Prompt - Write about a time you had to take the high road
This post is more about taking the high road within myself apposed to taking the high road away from a person.
I was diagnosed in 2004 at the age of 13, my high school didn't have a clue what my condition was and what they had to do. My nurse came and spoke to the staff at my high school but who knows what she told them as at the age of 13 I didn't rate my DSN either. I just got on with it and I would test just before dinner time and wouldn't bother till I returned home. I slowly drifted into a rut of not bothering what I did or what Mr D did. I often got a telling off for wanting the toilet more and as I look back well if your sugars were 20+ you would want the toilet a lot!
So as time went on I didn't care and my A1c slowly started to creep up and I would walk into clinic with no results and a very empty book! Even though my consultant scared the life out of me, it still did not motivate me to bother.
I left school and off to college I went and I still didn't care. Often I would spend all day at college with no blood meter, no food, no hypo treatments and I would barely eat dinner if I could help it! My sugars were far to high for me to even feel a hypo in the distance so nothing really matter to me.
I completed college and moved on to university were I lived in halls for the first year and still didn't really care about Mr D or the effects he might have on me. By this point my A1c was 12.6% I would occasionally try to test my sugars when I would remember just so that my DSN could help my sugars. By the time I was in uni my DSN was now a lady called Alison, who has stuck with me through thick and thin, she would attempt to motivate me and outline the importance of testing but I just went on living the life I was used to, with not a care in the world. I would always take my injections but they would be mere guessing of what insulin I needed.
One summer my mum and dad went abroad for a holiday and also my sister, her husband and my nephew also went on holiday. They asked me if I could 'house sit' and look after the dog whilst they were away. My boyfriend lived 30 miles down the road at the time so I was in the house alone. One morning I woke up and felt seriously strange and sick. I plodded on and started to get ready for work. As I drank water I could feel myself choking at the thought of putting a drop of water in my mouth. As the afternoon approached it suddenly dawned on me that I had forgot to take my Lantus injections the night before. I immediately rang Primary care (which is a helpline run by the NHS with trained nurses and doctors at the hospital), the sister on the line really dug her nails deep in my skin through the phone as she explained how serious it was to forget it. I was told to drive to the hospital, which I know now was very serious! I was in the early stages of DKA. With nobody around I had plenty of time to think about my actions and how serious things could have been if it had gone further. The needle the nurse put in my lower arm for an acid test kindly reminded me I never wanted to be in that situation again.
It still took time for me to be motivated and grow up, finally at the start of this year was a huge turning point. I decided I needed to grab hold of my life and sort it out. Since then I have continuously visiting my DSN (Alison) every 2 weeks to help keep on top of myself. It took myself to forget the anger inside of me and to take the high road and get on with life and not to waste the life I had. I worked very hard for months on end and still didn't get those perfect sugars I would love to have, but I persevered and finally 8 months later my funding for an insulin pump was accepted and life is going great.
I embrace how lucky I am and have no anger within me regarding Mr D, hes just a small part of my every day life.
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