I'm back!

It has been way too long! I wish I could say I’ve been off on crazy summer adventures, but I really haven’t. Of course I’ve been spending as much time with friends as possible, relaxing by the pool, and working on my tan, but I haven’t really been up to anything so spectacular that I couldn’t spare a few minutes to check in with the OC. I’ve mentioned before that diabetes as writing topic just gets a little boring at times, and I guess that’s why I haven’t felt the need to write here. Perhaps I need to share a little more me and little less “diabetor” to get the writing rolling again?

This summer has given me the opportunity to spend a lot of time with my friends. The majority of my friends live in a town about twenty five minutes away, but four of my closest friends live only five minutes from me so we’ve been trying to make the most of that. Usually just hanging out by my pool, watching TV, going to the park, or out to dinner, but it’s really more about the company. Since I am one of the few with a license and a car, I’ve taken the position as official driver to get all of us across town to see the rest of our friends. We hop in my bug, crank up the tunes, blast the a/c, and try make memories we hope will last forever.

Oh, oh guess who has braces now!? ME! I am probably the only person to ever be excited about braces, but I am. Okay, so it’s been a bit painful, and my OCD tendencies have now turned to obsessive multiple teeth brushings per day. But I know it will all be worth it in the end. Apparently they make me look younger, which is not good because I already have a “baby face” (at least that's what I've been told). I should probably mention I have to get a few teeth pulled because along with my baby face, I still have two baby teeth. Weird, right? Well they are still there because I don’t have any adult teeth underneath. Crazy!

I finished a class!!! I got a B! It was an honors Algebra II class, so I’m happy with that. I’m also on the verge of finishing another one. If I keep up this pace, I will definitely be applying to college for 2009, just like my friends! But then that leads to the next topic…

I am so freaked out about the idea of college. In the “I can not make this decision, stop asking me questions about my possible majors, no I don’t have a specific place in mind, ahhhh leave me alone” sort of way. One of my closest friends is struggling with this too. I can easily hold her hand telling her it will be okay, but I can’t do the same for myself. I think it’s because the idea of going to college was real until very recently. It’s hit me like a freight train, and I am still trying to recover from the impact.

Well I hope everyone is having an amazing summer! I’m off to learn some Spanish, you know so I can graduate on time and think about college...ew.

Summertime and the blogging isn't so easy.

Well it's been over a week...there are things I could write about, but I don't have enough time to get my thoughts together. You see my friends got out of school this past Friday. Since then it's kind of been non stop socializing and you know how that goes. So for now I've only got a few bullet points to keep you up to date.

• I'm over my pump slump.
  
• Took the SATs on June 7th. In an attempt to avoid lows I reduced my basal rate a bit, and ended the test at a cloudy 309...no wonder that last math section seemed like a foreign language. I'm hoping I still pulled off the score I was aiming for, because I really do not want to go through it again.
• Made it to day 235 for Diabetes 365, and then I just stopped taking pictures... I'm not really upset about it, and I'm not going to start up again. I never really felt like I was accomplishing the right goal/ any goal at all with the project. I also felt like highlighting Diabetes so much was not doing me any good. So I give up. I guess I should go tell them.
• In the past few days I've been slacking a bit with school, but I've got a goal and I'm going to reach it. By this time next year I will have that diploma in my hand!
• It's been ridiculously hot here. Like really really really hot! Seriously, I was sitting in a restaurant with my friend and the sign at the bank across the street said 110 degrees. Oh and if you don't know about the humidity of an East Coast summer just take my word for it. It's rough!
• Yesterday, I went swimming for the first time this summer. I completely forgot about putting my pump back on after 2 hours. I got caught up in conversation with a friend...4 hours after my disconnect I was 406mg/dL. I've learned my lesson.
  
• Oh yeah I also never told you my final thoughts on the KeyNote meter...in a few words. I'm not a fan.
  

This one is all over the place.

First of all, Happy (Belated) Mother’s Day every mom!
Being a mom is one of the hardest jobs on the planet, and you deserve more than just a single day of recognition.

My thoughts have been extremely tangled lately.

