Are there some wee jokes or memes that tickle your funny bone?  I hope so.  Humour helps I find.  Humour makes the difference & just plain makes what feels like the unbearable actually bearable in my experience.  I don’t want to live in a world big or small without humour truthfully.  I don’t remember many days  where at least part of the day has  not included a good old fashioned belly laugh thank goodness.  I look for humour on purpose if necessary but most days I am either laughing at some sort of curflufal that I have created or a joke comes into one of my social media feeds naturally.  Don’t you think we ought to promote more of what makes us joyful?  I do & one of the things that I love, love, love big time is humour.

A couple of memes ended up in my social media feed this week that resonated with me & were just plain timely.  One of the memes was about that feeling that we can get of either feeling on top of the world or like a “broken biscuit.”  That pretty much describes life with diabetes don’t you think?  When blood sugars magically come into range for a while I know I get ten times more done & put a lot of life into the day of living.  I become pretty much the energizer bunny & those days just plain rock big time.  Those days I appreciate even more & they are the days that remind me of what life felt like before November 29, 2007 (before type 1 diabetes).  Whether I feel on top of the world or like a broken biscuit though the common denominator is that humour is medicinal to me.   Diabetes itself obviously is not funny but there are aspects about life with diabetes that I choose to poke fun at.  What’s the other choice?  Well it could be to be a woe is me kind of person aka a victim & no thanks to that.  When I am in a big time high blood sugar I will pretty much always say that I am about to pull up a straw to drink most of Lake Ontario.  Silly me since I can actually picture that in basically a cartoon form.  Low blood sugar is nasty & I find in my experience that high blood sugar is beastly & slows me down the most for extended periods of time.  That kind of infuriates me because I am still learning the life lesson to do what I can with whatever life throws my way & then let go.  Letting go after I have done everything I can is difficult because I am a stubborn rascal admittedly.  Small steps are being made though so that is progress be it ever so sloth like.  High blood sugars try to turn me into a sloth for sure.  With 3 sons home for summer holidays though there is no way being a sloth is an option.  My rascal stubborn streak also demands that as a family that we live life to the fullest & some days that is the motivational push that I need to get through a day filled with high blood sugars.  The second humourous meme that tickled my funny bone this past week is one where the caption was “beam me up biscotti.”  It had a photo of biscotti dressed up in the assorted Star Trek uniform colours from the original Star Trek tv show series.  My husband likes sci fi shows although I will admit to many an eyeball roll back in university days when the Next Generation Star Trek show came on & he insisted that I should give it a chance.  The “beam me up Scotty” line has a way of creeping into every day language.  My husband is an engineer so when I happened upon a Scotty action figure from the original Star Trek as well as a Howard from the Big Bang Theory I knew that I had to get those for him for his office at work.  Our sons have added to that collection for his work desk including:  a musical & talking Darth Vadar as well as a stuffy unicorn.  Yes, my husband has a bit of an eccentric sense of humour yet thank goodness for a sense of humour. 

Man oh man I have been fighting the big broken biscuit high blood sugar trend now since last Thursday.  Just like a unicorn I have no idea where this trend has come from & I am having a brutal time trying to get blood sugars in range.  I have been lucky to see 1 out of 12 blood tests in any day since Thursday under a blood sugar of 10 (Canadian measures) & have mostly seen ugly numbers ranging from 14-24 (Canadian measures).  I am eating, exercising, getting up at the same time as always & going to sleep (well attempting) at the same time yet for some weird reason my blood sugars are trying to knock me on my butt with the constant highs.  As a wee humourous aside this morning I did something that I rarely do & that was that I forgot to turn off my insulin pump when I disconnected for my morning shower.  When I reconnected insulin of course spurted out on my fresh shirt & pants so I declared that insulin would be the perfume of the day.  I will say that my freak out point with high blood sugar is the point where my blood sugar goes above 20 (Canadian measures) prior to bed.  That happened last Thursday night & that stunk because that meant no sleep just corrections & doing blood tests every 2 hours & testing for ketones on top of that.  What a headache literally.  Beam me up Scotty to my happy place…the land of the gorgeous 5.5 ville.  I will get there but right now it is brutal & if you have diabetes too then you know exactly what I mean.  Lows can come in waves & highs too out of nowhere for me & maybe you find that too.  Smooth waters are welcome when blood sugars are in range that’s for sure.  The smooth waters will come again & because none of us to my knowledge can be beamed up the feisty fight is on to get to the in range numbers again.  It sounds a wee bit counterintuitive to say that to get to peace being feisty is a requirement but I have experienced this exact phenomenon in every aspect of my life.  I am a feisty in range blood sugar fighter Jim not an engineer so at times when my engineer husband talks to me about the parallels between blood sugar control & process engineering I listen intently if I am in range & if I have high blood sugars I am less than a good student.  My husband sometimes shows his love with graphs & equations literally when he downloads my blood sugar data.  I will admit that if I am in high blood sugar I don’t want to look at the graphs so we have a code so that he knows when it is a good time or not to talk about process controls.  My husband has a soft heart although he is perceived as intimidating to many people.  He is a no nonsense, no small talk person who is the most honest person I know.  He also does not panic.  That comes in handy since I am a sensitive, emotional person who sometimes needs to just take a breath.  He tells me that he appreciates how I teach him how to “play nice in the sandbox.”  Okay, so where does the “beam me up biscotti” come into play this week?

Isn’t it exhilarating to meet new people especially super thoughtful gems?  There are no words to express my appreciation for my family & friends as I have shared with you countless times before.  My Dad is the person who almost daily sends me a humourous email & I love that big time.  There is nothing like having a laugh with that first morning cup of coffee.  I pinch myself to be so fortunate to share a bond with so many family & friends as well of care, encouragement & love.  Sure there are some irritations out in the world & unfortunate behaviours in the wide wide world but I would rather concentrate on the beautiful family & friends that I am blessed to have in my life.  I like to say to our sons often “choose wisely.”  This pertains to pretty much everything.  They have made some pretty super choices about friendships as well & this gives this mom so much peace.  No life is perfect but there’s the important & then there’s the rest is the way that I look at it.  I may have shared this with you before but just in case I will mention it again…I am addicted to a double espresso daily at 2pm.  It is like a beacon of enjoyment.  Prior to being diagnosed with celiac I also really liked having a small biscotti.  I have a circle of lovely Italian friends who use to make homemade biscotti & bring over for visits.  We would all laugh about how I had a lot to learn about “proper” espresso since I made it with an automatic machine.  They described a small pot that sounded a lot like a percolator of sorts that “proper” espresso should be made out of on the stove.  Then I switched us all over to tea which is something that yes grasshopper I have massive experience with.  My espresso friends came over to the light side & began to look forward to tea instead at my home & that is what we have now although we almost always reference with a laugh my improper espresso.  Thankfully I have found a gluten free biscotti that is delicious so about once a month I add one of those biscotti to my improperly made espresso.  This morning I opened one eye & grabbed my glucose meter & crossed my fingers for something under 10 to magically appear on my meter.  A gross looking 15.4 stared back at me yet again.  I really did feel like taking a hammer to my glucose meter.  I am a grown up though so instead I just started to the day with the breakfast of champions for people living with type 1 diabetes who have high blood sugar…insulin.  It worked out well that our second born son, Brian had made plans to go to a buddy’s house so taking him over took my mind off needing to delay breakfast due to high blood sugar.  How silly is high blood sugar that it also has the nerve to convince us that we are hungry?  When we arrived at the buddy’s house, the friend’s grandma was there.  I was wearing the uniform of choice & that is my “keep calm & drink tea” shirt with the picture of the cup on it.  The buddy’s grandma saw the cup & immediately thought it was an espresso cup & told me in no uncertain terms that it was non negotiable that I come in for an espresso.  3 “properly” made espressos later & over an hour later & with recipes, homemade biscotti & a new friend I returned home.  I love it when you meet someone for the first time & you just click right away.  We just talked about everything & did not resort to the small talk aka the weather conversation.  That was the most refreshing espresso I have had.  After the visit I checked my blood sugar & it was sitting at an ugly 14 so I had some more breakfast of the champions, aka another insulin correction.  Our 2 other sons are enthusiastically munching on the homemade biscotti in disbelief & admiring their other brother once they also heard that the buddy’s Italian grandma had gotten up at 6am to also make spaghetti sauce from scratch for a homemade pizza lunch.  Although I cannot eat this gorgeous looking homemade biscotti it brings a smile to my face to see our sons enjoying it & I don’t feel the least like being “beamed up biscotti.”  High blood sugars or not, today has already been an otherwise good day.

My heart’s hope for you is that the broken biscuit, beam me up days are few & far between. 

Smiles, Saundie :)

Enjoy your week & be ready for new friendships to blossom when you least expect them.  Be sure to hug & appreciate old & new friendships.  Next Monday's story is on just in time delivery or in other words out in the creative ether as usual.

