Thursday, October 28, 2010

All Beginnings Can Feel Strangely Similar


It has now been a month and a few days since I activated my first insulin-filled pod. My bgs are finally beginning to regulate after, I don't know, a stinking decade! For the first few weeks a.p. (After Pod) they were seriously wacky, mostly high. But at the rate I am going now, I might even have a within-range A1C next time I get my blood work-up. Just to clarify, only once since being diagnosed have I had an average A1C, and that was a result of many menacing lows. Even when I felt like I was trying my very hardest, I still only got below an A1C of 8 once in the last 14 and 1/2 years. I can't wait to find out, I would like to go to Wal Mart and get one of those instant A1C checkers for $15, or however much they are (cheap), just for my own curiosity. I've never really been tempted to do that, since I always just assumed it would be higher then I wanted it to be, as usual, which would depress me. But now, I'm excited more then I am anxious. It's gotta be a little better!

In the last month I have gone through quite a few pods needlessly. What a waste, but I am still figuring out how to wear the darn things without my active and clumsy little self knocking them right off. I think it's kind of funny that the only actual painful part of the pod is the super water proof adhesive ripping off of my flesh. Nothing else hurts, except maybe if you forget to squeeze the fat up when it's inserted near a muscle. But that's a feeling I got used to a long time ago, seeing as how I'm a muscle machine...just kidding, but it does happen even when you're not a muscle machine.

I still feel so much better since getting the pod. I felt good when I first heard about Omnipod. My journey towards getting approved for this tubeless, wireless insulin delivery system was tough, exciting, fretful and fulfilling all at the same time, and my feelings the day I activated my pod were joyous, but still unsure. It reminds me now of the feelings I had upon being diagnosed when I was ten years old. I didn't feel it to the same degree back then, what being diabetic meant for me, but I had an idea. Though I knew next to nothing about it, from the way people were acting around me and from some intuition deep inside of my gut, I knew when they told me I was diabetic that this was a big deal, that this was life-changing. Almost fifteen years later, after I put on this pod, though I knew that this was a life changer, I still didn't know what it would feel like. I still don't know fully. I'm experiencing this gradual enlightenment of the freedom that I now have without the burden of giving myself shots multiple times a day. One day I will look back and remember how I really had no idea how life changing that moment was, when I pushed the button on my PDM and activated my first pod. I will do so with the same sense of nostalgia I feel when I look back to that poor unknowing little girl trying to grasp what it meant to be diabetic, with no idea that how it feels to wake up for fifteen years knowing she would have to inject herself every time she ate so much as an apple if she wanted to be healthy. But this time I will look back with a sense of joy, at that hard working 24 y/o woman that, after years of feeling like she was walking a tightrope, had no idea what it would be like to wake up after fifteen years of life without insulin injections littered throughout her day. That day when I can look back the way I look back at diagnoses day now, except with a smile instead of tears...that will be the best part of all of this.

2 comments:

  1. I AM SO PROUD OF YOU!!!!!!!!!

    Keep up the great work and enjoy your newfound freedom!

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  2. WOW. The last part of the post really got to me Jessica. I am so happy that you are finding the pod liberating.

    I cannot wait to hear/see if your A1C improved. It can take a bit of time to see the results you want. Know you are moving in the right direction no matter.

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