diabetes is not eco friendly. it is poop thirty. and a ho.
i just emptied out all of these...
of all of these...
so that i can inject all of this...
from all of these...
into my abdomen, which i am totally NOT posting a picture of...for a total of 7 injections, (the pink topped things inthe box are needles) at least 5 blood tests, (the vials in the other box are test strips and lancets) per day, every day. that is a lot of disposable stuff. and there is nothing i can do about it, and i don't feel guilty, but i wonder if all the packaging in necessary (i get that most of it is, sterility and all that) but WOW is that a lot of paper and plastic and metal.
i am actually in the process of trying to get a pump (in the insurance phase right now, holding my breath) so that might cut down on waste, although they cost about $6000, which have i mentioned that all that stuff up there costs me $400 every three months? and i HAVE insurance?!?
this is why i work the hours i do, where i do, instead of a private practice. i mean seriously, i love what i do but the main reason i do it for an agency instead of for myself is for the insurance.
sheeeeeeit. i am a ray of sunshine, huh?
i will also chalk it up to it being day one of "no more pull ups" here at casa del punk, and i am bracing myself for the battle. it has to be done, vincent will be four in three weeks. yep. here are a couple of pictures of what is awesome about my life!
peace out mamas! i hope you don't have to endure poo-breaking your almost four year old today while stressing about chronic disease and landfills!
“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
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I grew up with my mom having the diabeatus, and she had this little pantry full of supplies that UPS would drop off periodically.
My sister and I don't have it...yet. Although my mom was a little older than me when she was diagnosed with it.
The wise poet Rumi tells us--
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there
http://www.ponycherry.blogspot.com/
I am going to focus on the positive...
YAY for new V pictures!
And a hug for you.
"Step off my big ass."
- Anthromom
how are you guys doing? i needed a susie hug.
At work, you think of the children you have left at home. At home, you think of the work you've left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself. Your heart is rent.
- Golda Meir
but there's really no alternative. I have to say we love DS' pump - even still getting up every 2 hours to test him. Just not having to give all those injections every day - priceless!
"I have no country. As a woman, I want no country. As a woman my country is the whole world." - Virginia Woolf
"If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament." - Rose F. Kennedy
"I have no country. As a woman, I want no country. As a woman my country is the whole world." - Virginia Woolf
"If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament." - Rose F. Kennedy
i am so excited about the pump! i hope it goes through my insurance...which one do you have? i am between the medtronic prodigy i think it is, and the one touch ping. i cry whenever i think of your sweet DS dealing with this, and you and your family. you are my heroes.
At work, you think of the children you have left at home. At home, you think of the work you've left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself. Your heart is rent.
- Golda Meir
It has the smallest dosage capability for the basal rates & that suited DS best. I've heard great things about the Ping. What you wrote above about just being grateful for the treatment available and having access to it pretty much sums it up for me too. Hope that your insurance comes through quickly!
"I have no country. As a woman, I want no country. As a woman my country is the whole world." - Virginia Woolf
"If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament." - Rose F. Kennedy
i empathize - although my chronic illness doesn't require quite as much paraphenalia, it still makes me firmly committed to the contintued existence of modern pharmaceuticals.
i hope the pull-up freedom goes well!
"if i pass for other than what i am, do you feel safer?" ~ lani ka'ahumanu
dragon knows dragon
"if i pass for other than what i am, do you feel safer?" ~ lani ka'ahumanu
dragon knows dragon
i didn't even post all the pills i take. for the gimpiness, and some preventative shit for my heart, cause i don't want the diabetes to give me problems (more?) later.
do you get any support (professional or peer) for the gimpiness? it every now and then makes me nuts, and i have thought about starting a monthly or bimonthly support group. curious how you deal. my husband is cool about it, and my friends will listen, but ya know...
At work, you think of the children you have left at home. At home, you think of the work you've left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself. Your heart is rent.