Do you find that there are some conversations that seem to be happening over & over all around you?  If you are Canadian, I wonder if you too are a little tired of being asked if the day is either hot enough or cold enough for you.  The day is what it is & I am just not in charge of the weather systems so for the most part I feel pretty indifferent to the hot enough, cold enough question.  The other conversation that tends to never end is the one involving dramatics of health woes.  What is that all about?  The thing is that there are countless people who are battling illnesses every single day with the fighting spirit & the illnesses are beastly.  Many of these same people are the most compassionate, caring & generous in spirit that you would ever be blessed enough to know.  They are fighting the day in day out battles yet there is no trace of the dramatics or the woe is me going on.  You find these same people volunteering in droves to help others because they get what a bad day looks like & so to help someone else is the exact right act of love.  Without sounding too “ranty” I am trying not to lose my patience for these 2 above mentioned conversations around me.  I will say that it is brain numbing though to listen to some of this & also head shaking.  The brain numb comes in when the weather becomes the total focus of conversation over & over again.  What else is going on in our small corner of the world or the larger world around us?  There is a ton going on...both beautifully good & darkly negative in the world.  The part where I give my head a shake is when I hear for what seems like the millionth time that someone who is otherwise pretty healthy has a head cold & how that is ruining their lives.  Of course a cold is no fun but it is not worth being that dramatic over.  There are some people that can find themselves in emergency situations when they catch very bad bugs that are going around including people with respiratory illnesses, diabetes, people battling cancer and so many others.  I know that when I get a cold I am not rejoicing & there is an immediate need to go onto my sick management plan but I do not go out into the world complaining endlessly about a cold.  Mentioning not feeling well is one thing but turning myself into a victim in any way is distasteful for me.  The other head shaking thing that is said so often that drives me up the wall is the peanut gallery type responses that some people give to people living with diabetes.  The list is so long that I will not include all the outrageous, misinformed, dramatic & downright rude comments but I will share a few that will be very familiar to you if you live with diabetes too.  What is it about diabetes that people around us feel as though they are entitled to a free pass as far as commenting without a governor?  Here is a list of the unsolicited comments that I have received dozens of times since I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes:

1.  Oh, that’s too bad that you have the bad kind
2.   I won’t offer you dessert because I know you cannot eat sugar anymore.
3.   You got that from eating too much sugar
4.   Don’t worry, you will grow out of it
5.   Eat cinnamon, oka or get more rest & you will be much better
6.   Take better care of yourself & your blood sugars will resolve themselves
7.   You have an insulin pump so you are fixed
8.   My (insert relative) died from that, had a heart attack, was on dialysis, lost a limb, went blind from diabetes or something else equally scary
9.  That surprises me that you have diabetes because you are not fat.

On what planet exactly are any of these comments polite, helpful, encouraging, caring, necessary and kind?  This was an abbreviated list of the comments heard over & over again.  I am not alone in hearing these.  Chances are that if you are living with diabetes you have heard one or all of these as well.  Can you think of another chronic disease that people would calleously make these type of comments about?  These type of comments are hurtful, totally inaccurate, rude & unnecessary I believe.  I have gotten to the point where the comments are met with a simple, “that is not okay” from me in most cases.  Some people do not hear us when we speak.  Some folks hold so firm to thinking that they are correct that they will not listen to the truth.  I will never stop advocating however I will not waste my efforts on people who are so caved in on themselves that they will not listen to others.  The antidote to the unkindness that we can sometimes be met with is to increase our own kindness in the world.  It is counterintuitive & difficult beyond words yet to go to a place of increase in our minds & spirits where we can continue to be kind in spite of how others sometimes treats us is the answer.  To meet unkindness with unkindness will resolve & solve nothing within the world.  For sure, advocate for yourself & those dear to you with all your passion but let’s not cave in & lash out because we have been hurt.  Sometimes a simple, “I feel hurt by what you have said” or “that is not okay” is the standing up or in front necessary.  Name calling towards someone else though is not the answer.  Being a realistic optimist I also am very aware that there are times when we say either “that comment is hurtful to me” or “that’s not okay” & be met with another hurtful response from the person.  It is like the parallel world of when a driver is about to drive into us so we honk the horn not as a form of car cursing but safety & we are met with a response from the other driver of getting the middle finger flag.  Sometimes a personal governor is the answer.  The personal governor is contained within each one of us likely who gives us a signal to take a breath or pause before responding or to kind of get a hold of ourselves versus just responding out loud with every thought that comes into our heads.  I know there are times when I have literally questioned some thoughts that have come into my head that are negative.  And through that I have gone ahead & discarded the thoughts as garbage with help from my governor.  Perhaps there are some diseased governors out there when we see comments about diabetes that are profoundly misinformed, rude & unnecessary prevalent.  I think that if I misplace my governor (maybe from extreme high blood sugars), I may just respond, “Cut it out!” to these rude comments.

Thankfully there is so much more of such enormous substance.  These are the loves in our hearts, minds, spirits, and lives.  These are the things that matter most.  Far beyond how my physical body is functioning at any given time I realize that I am indescribably thankful for a mind, spirit & soul that cannot be decreased by the 365”s that I live with.  I am so much more than my physical self.  Of course I would love to have perfect physical health.  It is what it is though & I choose to do the things that I need to do each day to be as physically well as possible every single day.  Like you I try to do the things that will decrease the risk factors for diabetes complications.  Beyond that, I am still a work in progress as far as learning to live more by the “Serenity Prayer” each day.  I am a rascal as far as releasing control once I have done all I can to affect positive outcomes.  I am learning to decrease part of the rascal in me though.  It is the part that has to learn that I cannot control everything.  I really cannot stand that.  That is pretty prideful of me though & so I am learning a little more each day to do my part in my health & then realize that I cannot control every aspect of what happens in the present or the future as far as my physical health is concerned.  And I need to keep reminding myself that worrying about what may or may not happen health wise is a complete waste of time.  The aspects of myself that I can affect though are my mind, spirit & soul.  I have come to realize especially since being diagnosed with several illnesses that I need to focus more on mind, spirit & soul health.  I am so incredibly grateful to be able to access & read so many mind stretching books, to be able to watch films with an inspirational element to them & to appreciate the beauty of so many beautiful paintings & pictures.  I love that I can continue to learn new things intellectually & spiritually.  I love the journey.  I love that I can take this journey by travelling anywhere at all or remaining in my own little corner of the world.  I love coming up with new ideas & I love knowing that every single day that I wake up that there will be something that I will be grateful for.  (on purpose)

When I think about physical health some days I think about it wondering whether I can defy certain odds.  Some days diabetes scares me.  Then I get a hold of myself & realize that I am doing everything I can as far as diabetes management goes with a tweak here & there with the current devices I have.  I try to let go of the scary feelings because I don’t want to live in that dark rabbit hole that ultimately I will not have control over.  I will not let the scary feelings steal my life away a little or a lot at a time & beyond that I do not relinquish my joy to diabetes ever.  My husband & I recently (finally) went to the movies to see “The Theory of Everything.”  I have shared with you countless times that I am a super sensitive person.  Case in point is that as soon as I got out of the movie theatre, crocodile tears fell down my face.  I am laughing at myself in humility right now because who cries after seeing a movie with physics in it?  Of course the film was really more of a living biography of Stephen Hawking.  I was sad because the sentimental gal in me so much wanted for the Hawkings to have stayed married & in love even though I already knew that this was not what happened.  Still though there is of course a profoundly happy ending & you know I always will find it.  There is a huge example of someone who defied the odds.  The doctors gave Stephen Hawking 2 years to live from time of diagnoses & he continues to defy those odds in the kind of dramatic way that I am ecstatic about.  Dr. Hawking of course went on to write & my husband has a couple of his books on shelves in our home that fascinate him.  Dr. Hawking is able to continue to communicate his brilliance of mind with the world again defying the odds.  That is worth cheering about & for.  Our minds & spirits are almost incomprehensible to me.  On days where I am noticing increased forgetfulness in myself I have a mini panic attack of sorts hoping that I never lose my memory or ability to think and pray.  Then I get a hold of myself & realize that today is the gift that I need to be grateful for.  I am thankful for today even with a gnarly 11.1 registering as my first thing in the morning blood sugar number.  I corrected that number & soon I will see a better number I am sure of it & I am thankful for this moment & this day.

Here is a short story in closing of what really matters most.  The little things really do send so much love into the world.  A friend shared with me last week that a group of school children had made beautiful ceramic valentine’s hearts several months ago.  The pottery had to be left behind after being painted by the children so that they could dry & then be placed in the kiln.  The children were advised that they could collect their finished crafts 2 weeks later & that their hearts would be on a small table in the hallway.  Apparently a lady walked by the table where the completed hearts were one day & wondered how much the children were selling the ceramic hearts for.  She had a dear friend who was in hospice dying from cancer & it came to her that she would purchase one of the hearts to give to her friend to leave some love with her after their next visit together.  The lady decided to take one of the ceramic hearts with her that day & call the office later to ask how to best pay for the heart.  The lady took the heart to her friend right away & her friend was deeply moved by the heart.  The friend kept the heart with her & expressed such thankfulness for something so loving over & over again.  Once the lady who had given the heart to her friend found out that the hearts had not actually been for sale she found out the name of the student who had created the heart & she contacted her to explain what had happened.  The student said that she was honoured that the heart had been given as a gift & that it was bringing such care to the friend in hospice & for the heart to remain with the friend naturally.  The lady in hospice sadly died this past week yet that ceramic heart reminded her every day that she was loved.  It was such a small thing yet small things as the Blessed Mother Teresa said “given with great heart” are what matters most.  I sometimes think that as a human being that the best thing I can do is to give from my heart & to know that small acts of love sent out into the world is part of the reason I got to wake up to the gift of yet another day today.

My heart’s hope for you is that you too come to realize that love has no container.  Love does not need to concern itself with defying odds.  Love knows no agitation.  May you receive the gift of love in continued ways.  Don’t forget to say thank-you for the blessings of love in your life.  I have always found that with gratefulness comes blessings multiplied.

Smiles, Saundie :)

Picture yourself receiving a small yet love packed gesture of love.  How great is that feeling!  Go ahead do one of these gestures of love for someone else.  We all got to wake up to another day.  What will each one of us do with this day?  Be gentle with yourself xo  Next Monday's story is again in the creative ether.

