This morning as I was buzzing around getting ready for work, I suddenly stopped. I realised something that had obviously been creeping up on me so incrementally that I had not noticed it before.

I looked around the bedroom and saw empty cannula packaging from the line change I had done when I got out of the shower and the empty sensor pack with the date written on it so I would remember when it was inserted. I went back through my CGM trace and pump history, noticing where I had bolused for a high BGL, set a temp rate for an impending low and calibrated at the appropriate times. I checked the history on my BGL meter and saw that I have been checking regularly and that the numbers were not as crazy as they have been.

I looked in my bag and saw a spare bottle of strips, my fully stocked ‘emergency’ kit, and a juice box and a small container full of glucose tabs ready in case I needed them.

When I got into work, my desk was prepared for all contingencies – more glucose tabs on the desk, a couple of spare cannulas in the top draw, as well as a few syringes. And a few single portion packs of Nutella.

I was – I am – managing my diabetes – well and without any stress at the moment. The burnout fog that had enveloped me for a long, long time seems to have lifted without me even noticing, and the diabetes tasks that form part of my day and had been so, so difficult to manage, have become routine. I do them without thinking. Checking my BGL and calibrating my CGM just happens. Bolusing for meals or my morning milky coffee is done before I take that first taste rather than half an hour later because my CGM is blaring at me that I am high.

Am I feeling motivated? I’m not sure that is the right word. I don’t have a desire to do these things. I am not so focused on diabetes that I think about it all the time.

But I am doing what I need to. Routinely. Just like brushing my teeth, combing my hair and putting on a necklace in the morning.

Perhaps that’s the thing about managing diabetes well. It’s the balance between getting the things done and not panicking about them. Or feeling so anxious and guilty because they are not getting done.

I don’t know the secret to this change. I do think that a big part of it is wearing my CGM all the time. Once I managed to hurdle feeling overwhelmed by the data and just accepted the numbers for what they are and acting accordingly, I feel much more driven to ‘do diabetes’. And perhaps as I see that things are not as dire as I often imagine them to be, I feel that I can just get on with things.

This is the roller coaster of diabetes. The ebbing and flowing of motivation and being in the headspace to get things done. I’m in a good place for now. I just have to work out how to stay here.

Emergency stash at the office (for lows or as required….)