Shut UP!

I am not a tightrope artist, yet I walk a tightrope every day. I am no juggler, yet I can juggle a million things all at the same time.  I get dizzy easily and can not tolerate spinning around without feeling sick, yet I ride a roller coaster often. I am not a doctor, yet I can treat my ailments all by myself. Mathematician I am definitely not, yet I complete complex formulas multiple times a day. I am a very open and sharing person, yet I keep many things to myself that nobody else would understand. I am a person living with type 1 diabetes.

It may seem to people who don’t live with diabetes one of two things.

One, that it is an easy and simple thing to live with. “A bit of sugar”. A “just eat healthy, exercise and take your insulin and she’ll be right” kind of thing. A thing that once the initial diagnosis has passed and everyone else has got back on with their own lives, free from thinking about every morsel of food you put in your mouth, free from watching countdowns on beeping machines dozens of times a day to see if you can eat, exercise, sleep, breathe….that it is no longer an issue.

To the person living with it, it does not really ease into the background. Sure, it gets easier. Sure you learn a lot, about your body, your diabetes and yourself. You can get on with life and live a good life, a happy life, an adventurous life, an enviable kind of life. But, it is not simple. It is not easy. And it most certainly is not in the background. Getting on with life does not mean getting away from diabetes. It simply means you have worked out how to have a life that can have diabetes in it.

Or, two, it may seem that all the person with diabetes THINKS about, is diabetes. All they TALK about is diabetes. They are ALWAYS posting things on facebook and Twitter about DIABETES. Social Media has created a DOC (or diabetes online community for those not in the know) which connects people with diabetes across the world. People who don’t have diabetes may think “for god’s sake, is there nothing else in your LIFE?”. They may be turned off by the status updates asking friends and family to donate to one of the many diabetes charities (my own included). May feel horrified by the posts about children or young people who have died from their diabetes…..or may feel angry and say “serves you right” to the overweight person with type 2 diabetes as they “caused it themselves”…. ignorance gone mad.

Sadly there is a division between type 1 and type 2 diabetics on this front also, with misinformed type 1’ers blaming people with type 2 for causing all of our problems, for making the world think all diabetes is caused by eating to much sugar and that as a person with type 1 diabetes we did not cause our diabetes, we are somehow better and more deserving. This saddens me more than anything. Having worked in diabetes for over a decade I now understand the complexities behind why people get diabetes – all types – and the complexities behind overweight and obesity (which by the way is not always a cause of type 2 diabetes, it is just one risk factor).

And I can tell you now it is NEVER anybody’s fault they get diabetes. And there should be no blame.

Sometimes I do feel like people around me don’t have any real idea about what my life is like with diabetes. Sometimes I do feel like all I see, hear, talk and think about is diabetes. It is my life, my work and my passion. I did not ask to get this disease. I do not have to like it. But I can sure as hell harness it to become something that matters in my life and do something that matters because of it.

And if you don’t like hearing about it, log off.

 

 

I think I found the “G-Spot”!

So apparently the quest for the “G-spot” continues.

An article today at “Australian Doctor” http://www.australiandoctor.com.au/news/no-proof-of-female-g-spot-   states that the female G-spot remains a “mythical location”, after an extensive literature trawl failed to definitively prove its existence.

Well folks, I can tell you I have found my “G-spot” and it is not really where you would think!

The G-spot for me and many other women, especially those of us who have children is “GUILT”.

Big, shiny, in your face, bring it on GUILT.   Forget the big “O” and meet –  the big “G”.

This G-spot” unlike the one described above in the Australian Doctor article, is easy to find…..

Just look at the face of any woman who has just had to say “no” to her child,  about anything.

Or who has just had to leave her screaming child with wet cheeks and hoarse cry echoing down the hall as she click clacks off to work. Who is enjoying her day at work, getting involved in creating something, talking to adults, being congratulated on her skills and intelligence, who stops suddenly as she remembers that wet little face this morning as she closed the child care gates with the big red sign on it stating “we have 5 cases of gastro reported today”……and finds the G-spot.