How’s your governor doing?  This is a different type of politics.  It is the censor that exists within each one of us fondly referred to in our home as the pause button.  Are there days where you just plain wish you could release that pause button & get some raw truths out there?  Do you remember the movie with Jack Nicholson in it where he assertively uses the statement that at times permeates society of, “you can’t handle the truth!”  Are we at times using kid gloves or putting on the water off a duck’s back face?  When it comes to diabetes advocating I find that I am pretty steadfast but certainly there is an infusion of rest breaks.  Honestly, sometimes a rest break from advocating for me might be me rolling my eyes at the less than delightful warped things that a small but mighty minority of people say to me.  We don’t need to go over the whole list for the zillioneth time but let’s cover off a few just for example.  I have literally lost count of the number of times that I have heard people say these top 3 things to me over the past almost 8 years:

1.  Oh you have the bad kind of diabetes.
2.   You don’t look like you have type 1 diabetes/look sick
3.   You cannot eat sugar anymore

99% of the time I correct these and the other 10-12 most popular myths or misconceptions or just plain wrong statements said directly to me about diabetes.  The other 1% of the time I am at least in my head shaking my head & rolling my eyes because I am human & let’s face it, it gets old hearing these nonsensical statements over & over again.  For sure honourable mention for the statement most likely to get the eyeball roll from me is that type 1 diabetes can be cured by cinnamon, okra or some other crazy assed substance.  There is no cure obviously currently.  There are treatments & gadgets which keep us alive (form of life support) while we wait & wait for the cure.  Do you ever feel like replying the odd time with “listen you crazy bugar, don’t you think that if cinnamon or okra or some other hair brained substance cured type 1 diabetes that all of us living with type 1 would  use it?”  The other thing is that as a community of people living with diabetes we tend to be very up to date with what is in the works as far as diabetes management goes.  It is not like we would have missed out on information on some strange brew that would cure this.  By nature I am not a sarcastic person & frankly it is not something that I enjoy however sometimes it takes more patience than I have in reserve to bite my tongue & hold back what I am really thinking when someone without diabetes claims to have all the answers…a sudden undisputed expert as it were.  There are some days where fighting for our lives takes so much energy that fighting nonsense quickly becomes secondary I find. 

Are you fond of or familiar with the Harry Potter series?  Being the mom to 3 boys I have been introduced to the series & can understand the creative attraction that it has for kids & perhaps many adults too.  J.K. Rowling is a creative genius in my opinion.  For sure almost everything that I read is non-fiction yet I will enthusiastically admit that I am richer for having been toe dipped into the fantastical world of Harry Potter over the past few years.  Both of our younger 2 sons have dress up Harry Potter capes & glasses & when they dawn them they seem to morph into the character complete with the reference to my husband & I of “muggles.”  Lightly & only with love do I reference the folks who do not live with diabetes as “diabetes muggles.”  And hey, I was one of those types of muggles less than a decade ago so I do not mean anything derogatory whatsoever by this term. 

How do we feel about some of our interactions with diabetes muggles?  My answer would be, “it depends.”  At least 90% of the people in my life are incredibly supportive, encouraging, respectful & down right awesome in their actions & words surrounding diabetes.  What is it about actions & words that have that way of staying with us long after they are over?  It is a blessing & a curse I think.  It is a blessing when someone has been kind & we can be grateful & remember this.  It is a curse when someone is brutally unkind or downright mean.  A friend of mine has a super healthy outlook on life & his motto is “do something nice & forget about it & receive a kindness & remember it.”  To extrapolate from this motto, I try to remember kindnesses & get over nastiness.  It is a work in progress because hey let’s face it…it hurts to receive nasty words or actions & it feels pretty great to receive kind words & actions.

Perhaps there is a part of me that tries to shield loved ones especially from the realities of life with 365’s.  Then when it comes to interactions with acquaintances the automatic response that feels a lot like Pavlov’s dog is “I am fine.”  I am fine supposedly if I just came out of a low blood sugar 5 minutes ago or am in a several hour long high blood sugar battling not to get ketones.  It is cool at least to be able to look super healthy (whatever that truly looks like) while being sicker than a dog I guess.    There are things that we likely wish that our loved ones & others could somehow get or understand but we dare not speak of these things.  Why?  Some of my reasons for not firing my governor include:  I don’t want to sound like a whiner, victim, drama queen or weak.  Without tooting my own horn I will say that I am a capable manager of diabetes.  I am perceived frankly as better at it though than I in reality am at times.  Or maybe it is my insulin pump that is the one that is perceived as an infallible genius.    Either way the rose coloured muggle glasses are on.   There are times when my blood sugar is ridiculously high & my nuclear family is unaware of this.  I hate it when diabetes physiologically speaking has the ability to try to turn me emotionally (temporarily) into someone that I am not like when blood sugars go sky high.  That is something that I would tell the muggles if I let my guard & governor down.  And if I let my armour down long enough I would also share with the muggles that there are times when diabetes scares the absolute hell out of me especially during sleep time.  Lows in the night can if I let it open up the flood gates of panic.  I would if I let the governor down tell muggles that there are some nights where the panic gets the better of me because there are real instances of scary things happening to battle buddies (non muggles) & I collapse only in exhaustion to a couple hours of sleep for nights on end.  Most of all I would & actually do tell muggles even through puzzled, perplexed, glazed over looks that none of us has all the time in the world to say & do the things that matter with love towards others.  My intensity is ok with me because it means that everyone in my life knows that I love them.  There have been no unspoken words of gratitude or love or appreciation because I just plain think it is nonsensical to not realize that one day the time just won’t be there to say those words.  I felt that way before being diagnosed with type 1 but I know I feel this in a more magnified way.  I also think that I did not always tell others (prior to being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes) how important & loved they are because somewhere along the way we have been taught as a society to not get too sentimental or mushy or be a softie.  Tough beans on that one society…I like, like, like being sentimental, mushy & a softie.  I am always flabbergasted at the actuarial tables kind of thinking that many muggles have.  Many folks seem to believe that people leave this world in the order that they appeared.  Sadly I have lost too many dear ones at young ages to buy into that myth.  I have lost most of my patience regarding muggles thinking that there is all the time in the world to say & do the loving things.  Recently I went ahead & let my governor down when a loved one was waiting, waiting, waiting for the perfect time to do an act of care for someone dear to them.  Now is the time my brain screamed out.  I wish that I could say that in a calm, collected way I encouraged my loved one to do the act of kindness right away but instead the words came out with the emotions in a raw, barnacles & all kind of way.  I did get the point across though that we just plain don’t have all the time in the world & least of all is there time for regrets over missed acts & words of love & it lit an invisible torch under the person.  It turned out that had they not gone to see the person right away that it would have been a long time before the next opportunity will come again if ever.  It is not an “I told you so” moment but rather “I trust my gut” & I will not silence my trusty gut.  When I have silenced it I have been sorry.  It is as simple as I just plain trust my gut period.  I don’t want diabetes muggles to walk a mile in my shoes because I do not wish this beast on anyone.  They say though that to understand others that we need to walk a mile in their shoes.  There are days when I don’t want to walk a mile so to speak in my own shoes but denial is not an option.  I ceased to be a diabetes muggle on November 29, 2007.  The words that really matter are the ones that I do choose to speak.  I have fellow diabetes non muggles to talk about the terrifying stuff with. They do walk a mile already in my shoes.   For all of us (non muggles) walking in the same shoes I just plain want a cure so that we can all go back to being diabetes muggles too.  For the diabetes muggles in my life I would not want them to live one second with diabetes it goes without saying.   I simply say thank you for the hugs & trying to understand & just loving me on the good & bad days.  Even though there are times when I so desperately wish that I could find a way to articulate the way the beast of diabetes scares me & beats up my body & tries to turn my emotions upside down there is a gap.  The gap is that there is no way to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.  The great news is that as long as there is love & compassion that is enough.  And to the beautiful group of non diabetes muggles walking that mile in the same shoes we can say it all & help keep one another strong one more day & one more day…

My heart’s hope for you is that you plug yourself into the DOC and or any other  diabetes non muggle group for support.  Sometimes we just need to say it without a governor…to just say, “I am scared.”  Then the response, “I understand, me too.”  Then…”I am cheering for you…me too.”

Smiles,  Saundie

Whether you are a diabetes muggle or not, you are dear to me & as I said already I like, like, like being a sentimental softie so you mean the world to me.  Will you grow tired of hearing that?  I hope not.  Be gentle with yourself & know while drinking oceans of tea I am smiling & cheering you on.  Next Monday’s story is in the creative ether xo
 

What are you wrestling with these days?  It seems as though there is often something that presents itself frequently that needs a solution or leaves me with a bit of a restless feeling.  The great news is that I am committed to the feisty fight when it presents itself with the spirit of losing is not an option.  And I guess I have redefined what losing is too.  A bad morning does not equal a write off of a day for starters.  It has taken a good long while to “get” that.  Type 1 diabetes at times tries to convince me that I am down for the count but I scream ever so silently in my head, “No I am not!”  I am not down for the count today, or tomorrow, on the super bad days with the 365’s or when something or someone tries to suggest that I am down for the count.  Rascal feistiness instead gets back up although some days with more or less fervor because hey, we are each human after all. 

