Tuesday, July 25, 2017

A 4am plea to Insulin Pump Companies.


Let’s get real here.

There is an insulin pump defect that needs to be addressed. The defect is mostly affecting teenagers, Although children and adults everywhere are susceptible to the consequences this defect provides…

Listen.

Let me lay this out for you. I’m going to talk about teenagers here. (Not about your teenager, I’m sure your teenager is an honor student, and perfectly obedient to all alarms, and does most everything right, and would never even fathom what’s about to go down here. Ok? This probably doesn’t apply to you…but you can keep reading. For pity, or you know…to boost your self-esteem….I get it…)

Anyway.

I’m fully aware that teens’ frontal lobes haven’t completely connected properly…they’re victims until the mid 20’s.

I know they’re at a disadvantage. I know it isn’t their fault.

Most…

Some…

A lot…

Teenagers as a collective?

YES!…teenagers as a group can’t do all the necessary remembering all the time.  Their brains just don’t have the synapsis for reason to travel upon. 

Sometimes they forget. Or procrastinate.

But...

Ok, listen.

It’s 4 am.

I’m just a girl, standing in front of all pump companies, asking for some love. A little help here, please?

When a pump runs out of insulin, there needs to be epicness.

Sure the synapses are still working on creating their paths from one side of the brain to another, but for teens there is one synapse that has a sure, well connected path: The Embarrassment Synapse.

When insulin runs out on a pump…you guys need to make it embarrassing for teenagers.

So they’ll actually add more insulin.

BECAUSE THEY IGNORE THE ALARMS.

Listen. LINDA, LISTEN.



You’re sweet little “No Delivery” notification isn’t cutting it.

You need to be more creative.

There needs to be a noise. An unbearable noise. One that will only go away once fresh insulin is added to the reservoir.

Screeching cicadas?

Weird Al Yankovich singing “Ice Ice Baby?” But like, not making the words funny…just straight out singing it over and over and over again.

Or I don’t know…I’m just snowballing here…but maybe a hologram can pop up from their pumps of their mother telling stories about potty training them… at age 8?

Something super embarrassing.

ListenListenListen

It HAS to be embarrassing for it to work.

Because if it happens and it’s embarrassing the first time? There will not be a second time. Period. (I mean, I know there was a period there, but I had to write it out for emphasis.) 

Teenagers will avoid embarrassment at any cost.

Super important reiteration: It can’t stop. The noise, the hologram, all of it…it must continue until the new insulin is in the pump. Even if the battery is taken out.

There must be no dismissal.

Listen.

Linda.

Please.

I am tired of waking up in the middle of the night to empty reservoirs.

Sure, I make them change it themselves. I’m not going to make it easier for them to ignore…

But I still have to get out of bed and make them lucid enough to understand the words, “YOU HAVE TO CHANGE YOUR SET RIGHT NOW. NO. INSULIN.”

It’s harder than it sounds. There was one time one of them went downstairs and just fell asleep on the couch.

Also, waking them completely wakes me.

It doesn’t happen all the time so don’t get all huffy, lecturing me on the divine nuances of parenthood.

They are teenagers. THEIR BRAINS ARE AT A DISADVANTAGE.  It’s a scientific fact.

Yes, it's super frustrating when it happens. And even though it isn’t all the time, or all that often…It FEELS like all the time. Ok?

Look it.

We need magic.  Magic help.

You can do it pump people. YOU CAN. 

I totally believe in you.

  

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

7 years later, 19 years in.


The post titled, Still a Little Broken, popped up in my Facebook memories today. I read it as an outsider, sad for the girl that wrote the words. But then the memories came creeping back in. The brokenness that I lived with returned to me in powerful waves. I remembered clearly the heaviness of the day to day. I saw perfectly the worry that affected the person I was.

I was more broken than I admitted to you that day.

But life molds us. And as we move forward, perspectives change. I presume aging has something to do with it too. We experience unthinkable tragedies and we survive. Fear hardens and turns into strength. Knowledge becomes power. And most of all, the brokenness becomes a powerful cohort.

Everything that I've experienced in my life has given me the tools to cope with the background music of Diabetes.

I don't let it control my emotions like I once did.

Maybe I'm numb.

Maybe I'm smarter.

Maybe I'm dumber.

But somehow, not on purpose, I stopped letting Diabetes control my entire being.

I was able to let go of the debilitating guilt. (Not all the guilt, I'm a mother after all.) But most of it.

I Don't fault myself for living the way I did for so many years. In fact, I probably needed to be that way. It hurts me to think about. It was hard.

But now I can look at the numbers without fear, or anger.  Because I have to. If I took them personally I would go insane. They come to me every five minutes, twenty four hours a day. The numbers will never stop.

Like driving a car we constantly adjust the wheel to keep things going in the right direction. Even when going down a straight highway we need to adjust...there's no taking the hand off the wheel. We try not to veer off the road, but know if we do, we have the tools to fix the car and move on.

We'll always be driving together. As the kids grow they take turns taking the wheel, but I'm there if they get tired, or reckless. Someday I'll be kicked out of the car, but right now I'm still riding along...

And somewhere along the way, I don't know when it happened, I realized that we have control over the stereo. Not diabetes. All it took was our changing the station.

The background music is what we want it to be.

It sounds easier than it was. But it was a simple concept nonetheless.

I don't let Diabetes change who I am anymore. But it built me.

The person I am today stands on the foundation that I built with blood, sweat, and tears for years and years.  Though I don't stand on the foundation as the slave that I was. I stand proudly on my work and own myself now. I am the ruler of my life.

Well, most of the time. Life is crazy after all.

More than anything I just want those of you who are building your foundations to know, that later, you'll be thankful for the work your putting in now.  To each of you in all the phases of your lives, someday the worry you hold will be an asset, not a liability.

"Everything will be ok in the end. And if it's not ok, than it's not the end."

I use to tell myself that all the time.

Now I don't have to, because I know it.



Cheers to you and all your hard work.

You are loved.