Diabetes requires a lot of scheduling, planning ahead and time dead lines etc… Do you find this constant management spilling over into your everyday life? Such as being early for work, dinner reservations or Doctor Appointments. My organization/management skills at work blow all my co-workers skills out of the water. I think this has a lot to do with my Diabetes and being diagnosed at a young age. Having to constantly think about scheduling insulin peaks and what the effect of a single grape would have on my blood sugar at the age of 12, really set me up to be great in the management/scheduling area of life.
So, my question… do you find your Diabetes management spilling into your everyday life or no?
That is why I went to MDI with a long acting insulin in the '80 (ultralente at the time, Lanus today), then to a pump in the '90s, the to a CGM this last year.
It is a lot to keep loaded in your head and CGM has eliminated a great deal of that load on the brain.
This is a difficult question. I cannot live my life with and without diabetes and compare the two. I can definitely see that I approach diabetes the same way that I approach any other tasks that comes my way. I always strive for simplicity and perfection at the same time. I am lazy but I don’t shy away from any amount of effort that will support laziness at the end. If I had been dx’ed at an early age I expect that I would have applied whatever talent I have to manage my diabetes. I believe in a correlation between skills/talent but I doubt that diabetes makes people smart or disciplined or improves their live in other significant ways. There are tons of diabetics out there who cannot manage their diabetes. I have heard quotes from terminally ill people stating that their disease is the best thing that ever happened to them. I would be willing to give up my diabetes in a second. I am not afraid that being healthy would destroy my life.
I think that for me it is the other way around ; good basic training from my parents( how I remember, having slept in ,late for class and told the Teacher , that I had a doctors app’t …she looked me straight into my eyes and told me I was lying …My Mom had called the school , why I would arrive late …hardly ever in my life late for work !!) , followed by education in the management field set the pace for dealing effectively with the management of diabetes .I was diagnosed at a much later time in life , than you Danny …on the other hand, I don’t think it matters, which came first : the chicken or the egg…managing matters.
Danny, lazy means different things to different people. To me lazy does not mean out of control. I am a control freak and nothing gets by me. I am lazy in the sense that I prick my fingers twice a day instead of 18+ times a day and I still have better control than hyper-prickers.
I think what Helmut is expressing is a truth that resides in paradox. If you’re “lazy” by nature you may work hard to get ahead and then ease back into “laziness” and enjoy the inactivity. In the diabetic realm, if you get into the nitty-gritty of control, fine-tune your basal rates, learning how to count CHOs well, zeroing in a your insulin to CHO ratios throughout the day, then you can kick back and enjoy the fruits of your labor and be lazy! Maybe call it “Zen and the Art of Glucose Maintenance.”
Terry, I like your idea of laziness. Whenever I get assigned some busy work I have a tendency to automate it. After working hard on the automation I enjoy the fruits of my work (=not work that hard) for a short while. Then I get bored and take on another task. Maybe I just fool myself into thinking that I am lazy and I am really a workaholic. I am more contend with being a lazy guy. I am sticking to it.
That is a GREAT title for a diabetes management book…“Zen and the Art of Glucose Management”! It is all about being 1 w/ your diabetes…thinking like a pancreas:) being “in the zone”…without it controlling your life:) About 10 years ago, I got into insight meditation and mindfullness…it really helped me come to terms w/ my diabetes in a more positive way.
There is a rhythm to everything, a natural cadence or resonance to all natural things or systems. Humans were never meant to work or be “on watch” 24/7. I think that your style just falls in synch with the human cycle!
Danny, I am by nature a procrastinator and NOT the world’s best organizer… I put off basal testing and a lot of diabetes details whern I am overwhelmed with multitudionus life tasks. On the other hand, I can complete many projects with detail and precision, in a timely manner when the mood strikes. Diabetes management and personal science project reasearch, though time-consuming and never ending, does at times become a major project deriving from of that mood :Like getting a CGM. learning how to use it; researching Denise Faustman’s studiess and taking part in the clinical trial. All of those projects required a grerat deal of planning, effort, and follow through; and I was proficient and motivated.
But I cannot say that Being a diabetic for 42 years has made me more organized… I have to work at it still.
God Bless,
Brunett
I think that you like work but want to control the pace. That is a rationale that I completely understand. It’s as if you say, “I understand work’s demand but I will decide when and where I take it on.” You control the work, not the other way around.
I’ve just ordered the book, Thinking Like a Pancreas. I look forward to reading it. I really think that when dealing with diabetes that attitude is everything.
I’m getting a kick out of the post, with all the descriptions of what we think and do. I am stubborn, laze, pig headed, tolerant, anal, driven, selfish at times, wowed by what I see around me and really PO’d at the fact there is no real solution for this big D thing. But, I am dam proud that I have been able to master, most of the time, this wicked challenge and it has not brought me down and will not!
Diabetes management is a big part of my life, because without it I cannot live my life to the fullest and do the things I want to. If I take care of it, I can be me w/o it getting in the way.
Agree, Terry:) Here is an summary of the just of “Zen of Motorcycle Managment” that I have found helpful in thinking about diabetes management over the long haul:
Pirsig (author of Zen of MM) aims towards a perception of the world that embraces both sides, the rational and the romantic. This means encompassing “irrational” sources of wisdom and understanding as well as science, reason and technology. In particular, this must include bursts of creativity and intuition that seemingly come from nowhere and are not (in his view) rationally explicable. Pirsig seeks to demonstrate that rationality and Zen-like “being in the moment” can harmoniously coexist. He suggests such a combination of rationality and romanticism can potentially bring a higher quality of life.
I think I need to read this book as well:) My brother, Zen Man, said ages ago that I reminded him of this book…he suggested I pick it up…short, but very good read. Thanks for reminding me, Terry:) Always enjoy your insights.
I think for me, I’ve always have been the OCD type and now that I have diabetes, it’s more like my life is spilling into my diabetes life.
Though, no matter what I do, i cannot for the life of me keep a good journal for doctors appointments! I have the Ping so I could do it via their software, but I don’t always have it with me… any suggestions???
It’s hard to separate whether it’s spilling into everyday life or if my natural inclinations are spilling over into diabetes management… e.g., I hate keeping track of things… from checkbooks to logbooks…so dling numbers straight from the machine has been great.
On the other hand…i feel like the fact that diabetes can take up a lot of time (from just the managing to dealing w/ unproductivity that a low or high can have) and I think that dealing with this has made me always try to seek the most efficient way to use the time I have… so at work I tend to beat deadlines… though perhaps by nature I’m just an overachiever?
I thought diabetes management was my everyday life.
I mean how can you separate the two. Every aspect of my life and decision making is based one way or another to my diabetes 24/7
No, I am not terribly organized or early or anything like that. I am just average I guess. I get everything done, and I do everything fairly well, but I’m certainly not a superstar! There’s a lot that I forget to do, but I never forget the important stuff. I think that has to do with more how I am wired naturally, rather than anything that diabetes has made me become.