Just when I was under the illusion that we were going to get a wee break physically within our household, boom diabetes & another appearance elbowed in with explosive laughter.  Sometimes I even think diabetes is almost saying in that childish voice, “you are not the boss of me!”  That would be on the full tilt meltdown days living with type 1 diabetes at least in my experience.  Thankfully though I recognize the melting down voice of diabetes quickly so then it becomes a choice about what I do & think next.  It takes effort.  Some days as you know it takes Herculean strength living with diabetes.  The strength is not just in relationship to the physical needs that our bodies absolutely have to have us take care of 24-7 but also the place the amygdala has us travel to with or without a reservation.  How can something so small have such a pinning down affect?  The amygdala is an almond shaped wrestler that resides well within the brain’s temporal lobe that processes emotions.  Managing or wrestling with my amygdala at times is exhausting.  I can easily picture the match during low & high blood sugars especially.  Those suckers can take an emotional & physical toll.  There is a term that is often used to describe basically a melted down amygdala & that is “amygdala hijack.”  That is kind of a fancy way of saying that our emotions have taken on a life all their own & to wrestle them back to a state of rational, calmness takes indescribable efforts.  It is a time that I try to minimize making any major decisions.  You know the popular saying of it being best not to make big decisions when we feel either angry or profoundly sad or ironically even euphoric.  Having a state of even as she goes is where we want to likely steer the amygdola towards.  Each one of us are beautiful originals so I only speak for myself when I say that maintaining calm even within the chaos of living is essential for my physical & emotional well being.  This makes a difference about the choices I make.  A healthier thought process/emotional calmness for me means that I maintain the bigger fight to wrestle with the beast of diabetes.  It makes for a more even match. 

Do you find that the wheels start to fall off the bus when you become sleep deprived?  Do you find it challenging to keep an upbeat attitude when you are physically exhausted?  I know that is how I find it goes.  Type 1 diabetes has a nasty way of interrupting our sleep with the high & low blood sugars that appear often out of left field.  I never cease to be baffled when I have no “productive insulin” or bolus that is still productive (for example it has been 5 or more hours since I took insulin last) & test before bed to see something like a 6 point something blood sugar (Canadian measures) & then proceed to turn off the light with confidence that my sugars are stable for the night yet wake up 3 hours later to the shakes, sweats like a marathon runner, numb tongue, absolute stupor, etc.  What the heck diabetes?  I don’t have to tell you that a reasonable night’s sleep in those situations is a no go.  Energy levels the next day are less than stellar I find & espresso levels I have found keep me going for the day.  I am not suggesting that this is a healthy choice but I will not apologize or lie about espresso kicking me into more like me mode on the exhausted days.  With 3 high energy sons to help raise being lethargic is really not an option.  Most of us don’t have that luxury to just give in to the exhaustion in the real world.  Some days we may paste on our brightest smiles & carry on into the world & life with an invisible 365 that permits us to look “normal” or just like everybody else.  One way or another though I believe that everyone out there is wrestling with something so there is no time for me to invite myself to a pity party for 1.  When I take my eyes off of myself my amygdala is best in check.  Most people have something that works best for them or grounds them or keeps their amygdala in check.  Life does not suddenly become perfect (come on there’s no such thing) when we have a go to amygdale checker.  It becomes better though & better is well better right!

Squashing emotions down or a denial kind of thing works exactly 0% of the time for me.  We are each different that way understandably.  I am an emotional animal though & so I find thinking my emotions out or at times talking to a Dear Heart that I trust helps me to sweep away the emotions approaching an amydala hijack.  It is kind of a deal with it now or deal with something 100 times more elevated or escalated emotion wise for me.  The insidious beast that type 1 is tried to pull a fast one on me recently.  I always test my blood sugar before driving.  Before breakfast one morning I decided that I would run out & get some items for a care package for a loved one who had been hospitalized.  My blood sugars were in that gorgeous range prior to leaving my house.  Thirty minutes later I felt like I was going to pass out right on top of a bouquet of flowers at the shop.  Oh you unmistakable fiend diabetes!  I already knew that I was in a good sized low blood sugar for no reason at all.  Like a ravenous crazed & appearing dazed I am certain person I inhaled 2 packages of gummy bunnies & waited for my blood sugars to come back up.  Wrestle wrestle in the meantime though.  My emotions were going to the land of what an inconvenience this was to feel trapped a half hour away from home having to wait for stupid diabetes.  It had tried yet again to literally wrestle me to the ground.  No & no were my thoughts.   Instead I knew that I would get my blood sugars back up & wait the safe amount of time for driving & that yes I would have to stop thinking about what a hassle this all was.  I was not Mary Poppins in the process though with a couple of choice adjectives about the beast best known as type 1 diabetes.  Once I got home I let the upteenish time of a low in public go & the feelings of frustration that accompany that.  I let it go on purpose because really I could have circled the block on those emotions for a long time but what’s the point. 

After the most recent wakeup call in the middle of the night from diabetes I invoked my positive attitude of “oh well, it’s just one night & tomorrow will be better.”  That would have been great but the next night & for 5 more nights our youngest son has had an awful case of the flu which has kept him & me up.  With this particular flu strain he has a really bad headache, fever & nausea.  He had wanted to have the drapes drawn as too much light seems to make him feel worse.  It had made for long days & nights because the only form of “entertainment” that he was interested in was talking together.  My heart went out to him because the flu is nasty.  While sitting up with Alex during the  few times when he preferred silence over chatting all kinds of things went through my mind.  What came to mind within keeping my own amygdala in check was a writing idea for next week.  It includes an honest sharing of the things that I cannot seem to successfully communicate to other people around me who do not live with diabetes.  Truthfully, I wish that somehow the thoughts could be transmitted via either a bubble above my head or osmosis.  Maybe you feel this way sometimes too.

My heart’s hope for you is that you also know that an almond shaped “regulator” is not the boss of you either.  Wrestle that melted down processor to the ground if it tries to spiral out of control.  Yes, & do it like a boss!

Smiles,

Saundie

May this week be wrestle free (other than maybe a watch of the movie, “Foxcatcher” ) & as always be gentle with yourself.  Next Monday’s story is, “Diabetes Muggles.”

This week's story is delayed as unfortunately our youngest son has been hit with a beastly form of flu.  That darned diabetes is melting down at the same time as it refuses to be put on simmer on the back burner so here I am recovering from yet another low.  This is not a sob story though just a check in to say that while being up all night for these several nights has provided extra thinking time.  An idea for next Monday's story is percolating in the creative ether & will be called "Wrestling Amygdala. "   It will be posted on Monday July 27th.   Have a gentle week & keep fighting.   This rascal is always cheering &  literally praying for you every single day xoxo

Who’s on your team? “What team?” you may be asking.  It is the one that I consider to be the ultimate team of teams.  It consists of all the MVP’s.  We have previously talked about the team that we put together for our health management if we live with a 365 or several.  Today though, let’s go way beyond that & to the place where our ultimate players reside.  The idea is that the players on this team are for keeps so we choose wisely & then some.  The ultimate team requires strength, steadfastness, courage, compassion, ability to think under pressure and an extra large side serving of love.  There can be no quitters & no flakes, no part timers & no fakers on my team.  The stakes are high.  The game is life although I don’t personally consider life to be a game but rather so much more precious.

Do you find that there are times in life where certain messages collide so blatantly & there is no missing the neon signs?  I think this happens more often than I realize because life these days can be filled with a zillion distractions so being present in the moment is an extra tall order.  Most recently the game of baseball has made a neon appearance in my life after more than 2 decades.  Everywhere I turn, there it is…baseball.  When I was between the ages of 8-12 I quite enjoyed playing baseball for fun in the small town that I grew up in.  Frankly, I was not good at it unless you consider bench warmer a position on the team.  Our coach was a nice enough person however she was highly competitive & she wanted to win each game so much that she lost sight of the fact that it was meant to be a league played for fun.  There were many players on the team that were excellent ball players.  I got benched.  I got benched a lot.  Even at that age though I decided that I was not going to be a whiner.   At that point I was painfully shy so I did not have the courage to speak up for myself & ask to get in the game.  I did decide however that I did have the bravery to cheer for my team & be an encourager even from the bench.  I learned to make the best of things.  That was one big thing I learned from being a baseball game bench warmer.  Once I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes & then subsequently 3 more chronic 365’s I still had that make the best out of the situation.  The thing I developed during baseball as a kid was my attitude & I am grateful for that big time.  Best of all is the fact that I got to keep & build on the attitude of making the best out of situations plus I found my voice.  That’s a double play! 

Our youngest son, Alex loves baseball.  His 2 favourite teams are the New York Yankees & the Toronto Blue Jays.  Being the mom to 3 sons meant that it is a no brainer that my husband & I would surprise the boys by taking them to a MLB game at some point.  This felt like the summer for exactly this.   While our sons were away on a fishing trip with my Dad I ordered tickets to a Blue Jays game for the first day of our sons’ summer holidays from school.  We were so excited to share the news with the boys.  On June 29^th, we went to the Jay’s game & it was very cool being there.  The last time I had been to a Blue Jays game was the year the team won the world series…1992.  As I enjoyed the game & enjoyed watching the boys having fun, many things hit me at once about baseball.  Baseball is a lot like life with diabetes minus the 3 strikes & you are out!  Some days life with type 1 is like a home run.  Those are the days where we nail it with our blood sugars & we are able to internally cheer ourselves on.  I know I cannot help being over happy on the great blood sugar days.  Those days are better than Christmas for me.  Those days are a gift.  Just like in baseball, we try for those homerun like days every day but just like the pro players in baseball there are lots of days of misses.  We try again though each up to bat chance.  What does our average look like?  We each answer that question for ourselves.  For me I would say I am 60-40 good days to bad however I am highly motivated to better my average.  The high balls are high blood sugar days which suck big time…as in suck the literal energy out of us…as in suck the Lake dry with the amount of water that we have to drink.  You know what I mean.  The low balls are low blood sugar days.  Those are the days where we might need to sit down before we fall down complete with a helping of slurred words, the sweats, numb tongue, confusion & the superpower of being able to inhale the contents of a juice box faster than light.  As an aside the last time I had a hair appointment I went into a low & simply told my hair stylist that I was not drunk at 10:00am although I might appear to be & then I had my juice & then we laughed about it.  She then asked me several questions about diabetes as she said that she had not been feeling well & wondered if she should get checked out.  Something positive can come out of a low ball, low blood sugar at times after all.  You never know where or when you will be advocating for diabetes awareness that’s for sure.  How about the designated hitter?  To me it is the person that plays for me when I am temporarily benched.  My designated hitter is my husband.  He is cool under pressure like no one else that I know.  He is the guy who prints off & analyzes my assorted blood sugar charts, fills up the “tankards” of cartridges for my insulin pump, gives bear hugs, is the voice of reason, an exceptional listener, everyday hero and the love of my life.  We are not the “Ward Family” from the show “Leave it to Beaver” by any stretch of the imagination but our family is about love.  The best thing about the designated hitter is that they help out before things get too tense if possible.  Most of the time I catch any low blood sugars when they are in the 3 point whatever range & I don’t need a designated hitter.  I find a designated hitter helpful if my sugars go under 2.5 (Canadian measures). 

