Wednesday 10 October 2012

Remembering To Look After Yourself... And all the things I used to do

I have to admit, one of my go to pieces of advice is something along the lines of: "Look after yourself, do what makes you happy." I think I forget to do that myself every now and then. I had two volunteer shifts for Youthline on the weekend and it reinforced the fact that I like helping others.

Volunteering is amazing! I encourage everyone to do it :)

BUT..

Whenever I'm too busy, stressed out, tired I always want to forget about my diabetes. I try and hide it from it! It used to be my go to move. I'm really making an effort to stop that. And I feel better for it. It's genuinely me following my own advice, looking after my body, my health, truly makes me happy.

I'm also pretty happy that the average amount that I am testing a day is about 6 or 7 times. I used to test about once, twice, never times a day. I'm happier testing more. It's taken me a long time to realise that. I'm truly glad that I can see the change in how I look after myself and I'm much better for it. Even my boyfriend has said that "You're much better at looking after that (Diabetes) than you used to be."

Diabetes is a constant battle and I'm still fighting to get my blood sugars and A1c down. I'm more aware of the actual effect of my blood sugars now and realise that I feel like absolute rubbish when I'm high. Today was the first day this week I woke with a blood sugar level below 10 and it felt good. I was able to get up without a struggle. I'm an eternal optimist and know that I'll feel like I'm at a point where I'm finally winning the constant battle of balance. For now, I'm about ready to say good bye to my bad habits and all the things I used to do.



2 comments:

Jonah said...

You get better quality sleep when your blood sugar's not above 12 or so. When you're high enough, your body doesn't go into deep sleep. I attribute all my sleepiness to diabetes, whether I actually slept less because of it (I often am up in the night dealing with hypoglycemia or going to bed late because of waiting to see what my blood sugar will do) or just had highs or lows in the night.

Volunteering is good. And so is testing 6 or 7 times a day. Does your insurance (or healthcare plan) put an upper limit on number of test strips per day?

S said...

I don't think it does.. Last time I was at the Doctors the Nurse who was organising a prescription for me mentioned something about an upper limit. However she wasn't a specialist and didn't know much anything Diabetes so I didn't really take her seriously. I assume there is an upper limit, like I wouldn't be able to test 20 times a day or anything but my Diabetes Nurse Specialist has recommended I test 6 - 8 times a day, before & after breakfast, lunch and dinner and before bed. Of course if you throw a low in there too (like I did yesterday!) that number jumps up by at least two. I haven't had any issue with the number of test strips I've been prescribed in the past so I'm lucky like that.

Diabetes really does affect every aspect of your life. I think a lot of people that I meet just think it's about injecting everyday but I see it as this balance between food, exercise, insulin and if even one of those things are out of balance it affects things e.g your sleep!