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Everybody gets burned out sometimes. Sometimes you get burned out at your job. So, you take a vacation. If the burnout is really bad than you find another job.
Sometimes you can get burned out with a hobby of yours. You may take a few days, weeks, or months off to return to it refreshed. Or you just take up a new hobby. But, what do you do when the one thing that makes you cry and scream, the one thing that you don't want to see, hear, orfeelanymore, is the one thing that you just CANNOT walk away from? That's where I am right now. I am sick of finger sticks. I'm sick of figuring out how to adjust basals. I'm sick of site changes. I'm sick of treating lows and worrying about highs. Yet I can't back away from it. I can't just take some time off. I know, I know it's not my disease. I'm usually the first to point out that this is Riley's disease, not mine. He feels the highs and the lows. For now it's my job to figure out what to do about them. Even when he's somewhere else, at school, at my mom's, or even with Michael, I get a call. "Riley's sugar is 52. I gave him juice. Do you want him to have a snack too?" Or "Riley's sugar is 440. It was 330 before and I gave him insulin, but it won't come down. Do you think you need to change his needle?" Or "How many carbs is in.....?" Your advice may be that I need to give the reigns over to someone else for a while. But, I can't. You PWD out there reading this think about what that means. You are the one who knows your body. You are the one that deals with the highs and the lows on a 24/7 basis. You are the one that knows how your sugars respond to exercise or stress. Well, I'm that person for Riley. I've been making all the decisions about his diabetes for the last 2 1/2 years. I may not feel the lows and the highs but I'm the "expert" (if there is such a thing) at how to deal with them. I make the decision to give 1/2 of the usual amount of insulin the night after a soccer game. I'm the one who makes the decision about how much to decrease his basal and for how long when his sugar is 82 at bedtime and he still has insulin on board. Would you just turn the reigns over to someone else? Would you let someone else treat your lows and bolus for your highs? We all know that diabetes is an individual disease. What works for one will not always work for another. In some people excitement or stress raises their blood sugar. With Riley, it makes him go low. I'm not complaining really. I know that's what it sounds like. It's not that I don't have anyone else to give the reigns to. I just don't want to give the reigns to anyone else. I don't want people to stop calling me and asking me what to do. Because as long as I'm making the decisions I'm doing something to help Riley. That's really what it's all about. I want to make life better for Riley, easier. I don't want him to be high or low too often because I know it affects his body and it affects his moods. I want him to run at soccer games until he can't run anymore. I know I'll be dealing with a low later if I don't decrease his basal and give him less of a bolus. But, what matters at the moment is that he's having fun. I don't want diabetes slowing him down or making him second guess himself. I'm just tired, that's all. I want it all to go away, but I know it isn't going anywhere anytime soon, if at all. Prayer helps. "I can do all things through Christ you strengthens me". But, what about the anger that is bubbling up inside me? Anger at a disease that I cannot control no matter how hard I try. I guess it's kind of like doing laundry. That is my least favorite chore because it's never-ending. I may work all day to get the hamper empty only to have it fill up at night with 4 sets (sometimes more) of clothes and towels. I feel a sense of accomplishment when the hamper is empty. Then when it fills right back up again there's a feeling of "why bother?". It's just going to fill up again anyway. With diabetes the hamper is always full. There's always something that needs to be done. How do you guys deal with it? What do you do when you're burned out with a disease that is relentless, a disease that you want to ignore but you can't because ignoring it only makes it worse? What do you do? |
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Posted by Penny ..