There are 3 words that I almost choke on.  They are the ones that are beyond difficult for me to say.  All 3 of them however I have learned to at least whisper since being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.  The first word is a complete sentence or at least could be if I let it.  I have shared that word with you before & it is the word “no.”  I still struggle with saying no as often as I should because I loathe disappointing others.  I have worn myself out completely at times as a result.  The great news is that it is a work in progress & my batting average with using the word “no” is improving big time & I am committed to improving the average even further.  An exhausted yes after all I don’t think can be too filled up with enthusiasm & I refuse to lose my enthusiasm within my lifetime…I am a self professed rascal that way!  This brings me to last Thursday night & the other 2 words that I find brutally challenging to say out loud.  These words for sure have been screamed (silently) within me many times but people cannot read our minds.  The other 2 words are “help me.”  I am fiercely independent so asking for a favor or help is big time tricky I find.  Last Thursday night at about midnight I had an unmistakable gut feeling that I needed help.  I don’t question my gut feeling.  It could be my guardian angel tapping me on the shoulder I have come to learn.  I think my guardian angel works the night shift because I have been awoken many times in the night out of nowhere to discover that I was in a full fledged low blood sugar.  The sleeping hours lows are the ones I fear the most.  On Thursday night I was almost asleep but something kept nudging me to stay awake & to go get my designated hitter that was still up watching tv because he is a night hawk.  It turned out that I was in a low blood sugar but worse of all was that it was one that I kept trying to outrun by taking in the fast acting sugars, then retesting but the low sugar just kept going lower.  I was trying to outrun something bizarre that thankfully does not happen too often to me.  For 3 solid hours I kept taking in more quick acting sugar & for 15 or so minutes my sugars would start to come up & then sink lower than ever again.  I felt panicked but my designated hitter was cool & stayed up with me until 3am as I took in the sugar & kept checking my blood sugar every 15 minutes.  I knew & know with 100% certainty that my life was & is safe with my designated hitter.  On Friday morning I woke up to what felt like a hangover, a feeling of dehydration, a dirty rotten 19 on my glucose meter, a thunder banger of a headache & the energy of a sleeping sloth.  The point is though that I got to wake up.  And the point of the point is that I also get to choose to make the best of this situation.  I get to be thankful for life…precious life.  For some reason, this rascal gets to keep choosing to send out what I hope are ripples of feisty love into the world.  What’s the answer to everything?  42!  This is a message within a message.

The number 42 emerged twice this past week I believe for a reason.  The first time, the number was in reference to humour.  I love humour.  I need humour.  I seek out humour & sometimes I am the comic relief.  I am okay with that!  If you have watched the movie, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” then you will get the reference to the number 42 & it being the answer to all of life’s questions.  If you haven’t watched that movie then go ahead & enjoy it.  It has been a heavy 4 days in particular since I had that scare starting with Thursday night & worse because 2 little ones (aged 4 & 5) died this past weekend from type 1 diabetes.  I grieve these losses along with my D brothers & sisters.  I also know though that I am already an intensely emotional & sensitive person so I do allow myself to take breaks to rebuild my strength for the journey as well.  We never know when we will be a designated hitter for someone else in life either in a physical sense or emotional or spiritual sense.  We keep ourselves strengthened by filling our well so we can take a drink when needed.  I can feel joy & sorrow at the same time after all.  We are each 3 dimensional so we get to feel the whole range of emotions.  Anyhow, the answer is 42 lightening myself up again.  The second time that I saw the number 42 was on the back of a baseball jersey.  Our sons had wanted to watch the Jackie Robinson story so we rented the dvd.  Ironically, our sons got distracted by something shiny so to speak & only watched about half the movie & my husband & I ended up watching the whole thing together.  It is not a movie that we would have picked out for ourselves but the movie did choose us I believe.  The inspiration within the movie is breathtaking.  I absolutely loved it & the owner of the team played by Harrison Ford is remarkable.  I encourage you to watch that movie & you will be glad that you did.  That brings me to the thread between 42 (Jackie Robinson’s jersey number) & our diabetes community which really has become a family within a family to me over the past 5 or so years.  I learned at the end of the movie that every Spring all the players in major league baseball wear the number 42 one day in honour of Jackie Robinson.  Wow wee I love that!  Do you know what that reminds me of?  It reminds me of November 14^th!  On November 14^th each year the players on our collective team either wear blue or draw a blue circle on him or herself or turn a blue circle into his or her profile picture to show that we honour our team members.  And I love that big time.

My heart’s hope for you is that you have incredible team members on your team within your journey of life.  And may you also always know that you are part of a team of D brothers & sisters & we each wear an invisible 42 every day of the year.  I am cheering for you!

Smiles, Saundie :)

 Be gentle with yourself & remember that there is no shame in asking for help especially in urgent situations.  Make sure you have a designated hitter that you can rely on day or night.  And on the rainy days why not snuggle in with a pot of tea & watch the 2 movies each with the inspirational number 42 in them.  Next Monday's story is again in the creative ether.  In the meantime, just know near or far, I am cheering for you!

Life can be a roller coaster ride & life with diabetes…well…

Within our daily lives things can just happen to derail us from our schedule, our to do lists, goals & plans.  This past week I learned about plan B.  The first thing I discovered was that I live in the plan A world.  For the most part that works out fine.  For a small percentage of time though plan A blows apart & I am left with black & white solutions.  Those solutions have been either to proceed on at any price or cancel out altogether.  I am not a fan of black & white thinking so I found myself with a lack of peace last week because I live in the plan A world.  Thankfully my steady as can be, logical, cool as a cucumber thinking husband pointed out to me that restored peace of mind was only a plan B away.  Sometimes the most obvious things are too close to see I have found in life.  The simpliest of ideas can make a difference.  My husband suggested that I consider having a plan B when I am doing long range planning in my life. This way I would not find myself living in the black & white world of either suffering through with plan A usually to my own detriment or cancelling out at the eleventh hour (and feeling like a flake).  I am hugely responsible by nature & my word is my bond so cancelling out is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.  I agonize over the possibility of cancelling plans.  Greg (my husband) shared some observations with me last week that provided a chance for me to take a look at how my plan A living was going.  For the most part it is going fine especially on the outside.  Greg told me that I am an optimistic person by nature & enthusiastic & upbeat & even moreso when I am with people outside our nuclear family.  He pointed out that although I am very open about life with type 1 & other 365’s that I share the best of myself with others & kind of make living with chronic illnesses look like a cakewalk.  I look healthy whatever that means.  Well, that is a good thing because of course I don’t want to walk around looking like a zombie.  I don’t want to look like the poster child for “sick.”  The thing is though that I am not super girl either.  That brings me to plan A & plan B.

Is there a price to pay for everything in life?  I think so.  Tangible things are easy to put a price on like goods & services.  These usually require payment in money.  What about other activities?  We certainly pay for absolutely everything we do every minute of the day with time.  We have no idea how much time we have here on earth so time is indescribably precious.  How about health?  Have you heard the saying, “that person paid for that with his or her health?”  An easy example would be if a person makes a dangerous decision health wise like taking illegal drugs.  How about if we are having an off the rails day with diabetes and or other 365’s that we live with & we ignore our body’s signals & cry out to slow the heck down?  That I realized is where plan B comes in.  “Saundie, I notice that you have no plan B” my common sense filled husband stated last week.  Holy cow, how did I not notice that?  I think a good part of the reason is that I value keeping my word so why would I ever need a plan B because I would not even fathom the idea of “flaking out” on plan A is the answer.  How did that level of thinking work out last week & during certain days where the 365’s that I live with have been especially punishing?  How about on the days where my body has screamed at me to rest?  That is pretty much a rhetorical question for many of us.  Honestly though when something isn’t working, why exert more of the same I realize.  This week I am training my brain to think in terms of plan A & B & by default plan C as well.  Plan A is to stick with any plans I have made, plan B is plan A with a modification but communicated to everyone at time of planning & plan C is bowing out altogether.  I won’t need plan B let alone plan C very often however I have come to find out vividly that there is a time & place for plan B in my life.

