In short, yes it does. No two ways about that. It's omnipresent and creeps into all corners of your life.
So, how does it affect your life? Well, for each person it's different. For me well, it's affected my choice of career and many other parts of my life.
Career choice you ask? Well, at the moment I'm working as a health care assistant in my local hospital. In essence I am the nurse's understudy. Although the job doesn't sound glamorous, wards wouldn't work without HCA's. Simple. So how does this have anything to bear upon my choice of career you might ask. That's something you're more than entitled to know. I have always admired the way that my DSN's have worked with such devotion to my health care. If I can ever be half as good as they are, then I will have done well. So then, I think that you may well be able to deduce that I am looking to become a nurse sooner or later. Those of a Holmesian nature reading this blog are correct. I'd love to do my nursing training. However, since starting my current job in January of this year I feel less like I want to be a DSN and more of a general nurse. Should I find myself doing DSN work then that'd be nice. However, should I find something more interesting along the way then I'll crack on with that. Simple. I see enough about diabetes in my current job. I also see how poorly educated some patients are in their own care and what they can do for themselves. They have been let down by the system. Something within me wants to buck the system and change it all for the better. Then again, I can't do that as alot of the patients who have poor care are type twos under the care of a GP who sees them ever six months and does sod all to help them. Then there's the knowledge that you can't save the world. No matter how hard you try, there will always be time when you can't win.
Am I defined by my diabetes? If you asked me the same question every day for a year you'd get a different answer every day. There are days when what I have to do in relation to my diabetes just sails on by and doesn't affect me at all. Then there are the days when it can be looming upon the horizon and it plays a reasonably large part in your day. After that there are the days when a good set of blood glucoses can make the day and in that same day one poor one will break it. Then there are the worst of those days. Those are the days when you can't do anything without diabetes seemingly getting in the way of things. There are the days that you hardly notice that you're diabetic. As hard as that is to understand, believe it or not, it does happen. Then there's the inbetween. Those days are the ones when you can forget diabetes until you're reminded that it's there through a hypo or needing to test before lunch for example. Each day with diabetes is different. They are often brittle too, with diabetes it doesn't take much for things to go wrong.
My social life. Now, not for a moment would I dream of my life without my friends of a very special circle. They are my pancreatically challenged friends. I really do love them all however, I do hate the fact that we only know each other because adversity brought us together. Then again, if it weren't for diabetes we'd all be totally ignorant of each other's existance. I've been very close with them over the past few years.
Now I feel like doing something for charity, which one? Well, for a pancreatically challenged mong such as I there is only one choice really. My favourite D related charity is JDRF. I'd also do things for mental health charities but the reasons for that will remain private. So yes even the part of me that likes to be a do gooder (rare as it is for me) will do it for diabetes.
Being a bit of a nutter. Now I do apologise for my behaviour on the last full moon. Yes, it does happen every month. Simple. Diabetes does make things a little different in terms of mental health. As it stands, diabetics are much likelier to develop depression than persons without it. That's the bad part of it. On the good side of things, despite being a few slates short of a roof you gain a certain mindset that is unique to those with diabetes. I can't quite explain it but it's balancing on the knife edge between being completely lost to insanity and the sane world. You develop strategies that are unique to the induvidual to cope and get through the darkest times. Anything goes on that account. Keeping yourself from cracking completely is quite an achievement. I've accepted that I'm not quite the full roof thanks to the diabetes. Being able to hold onto what sanity I have is a nice thing. Even if I do lose it from time to time.
To sum up then, pretty much every part of your life gets involved with your diabetes for a certain period of time and to different extents. The damage can be varied in extent and form but it exists none the less. How we react to that is what defines us. If, like me, you howl at the full moon the sectioning is quite a possibility, a fun one at that haha...
I must leave you now, it's close to midnight and he's barking at the moon!
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