- Golda Meir
sometimes i do yoga and then get pissed when that exacerbates more pain than it alleviates. bd is a wonder and a gift for various kinds of support. i know several other women with similar issues, and sometimes we commiserate, but sometimes i feel us being silenced by each others suffering - you know, like we're being all stiff upper lippy with each other 'cuz we each think the other has it worse, and we don't want to whine in the face of her more daunting issues.
for a hot minute there were chronic pain/illness mama threads on here, but i haven't initiated or seen any of late. counseling has been really useful for me in a variety of ways over the years, but i don't think i'm at a place where i could use it for this as yet. maybe if i could find a gimp therapist?
i went to a workshop at a conference about femme gender and chronic pain/illness, and it was awesome to share that kind of intentional space. i thought about starting a discussion group after that, but then i just thought, "fuck, do i need another plate to spin? and what would we do besides rant?" i still ponder the possibility, but in that at-some-vague-future-point kind of way.
mostly, really, i count my blessings. yesterday, i had one of those days where i was just really angry about it. it wasn't a bad day pain-wise, but i was just gut-furious that i couldn't trust my body to be strong and vital the way i used to do. but by the end of the day, i was back in that space where the baseline of happiness i enjoy with my kid and bd and family/friends was solid enough to sustain me. does that sound too cheesy to be real? seriously, though, that's what gets me through - or perhaps more precisely, that's what's there when i come out the other side of those times when i'm feeling rageful and grief-ridden about being a gimp.
was that at all useful? sorry to ramble. i hope it was in some way useful.
"if i pass for other than what i am, do you feel safer?" ~ lani ka'ahumanu
dragon knows dragon
sing it, i feel the exact same way about the rage being not really at the pain, but the limitations and the weakness/vulnerability and the general feeling of my body being my enemy. not cool. my mom struggles with RA and i think we silence each other when we talk about it, cause we are mindful of not getting into that "oh, you think that is bad? wait till i tell you about my day..." one-upping in the spirit of comforting? ya know? so we just commiserate briefly and then grunt in mutual disgust and move on.
i moved furniture and cleaned today and can already feel the creeping pain, like i picked up a car with my bare hands or dragged a pick up with a chain between my teeth...fuck! i will take a hot shower, some meds, and hope that sleep will heal. it usually does and i am grateful for that.
At work, you think of the children you have left at home. At home, you think of the work you've left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself. Your heart is rent.
- Golda Meir
and i'm always heartened to hear from another mama coping with these issues and feeling similarly - not that i wish this on anyone, but just that it helps me feel less off when i'm reflected that way.
"if i pass for other than what i am, do you feel safer?" ~ lani ka'ahumanu
dragon knows dragon
less off. you got it. thanks again.
At work, you think of the children you have left at home. At home, you think of the work you've left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself. Your heart is rent.
- Golda Meir
i know - i didn't need to make a whole reply just to say "you're welcome", but i just about cannot resist the compulsion to say so whenever anyone says "thank you" to me - something stuck from early childhood inculcation! 
"if i pass for other than what i am, do you feel safer?" ~ lani ka'ahumanu
dragon knows dragon
that last picture is priceless. i love her!!
i can't imagine how hard it must be to have to live every day dealing with and treating your diabetes....i've got nothing for respect for you, 'cause you are one tough-ass-punkmama. hugs and love to you.
she is a he! a long, luxuriant, rock star haired he!
well, it is tough, i gotta say and i HATE to talk/bitch about my health, cause really, i don't have it bad in the grand scheme. but you are so sweet. really. it is not often that i hear that from anybody but my mama!! xoxo
At work, you think of the children you have left at home. At home, you think of the work you've left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself. Your heart is rent.
- Golda Meir
haha, it IS a compliment because that is some seriously AWESOME hair he has. i am jealous! (i hope he isn't offended... )
hey mama!
i've been missin' you! look at V so big and grown up!! what a handsome little man he is becoming.
thanks, he is big, and such a little boy, not a baby at all...how are you??? did i hear a birdie tell me you have news about the fam???
At work, you think of the children you have left at home. At home, you think of the work you've left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself. Your heart is rent.
- Golda Meir
V is getting so big, but still very beautiful.
