“Today let’s borrow a topic from a #dsma chat held last September. The tweet asked “What is one thing you would tell someone that doesn’t have diabetes about living with diabetes?”. Let’s do a little advocating and post what we wish people knew about diabetes. Have more than one thing you wish people knew? Go ahead and tell us everything.”
Ok…today I peeked before writing my blog about this topic. I was on Facebook and saw a posting from Joslin of a blogger named Mark Mariano. Reading his blog just solidified once again that the emotional impact that the diabetes community has on me is such an invaluable part of my life. The other day I wrote about promising myself that I would try to not feel guilty about the intrusions that diabetes has on my life and consequently others. So when I read this blogger’s post, it truly struck a chord with me.
I would like to add a ditto to what he said. It’s so important for those who sail these seas with us in this disease to know that we know it’s can’t be easy. That they have their work cut out for them just as much as we do.
Having said that, I would feel like I have cheated to just repost and comment on someone else’s thoughts. So, the one thing that I would like to tell someone about living with diabetes is that it’s not just simple calculations.
All the commercials, news bits and segments on talk shows don’t really get to convey that although this is about calculating and balancing eating, exercising and medication, it is also about biology, psychology and life in general. There are so many factors that come into play when I sit down to take my insulin dose. The obvious thing to consider is what you are eating (or not eating), but I also have to factor in how this food behaves, what my activity level has been or is going to be, if I have exercised or will be active in the next couple of hours, and yes…the lady factor.
It’s not as simple as many people think it is. We do our best to figure out our needs and become pretty good scientists in our own experiments. It almost becomes just a habit, but yes, that even has its pitfalls. It’s unrelenting, daunting at times but most of all it takes effort.