wake up and smell the roses.

today was the day. the day that comes once every three months. the day every diabetic either loves, or hates. it was the day that i had to visit my endo.

my endo is a wonderful, lovely lady. she's encouraging, and she really cares for her patients. she can be a little fierce or strict though, and i admit that took a lot of getting used to.

so anyway, my biggest problem at the endo's is never my blood sugar. i produce my log sheet, the nurse looks over it, highlights any numbers which are way too off my usual track, and she gives me my A1c results.

today my A1c was 5.2%, no change from the previous time, but a total relief since i haven't exactly been practising much blood sugar control in the past couple of months.

my biggest problem at the endo's is my blood pressure.

today even after the recheck, it was 138/80. that was a little worrying. anyway the good news is that my endo doesn't wish to start treating me for hypertension. reason being, i'm still pretty young and with better management of exercise and eating right, things should get better.

i was super scared while at the hospital and while waiting to collect my new supply of pills from the pharmacist i cried a little. yes, i can be a bit of a crybaby. but after thinking things through, i'm realized this. i'm still scared (because who wants to know they have hypertension?) but i need to realize and remember that firstly, God is in control, and secondly, i can make life easier for myself by kicking my butt back into swing.

so yeah, it's true that certain things do jolt me awake in a rather rude fashion. but at the same time, it's necessary to take a step back, smell the roses, and realize that things may not be as dire as they seem. that sometimes, change is not a necessary evil, but a blessing coming my way.

five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes

today's my first diaversary.
threehundredsixtyfive days with diabetes.

i remember not wanting to go to the ER. i remember having my finger pricked for the first time, and the nurse saying that my blood sugar was really high. i remember having to pee into a little cup and the nurse saying there were ketones in my urine. i remember the ER doctor telling me i had diabetes, that i needed to go for an operation to take away infection on my abdomen. i remember lying there, semi-conscious after the op, telling the doctor over and over again that i wanted to go home. and the nice, patient doctor telling me that i would have to stay in the hospital for a while, i was really sick.

i remember waking up in the ICU. seeing all the tiny scab marks on my fingers from where the nurses had tested my blood sugar. seeing tons of IV sites on my arm, my neck. waking up to see my mom's face. having her feed me chicken broth and minced french beans for dinner. having my friend's sunflowers banned from appearing in the ICU.

i remember being moved to the general ward. meeting my endo and diabetes nurse. having them tell me not to cry, that life goes on anyway. that they have patients diagnosed with diabetes (though i don't know what type) at the same age as me. i remember giving myself the first insulin shot, and having the ward nurse have to press my hand down so that the needle would go into my abdomen. i remember seeing a dietitian for the first time, flooding her with so many questions she could barely keep up with me.

i remember too, the love and care shown to me. by my parents who visited me everyday. but my friend P, who was interning near the hospital i was warded at, and who came by every lunch hour to sit with me. by the people i knew who sent flowers, cards, and came to make me smile and cheer me up. by my friends who were patient with me each time i had to count carbs or take a shot before eating. by online friends i met, who understood and still understand it all.

i remember going home, learning how to count carbs and remembering to shoot up before meals. i remember the blood tests, the A1c's, the c-peptide and antibody tests. i remember the endo telling me that i have Type 2 diabetes, not Type 1 diabetes. i remember going to the pharmacy and bringing home my first packet of metformin pills.

i remember the fear. the anguish. the pain. the hot tears i cried when i felt abnormal, when i felt as though the world had crashed and i was the only one left. the times when i said i hated diabetes and i wanted to be normal again. and i remember the joy of finding the diabetes oc, realizing that there are people out there who live the way i now have to live. you might be miles away, but i feel far less alone, i know i'm normal, we are all healthy and normal people.

i remember now that life is more than the fingersticks, the shots, the pills, the hospital appointments, the logging, the working out and the carb counting. i remember now that life is worth celebrating, each day. because who knows, on 29th April 2007, my obituary could've appeared in the newspaper. because i would've slipped into a coma had my parents waited a few more hours to get me into the hospital.

because in short, this is literally my second shot at life. one year down, many more to come.

and in five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes, how do you measure a year?

the happy girl.

