Impromtus at Leisure

Consistency has always been one of my shortcomings. I can start any new program or goal with gusto, only to be quickly stifled by my waning interest and quickly my real-life responsibilities take over.

It is the reason I am always on the lookout for new diabetic technology. If I can have some new gizmo or gadget, I will get interested in taking care of myself. For a while. And then the apathy sets in again until I find my next new thing.

It is also why there are huge gaps in this blog. I resolve to write consistently and do so for a while and then once again I have let months pass with nothing. I tried around New Year's when excitement is high all around for all types of new endeavors, but that only lasted a few days.

I convince myself that my lack of blogging is linked to the desire not to bore people or to put out anything that is less than inspired. But I think both of these simply are a fancy cover for my lack of discipline. Rousseau once said, "A sentiment takes possession of my soul with the rapidity of lightning, but instead of illuminating, it dazzles and confounds me; I feel all, but see nothing; I am warm, but stupid; to think I must be cool. What is astonishing, my conception is clear and penetrating, if not hurried; I can make excellent impromptus at leisure, but on the instant, could never say or do anything worth notice."

Since I first read that I have time and again felt it resound in my soul. And if that is, in fact, true, the only thing I need to produce un-boring work is to provide myself with the time and space to get "cool" and that takes discipline.

Thus, I resolve, once a week, to give myself the leisure so that I may make those impromtus and possibly even do something worth notice. I've heard it said that to be a writer you need to write something everyday. I don't know if I will publicly attempt that one yet, so I will set a more realistic and achievable goal, to write and publish a post weekly. Let's see if I can follow through.

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT-DAY 2

What a completely different experience than yesterday. I woke up feeling hungover. I don't think my body handled the twelve hours of hyper that was my day yesterday. I was dragging all morning until I passed out for two hours.

After that I felt a little more human. But the solitary confinement is starting to wear on me. I realized today the reason I love to have eight hours a day to write all alone is because I come home to an amazing family. Now that I can't hang out on the couch with the kids or sit around and talk about my day with Tony, that isolation is a bit overwhelming.

Only twelve hours left of the damned low-iodine diet, which also made today unbearable. After eleven days of eating the same meal again and again I am ready for a change. I am thinking a big plate of fish tacos tomorrow is definitely in order. I made the worst batch of low-iodine blueberry muffins, but had to eat them because there was nothing else in the house on the diet.

The only good thing that happened today was that I got tired at 9:30. It has been over five years since I have gotten tired by ten without taking one type of pill or another. I hope this is a sign of things to come.

My One Drop Interview...

Tell us your diagnosis story.

About a month before I was diagnosed, I began drinking water. And I hated water. But I was craving it all day long and even at night. I couldn’t make it through a one-hour lecture without needing to go get water. And of course, as I had reasoned, all the water made me get up several times a night to go to the bathroom. But that’s really the only things I noticed.

After a month of the water, I got a cold. But I still went to classes. At the end of my bike ride home from school, there is this short but super-steep hill. I called it Hell Hill. And each day I would try to get to the top without having to stand up on the pedals. And I had been making it pretty regularly by then.

But that day, I couldn’t even make it halfway up the hill before I had to jump off my bike to rest. And I mean slumped over in a big ball on the sidewalk kind of rest. After twenty minutes of this, I knew I had to get home. I didn’t have enough energy to ride, so I slung my body over my bike and wheeled myself home.

I didn’t have a doctor at college because I was never sick. So when a friend of mine told me she’d be driving by my hometown the next day, I grabbed a ride with her to check in with my old GP. We saw the doc for my sore throat and got some antibiotics. And then my mom started pressing him about my “other” symptoms. One I hadn’t even noticed.

She had noticed the water and bathroom trips. She also noticed the 15 pound weight loss in the last month. She demanded that he test me for diabetes. I think he knew he wouldn’t win that argument — my mom can be pretty persuasive when she wants to be–so he drew some blood and sent me back to school.

Two days later my dad called with the news and told me he’d be picking me up from school to take care of it. I spent three days in the hospital learning about my new regimen and then was back to school. Three days later I was off on a backpacking trip int he middle of the woods.

Why do you track your diabetes data?

If I am going to get better at my diabetes care, I have to know where I am right now. If I want to see how a new exercise affects my blood sugars to see if it is a good method, I need data to back it up. If I want to see if a new tweak to my food is bringing down my sugars, I have to have numbers.

Science cannot be done without data. And my life has become one big scientific experiment to maximize what I have.

What’s your favorite One Drop feature?

The Dexcom data analysis. There are so many data points to contend with that to analyze that data by hand would take forever. Now at any moment, I can see what my daily average is or how I’ve been doing this month. And I love that I can go back and compare it to previous months to see if I can draw out patterns of certain behaviors that bring on better sugars.

What do you do for fun?

Planning wild adventures, stand up paddling, building furniture out of wood. Lately I’ve been doing a lot more writing for me. Not books or blog pieces to publish, but pieces like screenplays that I enjoy just for the sake of the process and creating something that I can hold up and say I made this. Art for the sake of art.

What inspires you to be adventurous?

I get bored very easily. Which means that, in order for me to be engaged, my projects need to be wild and big. If they are too small I won’t have the pull to train for them and then I lose focus.

Why did you start the One Drop Caicos team?

I had done a solo adventure before and saw the amazing benefits of picking a huge adventure and then preparing for it. It takes all the tediousness of continual diabetes care and breathes new life into it. Now, I don’t test for the 23,345th time because I have to and I do it to be healthy for my expedition in a few months. It gives these tasks new purpose.

I wanted to take that and share it first hand with a group of people who could go out and share it with even more people.

What’s your favorite guilty-pleasure food?

I am a simple person when it comes to food. I eat cupcakes and cookies at times, but those aren’t that tricky with insulin.

But, Rice-Krispie treats with M&M’s. I can never get the insulin right for these so they are a guaranteed high. I don’t eat them very often, but when I do, I enjoy every minute of them.

What’s the weirdest place you’ve checked your blood sugar, injected insulin, changed your infusion set, etc.?

I’ve checked my Dexcom while submerged in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean during the Swim Around Key West. I’ve had to put in a new site at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Inserted a new Dexcom sensor in the cabin of a 35′ sailboat while between California and Catalina. I’ve corrected a high with an Insulin pen while on a Stand Up Paddle board in the middle of the Intracoastal Waterway in South Carolina.

Anything you’ve learned on your diabetes journey that you’s like to share with the world?

Find your active passion and then tie your diabetes care to preparing for it. Find your big adventure. It will provide you with a new dose of motivation to maximize your diabetes care.