Getting the News

No one likes to get bad news and I am no exception to this.  In fact, in the last year and a half I have gotten almost nothing but bad news.  I lost my job, found out my daughter has partial onset seizure disorder and that I have high blood pressure.  These are just the big items on the list.  Needless to say, this has been a pretty stressful time for me and my family.  

Unfortunately, I've never been one to cope with bad news and stress very well.  With the help of family and friends, I've dealt with everything to the best of my abilities.  Yet, I've still felt the stress .  Under stress I don't take care of myself, I take care of others and the problems that cause me stress.  I tend to eat comfort food (which is not always healthy food), get insomnia, and shut down completely (become a couch potato).  All of these behaviors lend themselves to weight gain, poor nutrition and bad health. 

Despite my lack of everyday self-care, I do try to go to the doctor each year.  So, I had a routine annual physical with the standard fasting blood test.  Just about a week later my doctor called with some news.  The blood test revealed that I have diabetes. My blood glucose was high and so was my A1C level.   I felt like this was the straw that broke the camels back.  I've already been through so very much, and now this lifelong disease.  Then I realized that I'm pretty familiar with diabetes and gained some confidence in my ability to cope

While diabetes is bad news again for me, at least it's something that I'm very familiar with.  I grew up with a grandmother and other older relatives who had diabetes.  Then when I was pregnant with my daughter I had gestational diabetes.  Additionally, during my last job, I worked closely with several people who are diabetic.  Finally, about six years ago my father was diagnosed with it.  All of this exposure taught me quite a few things that make me both comfortable and uncomfortable with my own diagnosis.

I'm not happy about the potential harm that uncontrolled diabetes can have on my body like neuropathy in my feet, glaucoma in my eyes and heart problems.  But, since I had to live with diabetes during my pregnancy, I've been through it and that gave me something positive to cling to.  Even though I was on insulin during my pregnancy, my blood sugar normalized after I gave birth and my baby was a healthy birth weight.  I was successful in watching what I ate and exercised everyday.  If I could do it before, I can certainly do it now. 

So, even though diabetes is a negative diagnosis, it doesn't have to have  a negative overal outcome.  This blog is intended to provide the results of my diabetes education in hopes that others will benefit from it, whether you have it or are helping someone else who does.