A colleague asked me yesterday why I work in the diabetes field. "Like, aren't you completely sick of it!"
By the way I am a Nurse who does Chronic Disease management.
I paused... and thought about the question....then responded, "well you'd think I would be, being Type 1 myself, and having to manage my 2 type 1 kids, and then working 40 hrs a week where I generally help others manage their diabetes"
Then I said to her I guess I feel good knowing at the end of the day I am helping others manage their diabetes and hopefully they will feel better and live a better life.
However, the question stuck with me (obviously I am still thinking about it today)
I love helping others, I enjoy doing research and using myself as a "Lab Rat" ,changing regimes, and trying to improve control through self experimentation. I love the feeling of nailing a good A1C, or a good 24 hours worth of normal glucose readings, it empowers me. Now lets talk about the dark side.
I hate worrying about future complications, I hate how much time it takes for managing diet, tests, doctors, pharmacies, recovering from lows, interrupted sleep at night (from hypos) I hate that my 2 kids(out of 5-Ya I have a whack of offspring) have to struggle with diabetes. I hate when you get thrown the old hormonal curve ball. I especially hate how it is always there, 24/7-365.
Diabetes can take you in two main directions. One of self discovery, learning, and the motivation to meet the challenge that it presents. The other direction is pretty much the opposite; refusal to learn, feeling of hopelessness, poor health and future complications.
However, nothing is that simple, and I think it is more a tug of war between the above two directions.
For me there are days I love diabetes, how its changed me and how I am now able to help others, but other day I absolutely hate it.......Definitely a Love-Hate relationship.
Trev
No comments:
Post a Comment