{"id":45524,"date":"2016-12-23T10:36:52","date_gmt":"2016-12-23T15:36:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=45524"},"modified":"2016-12-23T10:37:13","modified_gmt":"2016-12-23T15:37:13","slug":"thoughts-as-i-approach-my-19th-dia-versary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=45524","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts as I Approach my 19th Dia-versary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This Christmas Eve will be my nineteenth since I was diagnosed with type one diabetes. I was only four at the time, so my memories from that hospital stay are vague. However, I do remember getting lots of visitors and gifts\u2014perhaps these pleasant memories block out the grimmer ones of getting poked and prodded by countless needles.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, I like to take some time around my diagnosis date to reflect on my diabetes. In the last couple weeks, the following thoughts and realizations struck me:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>I don\u2019t remember life without diabetes. I think I\u2019m okay with that. <\/strong>When people hear that I was so young when I was diagnosed, they lament my loss of childhood and missed experiences. But I never viewed it that way. Rather, I\u2019m grateful that I was diagnosed early. This means that I\u2019m not haunted by memories of a working pancreas because I never had that knowledge of what it\u2019s like to have a meal without worrying about how many carbs I\u2019m about to consume or how much insulin I should take. Since I grew up with my diabetes, I didn\u2019t have much of an issue with accepting it as a \u201cnormal\u201d part of my life. And I\u2019m okay with that. This doesn\u2019t mean my desire for a cure isn\u2019t there\u2014it\u2019s stronger than ever\u2014but it does mean that I\u2019ve taught myself to accept things in life that I can\u2019t change.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Technology has come a long way since 1997. <\/strong>Diabetes technology has improved exponentially in the last 19 years. Most obviously, insulin delivery has completely revolutionized. When I was little, my parents would administer my insulin shots multiple times a day using a combination of Humalog (clear) and NPH (cloudy). I remember how focused they would be on the task, especially when it came to mixing clear and cloudy in a single syringe. Things became easier when I switched to Lantus for my long-acting insulin and gained access to insulin pens, but I didn\u2019t know how drastically insulin pumps changed the game until I went on my first one two years ago. Even testing is less of a headache now: It used to take 60 seconds for my meter to test my blood. After squeezing out a large drop of blood and wiping it onto a wide test strip, I would impatiently wait for my meter to count down. Now, it only takes 5 seconds and just a bit of blood to test, making the most mundane aspect of daily life with diabetes that much easier. Diabetes technology is faster, sleeker, and more sophisticated than ever, which makes me optimistic about what will become available in the future.<\/li>\n<li><strong>My diabetes often behaves like a rebellious 19 year old. <\/strong>I have a better relationship now with my diabetes than I did when I was 19 years old myself, but lately, it\u2019s acting like an unruly teenager. Primarily, I\u2019ve struggled with balancing my diabetes and exercise\u2014either I go low 15 minutes into my workout, or I over-compensate on carbs before I begin working out and stay high long after I\u2019m done. And since it\u2019s the holiday season, I\u2019ve had additional trouble maintaining tight blood sugars due to the countless parties and festivities I\u2019ve enjoyed. But I know that, much like the teenage years, it\u2019s just a stage and I\u2019ll get through it. In any case, I\u2019m ready to have a fresh start as 2017 comes around and make my 19<sup>th<\/sup> year with T1D an excellent one.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":45526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1501],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v22.9 (Yoast SEO v22.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Thoughts as I Approach my 19th Dia-versary<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=45524\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Molly Johannes\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=45524\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=45524\",\"name\":\"Thoughts as I Approach my 19th Dia-versary\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=45524#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=45524#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/thoughts-as-i-approach-my-19th-dia-versary.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-12-23T15:36:52+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-12-23T15:37:13+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#\/schema\/person\/623ae95e59042a0181d7249ae80f9e18\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=45524#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=45524\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=45524#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/thoughts-as-i-approach-my-19th-dia-versary.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/thoughts-as-i-approach-my-19th-dia-versary.jpg\",\"width\":640,\"height\":464,\"caption\":\"Xmas 1997\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=45524#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Thoughts as I Approach my 19th Dia-versary\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/\",\"name\":\"ASweetLife\",\"description\":\"The Diabetes Magazine\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#\/schema\/person\/623ae95e59042a0181d7249ae80f9e18\",\"name\":\"Molly Johannes\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f996a9325de8e57234e2c6d9727bd93d?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f996a9325de8e57234e2c6d9727bd93d?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Molly Johannes\"},\"description\":\"Molly Johannes was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 1997 at the age of four. 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