Trying to find a silver lining in every situation

Morning blood sugar: 4.7
Episodes of low blood sugar today: none (high blood sugar yes, low blood sugar no)
'C's' mood today: Oh sassy as ever! Love this kid but this new phase of 'almost 2' is exhausting
Workout today: Scheduled rest day for training, completed a workout with Jeff- Bob Harper's Full Body Transformation- modified of course, light on the lunges and squats
Clean eating today: I made 'Thai Seafood Stew' from an older cookbook today 'The Complete Light Kitchen' by Rose Reisman- so good and I am proud to say that my son actually ate it. Well, he ate the broth....I am choosing my battles here. I saw this as a victory as it was something I made from scratch!

I have had a busy, exhausting week. The good thing is, it has been a tiring week, but overall a good week. Not too many lows, survived 4 days of work this week covering for my colleague who is on holidays, managed my household (kept it tidy, cooked meals), got my workouts in, and managed to be pleasant ( I think) to my husband and son.

The last 24 hours have not been my finest however. But as the title suggests, I am trying my best to find that silver lining and stay positive. At the very least, not crumble under pressure.

1- To be honest, this felt like an epic fail

Thursday nights for the past 6 weeks I have been participating in a Half Marathon Clinic with my local Running Room store www.runningroom.com It has been fantastic support. It has helped me tremendously pay more attention to pacing, have more consistent training, and I am hoping in the long run will help me run faster and avoid injury.

Unfortunately for my husband, these Thursday evening sessions have provided some increased stress on him. He works as a Finance Manager at a local car dealership-not the type of job where you punch a clock, but where you are often expected to stay until the last customer is out the door. To make a long story short, I ended up having to drive to the store with C, as Jeff was running late getting out of work. The plan was to meet Jeff at the store, give him C, so that they could both go home while I completed my workout.

To be honest, I feel that becoming a mom has made me more frazzled ( I am sure I am not the only one here). It gets better with every month, it seems, but last night, I have to say I was frazzled. I was rushing to eat something before I left, I was rushing to get my running gear on, I was rushing when I took my insulin, and by the time Jeff pulled up to pick up C, I was rushing after my running group.

I ended up having to join a group that was a tad faster than what I was use to. We were going to do a 3 km warm up, following which I would be able to meet up with my normal pace group. The workout was suppose to include some dynamics (butt kickers, high knees, leg swings) followed by hills, followed by a cool down of 3 km back to the store.

Things went haywire for me as I finished the 3 km warm up. We joined the rest of the groups, and by this time I was seeing spots. Not good-low blood sugar symptoms :( I quickly downed the gummies I had in my pocket, but after a few minutes was so worried about passing out in front of this whole group of people that I left. I started walking back to the store, where my car was; and of course where I had more gummies.

I screwed up. I took too much insulin with my pre-workout meal, was supposed to eat some carbs before I left the store and forgot, and ended up feeling terrible. I was certainly feeling sorry for myself during my walk back. After a few minutes, feeling sorry for myself got old, and I decided to try and make a plan B. I would walk back to my car, have some gummies, stop at the wine store for a nice bottle of wine, do a hill workout close to home, and toast my failed night with said wine. Which is what I did. Silver lining? The wine tasted good. :)

2-It gets better

I recovered from my not-so-great Thursday night. Or so I thought. I woke up Friday morning to the sound of my son babbling, so cute! He had slept in too, until 7. Glorious 7 am. We got up, had a workout, had breakfast, made a grocery list, and got dressed to go out for our Friday errands. Jeff needed to stop in at work to finish up a few things; the plan was for him to drop C and I off at the grocery store close to his work. We would get groceries, and he would meet up with us when he was done.

We had just pulled in to the grocery store parking lot, 20 minutes from home when I realized I had a headache. A high blood sugar headache to be exact. Then, the sick feeling of forgetfulness set in. I had completely forgotten to take my insulin this morning. How is this possible you say? I have no idea. The wine last night? Maybe. The fatigue of a week of more work and the same workouts? Also maybe. The fact that my lovely son squawked his way through breakfast, clean up, and getting dressed? Likely. I was frazzled, and I forgot. Not the first time these words have been uttered by a mother of  a toddler.

