Testing, Testing, 1, 2,3, Testing (….and 4,5,6,7,8,9,10)

I realize that initially I was going to post about the new diabetes app I got for my Android phone, dbees.com, however I had an incident at the pharmacy this morning that was both upsetting and frustrating and I feel the need to express a specific issue it brought up (in case you were really looking forward to hearing about the diabetes app, I will post about it sometime in the next 2 weeks for sure!)

Last night I called in my prescription for test strips as per usual, with the plan to pick them up this morning before commuting to school for my 10:30am class. Since it usually only takes about 5 minutes to pick up the prescription, I only left about that much earlier than usual to allow time to pick up my prescription.

When I arrived at the pharmacy, the pharmacy assistant told me that the prescription wasn’t ready because my order was too early compared to usual. Apparently I usually take 2 months to fill my prescription, and this time it had only been just over a month. What was upsetting was the way the pharmacy assistant was dealing with the situation. First of all, she seemed suspicious that I needed to refill my prescription so soon:

“You shouldn’t have to refill you prescription so soon.”

“Well I do. I need test strips!”

 I could not believe that this lady had the nerve to tell me when my prescription should be refilled. I’m a type 1 diabetic. I need test strips or bad things will happen (…such as high blood sugars, low blood sugars that go undetected etc.) I was clearly exasperated, but also adamant that I needed those test strips (Because I did! It’s not like I was stocking up to sell the test strips on the black market…I doubt a black market for test strips even exists! It's not like you can get high off test strips.) Yet the pharmacy assistant still didn’t seem to believe me:

“You would have to be testing about 10 times a day to fill out your prescription that fast.”

“Yes, that makes sense. I do test that much.”

In fact sometimes I test more than that. And the past month has been holidays so I’ve been testing more frequently than usual to combat holiday desserts. This isn’t a sin. I shouldn’t be made to feel bad about testing a lot. What really upset me about this encounter was that it’s the same sort of attitude I get from the nurses and my endocrinologist, when I visit my diabetic clinic. As if testing many times in one day is a bad thing. Do they really think I enjoy testing my blood sugars a lot? That poking myself with a pin is just the greatest feeling in the world? (It's not, in case you didn't catch the sarcasm. It is actually rather unpleasant.)

To  all the endocrinologists, nurses, diabetic health care practitioners, and apparently pharmacy assistants out there: the more times a day you test your blood sugars, the better idea you have about what your blood sugars are at any given time in the day. Makes sense, doesn’t it? I don’t have a continuous blood glucose monitor, so testing my blood sugars 10 times a day is sometimes necessary to achieve good blood sugar control. It’s the opposite of a bad thing, it’s a good thing if it helps me control my blood sugars.

So please don’t tell type 1 diabetics that we test too much. We don’t. We test just enough. 

New Year's Resolutions

“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves, we must die to one life before we can enter another.” –Anatole France

‘Tis the season for resolutions and new beginnings. I love beginnings. I love the excitement of starting fresh, of new ideas, daydreams, hopes and wishes. I have a lot of expectations for 2012, all of which I hope will come to fruition, but only a few of which I would like to list as my official New Year’s Resolutions.

As a diabetic, of course the first resolution I would like to make is regarding my blood sugar control. My HAICs have been consistently around 7 mmol/g in recent years, and my goal this year is to have an A1C of 5.8mmol/g before the end of 2012. But as any good diabetic knows, blood sugar control cannot be measured simply with an average, as an average can never truly tell the full story.  If I achieve that average through a rollercoaster of blood sugars that’s as crazy as this:

than it is not a fair representation of my blood sugar control. I’d like my blood sugar control to be quite a bit more boring and a lot flatter, probably something like this:

My second resolution is to prevent myself from taking on too many committments (work, volunteering, schooling), and by doing so, allowing myself the opportunity to truly give myself 100% to the commitments that I do make. I have the tendency to take on more than is healthy- in terms of levels of stress- (ahem the 4 jobs I was working plus full time school last semester) and I’ve found this to be not only unhealthy, but unsatisfying too.  I wouldn’t call myself a perfectionist, but I do take a lot of pride in what I do, and I get very frustrated whenever I’m time crunched and forced to do a mediocre job. So this resolution is designed to hopefully allow me the opportunity to excel at and enjoy everything I do this year.