What is all this talk of plan A & B in reference to this past week?  For the past month my body has been less than cooperative.  Out of no where I got sciatica.  Thankfully I don’t tend to get back pain.  When I was expecting our middle son I had sciatica & there is no mistaking that spine & leg pain.  It took a good 2 weeks this time to get that pain under control & touch wood this week is looking up.  My body decided to have a party but not the kind you want to get invited to over the past few weeks & last week was the perfect storm of all that mixed together.  There was the back pain, then the neck spasms which a lot of people experience from time to time (mine from TMJ), then a serving of psoriatic arthritis pain mixed in, a bigger psoriasis flare up, nausea and naturally erratic blood sugars thrown in because diabetes for me seems to like to scream the loudest of all.  I felt like I was 95 years old physically however from a mindset perspective I do not throw in the towel on any day.  The fight just increases.  That is the power of the feisty.  If I have a superpower it is the ability to be feisty.  I need that.  I am grateful for this.  My response to the meltdown that my body has been having was, “hang in there.”  I did hang in there for a few weeks but last week my body decided to use the megaphone on me because I was not listening since I was only living in the plan A world.  As much as I realize that I need to reduce stress truthfully I pay this lip service at best.  I had taken on too many responsibilities over the past few months because too many yeses had crept into my vocabulary again.  The word, “just” is a dangerous one for me I have found.  I tell myself, “I will just do fill in the blank & then slow down a bit.”  Those “justs” add up & perpetuate themselves though in my experience.  There can be no end to the “justs.”  That is why the megaphone entered in the form of a physical storm within my body I am sure.  I hear my body but often I ignore it I admit.  Sometimes in life you “play in pain” so to speak but other times a rest may be the best way to ultimately get back in the game.  It is all about really listening.  I will need to learn to be a better listener to my body I have come to understand.  Last week I “sat out” several planned activities because my body would not cooperate with me one iota.  The activities that I did not sit out though I “played in pain” so it was a balancing act between being in the game & resting.  It will take effort & time to find the right balance between playing & resting I know.  That’s okay.  There is recovery from physical bamboozlement. 

On a lighter note, our son, Brian needed something from the mall last week in preparation for his birthday next week.  He has a very kind heart & is profoundly polite.  When we arrived at the mall he said, “Mom how about you stop & have a cup of tea.”  We finished up the errands that he had wanted to do & then we did go to the tea shop for a cuppa.  They know me well at the tea shop & jokingly refer to me as the “resident tea addict.”  They have lots of sample teas there that my son likes to try too.  It looks like the next generation of “tea addicts” are very evident within our sons.  It is commonplace for Brian to have a package of the game “Beanbozzled” in his pocket for instant play with any poor victims anywhere anytime.  He had it with him when we went into the tea shop & he found a kindred spirit in one of the gentlemen who was working there that day.  The two of them had a quick round of the game & ended up sampling the beans “stinky socks” & “skunk spray.”  Double yikes is my response to that however they were both smiling ear to ear.  In the meantime I was in tea heaven as I savoured my “Monkey Picked Oolong” which is my favourite of favourites.  One of the ladies who was working in the tea shop encouraged me to try some of the samples of the iced tea.  I live in fear of silent sugars.  That is one of the big reasons why I honestly prefer to make my own iced tea.  I have found that when a lot of other folks (especially people without diabetes) make iced tea they put what they describe as a pinch of sugar in but in realitywhat is in fact a cup full into the pitcher.  I went ahead & asked the lady working there how much sugar was in it.  She replied good naturedly, “not much at all…about a teaspoonful per cup or so.”  The “or so” is a bit unnerving when you have to count precise carbs.  Then she added, “you are better off having a glass of this sweetened iced tea than a glass of juice which has 6-8 teaspoons of sugar per glass.”  My thought immediately was, “what?”  We learn quickly when we live with diabetes to compute all foods & beverages into carb counts.  I am not sure what kind of juice this lady drinks but I sure know that I don’t drink any juice that has 6-8 teaspoons of sugar in it.  The only time I drink juice is when I need it literally for medicinal purposes to bring my blood sugar out of a low & the serving size I have contains exactly 3 teaspoons in it.  You will know exactly what I mean if you live with diabetes when I say that when I look at food on my plate I automatically convert what I see into math.  It is about math first & enjoyment after that because we have to compute the carb content in everything we eat period.  If there were a carb content game show, people living with diabetes would win every time that’s for sure!

As I mentioned earlier, large stress on top of stress brings out the beast in all 4 of the 365’s that I live with.  Plan A thinking does not help with stress reduction.  It instead for me has added to the stress many times.  My enthusiasm seems to be a magnet for people automatically signing me up for many groups, activities & duties. (Many without my permission in advance)   This happens a lot to me & while I take it as a compliment it does not always lend itself to stress reduction.  I found myself nipping another one of these “assignments” due to my enthusiastic attitude in the bud.  The person however doing the “voluntold” assignment without my sign up or sign on for it became aggressive, nasty & abrasive with my no thanks answer.  She decided to try the bullying approach.  My feisty superpowers automatically kicked in.  I have zero patience for bullying in any form.  The extra stress though from dealing with this person sent a wave of flare up  into my already down for the count body & has slowed down the healing further.  That is almost behind me though & I am taking proper care of my physical self so that is the first step towards feeling better.  I refuse to not feel & be the best feisty person I can be.  On a nervous note, I am now headed off to the dental office.  Diabetes seems to be taking quite a toll on my otherwise healthy teeth unfortunately.  Last Friday night one of my back teeth broke in half out of no where & so I find out today what is to become of that tooth.  I am spending too much time these days at the dental office.  On a very excited note in the parallel optimistic world that I choose to live in & focus on, my earliest childhood friend is soon visiting from the East Coast.  We have known each other since we were both 4 years old but I have not seen her in what feels like 500 years because we live many provinces away now from one another.  She is an actual everyday superhero…aka a nurse.  I guess the universe remains in balance even while the roller coaster ride continues with life & diabetes.

My heart’s hope for you is that you grow stronger every day no matter what the balance is on your roller coaster ride!

Smiles, Saundie :)

Have a gentle week & next Monday's sharing is in the creative ether.

How many words per day do you speak?  Are most of the words spoken to yourself or others?  Do we ever really stop communicating words at least to ourselves from the time we wake up until the time we fall asleep at night?  What are we saying to ourselves most of the time?  How are we talking to ourselves? 

Over the years I have come to learn that it is very important to be in tune with my thoughts which are really just silent words.  There was a time a couple decades ago that although these words were silent, they were louder to me that  screaming voices due to the negativity contained within the message for myself.  Those were the days where I could not get away from a self contained critic that lived within me.  Strangely, I thought the very best of others & saved criticism only for myself.  It was kind of like a broken record of hearing the silent words within me that I was not good enough, not doing something well enough or was not thin enough or successful enough and a zillion other things with the sentence ending in “not something enough.”  Throughout my life though I have found that things often had to reach a certain point before I was willing to actively change what was happening.  That was certainly the case with self criticism.  Finally though the “I am not enough” of whatever it was I was silently condemning within myself simply became an exclamation of “enough!”  My silent words were hurting me & I decided that I had had enough of that for the rest of my life.  I chose to change parts of my daily routine & change the way I spoke silently to myself.  I decided to stop sleeping though my own life & yes, I got some backbone which became the foundation for my own feisty love within this world.  I stopped comparing my life or my anything at all to anyone else & that felt great, great, great.  Who really knows what is going on with others anyhow?  The thing that I have learned along the way is that many people are like icebergs in the ocean in that you sometimes are invited to only ever see a tiny portion of the person & the remainder stays hidden safely.  Maybe that is a form of sleeping through life to live like that & I knew that I wanted to live life out loud, boldly and for real that’s all.  Along the way I have met people who share the fully awake life & I recognize these beautiful people instantly as instant soul friends. 

Words carry so much power.  The words that remain unsaid & the ones that do get spoken seem to be in fragile balance.  When someone that we know suffers a loss what do we think & what do we say and do?  How about when we ourselves lose a loved one?  Do others around us seem to vanish or do they step out of the fog & say something comforting or offer a hug?  That feeling never totally fades from my heart when some people around me decide to say absolutely nothing at all when I have shared that someone dear to me has died.  My brain cannot fathom how people cannot at the very least say “I am sorry for your loss.”  That is the difference between showing total indifference or connection I believe.  My experience is though that many people simply do not want to feel uncomfortable or maybe they think they will say the wrong thing so they say nothing at all.  Words carry power to heal & unite or wound & divide…both the words said & the words left unsaid though.  I think there is more than enough division in the world already. 

