If you are just finding me for the first time I should warn you, I don’t always follow instructions. More so, I tend to ignore rules and requirements too. I should also add the “sarcasm” disclaimer as well.

Once again the great muckety muck Karen, with suggestions from Rick and Jen are trying to force to me to follow rules. However, I am doing my own thang as per usual. Today’s topic or suggestion is:

Insulin and other diabetes medications and supplies can be costly.  Here in the US, insurance status and age (as in Medicare eligibility) can impact both the cost and coverage.  So today, let’s discuss how cost impacts our diabetes care.  Do you have advice to share?  For those outside the US, is cost a concern?  Are there other factors such as accessibility or education that cause barriers to your diabetes care?

I should have used this post that I am going to be writing today yesterday, but like I said I don’t follow the rules. I hate them. When I look at the idea of cost, I don’t think about the monetary cost. I mean things are costly, but I am grateful that my health care is pretty decent so while the deductible hurts each year, I am not so bad off.

So today I talk about the mental cost of type-1 diabetes. Back in March when the northeast was hit with the GIANT Blizzard, I was excited. After the 20 plus inches of snow and during that storm, the mental impact of type-1 really got to me. So I was planning on writing something down, but it didn’t happen quickly as work got in the way, so by the time I was ready to write this epic post, the impact would be different.

I was going to call this post “Shoveling while Low”. Anyway, first of all I lied yesterday, when I said I can usually handle exercise when it comes to type-1. The reality is, it is a frikin game and I tend to always lose. Trying to figure out life and food and exercise and everything in between is mentally exhausting at times. Because I am who I am, does it bother me or hold me back? No! But there are those days where I just really think to myself, this is starting to get ridiculous.

My graph is not always this pretty. But here is the reality of the situation, when you have a blizzard hitting you and you know the amount of snow you are supposed to be getting, there is a pretty damn good chance even if you have a contractor who does your driveway and possibly walkways you will be outside shoveling. I went outside to shovel my walkway and some of the other areas on my property to make it easier for the snowblower and shoveling later on. I went out 4 times. Can you figure out where? Well if you aren’t sure, 9:30 AM, 2:45 PM, 5:30 PM, and 8:30 PM.

I bundled up all nice and pretty, put my phone in my pocket, put my headphones on and just started shoveling. The first time I was out, I did my walkway by hand (always by hand) and wandered over to my church entrance. When I got there it was a mixture of hand and finally snow blower. All of a sudden I hear a beep in my ear from my phone/Dexcom app telling me, hey you should stop. You are going low. But we all know what happens when we are low, we get stubborn and argumentative. This time, with myself.

So I shoveled for about another 15 minutes before I finally talked myself into the fact I had the snowblower path big enough to at least handle the entry. (Still ignoring my low, I know I have issues and am very hypo unaware and stupid.) I clean out the main entrance, notice how crooked the lines are and try to handle more, apparently my slight OCD becomes a little more pressing at that point. Finally I convinced myself to stop, wandered back home, ate some Irish Soda Bread and relaxed.

I recouped for a while and went back out again, same routine, shovel walkway, wander over and pull out snowblower do path’s and go back in and eat/treat. This is the part that gets me, I barely bolused for anything I ate all day. I couldn’t have planned that better had I tried, but should have been smarter about these things.

But this is the reality, it’s only a day or two later that I start to think about the what if’s? The what if I dropped really low while shoveling and no one was there? What if I wandered off and got lost because I was low and confused? These are things that scare me. This is where the real cost to me is. Mentally, I am not the smartest in the world when it comes to some of this stuff. I am stubborn and independent. Thankfully, my idiocy has not been disastrous, but what if it had been?

The cost whether it is financial or mental is a big one. Yet people do not realize it. People see me, see you. Maybe they know about your chronic condition or maybe they don’t. Yet no matter what, we move along on a daily basis, pretending all is right with the world. However, no one is truly aware of the “cost” of having type-1, aside from those who are dealing with it’s impact on our lives.