A third resolution I would like to make for myself, and one which is quite easily measurable by the public at large, is to truly keep up with blogging once a week. There are so many benefits of weekly blogs, from developing a stronger online community to expressing myself in times of excitement and frustration, and I do believe that the act of blogging itself helps me maintain better blood sugar control, simply by being a constant reminder of my diabetes. 

My fourth resolution is simple yet difficult all in one, and it is to smile more. Cheesy? Yes. Difficult to measure? Certainly. Important? Immeasurably.  Many people describe me as a very upbeat, smiley person, but I want every smile to be from the inside out. I remember a quote I once read in a running magazine, “Wellness is the key to a long and healthy life. Many people have the wrong perception of it. Wellness is from the neck up, and fitness from the neck down. Too many people work out every day, but go around with the worst attitudes, which just wastes all their physical efforts.” I think that statement captures the importance of attitude and happiness, and I would like to be a more smiley, positive person this year.

My final resolution fits in nicely with these ideas of wellness and fitness. I’d like to run in more races this year. So far I’ve signed up for the Warrior Dash in July, which I’m extremely excited about, and as the warmer months near I’d like to sign up for some more 5 and 10ks, possibly even a half marathon.

Here’s to hoping the new year brings all sorts of good, and fewer sorts of bad.

Inconvenient Health

Accepting responsibility for one’s personal health is a theme that I’ve noticed frequently popping up in my life recently.  I’ve noticed that on a general basis, tending to one’s health in a short term context is much more widely practiced in society than tending to one’s health in a long term context.  Most people seem willing to take small, short term precautions (such as getting more sleep, drinking tea or taking vitamins) to prevent a cold or flu, but taking precautions (such as regular exercise, a healthy diet or wearing sunscreen) to prevent long term health problems such as heart disease or cancer, is much less practiced.  Maybe this is a result of societies need for instant gratification, a tendency to ignore long term pain if the short term gain is rewarding enough, maybe it’s rooted in the naive belief that “it’ll never happen to me”, or maybe my theories about society are completely wrong.  Whatever the cause of this attitude, I can’t help but feel that this blasé approach to our health is extremely ignorant and dangerous.     

I’m an employee of Leave the Pack Behind, a tobacco awareness organization present on campus’ across the nation, and I was recently talking with a friend about his smoking habits (we’ll call him John).  Having been bombarded since youth with “smoking is bad for you” messages, John is pretty tired of the same old reprimand, and he made a comment that really stuck with me:

“Smokers aren’t stupid. We know smoking’s bad for us, but repeatedly telling us that it is won't make us want to stop.”

But why do we knowingly do things that harm our health?  Why is knowing something is bad for us not a good enough reason to make us want to stop? I don’t mean to only target smokers, this question pertains to nearly everyone: anyone who eats fast food on a regular basis, or who rarely exercises, or who eats junk food, drinks pop or energy drinks, goes tanning or simply foregoes sunscreen.  We know all these things (plus many more) are bad for our health, yet I have never met a person who isn’t guilty of doing at least one thing on that list.  Sometimes our reason for doing these things is indulgence (we love the taste of good ol' fast food fries), other times it is mere laziness (going to the gym can be so inconvenient).  I know from a diabetic perspective that my blood sugars are not perfect 100% of the time, not even 90% of the time.  Why do I sometimes decide to eat 30 grams of carbs worth of dried mango when my blood sugar is 11.0 mmol/g, even though I know that my insulin won’t work fast enough to bring my blood sugars down and combat the carbs? Why do I fail to pay enough attention to my blood sugars on days when I’m really busy? Why is my health not my number one priority all the time, including on those busy days? 

It is ignorant and irresponsible to ignore our health in the present.  Our futures quite literally depend on it.  Aside from the obvious selfish reasons for wanting a long, healthy life, the burden of our poor health in the future will not fall on us but instead on our children and our grandchildren.  Ontario’s new Ministry of Health Promotion, which focuses on increasing health awareness, is, I believe, a baby step towards improving the health of the nation, but health begins on an individual level.  I think my friend’s comment about smokers exemplifies that statement.  Just because someone has educated us about the risks or health concerns of a particular habit doesn’t mean we’re going to stop doing that habit. Nobody can force us to take our health seriously, it is a personal responsibility we bear on a 24/7 basis.   Only caring about it 50% of the time or 75% of the time is not enough.  I know I will try harder to take control of my own health, to consciously think about it and make it a number one priority.  Will you? 

"To keep the body in good health is a duty... otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear."

- Buddha