Shaking the Table: House of Cards
Hello bright and beautiful internet! I am highly aware of the fact that it has been many moons since I last posted, and I duly apologize. I have no worthy excuse, except that I'm in high school and consider myself to be a good student, and therefore I like to live up to that standard by actually committing myself to studying/attending class/doing homework, all of which takes up time and physical/mental energy that I would otherwise devote to this, my most treasured blog.
So in conclusion, sorry I've been MIA, but yeah, what's to be done about it? Let us all simply go forth, allow bygones to be bygones, and jump right into the fifth and final post of House of Cards: A Series!
If you've forgotten what House of Cards is about in the four months it's been since my last post (which I wouldn't blame you for - again, so sorry it's been so long!), please feel free to get caught up by reading House of Cards: A Series, A Strong Base: House of Cards, A Good Support System: House of Cards, and Careful Adding Weight: House of Cards!
Okay, ready to go? Then let's get into it. If you please, think back to the last time you successfully made a house of cards. If you've never done so, allow me to paint the picture for you:
Dead concentration, painstakingly stressful, slow-and-steady-wins-the-race mentality. With hands shaking, breaths shallow, and prayers offered. One card on another on another, until - euphoria! Relief! Pride! Behold: a beautiful structure that stands tall and is a testament to all that can be accomplished if one sets their mind to something and sticks to it. This is no small feat. A sibling/friend/significant other is called in to photographically capture the magnificent creation for future generations to admire. But then... disaster. The table is shaken because of an unfortunate incident. All comes tumbling down, and with it, hopes and dreams of bigger things. Disappointment comes. Emptiness, a hollow feeling that seems to permeate through everything else to reach a small part of you, deep deep down, and destroy any light left inside...
…Okay maybe that's a little bit dramatic, but you get the general idea! It's super exciting to finish building a house of cards, and it's angering and frustrating and disappointing when it gets destroyed because of one tiny little shake of the table that totally could've been avoided. Right? Same concept applies to diabetes management.
It always feels great when diabetes management is going well, because it doesn't always go well, and in fact doesn't most of the time. So, figuring out the right insulin:carb ratio, basal amount, correction factor, or whatever else is always nice, and being able to see the positive impact those calculations have on your BG levels is also nice. So much time, effort, and energy goes into keeping on top of your diabetes management, that it feels really good to succeed. And it feels really bad when things go wrong, especially when it could have been avoided.
Sometimes things go wrong because of factors that are out of our control. We might have perfect insulin ratios calculated, but still go out of range because we're sick or exhausted or stressed or excited. We might bring tons of extra supplies on vacation with us, but run out of pods (Omnipod insulin pump sensors) because all the ones we brought just happened to be duds for some reason. Those are the kinds of things we can't blame ourselves for, because we really can't control them. The house of cards equivalent to that would be like if your dog jumped onto your table and knocked over your creation before you could stop it from happening. That would be highly unfortunate, but just what it is.
But sometimes when you build a house of cards, you're just not as careful as you could've been, and then you accidentally bump into the table with your arm or your hip and everything falls down. While that is still very unfortunate, and you're totally still going to feel just as disappointed and frustrated and angry that your house of cards was knocked over, in this situation it could have been avoided. And it would've been much better for it to be avoided, because then all the work you put into making your house of cards wouldn't be wasted, the house would still be standing, and you'd be happy instead of feeling frustrated.
I said something in my first House of Cards post that I'm going to restate here just to be super clear: I am not trying to tell people how to manage their diabetes. That's not why I do blogging. I write to share my experiences and the lessons I've learned with others who might find them helpful. I hope people find them helpful. But keep in mind that I am always speaking to my own experiences only, and I'm not trying to judge anyone or boss anyone around or give any professional medical advice (because, needless to say, I'm not a doctor).
So like I said, in the second scenario, disaster could've been avoided if more care had been taken to not shake the table. The same thing applies to diabetes management. Again, because I'm speaking to own experiences, let's use an example from real life.
