Positives and I'll Deal with its of Type 1 Diabetes

D-Day=A little over 6 months ago

Positives

-I have this amazing new ability that allows me to either 1) know the number of grams of carbs any type of food has 2) look at a plate of any food placed in front of me and predict the number of carb grams that the plate has. It's like I have ESPN or something (shout out Mean Girls). This is a great party trick/get to know you game. Try me. Your mind will be blown. Boom.

-I can not be a grazing eater. I can't just snack and eat mindlessly. This is such a positive! It is so good for my health and weight! Noone should just sit in front of the tv eating randomness and not thinking about how many calories or carbs or fat they are putting in their body. Type 1 prevents me from doing this because I have to mentally be aware and calculating pretty much everything I consume or else my body, health and life are at risk.

-I am so intuned with my body now. I can feel when somethings not right and I know how to fix it.

Yeah, that number doesn't feel good.

-I never go hungry when out and about. I'm also the best person to sit beside if we are going to be somewhere for a long period of time. You know why? Cause my purse is always full of "just in case my blood sugar is low" snacks. If at a concert, graduation, speech, long roadtrip etc. those sitting next to me have the happiest bellys.

My purse on a normal day

-Being diagnosed with diabetes has made me feel vulnerable. Vulnerable in the sense that life is so fragile. Vulnerable in the sense that I am not in control. and it's ok. When you find yourself vulnerable and lacking any control in life it makes you grasp onto who is truly in control. It allows you praise the small things even more than the day before and allows you see the bigger things as even bigger than you could ever had imagined. What a blessing!

I'll Deal with It's

-My poor little calloused fingertips. I check my blood sugar between 8-10 times a day. That's a lot of poking, bleeding and healing going on leading to some tough and dotted fingertips. Not cute.

Well earned battle scars.

-Lots of doctor's appointments and blood tests. We are constantly getting co-pay notices in the mail, it's just never ending and expensive.

-Permanent medical equipment attached to my body. It's just annoying. But the positives of my insulin pump far far out way the annoyances of it. I will say that the most annoying part of my pump is when people think it's a pager. NERD ALERT! Who where's a pager. It's embarrassing to think that people could be thinking that I'm rocking a pager circa 1996. Yeah and my closet is also full of bright colored legging shorts and oversized sweatshirts. People seeing I'm wearing an insulin pump=not embarrassing. People thinking I'm wearing a pager=embarrassing.

Umm this looks nothing like a pager.......

I know it totally does.

-I've picked up this bad habit of drinking diet sodas. Before betes, I drank soda, both diet and regular, maybe 2 times a month total. I just didn't drink it very much cause newsflash: it's not good for you. With type 1 diabetes, I have to give myself insulin before I consume any carbs. "Well but Courtney, aren't breads, pasta and candy the only foods with carbs in them." No. No sir. Almost everything has carbs in it. Vegetables have carbs, fruit definitely has carbs, anything that is made with flour has carbs, chicken nuggets have carbs, lots of salad dressings have carbs, milk has carbs, wine has carbs, yogurt has carbs and so on. All these carb things, require me to calculate in my head the number of grams of carbs they contain and then how much insulin I need to then give myself before I eat them in order to prevent my blood sugar from flying high. You know what doesn't have carbs. Diet sodas. Diet sodas are one of the only "treat" like things I can put in my body without having to think about insulin. Being able to shove something in my mouth without having to think "I wonder if this is going to mess up my blood sugar?" is soooooo freeing. It makes me feel normal. I now drink 1 diet soda a day. I don't like that I do this.



-Dealing with the ignorance's of people. I tell ya, people just don't know what type 1 diabetes is. and it's totally ok to not know what type 1 diabetes is. That's completely fine. I don't know about a lot of diseases. You know what I do when I don't know enough about something? I either ask intelligent questions about it or I keep my mouth shut and don't say anything about the nothing I know. It is not ok to make comments about diabetes when you are not well enough informed to have a non-ignorant opinion.

-I very much dislike that Type 1 Diabetes and Type 2 Diabetes are grouped together. They are two completely different diseases. Yes they involve the same organ but the cause, treatment, maintenance and risks are so so different. I'm totally on the bandwagon that they should have completely different names. My life as someone with type 1 diabetes is completely different than the life of someone with type 2 diabetes. Nothing makes my blood boil more than someone comparing my disease to someone who has type 2. I'm sorry but I have a hard time relating to your 62 year old grandmother who has type 2 diabetes and checks her blood sugar maybe at the most once a day, takes medication orally in the morning and just has to "watch" her sugar intake. My day is a little bit different. My life is a whole lot different.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying the type 2 diabetes isn't a serious disease. It is a very serious disease. But it's just different.