Progress

While I don’t jump for joy when an upcoming appointment with my endocrinologist, it’s not something that I dread. Dr. H and I engage in a good deal of chit-chat about random topics during our few minutes together, and I’d like to think he enjoys my time as much as I his. Last week I had the joy of having a nice lady poke a hole in my arm for the sake of the almighty A1c. While I knew my results weren’t going to be astounding, I knew they couldn’t be worse than what they were over the summer. I was hoping for progress, nothing monumental.

I opened this blog with a post thanking the people that played a part in motivating me to start this blog. In reality, it wasn’t just motivation to start the blog, but to also take my diabetes management more seriously. When I graduated (way back in 2007), my job with which I’m still thankfully employed had me traveling…….a lot. I don’t have exact numbers, but for the first full year of employment I believe I was on the road for over 8 months. During that time I did what I could to control my diabetes. But between staying at a different hotel nearly every night and trying to learn as much as possible with this work that was brand spanking new to me, diabetes eventually took a distant second place. I would go weeks at a time without checking my blood sugar. Looking back, it was a very scary time.

Cut to mid-July. I was home just long enough to get some blood work done, but not long enough to actually talk to my endocrinologist. I received a phone call while I was waiting for my connecting flight in Denver later that week confirming what I already knew, my A1c was garbage. People often say that a job is “killing me,” in my case, it was closer to the truth than I would like to admit. Thankfully my position with my company changed after a year. I got to sit behind a desk. Bored out of my mind, yes. But more importantly living with a more consistent routine including going to the gym.

So July A1c was 11.3 (yikes). By the end of August I started on a path to right the ship. I set up my appointment in January after I had sufficient time to get things back in order. I told Dr. H when I was there making my appointment fthat I wasn’t going to bother wasting his time in making an appointment for so soon after my return. Dr. H was proud to see that my A1c dropped to 8.0 (horray). I had hoped for something in the mid to high 8 range, with the expectation that I would continue to work to improve that number as the months continued. 8.0 made my day.

Which brings me to you, eager-reader. While I had been exercising since August, I did not start consistently checking my blood sugar again until the start of 2009. I had to baby-step my way back into better control. Through improved management and the relative epiphany that led me to starting this blog, I may not be a better person compared to the ‘me’ before this blog, but I’m most certainly a better diabetic. Hopefully the latter will lead to the former. Only time will tell on that one. What I can say is that without the support and feedback from people like Kerri, Scott, Rachel and the rest of the diabetic online community I’m not sure if this amount of progress and improvement in my diabetes management would have been possible. As I’ve said before, it feels good to know that I’m not alone in this epic battle. Thank you.

That number was 11.3 in July. A1c Pwnage.

Of course, one bad thing when the diabetes side of life is ok is that it makes room for other topics of discussion. When my endocrinologist is asking me if I have a girlfriend, I guess I still have a lot of work to do. Hopefully now that I have better control over this whole #diabetes thing, I can start to focus on other priorities.