I'm a Podder - someone who uses an Omnipod. I'm wearing a pod filled with insulin at any given time, usually on my arms or my stomach. But every three days, I have to change my insertion site (deactivate and take off the three-day-old pod, prep my new insertion site, then fill and put on a new pod). I hate having to do site changes every three days with no breaks, but it's what has to be done, and I personally prefer it to doing MDI (multiple daily injections). At any rate though, it's annoying and I don't like it. If I let it, it could put me in a bad mood every three days. Heck, it could put me in a bad mood all the time, just thinking about it. Sometimes it does. I'll have periods where I don't even realize I'm doing site changes every three days, because it just fades into the background. But sometimes something just clicks in my mind, and I'm aware of it. Very aware. Always aware. I'll do a site change, and then think about how I'll just have to do another one in three days, and then again in six days, and again in nine days, and again and again and again forever and ever and ever. I'll feel like I'm stuck in an endless loop of alcohol wipes and insulin vials and needle caps and the click and slight sting of initial injections. And what's ironic is that I actually am stuck in this loop. There's no escaping it. This is just my life because I have type one and there's no cure. I've accepted it. But just because I've accepted it doesn't mean I'm happy about it.
As long as I'm not thinking too hard about the hopelessness of it all, I'm fine. As I've said in previous posts, Not Thinking About It is key when you live with life-long illness. Because when you're not thinking about it, you can almost forget it's real. Sometimes that's just what's necessary to keep from going insane. But anyway, objectively I know that pod changes have the potential to make me feel awful for a long time, and I don't want to feel awful. Who does? So since I know that they have the potential to send me spiraling and I'd rather avoid that even though it would be really easy to just let it happen, I do everything in my power to keep pod changes as simple and short and pleasant as they can possibly be. Why just make it easier for them to have power over my mind? If it happens anyways despite my best efforts, then it happens. That's also part of life with illness. Sometimes things just suck. But at least if I'm being careful to control what I can control, I can keep the sucking to a minimum.
When you make a house of cards, it's highly likely that it's going to fall over at some point. It's just way too easy to accidentally bump into the table and send everything crashing down. So if you know going in that it's easy for that to happen, and you don't want that to happen, wouldn't you take extra care to try and avoid bumping into the table? The extra effort might be slightly annoying, but certainly less annoying than the house falling down. So the extra effort might be worth it.
The way I apply this general sentiment to my situation is pretty simple. Pod changes alone can bother me a lot, so I make sure that when I'm doing a pod change, there are no other external factors that are already bothering me and in turn making me more susceptible to spiraling into despair. I used to do my pod changes really late at night, because I wanted to put them off as long as possible. But then when it came time to do my changes, I was so exhausted I could barely keep my eyes open. Because I chose to do my changes later, I was upset about the changes while also feeling exhausted and angry that I had to do a change when the thing I wanted most in the world was to sleep. While of course it's understandable that I wanted to put my changes off, it doesn't mean it was reasonable or a wise choice. It just made the whole thing more unbearable. I was shaking the table that held my mental health steady, and every three days it would come tumbling down. It wasn't good, needless to say.
Nowadays, I make sure that I do my pod changes sooner rather than later, so that exhaustion won't be an added weight to my mind when it would be in my best interest to keep things light and breezy. I still do my changes at night, just more at 8:30 pm rather than like 11:30 pm. I also listen to music during changes, have my bed made (that's where I do my changes), and have my next insertion site planned out so I'm not stressing about that. Keeping all other variables controlled is good for me, it means that I'm spiraling less. I'm being extra careful and planning ahead and staying organized. Sometimes my family will be watching a movie at 8:30 pm and I won't want to leave it to do my change, but really it only takes about ten minutes, and I feel like it's worth it for me to prioritize my mental health. The sacrifice is worth it.
So, yeah, that's my real life example! The philosophy can apply to other diabetes management situations, too, and I hope someone finds it helpful. Either way, we're coming to the end of House of Cards: A Series! Again, I hope this series was helpful and provided new insights to diabetes management. It was kind of cool writing a series for the first time, so maybe I'll try it again some day!
In the meantime, thanks for sticking by me and this series over the past four months even with no signs of life from either of us. I'm excited to see what happens next! Please take care of yourselves and try to stay hopeful - better times are coming! (Also, happy 2021 by the way)!
Till next time, Type 1 Warriors!
Comments
Post a Comment