Please forgive me Diabetes for I have sinned against you. Have you ever been to a confessional? I haven't and I suspect if I did it might be a case of "Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin!"
T1D comes with advice from the professionals for living healthily and rightly so! Once upon a time, that advice came in the form of strict rules. "You will eat at X O'clock, inject at X O'clock, wake up when we tell you to and pee in a very small tube for us four times a year". Things have improved, of course, and now I only need to pee in a very small tube twice a year.
With rules, comes rule breaking or maybe rule bending. And so, today, I present to you some stories of my own rule breaking and bending for your consideration. They are all going to be Diabetes related, of course and all suitable for family viewing although I encourage you, reader to not copy any of the below or think that because that bloke from the Internet got away with it then you will too. Are we clear? Super! Let's begin.
My rule breaking began at an early stage. Oh, lancets were being changed, carbs counted and injections given on time (at that stage) but at school things went very differently. Please check out Hobnobs in Hiding for some tales of my schooldays with T1D.
Following education, with a job, money in my pocket and a Fiesta Popular Plus on the the drive, the world was my oyster! Diabetes had to tag along despite me generally ignoring it and refusing to answer it's calls. Those were the days of parties, drinking, pubs, clubs, girlfriends and things were great! Of course they were. I think most people refer to their late teens and early twenties as great times. I'm no exception although I do feel incredibly lucky.
Shall we begin with hypos? I once made a video which described my worst ever hypo and it's still true to this day. Following a weekend of excess, I woke for work, showered, injected (twice per day mixed insulin jabs at this point), jumped into my car and headed off to work, no finger prick. I didn't need to take finger pricks, I hadn't for years at that stage, I could feel when I was low. Yeah, right! Yawning, tired, a bit hazy? Absolutely, it'd been a long weekend and I was looking forward to getting to work for a rest. However, yawning, tired and hazy are also strong hypo symptoms for me. Then the sweating began and I opened a window. Then the shaking... the shaking... oh no! I'm hypo. I grabbed my bag (still driving at this stage) and opened juice box after juice box. Because of my ignorance of T1D and the frequent hypos that I was coping with, I used to carry several with me in the car to take to work. I was probably 5 minutes from my place of work when the flashing lights began. I'd stopped the car and took it out of gear. Engine still running, I reached for what must've been my third or four juice box and then nothing. Black. I woke up in hospital, tried to punch a doctor and then started crying.
I'm lucky because I'd stopped my car in a busy place where police would often drive by. One spotted me with smoke bellowing from my car's exhaust. At that stage I was having a seizure and had planted my foot on the accelerator. There were seconds between that happening and me stopping the car, even fewer seconds between that and me taking the car out of gear. The police officer dragged me from the car, ripping my blood soaked shirt open in the process. I don't know if he was expecting to perform CPR or was just clumsy. Blood soaked? Oh, yes, I had bitten my tongue during the seizure and things got a little red for that lovely white shirt. I'm lucky. I spent the next week at home, recovering from that incident which could've quite easily killed me or many innocent others. Diabetes, on that occasion, had had enough of being ignored. My behaviour changed, I began testing my BG before driving and ate a breakfast. I took all my Diabetes stuff to work and confessed my condition to my incredibly kind and understanding boss, who hadn't seen or heard from me in a week.
Hypers were more frequent... I think! That's because, as you've just read, I wasn't taking any finger pricks. I don't remember getting any test strips or lancets on a prescription for several years! I wonder if my GP thought that I was cured? I was getting my insulin pens and needles and that was it. Remarkably, I was never unwell because of high blood glucose, no DKA, no frequent need for the toilet or raging thirsts. I would love to see my BG results from those days but suspect they would reflect my extremely infrequent HbA1c tests which were often around 9 - 10%.
How many HbA1c tests did I submit to? After passing out, following one when I was 11 years old, I have memories of three others over the course of the next decade. I didn't have time for blood draws and the ensuing bollocking from my then DSN. I was young! I was a roarer! a rogerer! a gorger and a puker! (You'll understand that if you've ever watched Blackadder).
My DSN gave up trying to convince me to have an A1c. Instead, she relied on my detailed blood glucose diaries. Never in the course of human history had so many lies been written in one book, it was like a Tory manifesto! Of course, she couldn't question why I was always between 4mmol and 8mmol, solidly for a month because I wasn't letting them take an A1c from me! Those works of fiction kept me in their good books for years. Little wonder that I gained some success as a poker player in later life.
"How was your appointment?" family would sometimes ask. Oh, you know, fine considering I hadn't been and was eating a bacon sandwich in the Cafe instead. Nothing tastes as a good as a bacon sandwich when you should be getting strips torn off you by an angry DSN. Yum!
Life changes. I grew up, kind of, eventually and with family comes greater responsibility. Today, I check my BG all the time! I wear a CGM and finger prick to calibrate it. I go to my appointments. I don't lie to my HCPs. My A1c is between 6 and 7% and I will submit to as many blood draws as I'm asked for.
My blog is for my thoughts and brief tales relating to Diabetes. I have a larger collection of notes and stories which aren't necessarily family friendly. Confessions Uncut, if you will, which might make an interesting book. Should I write it?
In the meantime, if you relate or have a confession then tell me everything, my child in the comments below or Tweet me!
Thank you so much for reading this blog. I do appreciate your visit and your support. As you might know, I LOVE COFFEE! So I've teamed up with a thing called Buy Me A Coffee. If you enjoy my content and appreciate the time it takes to create such things then you can buy me a coffee! If you leave your Twitter @ name when you buy me a coffee, I will personally thank you. If you'd rather be anonymous then that's totally cool. Thanks for the caffeine!
