Diabetes Awareness Month.

November is Diabetes Awareness Month and I'd like to say a few words about it.

This is my day with diabetes. This is every single day of my life with diabetes. These are the things I need every day to keep myself alive and well. I forgot to add Glucagon to my first pic, but that's the shot I need when I hit a low so bad I become unconscious. Never had to use one and I hope that I never will. And I'm suuuuper excited because I'm gonna get Libre (non-stop blood sugar monitor-sensor-thingy, sorry I don't know the official definition) next week!

Diabetes is unpredictable. There is no good or bad kind of diabetes. It appears in so many ways. I have lows and I have highs. Mostly highs recently because of an ongoing stress and I have no clue what to do about it. Type 1 diabetics simply cannot live without insulin, even if they hit a perfect number and stop eating carbs. Because blood sugar can get high because of stress, adrenaline rushes, periods, infections, lack of sleep, skipping breakfast, dehydration and sometimes just for no freakin' reason.

Diabetes is needle caps and test strips in the most random places. Diabetes is a rollercoaster of highs and lows. Diabetes is carb counting with poor math skills (for me at least). Diabetes is forgetting to change your lancet (every 6 months is NOT enough, man I tell you...) Diabetes is battling against your own body that is attacking you every single second.

There are no breaks. There's no needle-free day. I have to inject myself every day at least once and even that is not nearly enough for my health and well-being.

However, there’s a little bit of positivity in all this. Diabetes has given me some great qualities. Strength. Empathy. Endurance. Courage. Forgiveness towards myself. Self-awareness. Maturity. Appreciation. Enlightenment. Compassion. Bravery. Fortitude. Substance. Personality. Daring. Grit. Guts.

Yeah. This sounds about right. Meme copyright: Type 1 Diabetes Memes.

I also LOVE the memes and other clever jokes about diabetes. Because I don't want to be all serious and sad about this all the time. The best days in life are the ones that all this, the injecting, carb counting and all that jazz, I can do without trying and thinking. When diabetes just IS. The days when I feel quite normal and even if I don’t, my mood is not affected.

I don't want pity. I just want to be understood and people being patient with me. My sudden mood swings when I'm low and my crankiness when I'm high (pun intended). My Facebook shares and blog posts about diabetes. I promise I'll lay low when November ends, or at least we're past Nov 14th. Because that's THE DAY and here in Finland we have this thing called Sinirannepäivä (engl. Blue Wrist Day?). I might have something special for you guys that day, if my motivation, and mood and technology are all in sync at the same time.

A random pic of me with Iivari, my bro's hippo friend.

For now I just have to deal with all this because there is no cure. Yet. #hope