I started a new blog four weeks ago .. now I can’t seem to access it .. or even find it which is a little frustrating.  So this is my new new blog :)

A brief run-down and update….

A month ago, at the age of 55, I was diagnosed with diabetes.  It came completely out of the blue as I’d had no symptoms.  I had gone for a routine eye examination and the optomotrist found some things in my eyes that were not normal and led to a doctors appointment, blood tests and the worrying diagnosis.  It was severe enough for them to put me straight on to insulin and I have been injecting myself once a day since then.  I have radically changed my diet and my life in the past month and the blog was set up for a way of me venting my anxiety, frustrations, challenges and successes.  So I’m starting it again from scratch.

It’s probably a good thing as the first few posts of the old one were quite depressing as I found myself spiralling out of control in an unknown world amongst a mass of information which I ddn’t really understand and found difficult to comprehend.  It didn’t help that I was supposed to be contacted by the diabetic nurse a week after my diagnosis but it ended up beingh three weeks in which time I hit rock bottom both emotionally and mentally.

Four weeks on I’m in a slightly better place, have come to grips with the medication side of things and injecting myself is now second nature, but I’m still struggling with the whole food thing .. what I can and can’t eat, am I eating too little or too much, am I eating regularly enough … but the biggest thing is when I’m not hungry at all and still have to make myself eat.  I struggle with this on a daily basis.  It’s not that I wish I was eating other ‘nomal’ food instead of my pile of veggies, I’m just not hungry.

I’ve seen a dietician once and seeing her again tomorrow.  The advice though is more general and I want specifics.  I’m a specifics kind of person.  Coming to the realisation that with diabetes nothing is specific is hard and anxiety building.  I’m not in control.  I can eat the same exact foods on two different days and my blood levels will be completely different.  What the heck?  It is so confusing and energy draining.

Navigating my way around food labels is taking so much of my time that a quick trip to the supermarket now takes an hour or so and then at the end of it I end up with a half empty trolley of food that is twice as expensive as the ‘nomal’ version because they’ve ‘taken something out’.  My food bill has gone through the roof.  It doesn’t help that the economy is in a fast downward spiral with no signs of improving anytime soon.

It also doesn’t help that as a single mum I’m still cooking separate ‘nomal’ meals for my son.  He’s a growing boy who is very active and needs more sustenance than what I eat will give him.  Playing hockey (field) 3 times a week on a pile of vegies and little carbs doesn’t give him the fuel he needs.

So, this blog Iwill use to vent but also to review foods for my own information (and anyone that may be interested), to talk about my highs and lows and hopefully make the whole thing a little more ‘normal’ .. whatever the heck that is!

Ohh and the name of the blog came from something the doctor said to me because of my phobia of needles … it’s “just a little prick” … yeah right!