Type 1 Diabetes: The A1C Report Card is Not Easy
I received the news recently that my A1C had gone up instead of down. I’ve been working so hard and it was deflating to say the least. It didn’t go up much. It was a little over half of a point, but still, it went up when it should be going down. I cried a little. I ranted a lot. I had a mini meltdown. And then, with the support of my sweet husband, I got back on the unruly diabetes horse. Even after 21 years of having Type 1 diabetes, diabetes is not easy.
I expect a lot out of myself and it’s awful to have to deal with undesirable test results. I hate disappointing my doctor, my family, and myself. I feel like a failing student. We get a report card of how well or poorly we do over the course of 3 months and we want to do well, but it is a hard class. I want so badly to “Ace” the test, but it seems like all the hours of test preparation (aka: hard work) isn’t a fail-safe technique.
How hard did I work? I have been working out almost every single day on the treadmill. I’ve been testing more than I’ve ever tested before. I have been watching my carb intake. I thought I was doing all the right things to ensure a better A1C, though I think I know where I went wrong. I cut back just a little bit on some insulin recently because I was having lots of low blood sugars. We’re talking scary lows, ones that make you wonder if you are going to pass out in front of your co-workers. My daily exercise was working incredibly well and I just got scared of the bottomed out lows and cut down on a little of my long-lasting insulin to try to reduce them. Well, it worked in reducing the lows, but it also raised my blood sugars a bit more than I’d hoped. You live and learn. I guess I learned the hard way.
It just goes to show that even after all these years, diabetes is unbelievably hard. We try to do well and yet we sometimes still hear the disapproval from our medical team. It makes me sad. They truly don’t get just how hard we work for the control. I’m back on the full long-lasting dose, they have even upped my bedtime insulin, and I’m desperately trying to catch any lows early. I want to see a good number next time I’m due for my A1C, but I also want to live to see it. There is such a fine line between normal blood sugars and low blood sugars. It’s way too easy to slip into a low in no time at all. I wish we didn’t have to worry so much, that we could take a pill or a shot and just be fine. It’s not that simple.
Once again, I’m going to move forward and try my best. That’s all any of us can do.