I'm still not really sure what the silver lining is here. The good news is I recovered for the rest of the day, and had good numbers. So I guess the silver lining is that things could have been worse. :)

There is no such thing as perfect, part 1

Morning blood sugar: 5.5
Episodes of low blood sugar today: 2 :( 1 at 4:30 this morning, the other about 15 minutes ago
"C's" mood today: Energetic! He crashed on the way home from groceries before he had lunch; I'm guessing I am going to have a hungry boy on my hands once he wakes up! :)
Donations this week: 1 from a fellow Physio in Calgary, so nice of her!
Clean eating today: Jeff and I are going out for dinner, a day late for a Valentine's date. Making Charlie and his babysitters (my parents, thank you!) veggie soup with alphabet pasta.
Workout today: A rest day from running-did some yoga and weights this morning. Needed a stretch this morning after a hill workout with my running clinic last night-likely the cause of my 4:30 episode!

One of the things I have learned in the last 22 months of being a parent, and the last 7 months of being a Diabetic is there is no such thing as perfect. I have certainly had first hand experience of this over the last week.

On Tuesdays I am on mom duty, in other words I have the day off from being a physio and am the full time, 24-7 caretaker to my son. We had a good day together-I got a workout in, we got out to get some errands done, and had a nap. In the afternoon I thought it would be fun for C and I to make some Valentine's decorations. Of course being the Type A that I am, I imagined covering our front door with cut out hearts of all colors, made from construction paper, to look like candy hearts. We also had Valentines to fill out for C's friends at daycare.

Things started out well. I gave C some markers, and began by filling out the Valentines (these were the priority after all). C would take the markers and "sign'' them, ie. scribble, and I would fill out the friends names and "from C". We got those done in pretty good time, but I could tell, C was a bit tired of 'craft time' by the time I picked up the book of construction paper to pick out pinks and reds and purples and mint greens.

To make a long story short I managed to make two hearts before it was game over. The two that I did manage to cut out, C kept grabbing and I was concerned that he was going to rip them, so I kept taking them out of his hands, to which he would reply with a wail of disapproval. After five minutes of this tug-of-war I thought to myself 'what am I doing?' This was suppose to be a fun activity for C and I to do together, and neither of us were having fun anymore. So we stopped. No nicely decorated door, but Valentines completed. 1 out of 2 ain't bad. :)

This is all pretty funny when I look back on it now a few days later. 6 months to a year ago I would have lamented the fact that I didn't finish decorating, that I had failed. Today I think, there is no such thing as perfection.

Valentine's decorations started, this is all I got to

Messy kitchen table-I can never seem to keep it clean!

Veggie soup for C's dinner tonight

A rare afternoon cup-to all the non-coffee drinkers out there I salute you!

Finding the courage to keep going

Morning blood sugar: 4.3 (even with a reduction last night, what is happening?)
Episodes of Low Blood Sugar today: none so far! :)
"C's" Mood today: pretty good, still a bit sassy, showing everyday that he is inching toward being 2
Workout today: 8.5 km this morning; I'm fighting some sniffles that developed last night, wasn't feeling the most energetic this morning. Was supposed to do 10km but opted for a treadmill workout to avoid potentially going out and not having the energy to make it back. I love the convenience of the treadmill, but even watching TV while working out could not stave off the boredom that sets in on the treadmill. Glad to have made it that far.
Clean Eating menu today: Homemade egg McMuffins for breakfast with turkey bacon, a spinach smoothie for lunch, and Turkey Chili is Jeff's pick for tonight...he is cooking, yay for great husbands!


It is now almost mid-February. Where has the time gone? Christmas is over, the holiday hang over has subsided, and hopefully most of us are still hanging on to those resolutions we made-even if it is just by a thread. What the second month of the year means for me is a more invested approach to my fundraising campaign. I have given myself some leeway in the last 8 weeks; it has been Christmas after all and then January which is often about paying Christmas bills. But now, it is time to get back up on the fundraising horse.

