Sometimes Victory is going out without a Bra on

Sometimes, you just need to sit back, look at a crap day, and proceed to give yourself a pat on the back for what you have achieved rather than focusing on what your health has prevented you from achieving. Well, to be honest that is best for any day of the week but sometimes it matters that little bit more, when the achievements are that little bit harder to think of and would appear a little less relevant to those that don’t understand. For example, I started my day like any other with my breakfast, cup of tea, and internet checking. Then I realised I didn’t feel that great? I felt very full and very thirsty and thought ‘uh oh’. Grabbing the old blood glucose meter had me blinking in disbelief as a 27.8 flashed back at me. I then checked my ketones while racking my brains because I didn’t know why it was happening. I still can only reach the conclusion that my body is having a moment and being all ‘because fuck you, that’s why’ as it sometimes does. Luckily for me my ketones were very low and easily flushed away with all the water in the world that I decided was mine and that I was drinking at a pace that would challenge World Records.

It was pretty terrible.

Still, I managed to hoover and tidy a few things and make my own dinner rather than falling head first into the take-away menus and going ‘yep, that one’. I managed to slog my way through a chapter of a book and look up some feminist blogs.  Mostly I’m proud of myself for getting my dog ready and taking him out for a walk despite every part of me screaming that I was too tired and please no. I didn’t bother finding a bra for the outing; that seemed like far too much effort. I’ve come a long way as a woman and as a feminist to not be bothered by that fact. I was proud of myself for taking the dog out and not trying to work out how likely an accident was and if he would cope with just being taken to the end of my garden, minus shoes, under the cover of darkness in a few hours to wee on the lamppost. I figured that the victory was that I had put shoes on and gone outside and walked Nico when I felt I couldn’t. If someone worked out that my boobs were swinging free than fuck any negative opinion they had. I was outside while feeling crap!

The thing about my hypers, that is different from hypos, is that they just suck out your everything like a damn dementor from Harry Potter or something. I bounce back from hypos a lot better than I do highs. Of course hypos are just a lack of glucose in many ways while hypers can start to physically poison me. I think it makes sense that they can be harder to recover from.  For me it tends to take all, damn, day.People don’t see the danger the same way I find though. Unless you’re on the brink of being in hospital a hyper doesn’t seem to be as important. Take some insulin, you’ll come down right? They think it is that damn simple. A, B, C, all fixed up.Oh how I wish.

 You know, Doctor Christian Jessen got a bit of a backlash from referring to type one diabetes, or all diabetes, as a disease today. I hate that. I don’t agree with everything he tweets or what he tweets about diabetes. The character limit creates a lack of context I find but in regards to disease he is still right. Diabetes is a disease, and there is no running away from that or referring nicer terms because society thinks diseases are contagious and kill you. Not all diseases are contagious but they are still diseases and ours can and will kill you. Yes, it is a condition, yes it requires management but at the end of the day it is a disease of the pancreas that causes havoc with our bodies and can and does kill people all the time. A big part of being a good diabetic is admitting what you’re living with, in my opinion.

Today I lived with an awful hyper and made the best of it. Another day I might not. I nearly cried but didn’t. Another day I might not. Yes it is a disease but there is more to it than that, like the mental strain of living with said disease. You don’t just take X insulin to fix Y and carry on. You stumble through your day to day life and give yourself a pat on the back when it works out. Sometimes victory is walking the dog without a bra on. So what, it is still a win right?