The Life of a Diabetic » Living Normally with Diabetes

Happy 8 Year Diaversary to Myself

Chris — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:14:42 +0000

Today is my 8 year diaversary. I don’t celebrate or put much attention on it, but this year I have decided to talk about it a little more than that I usually do. 8 years ago from today, it was a Friday and I was extremely sick. I can still remember that day like it was yesterday. Having no clue or no idea what was wrong with me, while all my college football friends were out partying. I remember that it was recruit weekend, and I was supposed to have a recruit staying with me, but I had my roommate take him out instead, I felt bad. After throwing up for nearly 12 hours, one kid who decided not to go out that night felt that I needed to go to the hospital because in his words, “I looked like death”.

That’s when my life changed forever. A trip to the emergency room at about 1:00 a.m. on Saturday, April 3, 2004. As soon as I went into the emergency room, they attempted to test my sugar and I just remember that machine making a loud beep noise and the nurse saying, “ut-oh, that’s not good.” Yea, no shit!

I went straight back into an ER room when they started taking blood and giving me ice chips and an immediate insulin drip. That’s when the doctor walked in and said, “you have diabetes.” Three words that changed the rest of my life. I didn’t know how serious it was until he told me that if I would have went to sleep that night, I probably would have went into a coma and not woke up (BG was 8585). That was some pretty serious stuff to me.

Fast forward 8 years and here I am now. My life has changed completely. I live in a totally different part of the country, I am getting married in a year, I own my own business, I live every day to the fullest, and I am pursuing my dreams. Wait, by the sounds of that, you would think that I am a normal person? Oh yea, that’s right, I am. I am just a person living a normal life, but with diabetes.

I’ve made a lot of improvements in my diabetes management and attitude towards diabetes since I was diagnosed, but I have a far way to go to be where I want to be. I have never let diabetes let me down or get me sad. It’s just something that was thrown at me and it’s another challenge I must overcome. When I was a junior in high school, I had a knee injury, that to me, changed my life even more. I was an ESPN top 100 football recruit with full ride scholarship offers to some of the top schools in the country. My dreams of playing QB professionally were looking good. Then BAM, a total knee-reconstruction and I saw those scholarships slowly start disappearing. I didn’t let that stop me, I kept working until I was able to land a spot on a college football team. I used that as my motivation to help me get through the diabetes diagnosis.

8 years down and many more to come.

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Bumpy Start to Month of March

Chris — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 13:50:16 +0000

The month of March has not been the best start of a month for blood sugar levels. I have hit 300 every day so far this month. Not just once a day, but for a few hours every day. Morning blood sugars have been around 250-300 and when that happens it pretty much just screws up everything. Dinners have not been anything out of the ordinary, and neither has breakfast or lunch. I’ve just been in a diabetes rut, if you will, for a few weeks. I can’t seem to get myself out of it.

A couple of weeks ago, I tweaked a lower back injury that I had back in college and it has pretty much shut me down exercise-wise for about 2-3 weeks. I have not been able to ride my exercise bike, go for a run, or really do anything in that time frame, so it’s been really screwing up my diet and weight loss plan. I have a pool in our community, but I have not been utilizing that, I think it is time.

I have a doctors appointment in 2 weeks and my doctor said she would have liked me to lose some weight before that next appointment, and I don’t think that I am going to hit the goal that we had set for myself.

Well, this is just another day, week, month of my life with diabetes.

Take care ya’ll

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Achieving Failure Diabetes Style

Chris — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 23:58:38 +0000

Have you ever heard the phrase, “Achieving Failure”? I know, it sounds weird. The phrase can mean something different to everybody, but I am going to talk about what it means to me and how I feel about it. To me, it is very simple. When you set yourself up for failure, you are making it so much easier to achieve that failure. So it seems that the easy solution is to just not set yourself up for failure right? Sounds pretty easy, but it’s not. I’ve come up with a few ways that I have achieved failure with my diabetes and if I could just listen to my own advice, I think I can change that failure into a success.

Achieving High Blood Sugars

Of course this is something that you don’t want to “achieve”, but you don’t want to achieve any failures. I have been able to achieve this failure because, like I said, I set myself up for it. Deciding to eat fast food that is extremely high in fat and having a lot of carbs in it, not testing my sugar before I eat, not testing sugar after I eat, and not exercising. These all lead up to disaster blood sugar levels. So how do I set myself up for more success than failure with blood sugar levels? I think this is pretty easy, wear my Dexcom at all times. Of course changing the eating habits are going to help as well, but if I’m wearing the Dexcom, I can at least see the high blood sugars coming before they get too high.

Achieving Weight Gain

A lot of the same issues that go into the high blood sugars also affect the weight gain. The Dexcom is not going to help me with the weight gain, but cutting out the fatty foods and exercising more will help with the weight gain. So how am I able to st myself up for a more successful life and have better success at losing weight? Buying only healthy food and only having healthy food in my house. That currently is the case, but I still find ways to get unhealthy food into my system. So the next step is more will power, mental toughness if you will. Even if I don’t feel like eating what’s in the house, tough luck, I need to eat it. Giving myself a better opportunity to achieve success is what it is all about.