It is not easy to ask people for money. I thought I knew this going in, but it is even harder when you actually have to do it. Jeff has been great and supportive since November, when I decided to take this project on.  He has said all along, "Don't take it personally, it is charity, people have the right to say no." He is absolutely right. The rational side of me realizes that most of us are asked to donate to many different causes. It is tough to choose, and more tough to part with our hard earned cash. It is so cliche to say, but everything is more expensive these days, groceries, diapers, clothing-I am certainly aware that asking for something as non-necessity as charity is tough for some people to swallow.

The emotional side of me takes a different angle. When I am thinking with my heart, my campaign is personal to me. Sharing my story and my fight with Diabetes isn't easy; it leaves me feeling vulnerable and exposed to possible judgement and scrutiny. When I decided to sign up for this campaign I told myself that it would be unbelievable to reach my goal and run in Iceland, but I also told myself that it is just as important to improve knowledge and understanding about my disease in the general public-what better place to start than with family and friends?

Well now the time has come to branch out and begin talking to people that I don't know very well, likely some strangers in fact.  This concept has left me feeling a little nervous in the last few weeks. I was chatting with my neighbor yesterday and she thoughtfully asked about how my fundraising was going- I was proud to tell her that I am 2/3rds of the way to my goal of $6500.00. As Jeff has encouraged me to do, I focused on the positive aspects of my campaign- that I have had neighbors that I am only getting to know donate without hesitation, I have had distant cousins donate that I have never even met ("Family is Bedrock" when you are Icelandic :) ), and I have friends in Saskatchewan who took it upon themselves to share my story with their family and friends and as a result have received multiple donations from people I barely know. It has been amazing, and it has given me the courage to keep going.

So here I am, I have saddled up and am ready to hit the streets once again. Not just in the name of charity but in my name as well. "Hello, my name is Amy, I am a diabetic. Please consider donating to a great cause."

Below I have attached the fundraising letter that I mailed out to family and friends as part of my campaign (of course with a few changes to my personal info). I would love for people to read it, if nothing else to know my story. If anyone has any questions or comments, I would love to hear them. Please leave them in the comment section below.

January 2013

To my friends and neighbours,

This is my running buddy Charlie. He rides, I run. He is at the top of my list of the many blessings I have in life. My list includes a loving and caring husband, a great career as a physiotherapist, a beautiful house, a reliable car, a wonderful family and friends, and until recently a healthy body that has helped me achieve many athletic goals.

Of course as most of you already know, the last one changed this past July when I was diagnosed as a Type 1 diabetic. This diagnosis definitely did not feel like a blessing, it felt more like a blow both to my physical self and my ego. Considering I have preached and embodied a healthy lifestyle to my clients for the past 8 years, can count on one hand the number of times I eat fast food in a year, and cannot remember before the age of 8 years old taking a full week off of exercising it was a blow indeed.

The one thing that helped me through the bleakness of my diagnosis was my mom, Carol. She has lived successfully as a Type 1 diabetic for more than 40 years. I didn't realize though the grace with which she has dealt with her disease until I myself was diagnosed; I would watch her as a kid, test her blood, take injections, refuse desserts and treats, and very rarely, if ever, did I hear her complain. The only time we would notice a note of frustration was when she had low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) which by the way involves breaking into a sweat, getting the shakes, inability to form sentences or thoughts and feeling unsure if you are going to faint...no wonder the frustration!

Not only did I not realize her burden, I also did not realize the ignorance she faced from the general public. I experience this now when I share with a stranger my diagnosis and that glaze of confusion sweeps over them. Some of the braver ones even make comments like: “But you're not overweight?”, “You eat so healthy, I don't understand” The fact of the matter is many people think Diabetes only effects those that eat sugar for breakfast, those that frankly take their health for granted by sitting 12 hours a day and sleeping the rest, and never eating a vegetable. And this simply isn't true.

