Tuesday, May 15, 2012

One Great Thing

Post 2 for Diabetes Blog Week

When I was diagnosed, I took the entire event as a personal challenge. I had doctors and nurses and dietitians telling me my boundaries. What I can still do, what I can't. What I now have to do. It was new territory for me. No one tells me what I am capable of! Ok, so that wasn't my mindset at first (lying in a hospital bed hooked up to tubes and wires with a BS of 598 while doctors hastily explained to me what diabetes was--I was in no mood for questioning anyone). But as things progressed and I slowly became more comfortable with my new condition, the old me came back to life. What do you mean the honeymoon period only lasts a few months? My endocrinologist told me one of her patients honeymooned for two years. I can do that. I can do anything!

I was in better health that first year with diabetes than I had been my entire life (and still am). I ate good food. I exercised with an intense enthusiasm. And I never stressed about anything (I was just happy to be alive). I calculated and administered my insulin with the precision you would expect from an up and coming scientist. I brought my A1C down from 13 to 5.4 in the first three months. I mastered the carb count and adjusted my meal sizes to align my insulin perfectly to the BS I wanted to have two hours after I ate. I took my doctor's advise and tailored it to fit what I wanted to do, to my own boundaries (which were none, of course!).

Two months ago I went down to the Barbara Davis Center to get some tests done. After getting information from me about my current insulin needs (which still fluctuate constantly--my long acting dose can be anywhere between 9u and 2u depending on the day--that's a three year honeymoon by my count) my doctor called me "atypical." Atypical? As in not adhering to predicted boundaries and expectations? Yes.

And that is what I am great at. Being atypical.

3 comments:

  1. Being atypical can be spectacular! :-)

    http://pearlsa.com/blog/

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  2. I think that it is a great thing to be atypical!

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  3. Atypically Awesome! :)

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