D-Blog Week – Day Four: Ten Things I Hate About You, Diabetes

I'm re-posting this post from yesterday since Blogger has had some kind of major melt-down and it seems to have disappeared! I did post, honest! :)

Today’s brief: Having a positive attitude is important . . . but let’s face it, diabetes isn’t all sunshine and roses (or glitter and unicorns, for that matter). So today let’s vent by listing ten things about diabetes that we hate. Make them funny, make them sarcastic, make them serious, make them anything you want them to be!!

This topic is a little close to home for me right now. I’ve never really hated diabetes before, although it has been a major inconvenience for the last sixteen years! I’ve managed to get my doctorate, spend long periods of time living and travelling in Africa, hold down a pretty intense job and work all over the developing world, and diabetes hasn’t stopped me. It’s always been something that I just get on with – no point in complaining as that wouldn’t change things. However, since having an extremely traumatic childbirth experience within the last month, suddenly I see my diabetes in a different light, and have needed to process some pretty intense feelings…

Ten Things I Hate About You, Diabetes:

• I hate that you are gloriously inconsistent, and that ‘following the rules’ (whatever that means) doesn’t lead me to perfect blood sugars every day.
• I hate that there in fact aren’t any ‘rules’ and that most non-PWDs don’t understand that.
• I hate that you always deliver crappy blood sugars at the most inconvenient time possible (as a new Mum who’s breastfeeding, can I just say that it’s really rubbish to have a hypo just as your baby wants to be fed).
• I hate that you ruled every minute and second of my pregnancy, and that I couldn’t relax and enjoy it, since I was always thinking about blood sugars, insulin doses, what to eat, and how all of this might affect my unborn baby.
• I hate that even though I maintained an HbA1C of 6.6% or less throughout my pregnancy, my baby son spent five days on neonatal intensive care with blood sugar issues.
• I hate that this was probably a consequence of my insulin resistance – thanks for nothing, diabetes.
• I hate that diabetes meant that I had to be induced at 38 weeks gestation – since the induction went horribly wrong and I had an intrapartum haemorrhage, which led to foetal distress for my son, and probably compounded his blood sugar issues even further.
• I hate that diabetes will be my constant companion again when we try to have a second child.
• I hate that diabetes is in my genes, and that my children or their children might one day have to go through all of this too…
• And I hate that so many other people are also having to deal with living with you as an unwelcome houseguest.

**Rant over** – that feels much better, actually! :)