Type 1 Diabetes means that for some reason my pancreas has stopped producing Insulin, a much needed hormone in the body that helps our cells to absorb glucose. Glucose is the fuel that our bodies require for energy and for overall function. Without Insulin, glucose cannot be absorbed by the cells and the body starts to breakdown. For me this presented in various forms including thirst, muscle cramps, frequent peeing (4 times in one night is not normal!), and weight loss. The one that really indicated something was wrong was blurred vision- I went out for a training run in July and couldn't see down the trail! Not a recommended sensation to experience anytime in your life!

In early August I was finally placed on Insulin injections which has made me feel much better. My daily life now consists of 5 insulin injections, 2 long acting insulin shots, and three fast acting injections at meal times. Above and beyond the injections I prick my finger 6-7 times per day to test my blood sugar to ensure I am taking the right amount of insulin in correspondence to my carbohydrate intake. That is right, at every meal I count how many grams of carbohydrate I am eating and calculate the ratio of insulin I need to cover the carbs. Oh, this also has to be adjusted if I plan to exercise, which I always do, because exercise naturally lowers blood sugar.

I know what you're thinking, that is a lot of poking and a lot of math in one day! It is a lot to think about. As you can see there is not a day that goes that I am not fully aware of my disease and how I need to manage it. It is now a part of everything that I do, every time I head out for a run, every time I open my mouth to eat something, every time I have low blood sugar (which is often once a day) it is on my mind. As a parent, you know how hectic meals can be with a 21 month old; now imagine counting carbs and taking injections between cleaning up spills and running for more cheerios! Often pure chaos!

But it is worth it for me to be on top of things. I feel better when I regulate my blood sugar properly and I know by doing this I am providing myself with a reduced risk of diabetic complications; if you don't know, these risks include a high risk of heart disease, stroke, blindness, and even amputation just to name a handful! Management is not easy but it is necessary.

As most of you know I completed my first half marathon as a Type 1 Diabetic in October 2012; this was my 5^th half marathon in my lifetime but as you can see from above, things have changed slightly in the last few months. When I got the go ahead to continue training after my diagnosis I had T-shirts made for myself, my parents, Jeff and Charlie stating my diabetic state and the presence of my support system. I wanted to make the best of things, have fun with it. As I waited at the start line for the race to begin a young woman came up to me and asked me where I got my shirt, she said she wanted it. In our brief conversation she told me she was a Type 1 diabetic as well, and I explained what had happened in the last few months, that I had been diagnosed in the middle of my training program. At this she shrugged and responded, “ It's not so bad.” She had that jaded tone in her voice that I hear quite often in my profession; those that have lived with a chronic condition for long time and feel misunderstood by the commoners that don't have the condition. At the time I didn't think much of it; I was a little hurt by her lack of reassurance and obviously had my mind on the race that was about to begin. In the last few weeks I have thought a lot about her comment and thought to myself “yes, it's not so bad, but it could be a lot better!!!”

Which brings me to why I have sat down to write this letter. I am fundraising on behalf of the Canadian Diabetes Association (CDA). I have signed up to take part in a Team Diabetes event. Team Diabetes is a section of the CDA which, along with their sponsors, helps participants to complete marathons around the world. If I manage to raise the minimum fundraising amount of $6100.00 (I know it is a lot!) Team Diabetes will help with my travel and race costs. I have signed up to complete the half marathon in Reykjavik, Iceland August 24, 2013; my goal is to complete the half in less than 2 hours. I feel as though this event was made for me; I love to run and my mother's family is of Icelandic descent. Completing this project will help me to accomplish two things-1) help improve awareness in the general public about my disease and 2) allow me to visit the homeland of my ancestors which has been a lifelong dream of mine!

My goal is to raise $6500.00 for Diabetes education, research, and support for those 9 million Canadians living with the disease.