Prior to me waking myself up so to speak over 2 decades ago I lived my life with the message of “peace at any price.”  The price often was my own peace ironically.  Maybe it is not ironic at all.  Maybe just maybe that is the point.  Peace does come at a price.  All those years ago I tried everything in my might to avoid arguments & solve or prevent arguments for other people too.  It was exactly exhausting.  It was the life of walking on the egg shells.  Since then thankfully I have learned that the world does not stop spinning just because people have a difference of opinion.  Best of all, it turns out I found out that a disagreement can occur in a respectful way & the love remains.  Many times the love grew because I was just myself with backbone & opinion & the real deal & not the tip of an iceberg sleeping through life person.  Thank goodness I got to build up the foundation of feistiness a long time ago.  I have come to need that foundation built on steel since being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, psoriasis, celiac, and more.  I remember vividly my life before I learned how to use the word no.  It is still the toughest word in the English language for me.  My natural inclination is to say yes because I don’t like to disappoint anyone.  Saying yes though is not always best for the situation.  Health wise I cannot afford to get completely zapped out from saying yes to every favour that is asked of me.  I have learned to try to balance out the yeses with some nos.  There are days too when I say no to diabetes.  I might be having an especially beaten up day with diabetes especially if my blood sugars have been high for hours on end.  As a result sometimes diabetes beating up my body will send me a message of “you suck at diabetes management” or “this day is going to be a write off.”  I have learned to not criticize the way I manage diabetes.  Diabetes to me is a melted down toddler so there is no way I am about to agree with tantrum messages it sends to me.  Also, I have found that a morning or an afternoon can turn into a bit less of what I had hoped for health & wellness wise however on no day do I write the entire day off.  I am feisty enough to declare that at any time of the day or night I will be starting that day over!  I refuse to listen to the critical messages that can come about from riding high or low blood sugars.  It turns out that we can disagree even with our own thoughts that way.  There are times when I am feeling really unwell especially from sustained high blood sugars that my thoughts try to get to me in the spirit of getting kicked when I am already down.  I recognize that for what it is & then I shift gears from a thought perspective or feed my mind some better “food.”  It is not all Pollyanna “just think good thoughts.”  It is difficult on the high blood sugar days.  It is not easy or magic to choose better thoughts on those days.  That is one reason why a very long time ago I started writing down a list of pick me ups to go to when I have the bad days.  With the list right in front of me I just choose things to do that I know will help.  I love the list & it works for me every time.  One of the things on the list says, “Take a walk along the Lakeshore even though you think you don’t want to…no excuses.”  In brackets I have the words, “come on, do it anyways.”  On my list too I have Dear Hearts that are above the water wide awake life livers that have my back that I know I can call & tell them it is a bad day knowing that they will neither become a codependent thus turning me into a victim of self pity nor judge or criticize me.  There is no word big enough to describe my gratitude for these Dear Hearts.

There are people out there that may feel disconnected in one way or another within our human family.  They may be the people with the brightest smiles or the long, frowning faces.  Sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference when it comes to disconnection.  That is the power of the iceberg & living life awake or asleep.  These people may not tell us that they are suffering with words.  How do we reach one another then?  Do we use words at all?  It is a fragile balance of words, silence & something else I believe.  This past week I read a quote that spoke to my heart big time.  It is by a website that I think is absolutely spectacular named, “Rebel Thriver.”  I encourage you to check the website out for daily quote gems that are sure to speak to your heart too.  The quote from Rebel Thriver that spoke to my heart is:  “Some people are hurting so badly that you have to do more than preach a message to them.  You have to be a message to them.”  How do you be a message?  Your life is your message.  How you live your life is your message.  How you choose to live fully awake or not is your message.  How you connect with others in the balance between what to say & what to leave unsaid.  It is the connection as simple as a hug on a rough day for someone else.  What is your message?  My message I hope is summed up in two words, “feisty love.”  How about you?

My heart’s hope for you is that you choose to live your life fully awake.  Send your life’s message out into the world.  The world needs you & your message.  Be wide awake in your life’s message.  The world needs this most of all.  You do make a difference.  Yes you do!

Smiles, Saundie :)

Thank goodness for the list of pick me ups.  It turns out that a couple of days after I wrote this that I needed to refer to my pick me ups list a number of times when all 4 of my "365's" decided to flare up at once.  The list is a gem because let's face it that usually when we are in pain & have erratic blood sugars on top of that the go to is not necessarily naturally to be gentler with ourselves.  My list serves as a reminder & that is a great thing.  If you have not done up a pick me up list yet for yourself I encourage you big time to do one.  Next Monday's story is in the creative ether right now with ideas percolating.  Be gentle with yourself!

Are inspirational words or people perfect?  If something or someone perfect did exist would the inspirational aspect be lost in the perfection anyhow?  We each answer these questions for ourselves.  My own answer is that perfection on earth is a myth & I am pretty okay with that.  I don’t hold others or myself to perfection but rather to something that sustains me so much more than that.  The word I would gravitate towards is grace.  This word may evoke different feelings within each person.   The way that I have come to know grace has evolved over time & I am grateful for this.  When I was in university I thought of grace as someone who has the capacity to not break under any amount of pressure.  I think I had grace & perfection mixed up at that point in my life.  At that time I was dating my then boyfriend (now husband) & he had a really cool poster on his wall of an egg with 2 vice like grips on either side of it & the picture was entitled, “grace under pressure.”  He had a significant amount of pressure during his studies in engineering so he found inspiration within this picture.  As a funny aside, I will never forget my then boyfriend telling me about one of his first exams that had 2 questions on it with graduate level math questions & the level of stress within the room.  About a half hour into the exam suddenly 2 pigs were released & allowed to run around in the room.  It turned out that the exam questions were not the test but rather just the stressors themselves.  Maybe the psychology students were conducting an informal experiment on the engineering students.  (Just kidding).  The engineering department apparently gave this exam that turned out not to be for marks every September to see how much stress the students could endure & then the loose pigs were the comic relief. 

Grace I am learning is something almost indescribable.  To me it is distinct beyond measure to perfection.  Grace is all the way to the core versus merely an outward appearance.  In other words, true grace cannot I believe be “put on.”  It is not fake in any way.  Along the way to grace I have discovered something else & that is it provides for a messy journey.  I am okay with that because I realize a few things about messes.  One is that when we think back to our childhood, do you find that some of your favourite moments involve less than stellar outward appearance?  Some examples of this that come easily to mind are:  eating an oversized, 2 fisted ice cream cone as a wee girl from Hammond’s Drug store on a super hot day & the challenge accepted of trying to eat it before it melted.  Inevitably, I would be wearing some of the ice cream on my clothes & my face yet what did that matter.  Another childhood memory that I love are all those times that I went to the park or outdoors & played & rolled in the grass & jumped off the swings and other park equipment & got dirty & grass stained from what seemed like head to toe.  Maybe we even jumped in rain puddles.  Maybe we got dirty in the garden.  Maybe you liked dirt bikes or go karts or something like that.  The point is that there was a time when we did not worry one iota about getting dirty.  It maybe even was a good thing.  I found many times that the dirtier my clothes were as a kid the better the day had been.  Cue up adulthood.  Along the way to adulthood a lot of things get sanitized.  They get this way physically or literally as well as verbally.  We may learn along the way to adulthood that messes are bad.  What if we stepped outside that box together & thought of some messes as a very good thing?  Let’s take creativity for instance.  I don’t personally believe that most creative processes are all neat & tidy & that is a great thing.  I know I am not an all left brain or right brain thinking or behaving person.  I have learned along the way that I am one messy, what would seem like conflicted responsible yet creative person.  9 times out of 10 I find myself in the outlier side of most things like that age old cliché of being the square peg in the round hole.  For a very long time I tried to chizzle away the square edges in an effort to get my life to colour inside the lines.  That caused no end of lack of peace while I tried to do that & did not work out in the least anyhow.  I learned to embrace my square edges & that has lead to peace within the mess of it all.  We might want to take a look at what we think peace looks like within our lives.  It is very unlikely unless we put ourselves in a bubble to live within that we are going to have a conflict free, worry free, problem free existence at any given time  during our life journey.  How do you get peace then?  We each may have different answers to that question.  My answer has included acceptance & most definitely of embracing the mess of it all along the way.  I know for sure that type 1 diabetes has caused a mess at times to my days, my plans & indeed is one huge hassle to put it politely.  I don’t embrace diabetes obviously.  I do accept it though & that there will be right on blood sugar level days & horrible sugar level days.  Some days the levels will have very little to do with my managerial skills & more to do with some sort of invisible curve ball.  Some days will be a perfect mess that’s for sure.  To find peace even within that is not easy & it is messy yet I have found a way to do it.  Sometimes our homes or our hair or clothes can be a bit of a mess.  Yikes, tell no one!  I am just kidding.  Oh my goodness, we are human beings.  If my home is a mess however I have been beaten up physically from fighting extra illnesses on top of type 1 then I am going to cut myself some slack.  My Godmom once told me to stop apologizing to anyone who drops by if my house is in a mess.  She said that people are there to visit with me not attend an open house.  She said that if people are coming over to my house & it is in a mess & they have the poor taste to make a derogatory comment about it that I should reply, “if you are here to visit me welcome but if you are here to rate my house, make an appointment.”  That kind of stuck with me.  Honestly, I have never said that to anyone before yet it has provided an inside smile if a criticism is provided.  The other thing is that if I don’t get to tidying the house but have been out with our sons creating memories then I have zero guilt about that too.  There is more to life than a perfectly staged house in my opinion. 

My heart’s hope is that each one of us has at least one person that inspires us & just has that way of providing hope for our journey.  Hopefully we have a whole list of these exact people.  I know I do.  Some of these heroes I have never & will never meet yet they have added to my strength & for this & more I will be eternally grateful.  People that this would include are authors with a very special mention of Viktor Frankl.  When I have been at my lowest points in life this hero of a person has metaphorically reached out a hand & helped to introduce me to a stronger me.  There are people that I have met along my journey of life so far as well that have been every day heroes to me & inspired me with the way they live their lives & most especially with their kindness, compassion, creativity, bold love, courage & determination.  There are both gals & guys that I am forever grateful to & for.  It is a gift as well to know that there are people that you & I have not yet met that are also going to introduce us to our own strength through the inspiring way that they live their lives.  And hey, did you know that you are also providing inspiration to other people around you with the example of how you are living your life?  There are people out there that need you to win within the mess.  You will & you do.  Life can be a bit of a mess.  What do we do with that?  That is our choice.  The choice we make though will lead to either peace or absolute discontent I find.  Life may have dealt us a messy hand of cards especially if we have diabetes or another 365 or a Dear Heart has any of these.  Do we choose to be initially like the bear in the children’s storybook, “Grumpy Bear” of a grump or worse a victim or do we stand up a little taller & get to know our own strength a lot better.  We get to choose.  We don’t get to choose how punishing diabetes or another 365 is at times but we do get to show others around us that all of us are so much more than our bodies.  We are champions.  Yes you are!  We don’t need to pretend that any of what we are going through is short of a mess.  We get though to show our lion strength.