today didn't start out great. i'd anticipated waking up bright and early, making me a yummy breakfast of yoghurt and scrambled eggs, pottering around for a bit and then hitting the pool for some laps and to soak up the sun and get my required dose of vitamin d.

i woke up at 10am instead, rather groggy and sleepy. i intended to head out at noon (with sunblock lotion in tow, of course!) but i decided to bum around at home instead. i watched oprah, cooked some udon noodles for lunch, hung out with the guinea pig a bit, but got restless.

then at 3pm the sun came out. gorgeous blue sky, breezy, sunny weather. i put on my swimsuit and pulled a tank top and a pair of shorts over it. grabbed my gym bag and stuffed in a towel, some shower cream, a bottle of water, my wallet, phone, MP3 player and a copy of shape singapore magazine and left.

i swam for an hour and felt my muscles get a great workout. yay for that! (: then after cooling down and stretching out, it was time to bask in the sun. the sun was glorious! i love getting a dose of vitamin c this way, but i must remember to cap my sunbathing time to an hour or else i'd burn, and sunburns as we all know, are not fun.

lying on a deck chair, with my favourite songs plugged into my ears, a healthy magazine to entertain me, and lots of sunshine on my face, arms and back. simply delicious!

and then on a whim, i walked into a salon and made an appointment for a haircut. so now i've got my nice short 'do back. it's kinda like a cross between a really short bob and a pixie cut...perhaps i'll post a photo of it sometime.

me time: essential for a happy girl.

difference matters.

i have to blog about this idea that popped into my head while in the shower a little while ago.

see, my friend cum exercise buddy asked me if i'm planning to stop going for Pilates classes at the gym. i told her i want to do one more term of pilates and think about it after the next three months worth of lessons is over.

then this realization popped into my brain while in the shower.

the difference is me knowing that at the ripe old age of 20, i have double her risk of a heart attack already. that by keeping this excess weight on my belly (i do have an apple-shaped figure ya know), i'm going to do no good to myself because it adds to insulin resistance. that basically, diabetes affects so much of my body, which is a really scary thought, come to think of it. the kidneys, the liver, the nervous system, the heart...

it struck me then, that the difference matters.

the difference matters because it is this difference that is motivating me to start taking much better care of my health.

it matters because sometimes i look at my friends who can pig out as much as they like on all sorts of carborific things which are pretty darn tasty and not have to drag themselves to the gym on a regular basis, and then feel a bit miserable. because so often it feels as though i am the only one who has to keep an eye on her health 24/7, who takes blood pressure readings once a week, who pricks her fingers a couple times a day, who just plucked up the courage to step onto the weighing scale every morning before breakfast.

this difference matters because it makes me want to fight harder, it makes me want to kick diabetes in the ass and let it know that i am going to win. this difference will make a huge difference in my life because i am one of 328, 000 diabetics in Singapore. and this one diabetic is going to make sure she is not the one getting her leg amputated, kidney dialysis, a heart attack, or going blind.

this difference matters because to me, it's fuel, it's power for my mind.

girl's day off.

as i expected, today was awesome fun!

it rained really heavily this morning but nothing can dampen a day out with the girls, in my humble opinion. one of my friends actually waited for the rain to stop before leaving her place, so we had to wait for her. while waiting for her, i did a bit of shopping. you cannot kill the shopaholic in me, and i can be quite the vainpot when i want to be. i wandered into diva, one of my favourite accessory shops for a lookaround, and there was a rack of discounted items, so yay. i walked out with two necklaces, worth S$8.50 in damages.

soon after i'd walked out, our latecoming friend had appeared and so we went to get our tickets. hooray for student rates, because we got to save $1.50 on the movie tickets. we then proceeded to a hong kong style cafe for lunch, and we went completely bonkers on the dim sum. i believe i ate too much for my own good and i've refused to take my blood sugar reading since (i am off to the gym after i write this though). the dim sum, especially the char siu (chinese bbq pork) pastries were so delicious!

the highlight of the day was the movie. we finally caught definitely, maybe! :) nothing like a good ol' chick flick to make a girl smile. i love chick flicks, no matter how cheesy or similar they all are in the end. i repeat, there is NOTHING like a nice chick flick to make me smile.

