A Silver-lining Day, or Something Like That

It's difficult to admit when things aren't always good.  Especially when people often say, "You have such good control of your diabetes."  Well...I try.  But when I look at my log book, it's not always pretty.  It's frustrating because...I feel like somehow I'm failing.  Some days my blood sugars bounce between 48 mg/dL and 274 mg/dL.  The usual target range is 70-140 mg/dL.  I have a difficult time sensing or feeling when my blood sugar is too high or too low.  I am "unaware" to hyper- and hypoglycemia.  So, I test my blood...a lot.  Because am I feeling cranky because I'm tired, or low?  Am I feeling hungry because I'm hungry, or low?  Am I sweating so much because I'm exercising, or low?  So...8 to 10 tests a day later...I see that my numbers look more like elevations on some roller-coaster ride than the numbers of a "good diabetic."  Sometimes I wonder if this is a mental game, too, like any and every sport or athletic endeavor, ever.  When you imagine that you will be unsuccessful, most often that ends up being the outcome, but when you have a positive or successful mental image, you're more likely to do well.  Point in case: when I focus on all the things that can go wrong while practicing on the German Wheel, they do.  Ok, so that wasn't very specific, but I had to plug in a circus reference.  And it's true. 

If treating diabetes was like learning or practicing handstands, after 28 years I should be a master, treating my diabetes one handed while balancing with the other.  In a handstand, when you're first learning, you make big adjustments and "fall through" the handstand many times.  As you get more used to the balance, you make smaller adjustments and stay in a more balanced handstand for longer and longer until you're balanced perfectly.  Or what appears to be perfect...you're still making tiny adjustments, but they're so small that it's hardly noticeable.  But most days my diabetes looks more like a beginner hand-balancer.  Falling through the target zone but hardly staying in it.  However, I'm still trying.  And maybe if I think more positively, it might level off a bit more.  Diabetes is challenging, that's a fact, but maybe I need to look at it differently.  Actually, today I did great, my numbers ranged between 94-162 mg/dL.  And yesterday they were 96-185 mg/dL.  These are the first two days in...a long time...when I wasn't either above 200 or below 70 (or both) at least once.  Let's see how tomorrow goes. 

So yeah, I'm not perfect.  Nobody is.  And sometimes the effort of trying and the lack of reward is daunting and discouraging.  But then that silver-lining day comes along, and suddenly better control doesn't seem so impossible after all.

Inspired by a friend who, although she was feeling body-conscious in a photo on facebook, did not "un-tag" herself...here's a picture, of my log book.