Whisper Words of Wisdom

Today’s Prompt: Let It Be. What’s something that bothers you or weighs on you? Let it go. Talk out the letting go process and how you’re going to be better to yourself for it.

I'm going to use today's prompt to give you some words of wisdom about marriage.

Everyone will give you advice about how to make your marriage strong, communicative, fulfilling...and some of it is bunk.

The piece that is bunk for us is the "Never go to bed angry" mentality.

Hubster and I rarely have real discord, but when we do, as with many couples, it can get ugly. And the truth of our ugliness is that neither of us wants to let it go. And the later it gets and the more tired we are, the worse the yelling. The worse the tension. The worse the holding on. We can't just let it be.

But we learned years ago that if we would just GO TO BED ANGRY, we would wake up refreshed and in love. I don't know why it works for us, but it does. The sun is shining, we're apologizing over a cup of hot coffee, and we're hugging extra long at the door before one of us leaves for the day.

That was us a few days ago. Both of us were overtired and overworked. Both of us were angry that the other couldn't accommodate what we felt we needed to relax and unwind, so instead of winding down, we got wound up. We spent a good two hours trying to work it out, but in the end, rest was the answer.

Sometimes the best advice people have to give you won't work for you. You have to learn to let go of expectations and live in your reality. My reality is that we are unreasonable grumps when we're tired. And that our love for one another is secure enough that we know the other will be there in the morning, ready to face another day as a couple.

When the night is cloudy, there is still a light that shines on me.

Shine on until tomorrow. Let it be.

This post was written as part of NHBPM - 30 health posts in 30 days: http://bit.ly/vU0g9J.

Crazy Train

Today’s Prompt: Little Engine Post. Write a list post with 10-15 lines that start each with “I think I can...” Write 5 lines at the end that start with “I know I can.”

I'm a positive, empowered person. There are few things in my life I've ever thought I couldn't do - and I have never felt like diabetes was any more than an annoying obstacle to any goal. Because if I have really wanted to do it, I've found a way.

• I've traveled abroad (which includes when I thought I was going to die and bravely called to say goodbye to my parents from a pay phone before seeking out insulin on the black market in Prague).
• I've lived alone (which can be scary with diabetes).
• I brought my A1c down to 6% after 10 years between 10 and 16%, 7 years between 8 and 10%, and I've kept it there.
• I've sung in front of thousands of people, including Hilary Clinton.
• I've built a teaching career I can be proud of.
• I've had a baby (and expect to have a repeat performance in less than 90 days).
• I've performed CPR on my daughter when she stopped breathing during a seizure.

I am a BEAST.

Still, I have curiosities about the future. I have hopes. I have fears. But...

I think I can...learn to exercise without fear of lows - or at least in spite of that fear.
I think I can...keep a cleaner house (really want to work on this).
I think I can...learn to fold a fitted sheet (I try all the tricks - always looks like jumbled crap).
I think I can...continue a healthy, happy marriage.
I think I can...raise two kids to be amazing people.
I think I can...live a long life.
I think I can...stave off complications from diabetes.
I think I can...deal with the reality if it turns out that I can't.
I think I can...make sure people know how much they mean to me.
I think I can...stop breaking meat thermometers (I have a problem).

I know I can...support and empower the people around me.
I know I can...teach, educate, inspire.
I know I can...advocate for what I need to stay healthy and happy.
I know I can...love my family.
I know I can...love myself.

Beast, I tell you.

This post was written as part of NHBPM - 30 health posts in 30 days: http://bit.ly/vU0g9J.

Imperfection

Today's Prompt: This one’s for you, baby. Dedicate a song to your condition. Why did you pick that song? Find a youtube or link to a version to embed in your post.

I've always had songs that reminded me in some way of diabetes. The one that used to make me laugh as a teen was Sheryl Crow's 1996 hit Everyday is a Winding Road because of the line "Everybody gets high, everybody gets low. These are the days when anything goes." And now that I have a continuous glucose monitor, it's obvious that "winding road" is a particularly apt description of my blood glucose trends.

I started a thread on TuDiabetes a couple of years ago that was a lot of fun - Dia-Beatles. We took Beatles lyrics and changed them up to fit diabetes themes.

It's no secret that I relate to music. So many of us find real catharsis in music. That's why there is a field of rehabilitative therapy based on music and our responses to it! Sometimes my Twitter feed is full of angst-ridden song lyrics from people in the diabetes community because it just describes where we are that day, that minute.

The day after we got home from our trip to Kansas City for Simonpalooza - a gathering of more than 20 people from all over the world who knew one another mostly only from online interactions - I heard this song on the radio and it brought me to tears.

That's a rarity. I'm not a soft touch.

But it made me think of the people in my community and their individual and collective struggles. It made me think of the friends who shared their weekend with me: Simon, C, Scott, Bob, Jess, Sara, Victoria, Sarah Jane, Cherise, ScottyJ, Allison, Barbara, Kelly, Jeff, Kim, Mike, Amanda, and Heather & Becca.

I'm dedicating this song to them today.

Here it is, Pink's F*ckin' Perfect (the clean version):

This post was written as part of NHBPM - 30 health posts in 30 days: http://bit.ly/vU0g9J.

Postcards in an Elevator

Today’s Prompt: Elevator blog. If you were in an elevator with someone and they asked about your blog, your Health Activism, your community, or your condition, what would you tell them? Make a version for a 30 second elevator ride, a version for a 1 minute elevator ride, and a version for a 2 minute elevator ride.

