hope | Rain Coast Review

Healthy people are proactive about our health
Healthy people seek out more information
Healthy people consult professionals before implementing significant changes in our medications or lifestyle choices
Healthy people are patient and persistent in overcoming health or lifestyle challenges.
Healthy people accept total accountability for our own health, without taking on blame for things beyond our control.

What can you do to improve your AIC when you’re feeling terrible from a variety of symptoms and conditions, many of which are either a direct result of your diabetes, or at least are indirectly impacted by persistent high blood sugars.

There are any number of things you need to deal with in order to make real change. The most important of these things is probably NOT your diabetes. At least not directly.

I’ve been a type two diabetic for many years. Diabetes probably started with me in my twenties although my first symptoms didn’t start to show up until I was nearly forty. I’m now in my sixties and I’ve been on insulin for more than fifteen years. That means I’ve been pricking my finger at least once a day since I was fifty years old, and injecting myself with insulin ever since.

The one thing I can say about my diabetes is that it has progressed in a predictable way, gradually causing negative effects to my body. All the way along the road various doctors have given me a lot of prescription medications, as well as a lot of advice. I’ve been to diabetic clinics where nurses and dieticians have attempted to teach me how to control my blood sugars through diet and exercise.

Why Me?

When I was first diagnosed with diabetes I even received counselling, to try to make sense of Why Me? I think everyone feels victimized by negative health conditions, whether it’s COPD, Heart Disease or Cancer. The answers to Why Me? are both existential and practical.

There are two parts to the answer. First, there is the part of Why Me? over which you have no control, never did, never will have and makes no difference anyway. Whether it’s fate, God, a cruel universe, DNA or the conditions of your life (including a bad diet, smoking, poor or no exercise, etc.) leading up to becoming diabetic none of them actually matter in coming to terms with the emotional fallout of Why Me?

Truthfully, there are many things I could have done differently in the past that might have made a huge difference in my experience of diabetes now and in the future. But for whatever reasons I had, or gave myself, I did what I thought was within my capacity to change in my habits and behaviors.

You can check your blood sugars regularly with you meter tests, get your AIC blood work done in the lab and consult with your doctor as often as she thinks is useful or necessary. You may make changes in your diet and exercise program, and do your best to lose weight and keep it within certain boundaries. And if you do all these things from the beginning, your diabetes will be stable and you will reduce the consequences of this disease.

For most of us, however, no matter how much we say we care about our health, we’re not really willing to do whatever is necessary to fundamentally change our outcomes. We do some of it, maybe ever some of it every day with serious intentions.

This is the Second Part to Why Me?

This is the part of Why Me? you can control if you choose to do so. So how do you change what you do and how you act, to have a real impact on your own health? This goes back to me saying that it’s not actually about diabetes, or even about your physical health.

It’s really about becoming conscious about who and what you want to be in your own life. We’ve all been beat-up by life along the way. Parents, friends, lovers, partners and even strangers have both positive and negative impacts on our self esteem. Why is that? Why do we let anyone else impact how we feel about ourselves, and how we make positive or negative choices about our lives, including those choices about dealing with negative health outcomes resulting from poor choices.

I hate to say this but “Who cares?” It doesn’t matter what happened in the past, or how you allowed yourself to be negatively influenced regarding healthy living. It really doesn’t matter, but only if there is some way you can turn your life around and ultimately take control of those things that you can control.

How to take control and like it.

The first thing is to understand what it is you need to do to make things better. If you don’t know what you need to do, it’s pretty hard to decide what to do. So find out. See you doctors. Read everything you can find out about current treatment alternatives, and inquire from other people their experiences. Read blogs. Get new referrals to diabetic clinics and resources. Talk over alternatives with your specialist. Make a plan of action with on a few, specific steps, done regularly and persistently.

Don’t try to do everything all at once. Set limited goals with realistic objectives. For example: Don’t try to lose a lot of weight in a week or even a month. Lose weight in amounts that can actually be achieved. If you find it too hard to do by yourself, join a club or a weight loss program which comes with monitoring and emotional support. But don’t blame the program if your weight loss isn’t happening. Be totally honest with yourself, and reset your goals. Weight loss is fundamental to improved diabetic outcomes and lowering blood sugar.

Don’t hang around waiting for someone else to improve your health.

If it isn’t happening, then look elsewhere for support, but don’t give up on necessary change. Remember that whatever happened yesterday is no longer relevant unless it results in change today. Guilt is useless unless it is accompanies by a renewed sense of personal accountability.

When I graduated many years ago from UBC my school motto was TU UM EST. What I didn’t realize was how powerful an idea that really is.

TU UM EST!

I’m lost on a road to “God knows where.” Feeling scared. Uncertain.

It’s my story right now, and I’ve good reasons for my emotional state. It’s not the first time in my life I’ve been lost or overwhelmed by circumstance.

There’s no doubt my situation is difficult, and solutions to my problems seem beyond my current capacities. I am grateful that I’m not alone in having to face this, but it makes me feel worse knowing that I’m dragging down people who care with me.

I don’t believe in hopelessness. There is always a way out of any difficulty, at least, that’s always been my mantra in the past. I’ve been stuck in my current difficulties for months, with the disparate elements to my challenges built up over the past five years, or maybe over my lifetime as a result of how I’ve lived, decisions made and actions taken or not.

Mine isn’t a new story. My health is not good, and is deteriorating over time. It is responding to my focus on trying to find a solution to my worst problems, and a way to cope with the things I won’t be able to control. My financial situation is a disaster, brought about by a series of mistaken steps, all of which seemed to be the correct decisions at the time, but have left me in serious debt, absent an income on which I can rely, and quite uncertain as to the potential for even basic survival, under my current situation.

I don’t feel overwhelmed with guilt about my current position. I know that I am accountable for everything that happens to me in my life. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s all my own fault, but simply that different decisions at critical junctions would have led to different outcomes, and the decisions were mine to make, or even sometimes, mine to avoid making. Even in those circumstances where my arm was twisted, or I was taken advantage of my others, it was up to me to make better choices or pick better partners.

Other people played important roles in my story, and how I ended up here in this mess, and just as no one is an island unto themselves in achieving success in life, likewise, no one is solely responsible when things go straight to hell, either. But the role of others in creating my difficulties is of little value to me now, in trying to figure out where to go from here, and how to get there.

Here are a few random thoughts about how I will get out of this mess.

Make a list, detail the issues including both those which seem unsolvable and those which appear to have potential solutions, no matter how unpalatable.
Take concrete steps to begin to address some of the issues. Whether or not I can solve everything, or even most things, I can do something about most things. I desperately need to break the hold that my emotional condition has on me.
Start listening better to the people in my life who care about me. At the moment they seem to believe in me more than do I myself.
Creatively analyzing my situation with a view to possible improvements in it. A little improvement is better than none. Maybe everything isn’t quite as far gone as I currently believe, maybe I can still pull myself back from the brink. Of if not, figure out how to ride out the storm caused by going over the edge.
Let go of the past, embrace the future. What is, is. What has already happened is done, over and can’t be changed. But what has not yet happened, may never happen, or may result in outcomes totally different than anticipated by my fears.