A couple of weeks ago I happened upon a quote that I instantly loved.  It spoke to my heart & how can I not share that with you.  The quote is by Charlotte Gilbert & was shared by a website called, “randomthoughtsandcoffee.com” That is a super website by the way if you are looking for words of inspiration or humorous wee sharings.  Here comes the quote:

“The women (sub in and men) whom I love and admire for their strength and grace did not get that way because shit worked out.  They got that way because shit went wrong, and they handled it.  They handled it in a thousand different ways on a thousand different days, but they handled it.  Those women (and men) are my superheores.”

You might agree with me that the essence of that quote is that messes in life happen yet of course we can & do become stronger.  We did not ask for the mess yet the strength for sure we will keep.

Ok, so now you know you are a superhero.  Go put on your cape.  It can be invisible yet you & I see it!  My heart’s hope for you is that you too live in a state of messy, beautiful grace.

Smiles, Saundie :)

Have a week worthy of your superhero status & next Monday's story is "Silence that Carries Words." xo

Do we share something huge in common?  Whether we are natural peacemakers or rock the boaters or something somewhere in between maybe just maybe we share the biggest things on our list of priorities.  I will say that there was a time in my life where I was pretty much similar to Rex the dinosaur from the movie, “Toy Story.”  There is that line in the movie by Rex of “I don’t like confrontation.”  Life though I learned has some components to it that need gusto, backbone, good feistiness & fight.  This realization set in for me in cement just over 15 years ago.  It set in due to a struggle for life.  It was not a struggle in that instance for my own life but rather for the life of our oldest son, Matthew.  I love peace but not at any price.  Sometimes I have found a big amount of self imposed fight from within is exactly what is needed.  As I have shared with you before, every child I believe is a miracle & of course I know each one of our 3 sons are treasured & cherished miracles.  Matthew seemed to like to create some of his own, unique creative drama even from the “inside.”  When I was 6 months pregnant with Matt my husband & I were pitched a curve ball.  Labour began & I was told by doctor after doctor & a few specialists that our baby was on the way & statistics on scary outcomes were provided.  The thing that we kept hearing over & over again was that it was extremely unrealistic for our son to live.  Two things changed or maybe they were there all along & just needed to kick in within me.  The first one was that my faith grew exponentially which even at the time seemed intellectually counterintuitive.  Sure, I had always believed in God however I had managed to compartmentalize that part of my life in a neat & tidy way.  On February 4, 2000 I felt a wave of peace like never before.  The second thing that set in finally for me was a big fighting spirit.  It did not matter to me if 50 specialists came in & told me bad news; I knew that our son was going to be just fine.  It was not a denial kind of thing which is pretty different.  I have an allergy to denial.  Of course I am joking about having a literal allergy to denial.  I just really do not personally do denial.  I face good news & bad news head on.  I cry the huge crocodile tears, get my feelings out during sad times & during fun or happy times I will cheer on others enthusiastically & will laugh from my toes to my eyes.  I am not interested in sitting on the sidelines of my own life.  I have arrived at a comfortable feisty love kind of style & I like, like, like it.  Yes I do.  For sure when the doctors came in with their long faces they must have thought that I was a lunatic because words came seamlessly & peacefully & calmly from me respectfully disagreeing with all the statistically bad news they were giving my husband & I.  The thing is that I am by nature an emotional, sensitive, panic first & calm myself down person later.  This is not what happened when I needed the strength to fight for my son’s life.  What came out of me when I was emotionally squeezed this time was steadfast 100% certainty that he was going to be healthy & beautiful.  The other thing that came out of me was the fight against odds.  The fight the odds is something that I have & do have daily so I am grateful that I found that seed of strength to grow.  I am not suggesting for one second that it is me that builds my own strength.  The strength is a gift & I am just enough of a rascal to not question if I deserve to receive it but rather just to choose to be thankful instead.    To make a long story longer (ha ha) 15 years later this 6’4” boy is still a miracle to me & he is still going against statistics in many ways in life.  Matt is a spectacular illustrator & writer & I know with certainty that one day I am going to walk into a book store & see his name & drawings for sale there.  That makes me smile ear to ear.  Against almost every odd, Matt in his own feisty fight not only was not born prematurely but went on to need to be induced when he was 10 days late.  He is a full foot taller than me & almost every one that sees him asks him if he plays basketball & where he gets his height from.  I respond that he is not into basketball but is an amazing writer & that obviously he gets his height from me!  I love saying the height part with a straight face.  That is how rascals are though & I embrace my inner rascal. 

Without getting on my soapbox I will say that the fighting spirit came in handy big time during a time when a Dear Heart of mine went through years of merciless bullying.  I am not done with antibullying advocation by a long shot but I will say on a joy filled note that this Dear Heart is no longer bullied & did something beautiful with the experience.  He helps other people with an empathy that is strong within that “I get it” spirit.  We get the choice of free will to sit quietly or turn our eyes away when someone from our human family is being bullied or we stand up tall even if we are all of 5’4” & fight for what is right.  I admire the people who stand up tall in front of bullying.  We are all tall when we do this.

Some days are not too full of Indiana Jones like adventure but we can still invoke our feisty fight to ordinary days too.  We can love fiercely.  We can advocate fiercely.  We can be fiercely loyal friends.  We can fight for everything big & small within life whether we are chasing dreams, blood sugar number or occasionally buses.  Feisty fighters don’t give up.  We rest but we do not in the end give up ever.  We can say that we feel like giving up but ultimately we know that we will not give up any day of the week.  As a humorous wee aside, let me share with you once again that even in the little things giving up is really not within my being.  Last week our 2 younger sons & I arrived at our middle son’s bus stop only to see the bus pulling away.  The bus got a couple of cars ahead of us when we got stuck at a red light.  I vaguely had an idea of his bus route.  I told the boys not to worry because we would catch up to the bus.   It took us about 4 bus stops but we finally caught up & our son got on the bus to complete his ride the rest of the way.  You might be shaking your head at me a bit wondering why it would matter if he got on the bus & why I didn’t just drive him to the school instead.  The truth is that Brian loves seeing his friends on the bus first thing in the morning & he does not do well with change in routine, also I like big & little challenges so I wanted to try to get him on the bus even against the odds & lastly, the school parking lot is bedlam that time of the day.  The chasing the bus is just a tiny example of fighting the odds but I think the tiny examples give us practice for when the huge things in life present themselves worthy of feisty fights.  You hear phrases like you have to fight for your dreams often.  The big things in life I think don’t just happen all on their own.  An example of that was when I met my husband.  We lived almost 3 hours by car away from one another.  The odds were stacked against us that we would last.  We heard from lots of nay sayers.   Those were the times of snail mail & corded telephones.  As our sons like to say, we are from the 1900’s!  We fought the odds to be together & we know that we cannot take one another for granted now either because there are many challenges within the world that if we let our guard down could potentially try to tear us apart.  I never claim to have the perfect relationship or family.  I do have the fighting spirit & I fight every day for keeping love within my home & family.   Now we come to the chasing blood sugar numbers.  Holy crap, diabetes management is complicated.  What works one day sure may not work tomorrow or ever again it seems.  Blood sugar control I have heard people say is like pinning jello to a tree on a humid day.  Isn’t that the truth!  Here’s the thing though & that is that I will fight diabetes.  What the heck is the alternative.  It can be exhausting fighting diabetes every minute of every day & night.  It is the fight for sustained life.  You better believe that all these other experiences along the way have added to a feisty, fierce strength to battle & fight diabetes day in & day out.  And I believe in the “don’t leave a man(or gal) behind” philosophy in life.  That means that if a battle buddy of mine is getting beaten up especially profusely on any given day with diabetes that I will do what is within my ability to do to help.  Sometimes it is something as simple as saying a heartfelt prayer for them.  Other times it is something else.  It will be something with a whole bunch of feisty fierce love stirred in though I promise.  And my battle buddies have shown incredible love & encouragement to me on the really bad days of diabetes.  That is the fight within friendship which might at first sound kind of strange.  Friendship though is active & not passive.  If we care then we say we care & we do something in the spirit of friendship to demonstrate kindness & care.  Indifference is a lack of fight I believe.  I feel allergic to indifference.  Friendship with indifference is pretty flat & does not make sense to me. 

This past week as I was driving our youngest son to soccer a song came on the radio & I had never heard it before.  As soon as the chorus came on though I knew I had found my daily anthem.  I refer to it as the kick diabetes anthem.  Sometimes we just hear a song & it is ours.  Have you had that happen before?  Ever since I heard the song, I have a new start to my day every day.  I start my day off with 3 listens in a row of the "kick diabetes anthem.”  Maybe you will find this song to help with your kicking diabetes in the chops every day too.  The song is called, “The Fight Song” by Rachel Platten.  Here’s the rule though & that is that you have, have, have to play it really loudly.  The best part of the song is a truth that I love & it is “there’s still a lot of fight left inside of me!”  Yes there is.  There is still a lot of fight left within you too.

My heart’s hope for you is that you join the feisty fight against things that do not belong in this world like diabetes and so many other beasts.  Go ahead, become stronger within the fight.  You are strong.  You have a lot, a lot a lot of fight left inside of you!

Smiles,

Saundie

They say that sometimes we have to fight for some of our best days & other days they are just given to us.  Life with diabetes though I have found is more apt to need the extra fight for the good days.  Knowledge is empowering though.  You & I are all in because this is one fight that makes the difference.  Next Monday's story is "Messy Inspiration."  Yes, messy is something that I can do with my eyes closed :)