i thought the story was oh-so-sweet, the chemistry between the dad and kid was pretty darn good, and who can resist a nice little romantic comedy on a grey day? not me! one of my friends and i loved the fact that the lead character truly loved the woman he had never been in a relationship with. it induced a fair bit of squealing from two of us. oh and i admit to spending a good amount of time mentally drooling at ryan reynolds, who i found to be rather charming in the movie. time to search for two guys, a girl and a pizza place reruns.

so it was a great girl's day out, and this girl's day off from diabetes. or rather, a temporary day off, because right now it's off to the gym to beat my blood sugar back on track. but even so, i reckon that taking time off to do silly things with the girlfriends, like order way too much food for three people and squeal our way through a sweet romantic comedy must surely be one of the best things in the world, ever. (:

all hyped up.

tomorrow, or later for that matter, since it's past 12 midnight will be an awesome day. I'm going to try and forget this insane pancreas of mine and enjoy my day out with the girlfriends.

a few girlfriends and i are heading out for a nice lunch and movie outing, maybe with a bit of shopping thrown in, to celebrate the end of our finals. some of our friends still have exams to take, so we're happily celebrating on their behalf! i can't wait to watch definitely maybe, which looks like a nice chick flick-ish sort of movie, perfect for a post-exam treat.

i'm going to wake up, feed the guinea pig, grab some breakfast, potter around doing some household chores for a bit. then wash up, wriggle into my favourite black skinny jeans and what will probably be the first shirt i pull out of my wardrobe and head out of the house, happy to be going out to spend time with a bunch of awesome people.

who needs to remember diabetes when you have the most awesome girlfriends? updates to come. but right now it's time for bed. i don't think it's about the same time wherever you are, but anyway goodnight, sleep tight and don't let the bed bugs bite.

i love my endo!

today i had quite the unpleasant experience at a doctor's office.

i'm getting new insurance, and because i have diabetes they wanted me to go for a routine medical. okay, so i got over the bad mood i was in because of that, and because i felt labelled. and off i trotted to the doc's today.

to say i disliked the doctor is a understatement. the understatement of the day, in fact. let me explain why i'm so peeved with this fella.

i filled up a form with my medical history. obviously i had to write 'type 2 diabetes'. he took one look at it and said, "type 2 diabetes, so young?", in what i felt was a pretty condescending manner. note at this point, that i'm still a bit sore about diabetes at times, and boy, he didn't make it better.

i felt judged, and rather upset because of that. i mean, it's not like i totally brought it upon myself or intentionally did something to deserve it. nobody gets diabetes because they eat too much sugar. that was what the lovely diabetes nurse drilled into me since the day she came to see me in the hospital ward. doesn't he know that diabetes does not discriminate?

he then asked me a couple questions regarding any medical emergencies i was involved in. i mean i had to be honest, so i said i had been admitted to the ER with DKA the night i was diagnosed. immediately that fella said, "so you went into a coma?"and that sounded more like a statement than a question to me. he also tried to insist that i had asthma as a kid when i am 100% sure it was bronchitis. the 2 are related, but also different.

seriously, this is why i love my endo so much. she's followed up on my case pretty much since day 1, probably when i was still sedated and stuck in the ICU with tons of drips connected to me. she knows the full story and she knows that for four months i was an insulin-dependent diabetic with no confirmed diagnosis of type 1 or type 2 diabetes. she encourages me by reminding me of her other patients who got diagnosed with diabetes at the same age as i was diagnosed, and by telling me that they're doing well.

she knows that diabetes can affect anyone, it doesn't care how old or how young you are. and she'll never judge me based on that. she'll lecture me a bit if i don't care for myself but it is for my own good. she does what she does because she cares for me as a patient. and it's tough love sometimes, and i do get a bit antsy when it's time to see her, but it usually turns out pretty good in the end.

today i learned just how important it is to have a good doctor to take care of my diabetes. and boy, am i glad to have been blessed with not just the doctor who is reputed to be one of the best, but who is genuinely concerned about my welfare.