I am doing this for a multitude of reasons. I hope that fundraising initiatives will get us that much closer to a cure, I am staying active with training which helps me control my blood sugar and feel in control of my health, I am presenting myself as a role model to other Diabetics who maybe aren't as active as they should be, and above all I am doing this for my son, to make his future brighter and helping to reduce the chances of him ever having to here the words “you are diabetic”. Charlie is not diabetic but he has the genetic misfortune of having a mother, a grandmother, and a paternal uncle all with Type 1 diabetes. Talk about a gene pool full of sharks!

I am writing to my wonderful friends to help with my fundraising campaign. I would like to ask you for a $50.00 donation. If a different donation amount would suit you better please feel free to donate more or less depending on your level of comfort. Every donation will bring me that much closer to my fundraising goal and my lifelong dream of visiting Iceland!

As I have different deadlines to make throughout this campaign I am hoping that you can make this donation prior to May 1, 2013. Your donation will provide you with a tax receipt and will make me extremely happy! You know that I am not the type to ask for help unless something is extremely important to me.

Donations can be made online at www.teamdiabetes.ca Click on “Pledge” and then enter my name (Amy Taylor) and city (Nanaimo). If you are not comfortable with online donations there are forms for credit card or cheque donations that can be mailed in, please call or email me and I will help you!

I look forward to hearing from you!

From,

Amy

I ate 10km for breakfast

Morning blood sugar: 4.3 (that was even with a reduction on insulin last night, wth)
Episodes of low blood sugar today: 1, before lunch
"C's" mood today: a little sassy, but what do I expect, he is almost 2. He remains mostly fun!
Workout today: 10 km long run this morning ( hence the title)
Eating clean menu today:it is Superbowl Sunday! In other words I am relaxing my standards. We are pretty big football fans so today is a celebration. Pizza is on the menu for dinner :)

So Sundays are my long run days. And as you can see by the title I finished 10kms by 9 am. I was happy to hit my pace- it took me one hour and 6 minutes. I was hustling a bit at the end I have to say. Nanaimo is very hilly, at 6 km I faced an uber-hill that almost defeated me. Almost is the key word here.

I love long run days. Thanks to the help of my wonderful hubby, and the fact that he is a hands on dad, I hit the pavement on Sunday mornings for a good hour of solitude. Just me and the pavement. The long distances are tough but the sense of accomplishment when you are finished is well worth the exertion. Bonus points for awesomely regulated blood sugar for the rest of the day as well. Completing a long run allows me to use half as much insulin as I normally do. I know, half, that is pretty crazy. Yes, I am at more risk of LBS, but as long as I test often and fuel up, I am usually ok.

When I ran the Victoria Half Marathon last October there was a spectator on the side of the road holding a sign that read "Chuck Norris ate this course for breakfast!" This made me laugh at the time, and I still love to think of this sign, especially on days when I am digging down, and gritting my teeth through a tough part of my run. So let me tell you I was thinking of Chuck today when I was facing down this long, steep hill at the 6 km mark. Halfway up my heart was in my throat, and my legs were Jell-0. Somehow I channeled my inner Chuck Norris and made it up the hill and the 4km back home.

Well, it is almost kick off time. I am off to celebrate the last Sunday of football for a few months with my husband, my son, and my parents. I am going to enjoy a beer too, one of the things I don't have too many of these days. Chuck says I have earned it! :) Go 9ers!

Retail Therapy

Morning blood sugar: 4.3
Episodes of low blood sugar: none (teetering on the edge though a few times; I have been popping Dex tablets 1 at a time throughout the day just to be safe. If you have never tasted a Dex tab think sweet tarts on steroids. They are pricey but work fast and are low calorie, unlike jelly beans :)
"C's" mood: pretty darn good!
Donations today: none, not many people seem to donate on weekends. They are busy spending their hard earned cash on fun things, which they should be!
Eating clean: homemade egg McMuffins. Saturdays I splurge a bit so there was bacon (real bacon) with our McMuffins, and the muffins were white, not whole wheat (sinful! ha, kidding, well kinda)
Workout: It was a rest day yesterday and I worked out anyways. I woke up this morning sore and almost low so I decided today was a good day to walk the dog and go the the park with C. I think a wise choice as 10km is on the schedule for tomorrow morning.

