Last night’s OzDOC chat on diabetes disruptions really put my mind to work. I can’t say that I think of diabetes as being disruptive all that often. Yet as I began to answer some of the chat questions, it became pretty clear to me that it was. Diabetes is disruptive. It’s disruptive to my day, it’s disruptive to my mindset and it’s disruptive to the people around me.
One disruption that easily comes to mind is the time I have previously wasted, obsessing over what I need to bring with me every time I leave the house. I tend to overthink things quite a bit, especially with the more time that I have up my sleeve.
How long will I be gone? How far away from home will I be? Am I going to be comfortable at the party with all of this crap weighing me down? Do I really need all the stuff I have brought with me?
I’ll spend far too much time tucking things into pockets and jackets, only to pull them out once again. Thankfully I now have my grey marle pencil case, with all my travel gear ready to go every time I head out.
Another disruption that comes to mind is the people around me. I am too nice of a person. While I don’t particularly feel the need to explain myself, I do feel conscious of the fact that I might not be polite to others. Like trying to find the right moment to excuse myself and walk away from someone who is talking to me.
Then there are days where diabetes puts a damper on my mood. Or I’m not having the best day, and having to deal with diabetes on top of it simply makes it worse. I’m more quiet, withdrawn, and probably don’t do my best at explaining this to the people around me. But I feel ridden with guilt for it afterwards.
I’m also really conscious of the perception toward diabetes that I’m feeding to others through my actions. I don’t want people to think that I’m ill or unwell. I’m quick to deflect people’s looks of pity with confident explanation of what I do to myself to manage. Okay, cutting the queue at Pathology yesterday probably didn’t help my cause, but you can’t live with this lousy condition without the occasional perk…
The one disruption that I would easily wish away is a low blood sugar. Correcting a high is easy enough. I’m pretty confident in my ability to keep tabs on pump failures and ketones. Yet a nasty low is enough to knock me sideways. It frustrates me that I can’t even go for a walk around the block without having to worry about going low.
While diabetes will continue to be disruptive in every which way that it pleases, always remember that you most certainly are not.