summer lovin'

recharging from the crazy academic year is what the summer holidays are for. right, i don't get summer here. but you understand! :)

i'll be taking special semester though, to catch up a little bit where i've fallen slightly behind, so that leaves me with slightly over one and a half months to rest, relax and recharge. there is just so much i want to do! and believe me when i say i need a break.

basically this semester, i neglected my blood sugar. i didn't count my carbs as strictly, i didn't get enough exercise, sleep and i fell sick a few times as a result. this vacation, besides attending class twice a week from mid-june till end july, (don't worry, i'll get 2 weeks of break before term time starts again), here are all the things that i plan to do.

diabetes will be at the forefront of some of it, and for some other things, it's totally necessary to forget my crazy pancreas! the impending holidays makes me wanna dig out that old grease soundtrack, hit the play button on 'summer days' and start bopping up and down in my seat. i can't wait, because holidays are for having fun...lots and lots of fun, and to recharge from those crazy stressful days during semester!

i will...

• work out more - swim, kickbox, dance, run, cycle, play tennis...whatever's available, at least 4-5 times a week. the most important thing, is definitely to have a blast! and on top of that, it's great for the blood sugars, heart and weight.
• eat healthy. 'nuff said.
  
• learn some music - brush up on my piano playing, which is currently not fit for public listening, and pick up the guitar from wherever i gave up.
  
• learn photography - dig out my dad's old manual SLR camera and head out to the parks around this island to shoot some pretty pics.
  
• catch up with friends - over coffee, shopping, whatever.
  
• read more - i've tons of novels i bought but never got down to reading. time for some literary action, babe.
  
• and most importantly, rest, relax and recharge before my third year in uni! :)
  

and hopefully at the end of it all, i'll be singing, "summer lovin', had me a blast, summer lovin' happened so fast..."

the loves of her life.

inspired by ashley, who was inspired by allison.

***

i love...

sunshine on my face, feeling warmth on my nose, knowing and not caring that being out in the sun is going to make my face all freckly and spotty in thirty years' time. the sun is my friend, what else can i say?

plunging through the pool, swimming lap after lap, frolicking in the sea, running through the rain, soaking in a bathtub filled with my favourite bubble bath - i am a water baby through and through.

going to the kelong to fish with my family and some friends. there is nothing quite like standing on that wooden platform with your fishing rod in the water, waiting for a catch. or having auntie daisy cook the most fabulous seafood dinners, and stargazing at night, and waking up to watch the sun peep out from the horizon, painting the sky in the most splendid of colours.

the thrill of kickboxing, the punches, the kicks, the swift moves we execute. there isn't anything more thrilling and exciting, plus it's good for my heart and blood sugar.

designing things for friend 'cos it's wonderful to watch them smile when they see what i've created for them. and the grades won't matter, which is far, far better than worrying about whether or not i'll get an A.

the satisfying crunch of a red gala apple, walnuts mixed in with my strawberry yoghurt, celery sticks with peanut butter or cream cheese, vegemite on toast, cold soba noodles with that delicious salty sesame soy sauce dip, spicy thai curries and spaghetti with meatballs.

going on vacation, packing up my bags, getting my camera ready and psyching myself up for a new adventure in another land.

taking photos because capturing the moment forever is sometimes the biggest challenge, yet the most beautiful thing.

singing the harmony to mostly every single song that pops up on my itunes playlist when i put it on shuffle. this is turning into an obsession, but it shows that i'm more musically-inclined than i believe i am.

stopping by the roadside to play with my neighbour's pretty little calico kitty, watching her swat my fingers, rub her head against my feet - she is the sweetest little thing.

standing by my window and watching the birds flutter around the trees outside my room, and chirp their happy morning songs.

taking long walks by myself at the park near my place, which is next to the sea. watching the bumboats, ooh-ing and aah-ing at the yachts at the swanky yacht club down the street, gazing at the kites little kids are flying, feeling the adrenaline of the soccer friendly on the pitch.

planning birthday surprises because a birthday is not a birthday without a surprise, like balloons, or sparkler candles on cupcakes, or a big bunch of pink and red and orange gerberas.

sunflowers and gerberas because those are the flowers that will never fail to put a big cheshire-cat grin on this face of mine.

the smell of banana cake or chocolate chip cookies baking in my oven.