It is a beautiful day here on Vancouver Island. Sunny and 7 degrees with little to no wind. A perfect day to spend at the mall. Ha, just kidding. Well kind of kidding. I did get out this morning with the dog and C for a nice walk, and to check out the new play structure at the school 5 minutes away. I chased C around, walked the dog a bit, and decided that was enough exercise for me today.

If you are a parent you know that hitting the mall takes on a whole new meaning when you have a toddler. Gone are the days when you could stroll the aisles, window shop, and grab a latte in the food court. Well I guess you could still do those things if you wanted to do 2 things, 1-sedate your child, or 2-pull your hair out, while chasing your kid down the aisles, and spilling your latte down your shirt.

Yes, shopping with a toddler takes a plan and (almost) precise execution of said plan. On the drive up to the mall, I took a mental tally of the stores we needed to hit. You are typically allowed approximately 3-4 stores before your toddler will  A-need a snack or a meal, b-need a diaper change, or c- have a nuclear meltdown. So I decided we would hit the clothing store for C, the sports store for possible 9ers gear for Super Bowl Sunday (tomorrow!), and a larger box store for undershirts for Jeff and a baby shower gift that I need for next weekend.

The trip was a success. There were two blemishes in my execution when C could not be pulled away from the clearance toys outside of Winners (www.winners.ca)-I went into the store to grab a cart and attempted to whip it outside while still keeping an eye on my son. Apparently Winners has carts that will not leave the store; by this I mean these magnets come down onto the wheels like a parking boot and will not let you move-umm slightly embarrassing. I grabbed C, left the disabled cart in the doorway of the store, ignored the dirty look from the 20-something employee that had to unlock the disabled cart, kept my chin up, and stuffed my child into another cart. You live, you learn. The longer you have been a parent, the easier it becomes to just let these embarrassing moments become funny. I was chuckling as we walked into the men's department. :)

The 2nd blemish was when we went to check out gifts for the baby shower and I had a "how am I going to get C out of here" moment as he pulled toy after toy off the shelf. My salvation came in the clearance toy section-yes, I bribed my son out of the store by purchasing him 'Mega Farm' complete with farmer, barn and farm animals. I loved a similar toy when I was a kid, and let's face it paying $9.00 to leave the store with a happy toddler is well worth the price tag! In fact the toy doubled in value when we got home; kept C entirely amused while I made lunch, awesome.

I have to say, I have come a long way in the last few years. Today I had a great shopping trip and did not buy a single thing for myself! I shopped for the wonderful men in my life and it felt good. As we drove home I thought to myself, nothing like a little retail therapy on a beautiful day. This form of therapy is even better when you avoid toddler tantrums, and find great deals! Happy Saturday!

C's score-Mega Farm

Saturday afternoon nap with Liz

Shut up and listen!

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Morning blood sugar: 5.6 (much better number, thank you!)

Episodes of low blood sugar today: none (thank goodness, woke twice this week with LBS, boo!)

“C's” mood today: pretty good, a little clingy these days. Wants to hug a lot, it is nice, but hard to get some very important things done like get dressed. :)

Donations this week: 4 (great friends and neighbours!)

Clean Eating today: Lunch was a spinach salad with almonds, feta, blueberries and dried cranberries. Delicious!

Workout: Rest day from running, I did 'Les Mills Combat 30' 30 minutes of kickboxing, heart-pumping , sweaty fun. :)

A client of mine once said to me “ I always feel listened to when I come to see you. You are a really good listener”. Her words were very kind. I guess the advice that I was given in University by one of my profs stuck with me. He said,”Listen to your clients. They will tell you what the problem is.” So apparently I do. This came in handy this week.

