Future Plans

After hyping up the Velux 5 Ocean race to my class (I tie the solo, round-the-world sailing race into Earth Science somehow) and showing the documentary Deep Water about the first solo, round-the-world sailing race, my students asked me if I was ever going to do the race.

Although I won't rule it out, I don't think I could be away from my family for that long, well, maybe if I'm 90 and I outlive Tony and my kids are grandparents, I could bear ten months away to do it. But, just like in triathlon, when I get close to race day, I try, for the first time, to look beyond my next race to see what I will be training for when I achieve the goal directly in front of me. For the first time this week I have been trying to find the next logical step after a 4-day single-handed sail with stops near land each night.

I think I will have to wait another three years at least before I can steal away, I have to give some rest to my support team between trips. I don't want to ask too much to often of them. They could tire easily of my journeys, what, with my husband Tony having to listen to me talk his ear off with a long litany of, for him, meaningless details, and my kids having to miss me while I am gone, and my parents who lend child watch services while Tony works so I can concentrate on sailing and not worry about the safety and happiness of the children.

Maybe in three to five years I could do a Newport, R.I. to Bermuda passage; five to nine days alone with no stopping on land would be a good stepping stone. And then a TransPac, from Long Beach to Hawaii - two to three weeks alone- sounds interesting and enticing. Maybe in seven or eight years, when the kids are in high school and would be more than happy to get rid of me for a few weeks.

I am sure some Type 1 Diabetics have done it before, but it would be pretty great to be the first at something. I wonder how you go about finding out if any Type 1's have done a TransPac or a Newport-Bermuda before. Do you know of any?

A New Mode

Now that I am back at work, and, really, back among the living, I get asked a lot how I am doing. I think I have fielded that question at least twenty times in the last few weeks since school started.

I usually answer that I am feeling ok. Not really normal, but, maybe, a new normal? That's the thing I am most recently learning;. I thought this new disease was an easy fix, just take some meds and I am back to normal, problem solved and, really, over with. But we are so bad at mimicking with meds what the body does so naturally.

Stress goes up and your body matches it with increased thyroid levels. So I am always having to change my dose to match my activity level and stress level so that I don't get too far behind on the fatigue. And it sneaks up on me sometimes. I am learning to recognize my stress levels and trying to be proactive with dose changes. The diabetes has taught me a lot when it comes to that, but, of course, when I change my thyroid levels, it changes all of the protocols I have developed to manage the diabetes so it's like I am no longer solving equations in one or two variables, but now have four- or five-dimensional problems.

With all that, if I can manage a "just ok" I think I am doing pretty damn well. It has, overall, dulled my personality, though. I have become the things I hate far too much: jittery and on edge. I lost the part that I loved so much about myself, that zip and spunk, willing to take on any challenge and always looking for an adventure.

And when it gets all out of whack, it inhibits my sense of clarity and judgment and I sometimes do things I normally would not because it has temporarily warped my sense of reality. I am trying not to act on those whims but sometimes I let it slip.

I am, also, working against a whole new set of fears that my body will fail again. I had to learn, in the worst of it, not to push my body because it would mean a week or two of recovery, a really bad, tortuous recovery, so I am trying to unlearn that self-preservation mode and re-enter into the push-myself-as hard-as-I-can mode. Tough switch, since I don't know where those new boundaries lie. I dont want to overshoot them, but I do want to get very close to the edge asap. I think I might have to fall over the edge a few times to really find it.

The Best Laid Plans

I had set out to write tonight, got dressed, got my butt into my writing studio. I realized how often b.s. stands in the way. Right at 7 when I sit to write, my blood sugar dips to 62 and takes with it any capacity to think clearly. so, I sit here, pecking away at the keys with one hand, the other holding up my sagging head, fully aware of the dullness and myriad (yeah, I know it's overused) of typos and punctuation crap. but, whatever, i guess i'll edit later. i have vowed to write weekly, so here is the crap that flows when i am low. now i will lower my sagging head to the cold desk at sit back as i watch my swirling mind slowly be fed more and more sugar and hope that the endless lows choose not to kill the parts of my brain that i need and use, maybe theyll destroy my worry center or my hyper critical part, or maybe the part that loves any sort of goodie late at night. guess we'll find out soon enough. (push "post"" without a second look) -