an icy glass of lightly sweetened peach&mango tea, or a cold glass of iced oolong tea on a hot day.

playing on the swings at the playground.

butterflies fluttering around the flower beds.

the quiet, relaxed kind of rush i get after a good Pilates session.

the colours purple, pink and green.

poetry, literature, words in general - will always be what i hold nearest and dearest. because there is nothing like stringing words together in different combinations, making new meaning out of things.

stickers, notepads, notebooks, stationary and colourful markers and pens - even though i don't need new ones 99.999999% of the time.

singing karaoke, with the most horribly cheesy mandopop songs, made worse by the fact that i cannot sing in mandarin to save my life, but it always makes me laugh.

bags, and shoes, and clothes, and earrings - because i'm a girl and i cannot live without the occasional shopping spree.

sydney, the world's craziest little guinea pig and her squeaky little antics.

watching the stars, and the moon, and the sun rise, and the sun set.

simply laughing, loving, living, being.

and the little things.
all the little things that make life a little less drab and a little more worth it.

because i'm in a bad mood that's why.

because i'm crying inconsolably and i don't know why.
because i don't want this broken pancreas.
because i don't want to be different from my friends.
because i don't want the fingersticks.
because i don't want to have to count the carbs.
because i don't want to worry about my blood sugar rocketing during an exam because of the stress.
because i don't want to have to pop pills twice a day.
because i don't count my blessings.
because i'm ungrateful.
because i'm guilty.
because i felel like nobody understands.
because i feel like i'm the only one.
because i know that it's not true but i fall into this cycle of guilt.
because i don't want to see the doctor every three months.
because i don't want this.

because, what did i do to deserve this.
because nobody i know in real life seems to understand that diabetes is a struggle.

that it's so easy to forget that it exists.
yet it's so difficult to get out of my mind.
that it consumes so much of my energy.
because so often it feels like i'm the only one who has to bear this burden always.

the hard way.

today i realized just how much i've let my blood sugar control slip.

i had an exam in the morning, and one more at 1pm. that meant i'd have to skip lunch. so i had a snack. a filet o' fish snack. i had this craving, and i tend to morph into a stress-comfort-eater, which is not too good, as you might imagine.

so my afternoon exam ends at 3pm and my friend and i decide to grab lunch. against my better judgment, i opt for a plate of chicken rice, which is delicious, carborific and fattening!

2 hours later i'm at 8.4mmol, which i personally find absolutely horrific.

i hit the elliptical machine for a good 25 minutes, playing with the resistance and working it till i'm soaked to the skin. and then add on about 50+ ab presses with weights.

i'm tired.

so i stop. stretch. breathe in, breathe out. get a drink of water and relax with some music on. it's about time for dinner, and an hour after i'm done and my blood sugar has dropped to 5.8. that's pretty good.

but today has taught me this.

i've learned my lesson the hard way and i'm gonna smack my butt back into full diabetic gear, never mind that i'm gonna get a lecture from the endo in two weeks, or that my A1c is definitely gonna shoot up.

it's better late than never, especially if i'm gonna live my life with this (unwanted) sidekick of mine.

gimme some endorphins!

i need an endorphin rush right now.

ok, i'm no gym bunny. i actually put on weight this semester, with a crazy timetable and a lack of proper eating and workout time, but i'm trying to get back on track, at least with finding joy in working out again, and slowly decreasing the carb intake.

so yesterday wasn't a very good day.

i sat for two exams and during the morning paper, i was so spaced out i can only pray hard that my professor can make enough sense out of my rambling and my illegible handwriting. and after that, what should i do but drop my mobile phone down the toilet. it's a long story which borders on too much info, so anyway my cell phone got damaged (and i am now using my old phone which works as and when it pleases).

then i had another exam in the evening and that went okay. but all i needed, was some endorphins. and a good workout to rid my blood sugar of all the evil after-carb effects (i'd been snacking a little too much before my second paper).

so off to the gym i went, for my weekly hip hop dance lesson. alright, it is my second lesson. and if you are wondering why this person who is a completely uncoordinated klutz is picking up dance, it is another long story. but i attend it with a friend, so it's nice to make a fool out of myself when the person next to me is doing the same thing, just in a more coordinated fashion.

