Is Diabetes much of a Challenge

Life is a series of challenges, Type 2 Diabetes is just another challenge. To me the biggest problems are history and misinformation. I have had type 2 for around 14 years now, everything they taught me at the newly opened Diabetes clinic at the local hospital 14 years ago is pretty much useless information now. We are creatures of habit but Diabetes treatment is forever changing. The meds, the diet the ideas are always new and different.

Unlike a lot of other of life's challenges we label ourselves with this one. Either as diabetics or the more politically correct “person with Diabetes” If we are going to label ourselves why do it with the name of the illness? How about calling ourselves “The person that lives healthy lives” or “ The person that eats low carb”? Personally I don't believe in labels due to illness but no matter which label you prefer the old or the newer they both refer to an illness there fore are negative labels. Why do that to yourself?

I wear a medic alert necklace, why because if I am out on my own and go low that will help them know what to do for me, Some don't like it since they think it will reflect poorly on them as if having an illness makes them weaker. I can't control others perceptions nor would I want to I see my medic alert necklace as a positive helpful thing so why would I care what someone else thinks of it. If I see diabetes as a weakness then that is what it is but I now look at it as just something else to deal with. I read food labels now as a matter of habit. I don't plan meals since my wife and I only have healthy stuff in the house it really dose not matter what we make. If I do have to eat out I have checked out the nutritional values of most place online before I go and if it's not available will stick with plain foods with I know will not put my food plan to far off.

I learn new things every day and my food plan and way of treating Diabetes is always changing. I
think that is the biggest change Diabetes has made on my life is I don't have the luxury of being a creature of habit. But almost anything worth doing in life isn't easy so why should the challenge of Diabetes be any different ?

But then again how much of a challenge is Diabetes? Compare it to raising kids or succeeding in your career or just keeping you and your family happy is just eating right and doing a little exercise harder than any of that. Yeah we have to take meds and test our sugar but how long do either of those take? Sure sometimes it's hard to find the time to do the things we have to. but compared to the time it takes to die a slow agonizing death thanks to diabetes many complications what 30 minutes a day to exercise?

Keep your goals realistic, if you set your goals to high you may fail. Do it one step at a time. When you have conquered the challenge of Diabetes you may realize it wasn't that much of a challenge.

Staying Positive

Living with Diabetes is all about attitude. It's about finding a way to stay motivated to do what you must to survive. In my case I found it easier to do what I could to start instead of thinking about the things I couldn't do. Thats when I understood what living with this illness was all about.

When I started going to the gym I could walk the treadmill slowly and used that as my starting point. I tried the elliptical but thought it was an torture device, I just couldn't do it for more than a couple of minutes. So I stuck with doing the treadmill and after a few weeks I could go further and faster. I started getting bored with it so I thought it was time to do the elliptical again. It was still hard at first but it was easier and after a couple of months was able to do 4 miles at a time.

It's the same with food if you stop eating everything bad all at once you will probably not stick to your meal plan. So Instead of doing that try eating a healthy food you like. Then add more healthy food to your meals , once you find you are eating more healthy food then you can stop eating stuff thats bad for you but do it one item at a time not all at once.

The most important thing is to find the positive in any situation. If your a1c was a 10.0 and you go back and your a1c is a 9.0 don't focus on the fact that it needs to be lower focus on the fact that you did go down a point and work on expanding what you did to get it to go down. Numbers can be the biggest trap for us. If you eat something you shouldn't and test right away and it's to high now you have a negative situation and by testing you are adding to it. If I cheat I don't test, being high for a few hours is not going to do much harm if it's a once in a while thing and really won't change the a1c that much. Instead of worrying about what I did wrong today I think about what I did right yesterday and what I will do right tomorrow.

Another big problem I find people running into is Doctors visit. I got lucky and found the right Endo for me on my second try. I have heard from many people who dread Endo visits and actually put up with a doctor that will yell at them if they haven't done all they needed to. If your Endo or Doctor visits don't have a positive spin on them it's time for a new Doctor. No matter what my numbers have been when I walk out of my endo's office I am feeling better than when I walked in and am ready to do better than I have.

The moral of the story for me is if I dwell on the things I can't do, if find I run into a lot of stuff I can't do. If I dwell on what I can do I find I can do more than I thought I could.

10 weeks after surgery

10 weeks later and the first ral step towards recovery was the removal of the external device that has held my foot together up until this point. Am now in a light cast after the various pins, wires and bolts have been removed. Nothing remains inside except a bone graft where the charcot's has caused a bone to turn to dust and disapeer. Not a fun illness at all. We are hoping for another 4 to 6 weeks until I am up and around. Walking with just a custom made pair of shoes and a cane.

New Support Group

So I started a new support forum. You can see it at,

http://dtalk2.mybb3.org/

It's free to join and only takes a few minutes. Feel free to browse post and let us know what you think.

Columbus Day Weekend

Growing up in New York City and having a birthday of October 9th I always thought it was cool that I always had a 3 day weekend and a parade right around my birthday every year. So will take a 3 days weekend from illness as well as work, Have a great holiday weekend.

Diabetes can be a lot of things but boring isn't one of them.

Diabetes can be like having a full time job and most of us have to cram it into what little free time we have. Everything requires thought and time. Food, meds, exercise, doctors visits, and list goes on and on. Before diabetes if you were going out with friends you worried about what you wore. Now you still have to do that as well as figure out what you are going to eat, when are you going to take your meds. Did you take you meds and meter with you. It can be a drag but so can the complications of this fun and wonderful illness.

Yes there are times you will be put out by it, not have time for it or not want to care about it but whats worse putting up with something you consider a pain or death?

Doctors

Okay so we all see doctors, way to many doctors. I have seen doctors yell at people for not following their instructions. I have seen doctors dismiss patients fears and problems and then I see these people go back to the same doctor.

If you went out to eat and want to have a whole pie and the waiter yelled at you that you were already to fat would you go back to that place to eat again? If you ordered meatloaf and he bought you fish since he though what you felt was not important, Would you go back? If not then why go to a doctor that treats you that way. They are there to take care of you if they don't do so to your satisfaction then it's time to move on.

The other problem I have found is everything always gets blamed and Diabetes and they don't want to look any further which can be dangerous. Stand up for yourselves don't let the medical community bully you. Make them take care of you.

I just don't get it.

Type 2 diabetes is a hard thing to deal. Not the illness that is just a matter of adjusting how you live. It can be a pain since 2 people can do the same thing and get totally different results. But once you find how it works for you it can be controled. The thing that is find hard is the world and community of diabetes.

I think it's great to share information and we can all do this through the web. We all have our own opinions and ideas and it is up to us to figure out what we want to find relavent to our own situation.

But there are just somethings I don't "get".

One thing is the idea that we should not be called Diabetics but PWD aka Person with Diabetes. Why would anyone want any part of an illness that they have as part of a label about them. I am a person. I have diabetes but I choose to not be a diabetic or a PWD. Just being a person is hard enough.

For years people have been fighting discrimination against the diabetes community. We don't want to be singled out for having diabetes. We don't want to get fired because of it we want to be treated just like everyone else. We want others to be sensitive to our needs just like they would be to anyone else's. Now you have a group that comes out with a list of etiquette rules for peole who don't have Diabetes to follow around people that do. Maybe I'm missing something but doesn't that go against the whole don't discriminate against me because I have diabetes? It's like the diabetes world has a split personality. On the one hand saying I have Diabetes treat me like anyone else then they Say I have Diabetes here is how you should behave around me. I guess even the world of Diabetes wants their cake and to eat it as well. Hope it's a low carb cake.