School work has been the main priority, and that of course causes me to think about my future. When I think about my future there are three things that always come to mind. The first is somewhere along the lines of, “I can do this. I’m really making progress. College is really an attainable goal.” The second is more, “What if I can’t do this? It will never be enough. No college will ever want me. I’m a failure. My life sucks. I look like absolute shit on paper.” The third and hardest to think about is the fact that no matter what happens with my academic career, I’ll be watching my friends from the sidelines. I won’t have a graduation ceremony with the white robe and the smiling family in the stands. If I decide that college isn’t the right path, or I don’t feel that I’m ready, I’ll have to see my friends go off into the sunset leaving me behind. It’s hard to even write this. I guess most of all I’m just so scared that it will turn out that way, even if I do everything I can for it not to happen. The circumstances surrounding my decision to start distance learning were difficult to deal with, but now it’s even harder when thoughts like this make me doubt the choice I made.

Tomorrow I have my quarterly endocrinologist appointment. I had blood drawn last week, and I know for a fact that the results are not going to be good. If they are I would be completely surprised, and I would feel undeserving. I can see my grip slipping, and the proof is on my meter. My averages have started climbing up reaching the 140’s. At first I was writing it off. It’s stress, that time of the month, or just a fluke, but it’s gotten worse. I can see patterns in my eating habits, lax in my corrections, no logging. I’m not beating myself up, I’m acknowledging my weaknesses. I’ll get it together, I have to. I just hope that my endo doesn’t rip into me. That’s not really his style, but you know how easy it is to expect the worst the night before an appointment. If he mentions anything about my weight or how much insulin I’m taking, I can already see myself crying about it. I would appreciate if he would offer better solutions than taking Symlin or exercising more. He always says things like, “Your weight is up” or “You sure do take a lot of insulin,” but he rarely offers more than those few words. I want to scream at him, “Would you like me to start cutting my insulin?!” If I wasn’t as obsessed with striving for good management, I could see his words driving me to a bad place with my control. I know he means well, and he’s actually one of the best endos I’ve ever had, it’s just frustrating sometimes.

So until tomorrow…

Monday Mash...

Well, the dance was a lot of fun. I met up with a few friends, and we danced the night away. As usual I complained about the heat from all of the people being in such a closed space, and how much my feet hurt in my favorite red heels by the end of the night.
On the diabetes front things were excellent. The dress I wore already had pockets, so I just slit a little hole in one for my tubing and no one even knew it was there. I arrived at the dance with a blood sugar of 106 on an 85% basal rate. I ate a pack of Swedish Fish to account for a bit of IOB left over from dinner and then I hit the dance floor. I ended the night at a fabulous 118. I would post a picture of me all gussied up, but I did not realize until the end of the night how low cut my dress was...so no pictures to embarrass myself even further by letting the whole world see.

I went to the dentist today. Most of it was good news. I am luckily blessed with no wisdom teeth, seriously I do not have them! I also don't have any cavities, but I do have to go back for the dentist to check out something (he suspects a cavity) underneath a sealant that I had put on 3 years ago. Unfortunately the hygienist did detect a small amount of gingivitis around my bottom front teeth, but that can easily be remedied with my "home care regimen". It's basically that I hate mouth wash, and I don't floss every single day (are there actually people that do?) So I guess I'll have to suck it up, and ramp up that aspect of my diabetes related regimen because unfortunately diabetes and gingivitis are related.

Time for another long week. I'm planning to focus more on my school work, we will see where that leads. I'm hoping I can get into a more consistent groove, because what I've been doing has not been as productive as I would like.

Have a great week!

Quick Update.

Today feels like Friday for some reason. I'm going with bullets for this one because I just don't have a lot time to waste.

• Yesterday I commenced OSS aka Operation Stop Slacking. I've set goals for my school work and a system to track my progress. It's weird because as much as my friends, parents, sister, therapist, and whoever else encouraged me to do my work, I knew it wouldn't happen until I got sick of the way things were. It happened Tuesday when I realized that not only would I not experience a proper graduation next May, I might not even "graduate" at all at the pace I'm going. So I thought to myself OSS begins tomorrow (yesterday)! Don't worry I'm only posting this as a quick break from my school work.
  
• Today my best friend is leaving on a trip to Greece for spring break with her AP World History class. I barely get to see her as it is, and now she's leaving for the entire break. It's alright though, she's been having a lot of family issues and I know this trip will do her good. Later this afternoon I'm heading to her house to bid her adieu!
  
• Tonight I'm heading to another close friends house for her 2 day 17th birthday celebration. The girls who were invited will be sleeping over tonight and the boys will join us tomorrow for her real birthday 3.14 (Pi day for the math nerds out there). This is her present.
• Oh and a thank you to everyone who eased my fears from my last post. I can be a bit irrational when I over think things, so thanks for helping me out. The information will definitely serve me well!