and by the end our faces were painted in various shades of pink and red, our bodies were icky, sticky and sweaty. but gosh, we felt so good. after an hour of warming up, stretching and moving around to all these thumping beats, it felt sooooooo good. it was a good workout. and those endorphins were much welcomed after a long day of exams and the drama of damaging my cell phone. an endorphin rush is always a good thing, i guess.

now i'm sitting at a table in her uni, wondering if i should leave a little earlier after i finish studying for my sociology exam and hit the elliptical for a quick spin and attempt to do some crunches and push-ups.

because we all need those fiery lil' endorphins to perk up our days. especially when we think we think we don't need it.

i don't want to be sick.

my family's getting new insurance and today my dad suddenly told me that they want me to see a doctor for a review, other than my own endo.

i burst into tears.

well, blame it on the monthly surge of female hormones, and exam stress, but really, i just don't want to be labelled as sick.

it really, really sucks.

because by looking at me you wouldn't be able to tell that my pancreas decided that it should malfunction for the rest of my life. because you wouldn't be able to tell that i'm at a higher risk for heart disease, diabetic retinopathy, neuropathy, kidney disease and high blood pressure. because, i behave like your average college student, and college students don't get type 2 diabetes, do they?

i hate it when things like this happen because it just serves to remind me of how 'abnormal' i can be because of my cranky pancreas. i don't want people to know about my diabetes a lot of the time because i don't want them to think of me as the sick girl living with a chronic illness. the twenty-something who isn't healthy like other twenty-somethings are.

yet diabetes is a burden i must carry till the day i die. and even though a lot of the times it's easy to push diabetes to the sidelines and just get on with life, life reminds you of this baggage we must carry around with us.

finals week.

it's the good old dreaded finals week this week and i am so not prepared. last week was hell week, with too many project deadlines for my own sanity. and this week i have to sit for finals?

and being the smart ass i tend to be at times, i happily squeezed FOUR papers into TWO days. looking back, it's kind of like, oh my gosh what possessed me?

but i have to somehow live with it because the deed's been done.

and i'm blogging about this because i had the most sinful dinner last night - fried chicken and rice, and this morning woke up with the worst sore throat ever. it's definitely not looking like strep throat, thankfully, because i've no fever and nothing that looks like strep throat, and my blood sugars are fine.

i wonder why i have the knack of falling ill on finals week.

last semester it was a chronic headache, probably caused by me staying up to finish reading the cure for insomnia - my communication history textbook, and in the previous semster (about a year ago) it was hyperglycemia.

so i didn't know what hyperglycemia was then, because i never had to care. but i was tired all the time, never hungry, had suddenly been able to fit into a shirt two sizes smaller than i remembered i was and was going to the toilet like three or four times within the span of one exam. i remember struggling my way up the stairs to the exam hall. and i remember just two days later, i was in an emergency room hooked up to at least ten different things, and repeatedly telling the doctor that i wanted to go home.

finals week will always be a reminder to me about how i was diagnosed with diabetes. finals week will always remind me why i need to care about myself more. finals week - more than the fight for those A's. it reminds me that many times, i'm fighting just to keep myself alive and kickin'.

this sobering reminder.

the past couple of days have been really tiring, so i haven't been faithfully uploading my photos onto flickr. i will get down to it though, as soon as things tide over.

funerals are emotionally draining, even if you don't personally know the deceased. i mentioned before that a friend's mom passed away a few days ago. keeping in line with being a good friend (i know him from primary and secondary school, and he is in my church cell group), a bunch of us attended his mom's funeral yesterday.

i found it heartwrenching, though my friends who are less emotional than i am didn't think so. i couldn't bring myself to watch the casket being wheeled into the cremation room because i would have cried. a few of the guys did cry.

my friend stood right in front, with his dad and elder brother, head hung low. you could feel the pain in the room. this audible silence, marred only with the soft sound of sniffles; the pain of loss, the burden of grief.

we were ushered to a big hallway after the cremation was over, and my friend and his family had to stay for a few hours to collect their mom/wife's ashes. the rest of us could drive off anytime. hugs and kind words were exchanged. i don't think i can described the atmosphere. to see a young man walk around bearing a burden of unspeakable grief (he literally doesn't talk when he is upset).

