Failure?

How many times have you . . .

Gone for a checkup, hoping for a good A1c test, and come away disappointed, discouraged, and basically feeling like, "Why bother"?

How many times have you . . .
Miscounted the carbs in a meal, only to be shocked when your meter shows you to be at toasty 307?

How many times have you . . .
Forgotten to bolus altogether before eating, and then remembered while you were not in a position to do anything about it?

How many times have you . . .
Found yourself startled from your sleep to find yourself covered in sweat, your heart pounding, your ears ringing, barely able to think straight? Simply because you took too much insulin, or you didn't eat enough. And then found yourself 'panic-eating' yourself to a rebound that would make the NBA interested in your technique?

How many times have you . . .

Left the house without your supplies?
Been tempted by that all too familiar 'starchy-off the glycemic-index chart' munchy thing . . . and given in?
Found yourself too exhausted to exercise, or too tired to participate in an activity, only to feel like a failure?

OR [insert your own life-scenario here]

How many times? Like a failure?
You, my friend, are SO NOT a failure! Let me say that again. You DID NOT FAIL! You are human. It happens.

Everyday, you are gonna get up, and no matter what you do, stuff is gonna happen to you. Some of it may be good, some of it may even be great, and some of it may fall into that category I call 'major suckage'. What determines which category it falls into? You do.

See, you, and you alone are going to be the one who ultimately decides how you are going to view all of the things that will happen to you during your day. You, and you alone. Oh, other people will try to tell you how you should feel, and even how you should act and react to all of these things. But ultimately, it's up to you. It's that inner voice we all hear in our head all day long. Not voices, that's quite another thing. Me? I talk to all of those voices, all day long. :-)

I'm talking about your own self dialoging. My thought is this; if ultimately, you are the only one who can decide how you feel about something, that also means that you are also the only one who can and will ultimately decide if that something your inner voice is talking to you about is a failure or not! It's all about attitude! It's not about the attitude, the words, the feelings, and the 'they meant well but were SO misguided' statements of those around us. It's what you think, and what you feel about 'the stuff' that matters.

Diabetes Really Hurts

Today really sucks!!!!!

For some reason, no matter how much insulin I pump, my blood sugars won't come down. Let me explain how this feels (without getting into the damage that it's doing to my body). This high sugar makes my head feel like it's swimming in murky water. The pressure is built up behind the eyes for a stress headache and the top of my head wants to pop open. The pressure is making a slight ringing in my ears and my mouth tastes fruity. My stomach is upset like I have the flu, nausea and heartburn. I need to eat but my body is saying its not hungry, so I'm shaky because I have not eaten. I've been pricking my finger to get a drop of blood every hour since 8:00 am, my finger are sore. I feel tired even though I got enough sleep last night. I need to go for a run or ride or something but I just can't bring myself to get out, don't feel well enough for it. OK that's how I feel.

When I had cancer I would feel much worst when I would have a chemo treatment. But chemo had a beginning, a middle and an end. I would know when I was going to be sick, I could prepare for it. How sick I was going to be and when it would end. Unlike chemo, diabetes does not have a beginning middle and end, it is constant. You have it yesterday, today and tomorrow. Yesterday you felt good or at least normal. Today you feel like dirt. You may feel better when and if you get your blood sugars up or down, but your not sure when that will be. Tomorrow, no way to tell. The only thing about tomorrow that is for sure is that 'you will have diabetes.'

Because everyone knows about diabetes but no one actually 'KNOWS' about diabetes. You are expected to operate like nothing is wrong. Because everyone has a grandfather who had diabetes and he was able to do something, you with diabetes should be able to do everything. Everyone understand about being sick but know one gets being sick every moment of every day. I know I'm not alone in this, but I feel like it.

this is a double shot cappuccino. I've been wooking on the foam art.

New Running Partner

The weekend went by without a post from me. I've already broke my promise to myself. Well it's Tuesday and I'm just going to write a quick post so I don't fall too far behind.

This is the week I start training for the Long Beach Half Marathon with my daughter Virginia. She has been on top of me about this almost daily. That is a great sign. Being a coach helps me go back a relearn the basics myself. Virginia has run a couple of 5K's but nothing recently. We had a scare with her being pre-diabetic, not a great thing especially since she's only 14. The running will put that diagnosis in its place. This will also give Honey the Marathon Dog another running partner. I had to suspend my running with Honey because my mileage was getting to high for her.

This week I started working on my latest podcast episode. Dealing with diabetes is a never ending situation with constant monitoring and treatment. And I mean constant. So this show I decided to talk about taking a vacation from diabetes. So stay tuned it will be a good show.

Cappuccino Fun

I'm getting better at this. This is a floating cappuccino.

A New Episode

I just uploaded the latest episode of RunningFromDiabetes on Podbean and iTunes. I recorded during The Crazy Ass Ultra Marathon. Check out my progression into the self imposed endurance test.

Download at iTunes Podcast or Podbean Podcast.

Anything Is Possible!

I finished my 'Crazy Ass Birthday Ultra Marathon'. We all know what a terrific writer I am so the podcast will be here in a few days. 

Now we know that anything is possible with diabetes, even when the disease is at its worst. 

First of all a special thank you has to go out to Jessah my wife for being my support crew, manning the aid stations and being my personal cheerleader, I was so well taken care of. This is our race not just mine, she put in as much as I did. To Alexis and Toni for your assistance with helping your mother and being my cheering section. To my friend, Brian, for keeping my spirits up with bad jokes while you paced me for the last 13 miles. My brother Sean for calling me every 10 miles to cheer me on. And finally the twitter and facebook world, I had so many shouts of encouragement from my friends there. Every time I updated I had 5-10 people cheering me on, it was a great help.