{"id":18955,"date":"2011-08-15T00:54:51","date_gmt":"2011-08-15T04:54:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=18955"},"modified":"2015-12-27T15:47:24","modified_gmt":"2015-12-27T20:47:24","slug":"no-longer-waiting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=18955","title":{"rendered":"No Longer Waiting"},"content":{"rendered":"

GS drove the thirty-minute drive to my doctor\u2019s appointment so that I could sidestep stressing about the freeway traffic.\u00a0 Yet as I sat in the passenger seat, I could feel my anxiety build thinking about the impending appointment.\u00a0 My neck tightened. My shoulders tightened.\u00a0 I could feel subtle pressure in my head. That led to nausea.\u00a0 When I get anxious or stressed I decide to take shallow breaths with no rhythm.\u00a0 Good strategy, right?\u00a0 I focused on remembering to breathe and GS rubbed my knee and maneuvered the freeway traffic.<\/p>\n

\n

One of the things I love about GS is that he has never asked me a litany of questions about diabetes or celiac disease. Diabetes and celiac disease are integrated into my lifestyle and therefore, something I prefer to talk about only on an as needed basis.\u00a0\u00a0 I appreciate that in moments of stress or anxiety with diabetes or celiac he asks one question, \u201cIs there anything I can do to help?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

When I was first diagnosed, one of my biggest fears was that others would define me by these chronic conditions.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want people to think of me as \u201cKatie the diabetic\u201d or even worse \u201cKatie the diabetic with celiac\u201d, I just wanted to be me.\u00a0 Diabetes and celiac disease are only a small part of me.\u00a0 Yet if I\u2019m having a rough week or month managing either one or both of them, they start to feel like they do<\/em> define me. This is what I\u2019ve been feeling for several weeks.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For the last six weeks my blood glucose readings have been three to four times the target range.\u00a0 It began when I decided that I was not comfortable with the gluten-free food offerings at the diabetes training I attended in June.\u00a0 I left the training early. Although I felt empowered in taking care of my health, I was disappointed about missing out on an opportunity to experience bonding with a community of people with type 1 diabetes.\u00a0 Little did I realize there was an unexpected twist about to unfold.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Since leaving the training I have accidentally ingested gluten twice.\u00a0 Yes, you heard me right, twice.\u00a0 By accident!\u00a0 It\u2019s ironic not only because I left the training to avoid the health risk, but also because I practice meticulous care and good communication in navigating my gluten-free lifestyle.\u00a0 The first incident happened after kissing GS.\u00a0 He had brushed his teeth and washed his face after drinking some home-brewed beer made by my brother-in-law.\u00a0 We thought we were safe since he had taken precautions, but I knew I was in trouble when I could taste beer on his lips.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The second incident happened at a work function.\u00a0 Everyone brought “gluten-free” food yet somehow I got really sick for five straight days after the barbeque and had four weeks of elevated blood sugars.\u00a0 My guess is that the food was gluten-free but there was cross-contamination<\/a>.\u00a0 Maybe a cutting board was not completely clean or a salad dressing was made using a condiment that had remnants of breadcrumbs from a previously made sandwich.\u00a0 Cross contamination for someone with celiac is much harder to avoid than gluten itself.\u00a0 There are countless variables.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For the last two months I have been thinking I will wait to post on the blog when I am feeling better, when diabetes and celiac disease are back to feeling like a small part of me, not the definition of me.\u00a0 I keep thinking of reasons to postpone writing.\u00a0 I will wait until I have a fully functional replacement insulin pump.\u00a0 I will wait until I have this summer head cold beat.\u00a0 I will wait until my blood sugars stop swinging from 389 to 42. But, what good does waiting do?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As I pondered this question, I chose to revisit an article by Catherine Price<\/a> titled, \u201cThinking About Diabetes With Every Bite\u201d.\u00a0 It was through her honesty in hating diabetes and wishing that she could take a vacation from it that I found myself not feeling alone in the ups and down with diabetes and the desire of wanting to get it right. For the last two days I keep repeating one of the closing sentences in her article as a mantra, \u201cThe best I can do in the meantime is to control my disease without allowing it to control me…\u201d So here I am, no longer waiting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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