i don't normally go around hugging people, even people i know and i am close to. but yesterday was different. he needed a hug, and so he got a half hug from me. that means i put my arm around his shoulder (he's taller than i am, so my arm didn't go all the way around...), and squeezed tight. sometimes words just don't cut it, and a hug is the best way you can show someone that you care, that even if you don't understand it all, you're trying to understand, that you know his/her grief is real.

and it is true, i will never understand till the day i experience the same kind of pain for myself. but sometimes, things should be left unspoken. at least he knows his friends love him and understand that he's going through an emotionally painful time.

and on the way home, i realized how fortunate i am to be alive. what a sobering reminder, but how fortunate i am to be alive today, even with this crazy pancreas of mine. what a blessing it is to have survived the DKA that got me diagnosed, that miraculous trip to the ER in the nick of time, before i made it to a comatose state. so what if living with diabetes makes life a little harder than others' lives?

it is such a blessing to wake up to feel the sunshine on my face, to walk, to run, to love, to laugh.

thrills and spills.

i rarely post twice a day, but anyway I'm so glad I signed up for kickboxing class. it was so thrilling to punch and move and kick and all that. school has been a major pain, and finals will be over within the next two to three weeks, but it just adds to the stress.

punching away all the stress just leaves me with a big endorphin rush and a very sweaty tank top. but it's worth the one hour of pain. yeah it is kinda painful considering that i haven't exactly physically exerted myself properly in a while.

but boy, that felt great. especially after stretching and gulping down a bottle of water. i punched till my upper arms are sort of aching, and it's not even like boxing a punching bag; we punch the air!

then i returned home to having a healthy panfried salmon + salad lunch with a tupperware of chilled watermelon chunks for dessert. this is surely my kinda life. or a little reprieve from whatever is annoying the heck out of my at the moment (read: assignments and looming finals).

and i sure can't wait for the hip hop dance class a friend and i are taking up, which starts on tuesday.

looks like working out is going to be a blast again. and that's such a great thing.

the grief mechanism.

i've had no time to sleep lately (sad, i know), so i conked out earlier than usual last night at around midnight.

this morning i woke up at 8.30, only to check my text messages and find out that a friend's mom has passed away. his mom has had cancer for a couple of years and the chemotherapy and radiotherapy ceased to work. she progressively got weaker and weaker, and just slipped away.

on one hand, it's a relief that she's not in pain anymore. she couldn't talk, or walk, or sleep, or eat for the last week or so of her life. so it's a relief that the suffering has ceased. on the other hand, i cannot imagine how my friend's feeling. he's not the overtly extroverted kind, but tends to mull over things for extended periods of time.

ironically, it is a sunny bright day over here. and he a few streets away from me. i can't imagine how he must be feeling and how he must be coping with the grief of losing a loved one.

and they hey, it strikes me that perhaps i understand...even if it's just for a little bit.

when i got diagnosed last year, the idea that i had a dead pancreas took some time to sink in. you guys know i have type 2 diabetes, but because i was admitted with DKA, the doctor tested my pancreas function and found it was zero. but how i became a type 2 is a longer story, for another day (perhaps my diaversary?)

but anyway once the idea that my pancreas wasn't working had sunk in, i sunk into a rather depressed state. i don't think it was clinical depression, but i was just...down. i spent loads of time in tears, asking God why this had to happen to me. i took my shots very grudgingly, and even broke down in sobs at the diabetes nurse's office saying that i wasn't normal anymore.

grief rears its ugly head in so many ways. i don't know how i got out of that depressed state, but i'm glad i did. now i pray my friend will be able to pull himself out of the grief that follows his loss, in time to come.

afresh.

so i'm back, with a clean slate to mess up in any way i want.

after a month or so of totally forgetting that i possess a crazy, whacked-up pancreas, i'm getting back on track.

it's like a new beginning for me. how fitting, considering that my d-anniversary is at the end of the month.

so here's to new stories, new laughs, new tears, new blood sugar readings, new A1c's, new plans, new beginnings.

it feels good to be writing about diabetes again. there's so much to say that often goes left unsaid. and really, it feels just like coming home again.