I have had a rough week, hence why I haven't written. I haven't been feeling great. I don't think it is the flu, but I have felt run down and a little queasy. I have also had lots of highs and lows. By highs, I mean not that high, but high enough to feel lousy, and by lows I mean 2 episodes of waking up with low blood sugar that left me feeling like a zombie for the better part of the day. This had me feeling pretty low mentally this week. I wasn't quite sure what to do about it. So I did what I have been told I do well, I listened.

1- A refreshing bit about mental health

Another client of mine that I have been treating recently for soft tissue injuries of his neck and back said something this week that really hit me. He likely doesn't think anything of his comment but I was listening. This client is big and tough and works as a tradesman. Due to his injuries and the fact that he sustained a concussion at the time of his accident, he hasn't been able to work for the last few months. When he came to see me this week, he was telling me about his last visit with his family doctor. As he was finishing up on the topic he said “and oh, she also said she wants to keep an eye on my mood, you know, to make sure we are on top of any depression that might be coming up.” What he and I both know is that the longer one sits at home with limiting injuries, the more likely they are to develop depression.

This comment was refreshing to me because this big tough guy, that probably doesn't talk about his feelings that much, brought up the topic of emotional health like it was no big deal. He could have just as easily said 'oh, and the doctor wants to keep an eye on that mole on my back', and the feeling in the room would have been the same.

Often people don't think of emotional health and physical health working together as one unit. I have to be honest, I have been so focused on training, and avoiding lows, I don't think I have really checked in with my emotional side lately. Maybe this is what this week was all about, it just took my big, tough patient to point it out. Refreshing.

2-She ain't heavy, she's my sister

At least I hope this is what my sister, Laurie, was thinking after I unloaded on her this week. What I mean is, my lovely sister, who is a busy mother of two, took the time to call me this week (she lives hundreds of miles away) and unfortunately all her baby sister did was complain. I complained about my low blood sugar, I complained about how I slept in (yes, I did!), I complained about how Jeff 'seemed mad' that I slept in (Laurie: “did he say he was mad?”, Amy: “well no, but it just seemed like it”), I complained about how I wanted to work out but Jeff wanted to eat breakfast with me (again, yes, all me), and I complained that I had already had my pre-workout snack, and that if I didn't exercise right then my insulin-carb ratio would be off and it would effect my blood sugar, etc,etc.

My sister has an education in Counselling. In fact, she is very educated, has three degrees on the wall, one of them a Masters of Education in Counselling. Jeff sometimes jokes about Laurie 'therapizing him”, he'll get off the phone and say “oh you know Laurie, she likes to analyze and ask a lot of questions.” I think Jeff secretly likes it, but I also think that sometimes Laurie is good at pointing things out that aren't always comfortable things for people to think about.

This week, she didn't ask a lot of questions, she listened (again, a theme here). After the carnage of my vent was finished, she sat back and said “you know Amy, you are probably still grieving.” Grieving what? I thought. “Think of what you just told me, all the organization you have to do. Working out is hard enough (bless her, working out is not her favourite activity) without having to plan out your snack, and your carbs, and everything. You are probably still grieving for your old life.”

Ahh, nothing like family, especially sisters. They know you so well sometimes it is almost creepy. Creepy, in a very comforting kind of way. If she had been standing next to me after she said those words, instead of in a house in frigid Winnipeg, Laurie would have seen a lightbulb come on in my eyes. 'Oh', I thought, 'she is so right.'

I have realized I can throw myself in to fundraising, and training, and being a mom, but the fact is I am still adjusting (hugely) to my new life as a diabetic. I try my best to stay positive, and keep my chin up, but this week was about feeling sad. I was sad because I was missing the way things use to be when I didn't count carbs at every meal, and wake up in the middle of the night with anxiety over having low blood sugar. I also realized this week that these emotional ups and downs are all part of the process. They don't mean that I am crazy, or that I am weak. They mean that I am a balanced individual with an emotional side and a physical side. Listening this week has helped me to check in with myself. I spend my weeks listening to a lot of people, and helping them. This week was a reminder to check in with myself, and listen. 

"Yes, I'm listening"

Cute kid alert: C giving James the train a kiss.