazing diabetes care team, I had an extremely supportive family (especially my mom), and I was very well educated about my disease. Then, I legally became an adult and the burden of my care fell into my own hands. Most of the time though, I only did what was necessary to not feel too sick and to just get by. Sure, I have had times when I tried harder, or paid more attention to what I ate and made an effort to be a good little diabetic. But if I am to be really honest with myself I have never really accepted diabetes as an adult or done my best to take control.

I am making a commitment to myself to now do that. I will not let diabetes run my life. I will not skate by on pure luck anymore. I will take action to keep myself healthy until the cure arrives. I will believe in me. I will do better.

But I can’t do it by myself. I need to know that I am not alone. So tell me your story. Give me your tips & tricks of living with diabetes; tell me your struggles, tell me your accomplishments and if you check back here I will tell you more about mine.

~Melissa