See you Monday!

I've become...

One of those weird home schooled kids.
It kind of freaks me out.

I have entire friendships that exist completely on the internet.
Don’t worry. I’m not talking about To Catch A Predator chat room friendships.

I’ve realized that Facebook creates a strange dynamic.
First it allows me to “stalk” people who I am no longer friends with. We’re talking elementary school friends and the boy I used to like. It’s horrible, I feel so creepy even admitting that.
It also has the ability to bridge the gap between myself and people I would never have been friends while we were classmates at my former school. It’s amazing how much a change in your “status” can draw people to your page. I’ve bonded with people over things like Juno, political views, and similar musical taste. In that respect it’s pretty fun.

Oh and let’s not forget the bloggers. It’s really weird to me that there are people I consider to be my "friends" who I’ve never met and are way older than me.

I’m actually slightly excited about my school prospects. (Shhh… don’t tell my mom or she’ll start bombarding me with questions.) At my old school it felt like I was going through the motions, stuck into a mold and a specific set of curriculum guidelines. Now I can see the options and all the possibilities that I have in regards to courses and my future. It’s a bit freeing.

I’ve starting writing in these little notebooks. One is for blog ideas, the other is for little ideas that come to me. I’ve never been a “writer”, I still don’t even think I am. I don’t like poetry, and now I’m writing things that are basically in that creative writing poetry realm. Writing used to feel like a chore and something I just did for a grade. It’s all less stifling, and I’m actually learning new things about myself.

Obviously the next logical step is joining some strange religious cult, right?

(I'm working on a new template, bare with the random hideousness you may encounter when you visit the blog through out the next few days.)

By Request.

My sister would like me to write a new post. The only thing is, I have nothing to say. Diabetes wise my numbers are staying solid, and I'm relatively happy with all things diabetes. I have the most boring life ever. It consists of me waking up in the morning, eating breakfast, doing school work, watching tv while I eat lunch, returning to school work, and reading blogs/surfing the internet until dinner. I spend evenings reading, watching something on DVR, or harassing my friends on Facebook. I have very little to talk about so, here's where you come in. Do you have any burning questions you would like to ask me? Is there anything you want to hear my wise (yeah right) 16 year old opinion on? Throw me some topics, and maybe just maybe I'll have something new for you. Otherwise I'll just be bopping around commenting, and waiting for something to pop up in my dLife.

I don’t know how to explain it.

But I’ll try. Last night I got into verbal argument with both of my parents, separately. (There goes my perfect teenager image.) The first time it was because I overheard my father talking about “the way I talk to adults” and that he isn’t having it anymore. So I flipped out, because this is a line he uses all too frequently. There is an extremely long back story to why I flipped out, involving the fact that my father is bi-polar. As a result he wasn’t involved much in my childhood, although he has always lived in our house. Because of his emotional unavailability and an incident that occurred 2 years ago, our relationship (or lack thereof) is very volatile and there is an admitted lack of respect that goes both ways. So anyway I said a lot of admittedly disrespectful things, but I was angry and I could not help it. So he ended up leaving the house. I then said more admittedly to her. It all ended badly and is yet to be resolved. I don’t even know why I am telling anyone about this. It is just that today I had one of those days where everything felt completely wrong, and I didn’t have any way of fixing things. I could cry about it, but I couldn’t talk to anyone. I told my sister but that was just worse, because she is studying for law school exams and the last thing she needs is for me to burden her with this.

Then to top it off, for some reason because of my Diabetes 365 picture today and the responses I got from it. I got upset. I felt like all of my diabetic life I was short changed. I had diabetes for all 11 years of my life in traditional school. I only had 3 weeks in school without it. But guess what I never had? A 504 plan or anything like it. My parents never even knew about them until my sister got sick when I was 7, and still I never had one. No one ever told us they would be appropriate for a child with diabetes. Not a doctor, not a school nurse, not a guidance counselor. Thankfully I never needed anything special for my diabetes while in school. Yes, the trips to the nurses office where tedious and I thought there had to be a better way. But what did we know? We asked for change and still no one told us what exactly we needed to do. No one ever gave my parents the guide for diabetes and school (does it exist?). This got me thinking. How many kids out there have any type of disability that could require special adjustments or protocol while in school, but their parents are under informed or are told that nothing is available to help? I’m upset about this, and it doesn’t even matter for more me anymore. I no longer attend traditional school. I’m upset that little me went to school every day with diabetes and something could have been different. But I am more upset that there are probably a lot of kids out there like me who are not being helped. I have no idea where I am going with this like I said it’s just one of those days…

A few bits and joining the project!

