Diabetic Blues

Dear Mama,

I am really missing you this week.  Oh, I miss you every week still even after almost 8 years.  I think this week I have missed you so much because my diabetes is really challenging me this week and I so wish you were here to talk to about how you managed all those years without complaining or whining or just giving up. 

I feel like I owe you an apology because I never really  took the time to understand what you were going through.  All I knew was that you were constantly checking your blood sugar and giving yourself shots and pressing forward with a smile on your face even during those times that you must have felt exhausted from the effort.  That’s how I have felt all week. 

I wish I had been more sympathetic about your disease and tried a little harder to help you by encouraging you, and finding sugar free treats for you and not eating candy and junk in front of you. I smile when I remember how you pronounced carbohydrates.  I don’t think you ever did get it right. Carba hydrets you would say.  That has a lot of carba hydrets.  I never even took the time to ask what carbs had to do with the whole thing. 

I guess it was easier to stick my head in the sand.  Like maybe if I didn’t acknowledge how you were struggling then it meant you weren’t.  Or maybe I was just too busy with my own life to be that involved with yours that closely. 

I remember how mad you would get when you went to the diabetes doctor and he would tell you that you needed to lose weight, or exercise, or not eat anything you liked.  As if that was the easiest thing in the world to do.

And I remember how frustrated you would get when you would eat the right things and your sugar would go sky high anyway.  And how sometimes you would say to heck with it, eat whatever you wanted and it would be stable.  How confusing is that?  I am going through that this week mom and I understand now how aggravating that is.

And I understand now why you would get so mad when people would try and tell you what you should and shouldn’t eat as if they knew the secret combination of foods that would effect  your body just the right way.  All the people who wanted to advise or worse tell you horror stories of an aunt or uncle or cousin twice removed that had it even worse than you do and lost limbs and eyesight or died.  What a comfort that must have been!  Why do people do that?    

And I know that it could be much much worse.  At least this is a disease that you have some control over though lately I am starting to question that as I do all the right things and get all the wrong results.  And then there’s the part of it you can’t control like how stress factors in and how even a cold can wipe out your energy and when you seek relief you are told you can’t take anything because you are diabetic.

And I remember how you cried when they told you that you  had pancreatic cancer because you felt like you had caused it somehow by not managing your diabetes and so not only did you face cancer but you were loaded down with guilt by doctors who told you “if you had done this…or that… maybe you wouldn’t have gotten this.  Big help there!

I guess you could say that this week I have felt pretty vulnerable.  When my sugar level soared to 574 and I had to call Joe to come pick me up because I was afraid to drive.  When I was afraid to lie down because what if I didn’t wake up.  When I was afraid to eat anything , even something healthy because my blood sugar numbers were so erratic and unpredictable .  Feeling so tired that crawling into bed was an effort .  Or tonight, when I felt good and was looking forward to walking and working in the yard with Joe and had 20 carbs the entire day and came home and measured a blood sugar level pushing 400 for no reason at all and was afraid to do anything but sit at the computer and type and hope that it would go down if I didn’t exert myself.  Give the insulin time to work. 

When the injections of insulin are so frequent (at my doctors advice) that I taste it in my mouth.  And my belly has tiny bruises all over it from sticking that needle in.  And my fingertips are so sore I can barely type because I am poking myself 10 times a day to check my sugar level.

I guess you might say I have the diabetic blues tonight.  And I wish you were here to tell me everything’s gonna be ok LeeAnn.  God’s gonna take care of you.  Because hearing you say those words would mean everything to me because you always had the right words at the right time.  You’d laugh with me and cry with me and make me smile again like no one else can do.

And in the midst of this pity party, I am still so very aware of how blessed I am. I have an amazing husband who has been studying labels and reading articles and eating sugar free , lo carb meals with me even though he’s losing weight.!  He’s even converted to carb watch ice cream…What a guy.  And I have amazing sons and an awesome daughter in law that monitor my health and let me whine occasionally. And I have amazing family and friends who pray for me every time I ask for prayers. 

And I know it could be much much worse.  Working in hospice gives you a whole new perspective on your own illness.  I am so lucky to have diabetes and not a terminal disease. 

And sometimes you just have to laugh at your troubles…or write a rap song about them. LOL

And so Here goes:

Diabetes Blues

Actos ,  metformin, cinnamon  and glucose

Take this and eat this and measure out one more dose

Insulin and needles and test strips and meters

Injections in your belly and  water by the liter

No carbs and net carbs and good carbs and bad ones

How much is too much and aaargh this is no fun

Tired and confused and sometimes I could scream

Wish I would wake up and find that diabetes was a dream

A1C numbers and blood sugar readings

Daily a battle of what I should be eating

Sometimes I win, but more often defeat

Craving the carbs, wanting anything sweet

Atttude is everything and so I will press on

Until maybe a cure is found, Diabetes gone

What a “SWEET” victory that will be. 

There I feel better already..Time to go poke myself, take a reading, shoot some insulin and long lasting insulin of another kind, drink a glass of water and collapse into bed.  Tomorrow will be a better day.