Failure is a routine part of managing diabetes. How's that for a downer intro? But it's true, at least if we are striving for perfection. Even if we are only striving for mediocrity, we fail to achieve that at times, because our bodies fail us. For some, the pancreas just doesn't make enough (if any) insulin; for others, the cells don't respond to insulin the way they are supposed to; for most, their genetic make-up set them up for failure.
This article discusses the importance of our being able to handle failure, which is called resilience. Resilience is the ability to bounce back when things don't go the way we want. In diabetes management resilience is critical. If we weren't resilient, one blood glucose reading out of the target range might send us spiraling into despair. Imagine how we would feel when someone made a judging comment or when we ate something that we know makes our blood glucose go high.
Scenarios such as these happen all the time for people with diabetes. We can't let them paralyze us; we have to learn from them and get on with our lives. This is easier said than done, of course, but it's a skill we work on in order to successfully manage diabetes and life. So maybe we use our little diabetes "failures" to grow and learn and get stronger every day. We can use them to build resilience. Who knows? It might just make us more resilient in the rest of our lives as well.
We get a lot of data, sometimes it's not where we want it to be, too low, too high, whatever. At the same time, it's still very good data and I sort of help myself by saying "bad number= good data to process, figure out what I did to put it where it ended up and not do it again..."
I think managing diabetes does make us more adaptable to change in general. Most people resist change and being pushed out of their comfort zone...as PWD we're pushed out of our comfort zone by definition. This adaptability to change has paid off in my professional life with the ability to deal with reorganizations and budget cuts in positive and creative ways.
Great post. It is hard for me to look at the number as a number of just where I am at right now. Instead it feels like a grade. I am working on it but it is a constant struggle not to feel like you fail at the one thing you really should excel at.
This is true. While I generally have a positive outlook on my diabetes, I still often feel as if I failed. Not that my body failed to do what it's supposed to, but that I failed to handle it properly. I wrote a blog post on Tu about it last year, "Does a Correction bolus mean I've failed?".
We don't do anything to make our pancreas shut down, it just happens. I feel no sense of guilt or failure over that, because I had no control over it. But when something goes wrong because of my own action (like an imperfect bolus), it's a bit more discouraging. Resilience, to me, is making things right after you've done something wrong. And when it comes to educated guesses about carbs and insulin, it's like trying to climb up the "down" escalator. You make progress at times, but can never quite reach the top.
fairypink8 and Scott - Thanks for these great comments. This is precisely why I think the words we use are so important. I don't say "test" because it implies "pass" or "fail." For me, if it's a test, I internalize that. I am simply checking in and gathering information, so I call it "checking" my blood glucose. I realize this seems crazy and over the top to some, but I truly believe our words sink in. Scott, I totally appreciate where you're coming from and I respect what works for you. For me, I don't think I'm doing something wrong, rather, I'm making a choice. And then I deal with it.
