When Everything Changes.

When Everything Changes.

Hi All!
I’ve got a bit of a personal post today so look away now if you don’t want to know anything about me!

If you’re still here, you may have seen that I tweeted a week ago saying that due to health issues I wouldn’t be posting on the blog as often. And being that I seem to be a blogger through and through, I wanted to write a little post about what those health issues are. Namely because it is something that is life-changing, secondly because writing things down is cathartic and thirdly because maybe some of you have some advice. Oh, and I will probably be including it more and more on my blog but I’ll explain about that in a moment.

First though…

The diagnosis.

So a few weeks ago I was sent for a blood test and the very next day I got a message from the doctors asking me to arrange a doctor to call me regarding my blood test results. Queue alarm bells in my mind for sure. Unfortunately this text was received on a Wednesday and I was unable to get a doctor to call me until Monday. So I spent about five days in major anxious state. I ruled out the big scary problems because if it was super emergent they would have had me come in and urgently as opposed to a simple phone call and a wait. One of the things going through my head was diabetes, a word that stopped me in my tracks. To me, diabetes is the one illness that I have always been scared of. It’s the one that I used to have nightmares of when I was little and learning about it. Largely in part due to the fact it can lead to Insulin Injections, secondly because of the havoc it can reek on the body eventually.

With this fear high in my mind, I was both relieved and absolutely devastated when I finally got my diagnosis.

I am in the Pre-Diabetes stage.

This means that my blood sugars are considered high but not high enough to be diabetic. It means that unless I change things, I will become diabetic in a few years time.

A diagnosis that knocked me off my feet and made me crumble to the floor. I understand that people live with this every day. That it is manageable and not always the worst thing in the world. But these things didn’t help me when I heard the news. I tried to stay strong but there is one major flaw I had that hindered this process. My anxiety and OCD is centered around health. But I can normally shut my brain off and tell my anxiety to go away because I definitely don’t have this or won’t get that but I couldn’t do that this time because I CAN get diabetes and most likely WILL if I cannot stick to a better diet.

Then I had the usual self-doubts.

– I’ve never been able to stick to a diet before so I’m not going to be able to this time around either, therefore I WILL get diabetes.
– I’m going to miss all the good tasty bad for you foods and so I’m going to cave
– I simply cannot restrict my diet like this. I am too familiar with eating out and eating on the go.
– My OCD means I cannot cook all the time. But I need to cook all the time or I’ll end up eating sugars that I shouldn’t.
– I just cannot deal with this.
– I’m a failure at everything. I will fail this.

Along with other self-sabotaging thoughts.

– This is my fault.
– I brought this on myself as I ate too much and exercised so little
– If it’s to do with the pills I take, then it’s my fault for needing and taking those pills
– I am to blame for this.
– I got what I deserved, I should have dieted and lost this weight years ago.

Thoughts that spun around and around in my brain, even while I spent an entire week completely and utterly changing my diet and ignoring the constant hunger I felt in my stomach. I’m now at the end of my second week and I am amazed at how quickly my body adapted to the diet change. I no longer feel constantly hungry. I do still feel a little hunger now and again but nowhere near as bad. I no longer crave breads or crisps, instead wanting to just fill up on something different. I have also lost a small amount of weight already which is very good. Further more, I feel like I have a lot more energy and a better digestive system. So while it was scary – hell, it still is – I have seen some positives to it all and as someone who very much likes a silver lining, this is what I needed more than anything.

So while I am not better, while I may not be better for a while – I am emotionally more stable again. I’m learning what foods I can eat and which ones I should avoid or only have very moderately both due to sugar levels but also due to my digestive system. I’ve got a long way to go but I feel more capable of getting through it now.

I’ve also been invited on to a Diabetes Prevention programme where I should get advice from doctors about this diagnosis and have a chance to ask some questions as at the moment, I’ve not had any advice from doctors but have done everything from my own research.

So on this blog, I am going to be sharing recipes that I’ve come across and tried to create and will just detail my journey a little bit. How I deal with things, how everything is going and just some tips and advice – once I know a little more myself!

I’m incredibly grateful that I found out that I am only pre-diabetic. Grateful that I have a chance to rectify this before it goes any further. I’m not entirely sure how I might have handled it had I found out it was already too late. The only other concern is that according to my doctor, I’m still quite young to be diagnosed with pre-diabetes and I was even asked if it ran in my family. It doesn’t. Therefore I still don’t know why this has happened but for now I just want to deal with rectifying it.

So, that’s what I’ve been dealing with for the past few weeks. It’s stopped me from reading, stopped me from wanting to do much of anything except stare at the ceiling and wallow. But I’m slowly getting myself back on track. Slowly finding out how to sort my life so that it doesn’t ruin me.

And as a final note, I will say that being told you have to dramatically change your diet right before Christmas is absolutely soul-destroying.

Anywho…

How have you been?