Full Moon Tetter Totter Ride

Fall has arrived in my little corner of the world.  You will be able to smell Fall down the road from our home as the smell of the second batch of spice cookies celebrates another season of all things spice, pumpkin & apple.

In many ways Fall represents a blanket of sorts.  It covers up the old and we can look forward to the creation of something new in the Spring.  I love the Fall though with a passion.  I love the smell of freshly baked spice cookies, butter tarts and apple pie.  With our kitchen covered in a tempory film of flour from making pastry with our younger sons to baking sample sized pies that seem to increase in size each year, yes, Fall is a gift.

The months leading up to Fall this year have equated to smiles through tears.  That is the emotional side of events.  Then on top of that is the ever present shadow of type 1 diabetes.  It is the watching out for the invisible undertow of the dangers of type 1 that I have experienced while smiling politely for the zillineth time at a well intentioned person telling me that I look healthy or "you don't look like you have diabetes" (whatever that means, right).   While I find it personally helpful to feel all the emotions surrounding diabetes & its endless list of frustrations I choose not to succumb to the land of becoming a victim to anything or anyone.  Diabetes is a pain in the ass.  I got it by chance yet the life I choose to live is by choice.  Some days suck but most days are messy beautiful.  These days are messy beautiful with or without diabetes because as I have shared countless times I realize I am so much more than a diagnosis.  It is okay to acknowledge a crappy hand however that is just one hand. 

Our oldest son moved away for the next 8 months to go to university for the first time.  Parents may be nodding when I admit that my heart misses him so much.  Bigger than that though I am cheering for him from a distance because I cannot hold onto his wings if he is to fly.  He is thriving and I feel indescribable peace about this.  It is not surprising that I am feeling like a little kid this year counting down the days until Thanksgiving & Christmas when our family will be complete with all our sons sleeping at home.  Autumn puts a blanket around the past season and something new is created that we get to open up in the Spring.  That is life.  We get to choose to embrace the seasons physically and emotionally or fight it.  I choose to embrace it all in its messy & sometimes off balancing parts.  And I realize that these are all my feelings & emotions & I own them & choose not to download them onto someone else.  And I am learning little by little not to accept the dumping of emotions that need to be owned by others onto my plate...with compassion yet boundaries.  This is indeed a work in progress.  Knowing that our oldest son is thriving brings indescribable peace.  It does mean that a part of my heart goes where he goes yet I completely feel joy for him at the same time.  These are all natural feelings that reside in life.  Sometimes the smile through the tears really represents happy tears.  Who knows what each season will bring?  None of us do.  The only thing that I know for sure is that love lasts through every season so whatever happens, love remains.

For the past couple of months type 1 gadgets have been amazing and the absolute pits.  That of course means that my graphs, diabetes management and thirst, high and low blood sugars have been amazing and the absolute pits as well.  At the beginning of August I made the unwelcome discovery that I seem to have a defective lot of sensors.  The last 5 sensors in a row have malfunctioned.  My fingers have gone back to looking like pin cushions as I have had to go back to confirming glucose readings big time.  Some of my sensors have quit after 3 days completely (always while i am sleeping to add extra danger).  Other sensors have given me the wierdest results like going up or down blood sugar levels by 5 or more (Canadian measures) within 5 or 10 minutes.  Then I test with my glucometer and find results that are so far off the sensor that it is truly scary.  I still have 1 sensor left from this lot number and am not eager to insert it.  The frustrating thing is that prior to this lot I had been having A1C levels in my goal target so I had a taste of success for several months as well.  That is the tetter totter ride of type 1.  When gadgets work properly they are priceless but when they fail they can be dangerous.  Thank goodness I always keep a blood tester & strips on hand to test and check the technology.  I am hoping to put the last 5 sensor difficulties behind me as it is almost time to order the next  batch of sensors.  I will say that the sensor company has been very professional about it all.  I have sent all the failed sensors back and the company has replaced them quickly. 

Diabetes & its gadgets can be a lot like a full moon.  Sometimes out of no where high or low blood sugars enter and sometimes gadgets fail.  For the first time in the 10 years that I have had an insulin pump about a month ago my tubing had come mysteriously undone from the infusion.  That too happened in the middle of the night.  When I woke up the next morning my blood sugars were through the roof so I drank what seemed like most of Lake Ontario & gave myself a correction dose.  I would love to say that the correction dose brought the day back into a healthy range.  The full moon experience continued though with me fighting high blood sugars for the enitre day.  I felt like a zombie.  I am not alone.  Every day there is a person living with type 1 diabetes that has faught the fight or missed sleep.  It is the person living with type 1 or a person who loves or cares for someone living with type 1.  Type 1 is a robber...of sleep too many times to count.  Like the full moon though, these especially aggravating problems with diabetes come and go.  Some days are stellar & those are the days that I go, go , go like the energizer bunny and enjoy whatever the day brings.  I know that good days with diabetes should be celebrated.

Happy Thanksgiving.

My heart's hope for you is that you celebrate the big and little in your life.  It is a messy, beautiful life afterall.

Smiles, Saundie

The next story sharing will be at the end of November.