If we were on an elevator together today, you'd see me in my Big Blue Test t-shirt (for the last time, since it's now embarrassingly tight on me). You'd probably ask me what it was about (or ask about my enormous belly poking out underneath it).

The 30-second version would follow:

I have Type 1 Diabetes and today is November 14th - World Diabetes Day, an internationally recognized day where we try to spread awareness about diabetes - its signs, symptoms, concerns, complications. The Big Blue Test is an awareness initiative that many of us take part in by testing our blood sugars and getting active.

The 1-minute version would include this next bit:

November 14th was Frederick Banting's birthday - he was one of the men who discovered insulin, you know. Anyway, there are millions of people with diabetes in the US, but there are hundreds of millions all over the world. Many of them don't have access to that life-saving insulin, to test strips, to good medical care. If we can get enough people to do the Big Blue Test, there's a company called Roche that will donate $75K to charities to help those people.

The 2-minute version would have me digging into my diaper bag to show you this:

See this postcard? It's from someone I've never met named Jacque. She lives in Washington State. She has had diabetes almost as long as I have; we were both diagnosed in the early 1990s. And we were paired up by my friend Lee Ann Thill who organized this crazy cool artistic initiative called the World Diabetes Day Postcard Exchange where we would create postcards for World Diabetes Day and send them to people all over the world. Then we'd post them to a Facebook page.

I have a photo of the one I sent Jacque, too:

The cards have the blue circle logo that is synonymous with World Diabetes Day and the International Diabetes Federation....Oh, I'm sorry, am I blocking the doors? You probably need to get off here. Well, it was nice chatting with you!

Doors shut, end scene. Someone else gets on.

Hi. Oh, the shirt? Well, I have Type 1 Diabetes...

This post was written as part of NHBPM - 30 health posts in 30 days: http://bit.ly/vU0g9J.

In the Thick of It

Today’s Prompt: Open a book. Point to a page. Free write for 10-15 minutes on that word or passage. Post without editing if you can!

We must have fifty toddler board books scattered on our living room and bedroom floor. I try to keep them all on the bookshelf, but it's just so hard to find the one you're looking for when you're 21 months old and your very nature abhors tidiness.

Our most recent favorite is a book called Turn & Learn Colors. It must be savored at least twice a day - particularly the page with the green items, which are listed in this order: "brochkkk-brochkkk" (broccoli), "pah-pah" (caterpillar), "tah-tor" (dinosaur), and pay-pay (parrot).

We're in that phase where there must be 3-5 new words a day added and I've given up with keeping up.

Needless to say, with her growing love of books, I'd love for her to see me reading more.

The problem with that idea right now is that leaving books out for Daddy and me puts them at risk for major destruction, so if we want to read, we're relegated to our cell phones, our tablets, or our laptops. Which is probably going to make her think that staring at small rectangular objects is THE ultimate entertainment. (She already thinks that, actually; there are more apps on my phone for her than for me!)

But I have managed to have one book out for me lately, exposing it to the elements of toddler sippy cups and frequent "where is it now - oh the laundry basket, oh under the bed, oh in the bathtub." Cheryl Alkon's fabulous book Balancing Pregnancy and Pre-Existing Diabetes: Healthy Mom, Healthy Baby was released a few months after Sweetie's birth. Though I benefitted greatly from Cheryl's experiences through following her blog, Managing the Sweetness Within, I've yet to sit down and read the published book from cover to cover.

Regardless of the fact that portions of it remain untouched, I recommend this book to every woman with diabetes with whom I come into contact. It's a treasure trove of anecdotal evidence about managing fertility concerns, pregnancy, childbirth, and newborns while dealing with your pre-existing diabetes. Not to mention that there are at least two quotes in it from yours truly. :)

Sweetie in Chicago at 20weeks old with Kristin's copy of the book

For this blog challenge, I flipped it open and it fell to the chapter titled "In the Thick of It." Before I read one more word, I thought, "Yes, that's perfect. That's exactly where I am."

I'm in the thick of it, smack-dab (as my mother would say) in the middle of this journey again.

The reason that I didn't get this blog posted until Sunday was almost over is because of that thick.

Because I kept reading, immersing myself in the stories of women managing their insulin resistance in the late second and third trimesters. I read for twenty minutes - in between rocking Sweetie to sleep for a nap and bounding up (after glancing at the clock) to make myself look halfway presentable so that I could teach a voice lesson, attend another student's senior recital (low blood sugar coincided beautifully with reception goodies), stop by the grocery store for our week's shopping, visit a friend just home with her newborn (where I also asked her paramedic hubby to do a quick blood pressure check on me), and come home to prepare dinner, bathe the pizza-sauce covered toddler, coax her to bed, and then be poked repeatedly by my husband to wake up and go post my blog. (Thanks, Hubster.)

It's so thick sometimes that I have trouble enjoying any given moment or pausing to think about how my insulin needs may have changed since yesterday. But those few minutes of reading made me stop to think about my health needs in a different way today. And I put an extra unit on board after Sweetie's bath. I took that moment out to think about what I'd learned.

I hope Sweetie knows how much Mama and Dada learn from books, too.

This post was written as part of NHBPM - 30 health posts in 30 days: http://bit.ly/vU0g9J.