Achieving Unproductivity

I think that just about everyone has achieved this failure multiple times in their life. The unproductiveness that I am speaking about here is keeping up to date with the blog and interacting with other blogs and just keeping myself updated on what is going on in everyone’s life. This happens because I set myself up for it by not always putting dedicated time to the side for it. I run a business as well, so that takes up a lot more of my time than it once did, but it also provides me a lot more time (does that make sense?) Being productive within that time is the only way that I can continue to achieve success.

Achieving failure is typically a lot easier than achieving success. However, after reaching those failures, it is easier to reach the success afterwards, as long as you make the necessary changes. Well, I wish the best of success achievements to everybody out there. If you hit a failure, do not let it stop you. Learn from it, make changes, and turn it into a success.

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Why Do I Not Listen to Myself

Chris — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:56:35 +0000

Have you ever asked yourself that question? ”Why do I not listen to myself?” Now, I’m sure I’m not the only one who has weird, crazy voices in their head, but those aren’t the ideas I am talking about when I say listen to myself. I’m talking about the good things. Why, when I tell myself, “it’s time to ride the exercise bike”, I decide not to. Or when I tell myself, “you don’t need that second plate” I still go and eat that second plate?

If I could just actually listen to myself then I would be a far more healthier person. Last week, or maybe two weeks ago, I don’t even remember now, I wrote a post about working from home once again and the benefits that were coming from it. Earlier dinner times, cooking healthy meals, more time to exercise, and many other exciting things. I am still doing these things, but they are becoming few and far between now.

My business is beginning to pick back up again, so I am once again working 8-10 hour days, which is perfectly fine. I keep telling myself that I am going to wake up at 7 and exercise. When I wake up at 7, I usually just go right back to bed or lay around until about 8, which is when I open up the Macbook and begin my day.

Do you have any tips or suggestions on how to make yourself listen to…. yourself more often? If you do, I’d really like to hear.

Thanks ya’ll and have a kick ass weekend!

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Working at Home with Diabetes

Chris — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:37:19 +0000

You may remember last week I write about how I left my job at an interactive marketing agency to go back to running my own company full time. There are a lot of risks that I have taken in doing so, but all risks that I am willing to deal with in order to reap the rewards. One of the positive outcomes that I am already starting to see is better control of my diabetes. Working at home with diabetes has become a lot easier for me than working away from home in an office.

First, all my supplies are right here. There were plenty of times in the past when an infusion set fell out, and I forgot to pack a few extras in my bag and had to drive all the way back home. Now, everything is either in the room I am working in or the next room over. If an infusion set is bad or has fell out, no big deal, I have more right here with me.

The next diabetes related item that has improved is my eating habits. I have been very strict with keeping a tight schedule while working at home and continue to have a lunch break from 12-1. There is no more eating out because I “forgot my lunch at home.” If there were no left overs from the night before, than I can simply spend the time to make a nice, healthy lunch as opposed to going out and grabbing a slice of pizza or a sub. That is only lunch, dinner is an even better story. Before, I wasn’t getting up until after 7 p.m. and I was always so tired to make a nice dinner. Well, I typically end my day at 5:30 in order to start cooking dinner for when Amanda gets home from work. We have been done eating and cleaning by 7 in the first week of doing this.

Next on the list of things that have been going better since I began working at home is the increase in exercise. My exercise bike is 10 feet from my desk. I have found myself just getting on the bike and riding for 30-45 minutes once a day. There is no more excuses that I don’t have time to do it and that I am too tired to do it after I get home from work. Starting tomorrow, I am actually going to begin riding the bike in the morning and get a good hour workout in before the day even gets started.

Finally, my blood sugars have been better because I am testing more, and honestly, I am just not as stressed out. My blood sugars would get high throughout the day because I was so stressed at work. Then, I would come home, and still have about another 4-6 hours worth of work to do and I wasn’t getting to bed until about 3 a.m. This just was not good on my blood sugars at all. I am also sleeping a lot better too. I have gone to sleep by 11, almost everyday in this past week. That is most likely due to change tonight, since I have a few deadlines for tomorrow.

Looks like the health reasons for going back to working from home and running my own company again are slowly taking shape. The financial reasons, well, let’s just hope they stay on track as well.

Have a great night everybody.

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Blogging Taking a Back Seat

Chris — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 04:16:36 +0000

Obviously one of my main goals for 2012 has not been accomplished. I wanted to try and post something every day for the entire year. I knew it was going to be hard, but I didn’t think it was going to be this hard. I also didn’t expect as many distractions as I have had over the last couple of weeks. There’s been carnivals, fairs, festivals, sporting events, work, and just about anything else other than time to sit down and write. A lot of my time lately has been spent planning. My home office now has 4 whiteboards that are completely filled and each one is filled with ideas for it’s own project. I have a bad habit of jumping into things without planning them out properly, so I wanted to make sure that I plan my moves a little better in 2012, so that’s what I have been doing.

