Type 1 Diabetes & The Golden Prick Award

Type 1 Diabetes & The Golden Prick award !

Living with type 1 or type 2 diabetes in isolation from others who live the same mathematical, clock watching, tightrope as we do, it's easy to just let things slip, and before you realise whats going on your sitting in your endo's office explaining how your HBA1C is so high, to someone with their head slightly tipped to one side and trying to wear their best sympathetic smile while nodding in acknowledgement of what we are saying, as they listen to the endless supply of lies we feed them. The chest infection we had, the steroids that our stupid GP prescribed, the dog eat my meter and I didn't have a spare ( yes Iv heard that one ), the flu shot made me as high as a kite ...... For weeks ! ( Iv used this one ). 

The truth is that sometimes we just get sick of it all. Sometimes when your the only one in a group of non diabetics it's hard to do what we're supposed to do. We all need to fit in, however,  constantly fitting in, will leave us "long term" in trouble because of the diabetes complications that lifestyle can lead to. 

Sitting with non type1 friends, and whipping out the meter, the strips, and the finger pricker as we proceed to do a blood test there and then, so we know what insulin is needed for the food we'r about to eat, can be met with gasps, awkward silences or disapproving looks. It's not like we can do it all under the table. It's a fiddley business.

For this very reason it's good to mix with others who have the same lifestyle as you, TOTAL understanding, comfort, support, information and help, all serve to make living with any type of diabetes just a bit more bearable.

There's not a week goes by without someone in one group or another, either totally excited with a HBA1C result, or in other cases totally floored by their result. No matter what the BG meter result says on the many occasions through the day that we test, it's the big exam that's all important and a decent result feels like recognition of a job well done. I seriously think a little trophy or reward should be standard at a diabetes clinic. 

I actually stood in my garden one day in spring, after cutting myself on a Rose thorn, to save myself from yet another finger prick I grabbed my meter and tested my BG. I hear you, I hear you, relax, hygiene etc, but at that moment i was going low, I saw an opportunity not to have to prick my finger and I took it.

Most people would wash it, disinfect it and plaster it, all I could think of was "free & effortless blood" all ready for use. In my world any blood is a potential test.

My well pricked fingers don't always donate and a good squeeze is sometimes necessary. One day there I was wearing very pale pink, all dressed up and ready to leave the house, one quick check I thought. What I got was a shower or blood that shot across the kitchen and all down my clothes.

So it's off with the dress, and out with the disinfectant to clean the floor, the counter top, the tiles and anything else that got it. Quick check ? Ye right ! The joys of well used fingers.....

Lick or wipe ? Are you kidding me ? Think of this. Your out, all dressed up and you need to check your BG because you don't feel right. 

Your low, now honestly do you fiddle around looking for tissue, getting blood on clothes ? 

Or do you lick and desperately search for something sugary before it's too late ? 

Remember when you answer the above questions "low & thought" rarely happens, unlike "low, instinct & automatic" when survival is all that matters.

That was life before my CGM so now it's testing every 12 hours to calibrate my medtronic guardian, finally my finger tips are beginning to feel a bit more like normal, and the alarm goes before I get to the brain dead stage.

For all that my poor fingers have been through Id like to win or at least be nominated for the "golden prick" award. 

Davina