I have decided to join the Diabetes 365 Flickr Group Project.

Here is my first picture.

It symbolizes my last full week (Monday - Sunday) on injection therapy. As of next Friday I will be a pumper!

• I'm very curious about my pump start, Monday the 22nd. I know all doctor's do it differently, but I would love to hear about other pumper's experiences.
• I have been toying around with my pump to get familiar with it. I have watched almost all of the training videos on the Cozmo website.
• I have broken down 2 infusion sets just to see how everything really works.
  
• I am just ready for it all to start!!!
• I apologize for the absence I was busy getting ready to go away to Pennsylvania for my Grandfather's 80th birthday party! Which turned out perfectly. Here is a picture of a farm near their house.
  

• Now I'm off to do some school work, which I have definitely been slacking on. That will have to end soon, because this week I am being officially un-enrolled from my former school. No more safety net.
  
• These next few weeks are going to be full of new adventures, I hope you are ready for the ride!
  

5 S's

Software
Recently I started using SugarStats to see if it would help me document the trends I see in my readings. I do not have the software for my Ultra Smart, so I needed something else to create graphs and logs. I would have to say that I am not satisfied with SugarStats. I can see how it is helpful for some, but I didn’t feel like the graphs were detailed enough, and I also hate how you have to enter meds and readings separately. It took FOREVER! So I went to trusty Google and found something better GlucoseOne. It has the graphs I wanted, individual days showing the ups and downs I see daily not just averages. You can enter meds and readings at the same time. I love it!!

Sprained
I sprained my ankle while helping my sister move into her 3rd floor apartment on Wednesday. My blood sugar was low, but being stubborn I was still trying to help. So somewhere walking down the steep and narrow stairs, my ankle twisted in and whalah sprained ankle. If my blood sugar hadn’t have been low I would have had better reaction time and coordination. Stubborn should be another a “S” in this post. Now to one of the things that could have caused this low.

Symlin
So Thursday evening I decided to stop using Symlin, for a few reasons. Mainly the fact that I was having excruciating headaches. I know they were Symlin related headaches because when I would skip a dose the headaches didn’t happen. Before taking Symlin I would rarely get headaches, and Symlin is the only thing that has changed. Plus, the headaches happened just as I would be mid way through any meal that I took Symlin before. This is the scenario: I would test for my before meal number inject my Novolog, inject the Symlin, go eat, and about halfway through my head would be throbbing, and I would become so nauseated that I could never complete a meal. Then for 2 hours after all I could do was sit with my eyes closed. Now this wasn’t really happening when I started, and when it was it wasn’t this bad. It wasn’t like a migraine, it was just a little nausea and a slight twinge in my head. But now its horrible, plus I don’t really know if my improved numbers were just Symlin, or Symlin combined with my new found dedication to Diabetor. Which leads me to the next “S”….

Settling
I think before I started taking the Symlin I was settling. Just taking whatever my doctor said, following that and not trying to make anything better on my own. Tweaking has become my new hobby, carb ratios, correction factors, timing, testing. I think that if I hadn’t started with the postprandial blood sugar checks, constant note taking and correcting. I would not have seen success. I do not doubt that Symlin as a drug actually helped me, but I think it actually motivated me to gain more control overall. And since stopping, I have actually had the same or better numbers (weird I know), by just using the things I learned while on it.

School
I think I mentioned in another post that I was beginning the process of home schooling myself, using a self directed program. So as of a few weeks ago I became and official student of Keystone National High School. I have been having a lot of trouble with motivation and my mom is stressing this fact. I think it has a lot to do with the fact, that this step solidifies that I will not be returning to my high school. It’s not the actual school, seeing as I had a horrible time there and they did not cooperate with the many health issues (anxiety, depression, and Diabetor) that prevented me from being the best student I know that I can be. It’s that this distances me from my friends, and being a person with anxiety it’s already really hard to get myself to a place where hanging out with people is actually fun and not overwhelming. I just feel like it will cause my friends to grow away from me, because I won’t be participating in a huge part of their lives anymore. I guess time will only tell. And for another "S".

Sayônara!