Dude - diabetes sucks. I have foung that I am borderline but I can't eat what I want or it will become full blown. My dad was just diagnosed but is trying to stay off insulin by changing his lifestyle. Not everyone has it as easy as us, to control it by lifestyle changes alone and I feel for you and all that you have to go through. Just the 4 test a day I do sucks. I remember you blogged a while ago about getting gb surgery to help? Is that still an option for you? I used to watch my grandma inject herself every morning and I don't know if I am capable of doing that to myself so I am sending you some serious belly love right now.
"If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?"
sigh. my insurance has a "contract exclusion" for bariatric surgery. plus, i don't meet the weight criteria, so the benefits person at the university surgery center said it would REALLY be a fight, even with my diagnosis and insulin dependence.they were recommending i look into lap band, not just to lose the weight faster but to slow gastric emptying. i am like, almost 80 pounds overweight, if you use the charts, 55 or 60 if i go by how i feel i look best. and i have lost 14 since switching to the new insulin regime(in two months, not changing any thing else at all). insulin makes you gain weight, as do high blood sugars, what a giant nasty trick of nature, damn.
i hope you can keep it with lifestyle changes. the pills didn't work for me, and i get into the 200's with 15 grams of carbs. apparently my pancreas just doesn't work anymore. i have the test for that confirmation next week.
i love belly love. i need belly love! my belly looks like a bruised up pin cushion, so pretty! "i'll never be barbie, barbie didn't have BRUISES!" (sorry, channeled nancy spungeon for a second there!) ha.
At work, you think of the children you have left at home. At home, you think of the work you've left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself. Your heart is rent.
- Golda Meir
We're doing well. Worried about the economy and the housing market but hey, who isn't? Doing more and more painting (I know you love that, as I am the woman who will paint a room just for the hell of it! ).
The wee one turns four on Sunday! That seems like such a milestone. Hope the pull ups are a good thing -- I got tired of paying for them at bedtime so just hope for the best and wash sheets alot.
i forgot for a sec that you are in real estate. we are painting the playroom on saturday and sunday...i will channel you! i know what you mean about four. i can't believe vinny is gonna be four in less than a month. no poop yet today, i know he has to go, but i am done paying for them as well, plus, he is at the point where he comes to me and asks for one, i hand it to him, he puts it on, poops in it, takes it off and flushes all by himself...it is a ridiculous anxiety thing. i am ready to wash some sheets. i have some incontinence pads that my mama used with my dad after his surgery, so i am layering those with sheets two deep so that i will only have to peel a layer off in the middle of the night when the wet sheets wake him up, which they did last time we tried this. it is ON now, though, i am not going back.
At work, you think of the children you have left at home. At home, you think of the work you've left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself. Your heart is rent.
- Golda Meir
oh my gosh, he is so cute! what a ray of sunshine.
that is a lot of stuff you have to go through every day. is it something that will change over time? like, is there hope that you will need less meds at some point? and do you talk to other folks with diabetes about what you are going through? i hear ya on the ins. i couldn't imagine not having health insurance these days. got my fingers crossed for universal health care in my life time.
mama, between my gigantic student loans, my never-owning-a-house, my medical shit, and my dedication to non-profit work that is NOT religious in nature, i am a walking billboard for barack. i hope it is in my lifetime too, that we see some universal healthcare, some lifting of financial burdens from people that work every day to empower people to overcome obstacles instead of always making sure that people that are so rich they need accounting firms to keep track of the interest on their money stay "safe" from the tock market crashing. sheesh. did you ask for a rant like that?! hahaha! can you hijack your own post? i think i just did!
anyway, i am having a c-peptide test next week to see if this is something that will get better as i lose weight and get into better shape, or if my pancreas is just kaput. they are thinking the latter, hence the talk of a pump, which is apparently the next best thing to an artificial pancreas. i know you have RA, so does my mom, chronic illness is a test of your fucking fortitude, isn't it?
At work, you think of the children you have left at home. At home, you think of the work you've left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself. Your heart is rent.
- Golda Meir
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i got it when i was pregnant and it never went away or responded to the pills. lucky me! ugh. i make myself grateful that the supplies exist, and that i can get them, and pay for them, even though it drains my family beyond belief.
At work, you think of the children you have left at home. At home, you think of the work you've left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself. Your heart is rent.
- Golda Meir