Day Two

High for the day: 205
Low for the day: 85

        Being a woman who enjoys wearing dresses, and being on the pump, know that it is rather difficult to wear a dress. As a woman, for any formal event, it is expected that you will put on a nice dress or a nice skirt. While wearing a skirt with the pump is relatively easy, its pretty much just like wearing pants, wearing a dress with the pump is almost impossible. First you have to find a dress, that when worn with the pump, that wont make it look like you have a rectangular shaped tumor jutting from your side. Nine times out of ten this means, no skin tight dresses. And that is a very difficult thing to accomplish in today's world where cocktail attire or club attire, or prom attire, or any formal attire, is all pretty much skin tight. In these occasions I suggest that you bring an insulin pen and be "pump free" for the night. I mean when I'm going out I'm going to make sure I look good, and sometimes that means bringing the pen for injections rather than wearing my pump.
        When in fact you feel that you can wear your pump with your dress there are more things you have to consider. You first have to wear the right underwear, or shorts, and by this I mean underwear with an elastic strong enough to hold up your underwear and pump. Otherwise you are going to get this annoying thing where your pump is sliding around every which way, tying you up in the tubing, and on top of that, pulling down your underwear. In situations like that I always wonder why I even bothered putting on underwear. And then I remember, it was to wear my pump. Now the good underwear with the good strong elastic is never cute. Or if it is cute its the bikini briefs, or sometimes boyshorts. FORGET WEARING A THONG. Just don't do it. It will never hold up your pump, I promise, I have tried a thousand times.
   Other than the underwear, there is the issue of dosing. Now to any guy out there, imagine this: you are in a restaurant with your friends or your family, you have to dose for the food you just ate, but your pump is on the inside of pants. Now the only way to get to your pump is to roll up your pants, exposing even the bottom or side of your underwear. You can't undo your pants to get to it, because there is no way to do so without becoming completely undressed. What do you do? What I have taken to doing is trying to see if the light will be strong enough to shine through the skirt of my dress so that I can see the numbers. If that doesn't work I have also become pretty good at figuring out how many times I need to press the up button to get to the correct amount of units. But the most sure way of getting the right amount of insulin is to roll up your skirt in a way that expose the side of your leg, and then creating a cocoon around the pump. Making it very annoying, and even a little embarrassing, especially if the dress you are wearing goes down to the floor.
   If these ways are still too risky for you, then there is always going to the bathroom to dose. This is what I use to do, but found it too much of a hassle because I would have to excuse myself, wait in line often, dose, and then by the time I got back I had missed something or left whomever I was with alone and waiting. But ce la vie!

Day one

High for the day:255
Low for the day:85

So first off a question that I always have when I see a blog post, I always think 'why do a blog?' 'What is the purpose?' For me the idea to begin blogging came after I read an article for my education class. This article was written by a woman with M.S. who decided to describe her life as a cripple (for those of you who would like to read this article it is called "On Being a Cripple" by Nancy Mairs). Nancy, in her article,  brought up many points that were universal to people who have been diagnosed with an un-cureable disease. but this article got me thinking. 'What about type one diabetics?'
 Over the years I have come to realize that type one diabetes is very unknown. 9 times out of 10 people assume that type one and two are the same. And they are not. Type one diabetes is not preventable where type two (with a good diet and exercise) is. Type one happens when your  stops producing insulin.  This is deadly. If type one God un-diagnosed the person can die. No one, outside those who experience this, realize the amount of strength is needed to face this fact daily. 
 This is why I have decided to write a blog, so I can give myself some therapy and maybe help other people by showing them that they are not alone. A feeling I myself have felt for many years. This feeling of having people not understand is expressed most clearly when you realize that diabetes is an "invisible disease". It is hard to know if someone has type one, especially when that person is on injection rather than the pump. Unlike caner and M.S. diabetes isn't an "in your face" thing. In a way this is a good thing, there isn't that feeling of being separated because people know you are "sick". But, this also makes it a very lonely feeling, at least for me. 
  Compared to many, unfortunately, I handle my diabetes at a "normal" level. I have often been told by my doctors that I am the poster child for type one diabetes. My A1C's have been in the good range (never going above 8), all except my first. The doctors have been happy with this as I will not have to suffer the far to offend complications of having type one. I wont necessarily go blind, or lose a foot, but I will never get better. I will always have to worry about the highs and the lows, always have to go to bed high, to test my blood sugar, to dose with insulin. Yes, a cure is close, but I have except that close will most likely not be in my lifetime, and possibly not even my children's. But, it is coming. So here is the start to my blog post, a place where I can talk and you can realize that you aren't going this journey alone. Diabetics, I feel, need to be more like cancer survivors, we need to be there for one another. So to end on a good note, Hakuna Matata