Burnout

So, it is has happened to me. My seventh anniversary with Type I diabetes will be on March 31, 2009. How can I sum up my feelings on diabetes right now?

I don't give a shit.

I can't really think of another way to put it. I guess I could use more flowery language but I'd rather just say what is on my mind. Don't. Give. A. Shiiiiiittttttttttt.

Do I feel guilty? Only when I consider the possibility that I could get pregnant and the fact that I have a child who depends on me to you know, be his mom. I should maintain my formerly high(ish) standards of self-care for my son, if not for nothing or no one else. He deserves for me to be around for a little while.

I'm still testing, I'm still bolusing, I'm still making and keeping my endocrinologist appointments. But the emotional investment? The motivation to really care about the numbers that blip up on the meter screen? I feel nothing more than a momentary twinge when I'm high. Correction bolus, move on. Maybe to some this would signify a healthy state of mind but to me I feel like I've totally checked out.

It's been a rough while since I last posted in August, which I am sure explains my apathy for all the micromanaging diabetic bullshit that happens to me every day of my life. My grandmother and father both died in October -- one death a mixed blessing, the other a tragedy for my family. I miss my father with a physical, mental, and emotional ache that nothing else in my life has ever touched for sheer I CAN'T STAND THIS MAKE IT GO AWAY PLEASE RIGHT NOWness. I do stand it, though. I don't want to. I can't tell what stage of grieving I am in at any given moment and it doesn't really matter, right. I just want him back. I remember so many little details of my life with him and am horrified by my loss, even moreso by his loss of life...and then further horrified when I contemplate the fact that one day my memories will dim. All those platitudes about how one day it won't hurt so much? One day I'll be able to think of Dad with a smile? Sure, I get it intellectually but right now so unhelpful.

I'm not incapacitated by grief, but it sure has a way of making the world all grey and fuzzy. My son is a spark of happiness of course. I don't feel bad about revolving 99.99999% of my thoughts and my days around him right now. He (finally) started sleeping more than two hours at a time by 6.5 months. I am so blessed. I had forgotten what it was like to be a human being. We decided to try "crying it out" but the first night we tried he wouldn't cry long enough for us to do the ole Ferber method.

I'm still meaning to do a post on diabetes and motherhood whenever the mood to be lighthearted and wordy strikes. I wish I had kept this blog up a little better, if only to have a detailed record of what I was thinking back when my life was still normal. All in all I have to say diabetic motherhood has been easier than I expected, but that might be because infants are relatively easy to care for (once you get past the newbie uncertainty). I've lost a huge portion of my me time, but it's still easy to test when the baby isn't mobile yet. Holding a baby in one arm and fiddling with a test kit in the other isn't so easy though. Jason loves to grab at the lancing device and attempt to give it a good mouthing. Argh!

Topics I want to touch on...

• inheritability of diabetes (or the crème de la crème of Mommy Guilt)
• breastfeeding (and how it has been awesome for my blood sugars)
• post-partum diabetes and health issues (insulin sensitivity, thyroiditis, taking time to care for one's self)
• relating to mothers without chronic illness (not a rant, promise)

Diabetes Blogs

Are awesome. I'll post more on that when I have time (cripes, I really want to post on this thing more often...but am I making time? NO!)

Anyway, was reading comments to a post on Scott's Diabetes Blog, and this one damn near made me cry at work. Touched a nerve? Hell yeah it touched a nerve (and I haven't been diabetic for 21 years.)

"Howdy.

I've gotten now with type 1 for 21 years and 10 months, but who's counting? But that's a way of saying that I've had my time to think about it, but then no one with type 1 diabetes can't think about it. Well you can, but it requires a pretty harsh level of denial.

I've come to think that as a type 1 diabetic, it's like being in a constant state of grieving. Psychological models describe the 5 stages of grieving like this:

1. Denial
2. Bargaining
3. Anger
4. Despair
5. Acceptance

There is nothing wrong in feeling those things. The big question tends to be how much we can maintain acceptance of what has happened and what it means for us to live. I think very few type 1 diabetics are ever fortunate enough to find complete acceptance of what has happened, and for those few it just may be their inborn nature.

For me almost every day I find instances of the 4 stages before acceptance creeping in, or finding some event to come to the front of my mood. Fortunately, I've pretty well eliminated denial, but bargaining still shows up, anger happens over the little insults (that my fingertips are often sore while I work at the keyboard, that the large majority of people don't understand what it's like to live with the constant fear of complications) and despair, those black moments when I wish I could close my eyes for 8 hours or perhaps even longer without any thought whatsoever."

The eloquent blogger above is the completely inconsequential flux capacitor, by the way.