Guest Post - "I Know Better"

Today we are excited to have a guest post from a VMG patient about his experience with diabetes. Seth has type I diabetes and has completed our diabetes education program. Thanks Seth!

My name is Seth Rothberg. Let me tell you something about myself that embarrasses me. There's a plate of homemade brownies up in the staff room. My CGM tells me I've had an even blood sugar all morning. I walked to work. And I seem to have hit the mark for my lunch time bolus. I know I should resist the brownies. But there they are, cut in small squares, with light brown crispy tops, and walnuts peeking out from fudgey sides. Carbs unknown, but maybe a square is 25 grams, plus or minus, probably plus. I'm not even hungry, so of course I bolus for 150 carbs and grab 4 and I know without thinking about it that I’ll be back in a few minutes for a couple more. An hour later my CGM beeps. It’s showing two arrows pointing up and a blood sugar about to hit 200. I don’t bother to test, I just give my self a 7 unit bolus. Why 7 units? I have no idea, but 2 hours later I’m gobbling glucose tabs. What embarrasses me about this is not just that I do it, but that I think that this kind of behavior defines me as a diabetic. I feel that I’ve just told you nearly everything there is to know about me and my diabetes.

I ask myself 2 questions after I pig out on brownies, or pretzels, or oreos, or Pepperidge Farm Sausalito cookies (to list a few of my sins). Why do I do it and (I’m sure you saw this immediately) how do I manage to not manage it? The truth is, I’ve never been able to answer these questions. I’ve done everything wrong. Either I guessed wrong for my bolus, or I over ate. What’s worse, I bolused again based on nothing but impulse.

O.k. I should give myself a little break here. After all, I started the day really well. I had yogurt mixed with blueberries and walnuts for breakfast. It was a perfect 50 degrees when I walked to work and there was a full blue sky. The gardens and hedges of the houses I walk by are blooming with flowers I can’t name, but their colors stun me. I’ve managed to keep my blood sugar in the low hundreds. It didn’t just happen. I managed it. Yes! Not to mention that I had those glucose tabs when I needed them.

Let me tell you a little more about myself. If you asked me what the most important thing to me about my diabetes was, I wouldn’t tell you the brownie story.  I would tell you that I've been diabetic for 48 years, since I was 10, and that I’m aiming for the 50 year Joslin medal. I’ve noticed, though, that when I bring this up outside of medical appointments, no one's as proud of me as I am. I guess I understand that. Who wants to hear an old man going on about how he had to walk 10 miles to school, in the snow, in bare feet. One of the few things I really do know better is not to  bore you with my early days on regular and lente insulin, or how I had to pee into a cup to test sugars. In future blog posts I will try to limit any of my “in those days” tendencies to what I hope will be stories that are still relevant to what’s it’s like to be a diabetic now.