Just drop it

Writing every day about diabetes for diabetes awareness month is giving me the opportunity to share my innermost thoughts and feelings about diabetes. Hopefully it also sheds some insight into the inner world of anyone dealing with a chronic illness. Whatever crisis or challenge we face, it's the ability to overcome, that transforms into a shared wisdom. I know for myself when I'm feeling at a loss as to how to deal with an aspect of diabetes management, finding out how someone else approached that same issue helps me enormously.

I'm someone who likes to get it 'right'. What I am learning ( slowly but surely) is that right is just a word I have been conditioned to believe in. There is no right way to do diabetes or anything for that matter. There is only what works for each individual.

Today I had an injection blunder. I put the needle for my long acting insulin in and it bounced straight back out squirting blood and insulin everywhere. When something like this happens it's totally different to say dropping a pill on the floor. If I fumble and drop a pill, I just brush it off and swallow it. An insulin mishap however is totally different. I can't determine how much insulin actually went in, so if I take another injection it could mean a hypo at some point in the future. All future bolus (fast acting insulin) calculations need to be taken into account. I'm hopeless at math so that's a big issue right there. My motto for this one is better safe than sorry. So no extra insulin for me today which means possible higher levels all day. Total bummer!

Stepping on my mat for practice it dawned on me that in spite of my earlier mishap, I make up the rules. I can't change what happened, but I can change my reaction. A story from my teacher in India comes to mind. "When you hold something in your hand," and he demonstrated the example by holding a red hibiscus in his hand, "holding it takes effort. But how much effort does it take to let it go? Dropping the flower is effortless." He demonstrated this by letting go of the flower. As it effortlessly fell to the ground he added, "This is just like us. We hang on tight to our ideas, beliefs and ideologies until we are shown how easy it is to let go."

Exactly my plan for today!  Just drop it.

See you tomorrow for #NDAM #DiabetesAwarenessMonth

with great respect...