by Tim
Diabetes fatigue
8:00 am in Living with diabetes by Tim
Stock footage of glucogen injection - too fatigued to find a better picture...
Every once in while, each member of the pancreatically challenged hoard comes up against diabetes fatigue. This manifests itself through the victim running themselves down into a slough of despond, shaking their fist at the heavens and generally cursing their wonky pancreas. I’ve been suffering for diabetes fatigue recently and it’s not entirely fun.
I suppose the thing that gets me down isn’t really the fact that there is unlikely to be a cure in our lifetimes (unless you’re an immortal member of the clan MacLeod – but then I suppose fictional immortals don’t tend to have problems with their internal organs. Or do they? If you go by Jonathan Swift’s version of immortality in Gulliver’s Travels then those immortals tend of have terrible problems – probably with Type Two more than Type One, given their great age. But I digress somewhat).
No, it’s not the lack of cure thing that gets me down; it’s the sheer downright tedium of diabetes. You have to admit that constantly checking your blood glucose, injecting or pumping, keeping a vague eye on what you eat, calculating how much insulin to put in after going on a bike ride, explaining to taxi drivers what Type One is, and on and on and on is extremely and brain-numbingly boring.
I wonder whether it would be different if the symptoms were more varied? For example it might be less dull if a lack of sugar gave diabetics a rather pleasing green – mottled with purple – tinge to their skin rather than just boring old sweating and the shakes. Too much sugar could lead to any number of random symptoms – the ability to briefly hover, the power to crush girders or the superhuman skill to change energy supplier in ten minutes flat. If these symptoms were utterly random, as Forest Gump says “life would be like a box of chocolates”, which would be far more entertaining than the boring old fact that said box of chocolates requires 16 units of humalog to balance the carb intake.
Sadly, though unless we get some very cool scientific breakthroughs in the next year or so, we’re not going to be able to vary our symptoms when we screw things up. So we’re stuck with the terrible tedium of diabetes. Booooooo!
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I’m freakin’ exhausted just reading that post.
Sigh.
Man, if we had super powers…..heck, just different symptoms.
This disease is way tiresome. I am so burnt out right now. It’s been a long time since I have been this way. I don’t like it one bit.
Here’s to some breakthroughs to help us be less bored and tired.
(I got tired of CALpumper aka…..I think it’s time just my first name got the spotlight.)
Yeah, pseudonyms are soooo last year…
I am so with you! We are trying for a baby and I am sooooooooo fed up with checking my BG every 2 hours, working out what I am eating and when and how much. And all this and I’m not even pregnant yet – can only imagine what it will be like when I am. I definitely need a good months holiday from my diabetes or even some respite care from Alison’s Diabetes Manager!
@Sam Diabetes *and* potential pregnancy – that sounds like a fun combination!
I’m with you too, Tim. I’d pay a fortune for a genuine holiday from it – even to be able to hand over the reigns to someone who could do all the thinking for me for a while… ho hum.
However, can you imagine the dilemma – if hypers gave me the ability to hover I’d have no fear of losing my feet. Its my intention to get buried with them that keeps me more-or-less on the straight and narrow. Sometimes narrower than others.
Maybe a shiny new BG meter will help you get through this time.
Have a virtual (((hug))) from someone who Knows and Understands.
Lesley
@Lesley Thanks Lesley – I do indeed have a fancy new meter – but the GP ignored my faxed request to prescribe three packs of test strips at a time and only gave me one and I’ve run out now *sob*.
However, my friendly pharmacist is chasing said GP for me to get the amount upped. Huzzah!
And that kind of &%$* just adds to the fatigue.
@Lesley It most certainly does – I think some people within the NHS have an irrational and somewhat pathalogical hatred of diabetics. Or so it seems to me sometimes…
lol, if only these were the symptoms all kids would want to have diabetes even the ones with diabetes would be happy having it, if only during brief moments of hovering, or while crushing girders! Great blog Tim
