Neuropathy is Stupid

Yep, I said it. And I’m only like a month into this irritatingness.

There are positives and negatives to my medication.

Positives:
- My head is in the clouds
- It gets rid of most of the pain
- I pay more attention to what I’m doing
- I earn more CVS Dollars because it means a new prescription

Negatives:
- My head is in the clouds
- It only gets rid of most of the pain
- I have to pay more attention to what I’m doing so I don’t fall or hit something
- I have to give CVS even more of my paycheck

The good thing is that most of my complete delirium should subside when I find the right dosage.

I typically try to take things as they come and not overreact because emotion won’t change the reality of a situation. Sometimes it’s not easy. This is one of those things. And I feel like I talk about it all the time but it’s only because it’s irritating me so much. The condemnation from my family over another "drug" (aka prescription) is also a pretty unpleasant “side effect“ of neuropathy.

The thing that’s frustrating with diabetes (and neuropathy) is there are no vacations. There’s not a day without insulin…unless you want to die, but I’m fairly certain most diabetics don’t, being that there are so many alive. Lots of diabetics go without testing their blood daily, but that’s really not recommended. And if you never thought you’d need the stuff talked about in your math classes growing up in the “real world” you’d be incorrect. Granted, I am incredibly grateful I live in a time that I do, where I can live a for-the-most-part normal life and enjoy a close-to-average lifespan. AND, I’ve met a lot great people I never would have if we didn’t have the connection of being diabetic.

When I was diagnosed with diabetes I didn’t really ever feel the need to connect with other diabetics. I didn’t want to go to a group and looking for a diabetic online community wasn’t even on my radar. At one point, about a year and a half after I was diagnosed I ended up in a public speaking class with another diabetic, I had to give an “informational” speech, I talked about my trusty pump. The girl approached me after class and told me she had diabetes too, I think I curtly said "oh" and walked away. (I feel absolutely HORRIBLE about this now. I think the rejection from my family over diabetes made me pretty cold toward the whole idea of being IN a diabetes community. I had yet to face that whether I accepted it or not, diabetes made me part of a community) It wasn’t until early 2008 that I really started to reach out to other diabetics. Trying to learn from mistakes and knowing now how great it is to find other people to relate with, I’ve looked into neuropathy groups. The groups are held at churches, retirement communities and hospitals. Needless to say, I will not be going to any of those. Discovering this has made me pretty irritated with the idea that I have “old people” health issues…diabetes, neuropathy and high cholesterol.  Realistically, they’re not “old people” problems…I have them, I’m 23.

Venting helps you come to terms with things, right? I like to think so, and I feel I’ve sufficiently vented…for today.

Benched/24 Hour Day...and Gym

Apparently I need to get better about writing something when I have an idea...I've now benched two posts because they no longer seem to fit.

BUT, I can tell you about my day...which is slightly more comical than what I had been writing.

So, last night was one of my overnight shifts...one of the days I work that shift always ends up in being a 24 hour or longer day for me. Before work was family drama (we can skip over that though) then got to work and after I finished my book I was hand writing a blog that was to later be posted. In the middle of my writing my hands had started tingling and hurt too bad to finish (another reason it's not being posted, my "flow" was interrupted). I'm having some serious issues accepting this whole neuropathy idea, it sucks. So, having to stop writing immediately propelled me into a pretty bad frame of mind. THEN I took more of my medication which made me even more out of it.

It's my job to be nice to people, it suits me fairly well because from what I hear, I'm a pretty nice person. Which means I don't generally have to work too hard. Around the time my medication kicked in was when members started coming in in the morning. There's this one member and I always say goodbye to him prematurely and always feel bad. So this morning I used my incredible observation skills to bring up he frequently comes in in the morning with a Michigan beanie. Trying to be as friendly as possible, I mention the hat and ask if he's a Michigan fan (because if if you're smart, you would be) and he snaps back that it's not a Michigan hat and walks away. This medication makes me really out of it, then in addition I was exhausted and incredibly frustrated with my hand/leg tingly situation...I started to cry. Over a rude grumpy old man and a hat. Awesome. Not real tears streaming down my face...but tears were in my eyes.

Then I head to class feeling like I was on the moon (the medication). I'm pretty sure I was getting some stares on the train, but it's not all that unusual...for whatever reason, I think I'm pretty normal looking. I sat in class only to have my teacher laugh at me most of the morning as she was trying to lecture because my eyes were wandering all over and I kept nodding off. At least I brought some comic relief to the classroom?

On my way back to the train station to head home I had a lovely interaction with an SF cop. He pulled up beside the sidewalk as I was walking, yelled my name out his window and started talking to me. It was pretty funny, I can't recall his name, but he stopped me as he was patrolling (I think that's what it's called) a street protest that I walked by to get to my class and we spoke briefly...three or so weeks ago. I then proceeded walking and he pulled over the car again haha. Funny, funny.

Then I came home and slept after being up for 24 hours. Whilst I was still asleep I had a whole conversation with my mother about robots and my current activity (which had been getting ready to go out, duh). Then I had a nice dinner...which has shot my sugars up to 308...ugh, 30 mins ago they were 150 or something.

Not an exciting blog, by any means, but that was my Tuesday :)  ...because I know you cared