Who is spending the day home with her kids, but feels that dreaded “G-spot” at her back, reminding her she has a lot of work to get done, what about the deadline for that report next week?”Oh I forgot to call so and so back” “what will they think of me?” – instead of enjoying her time off with the kids. Cue – Guilt.

Or who has just secretly eaten a block of chocolate when she has promised herself she can diet, grasping on to hold handfuls of fat from around her waist as she eats it, just to remind herself she does not deserve this treat and will just get fatter (a CLASSIC way to find the G-spot).

Look at any woman who has just told her boyfriend, husband, lover – it is over, or who has finally slipped away for a night with the girls, or who knows her best friend is sleeping with someone else – but is too loyal to say anything to her friend’s husband. …..

Look at the face of the woman who has just thrown away her child’s drawings from primary school as she just can not find space to STORE it all, who has been secretly slipping her teenage son money so he has something to go out with but has not told her husband, who lets her child fall asleep in front of television, eat crap, lie around in the holidays instead of get involved in every activity on offer, who doesn’t go to their friend’s dinner parties preferring to curl up on the couch, whose house is not as new, as clean, as shiny, or as organised as her friends or the ones they show on those toilet cleaner ads on tv.

OR take a look at the woman who just does not feel in the mood to get into trying to find that other seemingly unfindable “G-spot” these researchers are so interested in when her husband comes up behind her with expectant eyes at the end of the night, when the kids are finally asleep and all she wants to do is drift awaaaayyyyy….

Yep, I have certainly found my “G-spot”.

Throw in living with type 1 diabetes and the old “G” goes crazy!

There is guilt from:

• eating too much carbohydrate
• not eating enough carbohydrate
• doing too much exercise
• not doing enough exercise
• being too fat
• being too thin
• not changing my finger pricker EVERY time I test (ummm what person with type 1 diabetes DOES that?)
• not washing my fingers before I test (what person with type 1 diabetes DOES that?)
• the results I get on that Blood Glucose Machine (especially if I am at a Diabetes event – try working with people in diabetes! It can really suck when you have it yourself and they are always asking you what the result was!!)
• not changing my insulin pump site every 2 days
• not exercising
• not getting the insulin ratio right (who DOES that?)
• will I give my kids this bloody disease one day……….

So next time you are looking for the G-spot – try looking at her face and you just may get it.

Is waiting what life is all about?

Waiting.  I sometimes feel like I spend my whole life waiting. Waiting to grow up, to get my license, to leave school, leave home, leave town. Waiting to get out of bad relationships and in the the “right one”. Waiting to get married, to get pregnant, waiting for babies to be born. Waiting for kids to get up, get dressed, eat, brush their teeth, go to bed. Waiting in lines, on phones, at check outs, in car parks…. waiting for the weekend (so I can spend time with the kids), waiting for the weekdays ( so I can get rid of the kids and focus on work – what is that about?). Waiting for people on the phone, for the right help, for someone to help me. Waiting for browsers to refresh, for applications to work on my computer (or not), for the latest software, latest phone, latest social media app. Waiting  to hear about whether our charity won a grant or not, if sponsors are back on board, or not, will we survive? Waiting for my kids to be toilet trained, sleep in their own beds, start school, finish school, get home safe. Waiting to go on holidays, waiting to get home again. Waiting for my blood glucose to go up, to go down, to settle down, waiting for a cure…….endless waiting.

People have said I am “impatient”. So what does that mean? That I am not good at waiting? Given the amount of waiting I do, I beg to differ.

While waiting for an application I was trying to edit my Facebook pages with to work today, over and over again, with multiple browsers open on multiple tasks all at once, it got me to thinking about waiting.

