Judgement Day

As a Type 1 Diabetic, we get to do some pretty (not so) cool things that someone whose not diabetic wouldn't get to do Whenever we go to the hospital for anything at all, we get (atleast I do anyways, probably not every single diabetic) two vials of blood taken from our arm, and then we have two cap-gases done where they slice open your finger and scrape a really long skinny tube across it to test for oxygen levels. If your a beginnier T1D like me, you have to go to your family doctor every 2 weeks where he looks at how your sugars have been, adjusts your insulin accordingly, and makes sure your circulation and eyesight are up to regular standards. Apart from all this special-but not so awesome- treatment, us diabetics do a lot of "training" and "prepping" for our 3 month Judgement Day.

Every three months, us diabetics have to go for our A1C blood test. To us, its like a do or die situation. In my house, this blood test is a huge thing. It basially shows you if youre a "good" or "bad" diabetic. Its literally like training for a marathon, but with blood sugar levels. The week before is when the doctor tells you that you have to go for this test is like, crunch time. All insulin injections are taken at the EXACT same time everyday, and all food thats being injested is closely watched and triple carb counted. Getting this number to be as low as possible is pretty much our life mission, so anything we can do to affect how low it reads, we do. Its like our hot seat to shine, or fail.

Your judge is yourself, and your co-judges are your doctor, family, and nurse. It feels amazing to hear from your doctor "Wow, you have such amazing blood sugar levels", and from your family "Youre doing so well". Its really not hard to be a "good" diabetic, but it is definitely rewarding in the long run when you score lower on your A1C this time than you did the last. Even though all the needles, and carb counting can be frustrating at times, and it feels like your trapped every now and then, it shows you that you can conquer anything, and that youre doing just fine. Sometimes thats all a T1D needs to hear on a rough day is "you're doing amazing". It reminds us that life goes on, even with diabetes, we just have a few extra things to be cautious of and a couple of blood test every now and then. The A1C can make you or break you, though. When that test result comes back and its higher than your last one, you feel like you got last place in a competition. Even though the results being high are completely out of your control, such as uncontrolable high stress levels for example, you feel extremely angry with yourself, and lose sight of what is actually important. The most any diabetic can do with this is try their best because you yourself know that you did all that you could to keep that number as low as possible.

Today, I went for my A1C and didn't have much of a notice. I woke up to the phone ringing, to find out that me and my Dad had a doctors appointment this morning that we had booked before leaving on our trip to Newfoundland. My doctor had realized its been almost 4 months since I went for my A1C and had me go right after the appointment, so I had a whole 15 minutes to prep for it. I know myself that the first two months was my trial and error period of figuring out my insulin dosages, so of course it will be on the higher side whether I like it or not. But I'm okay with that, because I know my next one will be a lot better, and my "crunch time" will be a little bit more than 15 minutes!

Jenn :)