I haven’t been very active on Twitter or blog reading either, so I feel so damn out of it. It’s almost impossible to get through my Google reader anymore, but hey I am trying. I am back to reading books again, so that takes away most of my time for reading blog posts. I am trying to stay up to date with everybody, so if you receive an e-mail from me trying to catch up, it’s because I just want to be able to catch up with you and have not really had a chance to read every blog post.

Unfortunately, my diabetes has been taking a back seat to my business life and financial life. I have not been blogging and tweeting about diabetes, but have been financial planning, business planning, and life planning. It has also led me to not test as much and not put on a new Dexcom. Ya know, because it takes a whole 30 seconds to do it!

I am about to go through a total life changing event, so I have been stressed the hell out, which is one of the reasons for the massive planning, but I am beginning to feel comfortable enough with the change and am getting back to this blogging stuff.

I hope every one else has been having a great time.

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Still Sick, Just like 2 years ago

Chris — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 15:00:00 +0000

It’s official, my ears are totally clogged and I can barely hear out of them. I am tired, I am exhausted, and I just want to sleep.

This blog post is not very interesting, sorry.

I used to always laugh at my dad when he got sick, because he never did, but when he did, he acted like a little child. Reason I am telling you this, is because Amanda says that I am the same exact way.

Going to bed.

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Diabetes Sick Days Suck

Chris — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 15:00:00 +0000

I have been sick lately, and it sucks. It makes it even worse that my blood sugars are all over the place the last 48 hours because of me being sicks. Diabetes sick days suck! As soon as I start feeling sick, I automatically start thinking of the diabetes sick day check list from the Diabetes for Dummies book that I read in one day after my diagnosis. I never remember all of the items on the checklist, but there are a few things that stick out to me. The number one thing being that my blood sugar can stay high during the whole time that I am sick.

That’s exactly how it’s been the last few days. My throat started to get sore and then my ear started to hurt a little bit. Not good, because this is exactly what happened a couple of ears ago when I had the blocked eustachian tube and had clogged ears for a few weeks.

Anyway, back to this diabetes sick day stuff. I am not wearing my Dexcom right now because I wanted to relax in a nice warm bath when I started to feel sick, so I took the Dexcom off. I have been testing my sugar more often though, and I haven’t been able to get it below 200 since I started feeling sick.

I have also been extremely tired lately. And since I write most of my blog posts at night, I am getting extremely tired in the middle of this post. More later on being sick.

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2012 Goals – Not Resolutions

Chris — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 03:55:41 +0000

2012 is here. I can’t believe it, but it is here. I have not set any sort of resolutions in several years, but I do set goals. No, they are not the same thing. My resolutions always tended to be things that I am going to change about myself. My goals are all about making myself better and reaching a new level. So there are a few goals that I have for the entire year, but mainly the goals I have will be weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.

First goal…. 2 weeks of a vegetarian diet. I was going to do 2 weeks Vegan, but I do not think that I can do it. I do not want to set unrealistic goals either. If I can get through the 2 weeks of a vegetarian diet, then I will attempt the vegan at another point.

My second goal is to post every single day this year. That’s right, from January 1 – December 31. It will be tough, but I am going to do it.

My next goal will be a quarterly one (even though it involves day to day management), but I want to lower my A1C each of the 4 times I get it done this year.

There are multiple other goals that I have, that involve weight, exercise, work, financial and advocating, but there are too many to list out here.

I hope everyone has a great 2012.

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Driving with a Low Blood Sugar

Chris — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 03:17:00 +0000

Tonight when I was driving home from work, my blood sugar started to feel a little low. I was on Interstate 95, so there was no way that I could just stop and test. About 45 minutes before I left work, I tested and I was at 105. First, you may be asking, why are you testing, don’t you have a Dexcom? Yes, I do. I finished my first Seven days with the Dexcom and it was starting to peel off because of a lot of exercising and moving around I was doing, so I didn’t extend it. Anyway, back to the drive home.

Before I left work, I stopped at the soda machine and bought a pink lemonade that was high in sugar and took a swig of it. I didn’t start to feel a little low until about halfway through the drive home. I drank a little more of the lemonade and I felt fine. But then I thought, what if I didn’t test right before I went home and didn’t buy the lemonade? I didn’t have any candy with me like I usually do.

As soon as I came home tonight, I made sure to put more candy in my bag that is always with me. It made me nervous thinking that I didn’t have any candy in there, and I don’t know when I actually ate the candy that was previously in the bag. Do you keep sugar tablets or candy or something sugary in your car with you at all times? I used to have sugar tablets, but the ants in south Florida are crazy good at sniffing out that sugar.

So, tell me about your scary driving experience with a low blood sugar. I try to test before I drive home from work, but I don’t always test before every single time that I drive, even though that I know you should.

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