Is waiting just the fill in time between what we DO in life? Between where we are and where we want to be or go? Or is waiting the point of it all? Given the amount of waiting I do, should I be seeing the “waiting” as my life? Or perhaps this is my calling? Maybe I was BORN to wait? Given I was a waitress as a teenager and young adult and in fact quite enjoyed waiting on people, maybe this is the case.

Given I live with type 1 diabetes and spend hours and hours of my life waiting for results on blood glucose machines, waiting for my blood glucose to go up when low, go down when high, for my insulin pump to need changing, for doctor’s appointments, in doctor’s rooms, for the complications to set in, to get worse, for my diabetes to be quiet and GIVE ME A BREAK….I am thinking that perhaps, yes, waiting is what life is all about.

So here is my challenge. I am going to see waiting as an opportunity, not a pain in the arse. Instead of feeling rushed, stressed, impatient – each time I have to wait, for whatever it is – I am going to say “Waiting is my life. This is what it is all about. This is not the in between stuff, this is it” and I am going to damn well like it.

Oh, except the waiting for a cure bit – that bit I think I am a little bit over. 33 years is a very long time to wait and I am not sure anyone would stay in line for that long.

Happy waiting.

Diabetes makes your brain bigger…..

Ok so just back from a normal morning of getting up past the alarm, finding the 17 year old son was going to school late so I had to take the 11 year old instead of him, getting myself, the 11 year old and the 2 year old ready to go out the door, battling rush hour to get the 11 year old to school, pulling into the truck lane to get to the shops to do the weekly food shopping before the man coming to fix the air conditioner calls to say he is on the way ( as of course I have nothing to do in my day and can happily sit around waiting all day until he comes, coz they can’t give you a precise time they are coming – more fool me I forgot their lives are SOOO much busier than mine), and get to the shops, toddler in the trolley- check; green bags for shopping – check; shopping list – check….oh oh….blood glucose – yep you got it – check! Of course I am now hypo, standing in the aisle about to start shopping, toddler ready to go, people wondering why I have a little machine ( is it a pager??) and am pricking my finger at 9 am on a Friday morning in Foodland.

So a few lollies later and a little moment and I am off and running again. Now here is the thing, is it motherhood that makes me able to multi task like this? Yes I think it is. But I also think that diabetes actually grows our brains bigger. Now this is not based on any scientific research, papers from experts, or sitting through one of the many diabetes conferences I have attended since starting work in diabetes a decade ago. Nope, this is based on pure experience – of my life and observation of the many thousands of people with diabetes I have had the pleasure of talking to over the years.

Is it only me or does it seem people with diabetes fit a very large amount of additional thinking, considering, debating, deciding, correcting and worrying in our day, than those without diabetes? The above scenario is just one of hundreds that happen each and every day for a person with diabetes. I have also noticed that people with diabetes, in particular those who grow up with type 1 diabetes, are high achievers. It seems we get things done!

I think that having to consider so many things in every day, not being as carefree as others, thinking about your body and the impact of all the choices we make, as well as dealing with the roller coaster, the worries and fears, the hassles and sadness that can come along, make our brains open to so much more than people who don’t have to think about these things. We know our bodies and we know what it is like to feel like you have not got control of your body. A hypo is something you can not possibly understand unless you have experienced it….we can try to explain it, but I don’t believe it can ever be relayed properly how scary it can be during a hypo. This alone is an extra worry that can mess with your brain.

So if anyone ever says that diabetes can make your memory go, can lessen your capacity to do a task, or carry out a job, or be responsible for something – that is total rubbish. I guarantee  you that when they woke up, ate without even thinking about the carb content of their breakfast, showered and cruised off for the day, their brain had done less than half what a person with diabetes would have done – and I rest my case. But I am saying this in a positive light – we get to have bigger brains! And you know what, what matters in life is that you have the gift of having a life – that a life well lived is all it is about, diabetes or not. So grab your blood glucose monitor, dial up your insulin pen, check the carbs in that piece of cake and feel proud that you are in fact growing your brain!