Being Sick Sucks

Being sick sucks. Bottom line. If you get sick as a “normal” person it sucks, I’m sure. If you get sick with diabetes, it really sucks. I’m typically a fairly healthy person (diabetes aside). I usually don’t get more than a cold a few times per year. In fact, until this winter, I hadn’t been to the doctor for actual sickness since 2007. Yup. You read that year correctly.

But this winter has destroyed that lovely record. Since December, I’ve missed a total of 6 days of work for sickness. I’ve been to the doctor twice. Including this past weekend. Thursday morning I was feeling a little crudy. I thought it was allergies, so I started with the over the counter allergy meds. Friday morning I couldn’t talk. I had coughed so much (and gotten so little sleep) that I already knew that I wasn’t going to be able to work.

I went in for long enough to let my boss know that I couldn’t talk and to be sure to get all my appointments rescheduled, but I left there after half and hour and took off for the doctor’s office. They didn’t do a strep test, but I got antibiotics and cough syrup and headed home to rest.

By Saturday morning, I was pretty darn sure (strep test, or no strep test) that I had strep throat for the first time since I was in high school. Probably about 15 years ago, to be honest. My throat was killing me. I couldn’t talk above a whisper (actually, its Monday afternoon as I’m writing this, and I still can’t talk).

And then the blood sugars. Oh the blood sugars. Saturday about noon I pulled up my pump graph for the past 24 hrs. There wasn’t a single reading below my high marker on my cgms (my high marker is set at 170). Not a single one. I was even running on a temp basal. And it still wasn’t doing any good.

My mom was a saint. I asked her to pick up a couple of things for me at the store and she went above and beyond. I have enough sugar free jello & popsicles to last me for a while. She also kept checking up on me. I know she was worried since I’m living alone again.

Sunday night I thought I might be able to go to work. I couldn’t talk, but I thought I could work on paperwork. But Sunday night was a cough fest again and I got almost no sleep. So Monday was another sick day again. I’ve basically not been out of pajama’s for four days. I’m praying and hoping that Tuesday (the day I have this post planned to go up) is a better day. I really, really, REALLY need to get back to work. It’s hard for me to get caught back up when I miss so much time at work.

It’s times like now that I truly hate having diabetes. I fully believe that if I had a functioning pancreas that I would already be on the mend. But I can’t. Being sick means taking longer to get better. And it sucks. Perhaps I’m having a little pity party for myself because I’m never sick.

Perhaps I just feel crappy and I want to complain a little. But right now, diabetes sucks. And as we like to say on Twitter #duckfiabetes