These days, thanks to Loop, I think about diabetes a lot less on a daily basis. I guess it’s to be expected when suddenly my diabetes devices have become far more automated than previously which results in fewer button pushes, fewer reaches down my shirt to find my pump in my bra to make temp basal changes, or even boluses and fewer out of range numbers that need attention.

The downside of this (if there is a downside) is that I lose track of what’s going on.

Because diabetes is rarely front of mind, I’ve found it hard to remember when I did things such as pump line changes. One day during my holidays, as my CGM trace edged up inexplicably one day, I tried to troubleshoot why, but it wasn’t until I was drying myself off after showering that I became aware of how tender the site felt.

I stood there trying to remember when I had last changed the line, counting back the days, before I realised it had been almost a week. After swapping out the line for a new one and examining the site to make sure it wasn’t infected (it wasn’t – just a little red) I started setting a reminder in my phone so that I would remember when it was time for a change.

To be honest, the only times I can rely on thinking about diabetes these days are when that alarm goes off, or another alert reminding me that it’s time to refill my cartridge, restart my CGM sensor or change the battery in my pump. I’m completely dependent on those noisy reminder alarms to make sure I get things done, because my diabetes has become a little bit ‘out of mind, out of sight’.

It’s funny how quickly changes like these become the norm. And other routines have also been given an overhaul.

My waking habits, which always involved reaching for my phone to check the number on my Dex app, is different now. The other day, I came to realise that often I’d be awake, up and moving around for some time before remembering to check my glucose levels. In fact, often it wasn’t until I sat down for a coffee or something to eat that I bothered to glance down at my Apple Watch. I guess that’s what happens when all you see is a number in the 5s every single morning for six months. The novelty wears off and there seems to be little reason to actually check.

Of course, if I felt the gentle haptic of my watch, or vibration of my phone alerting me to an out of range number, I was right on it. But when there was no noise, I simply wasn’t listening to diabetes.

I suppose this is what I meant when I wrote this in my final post for last year: ‘I finish 2017 far less burdened by diabetes than I was at the beginning of the year.’ The burden of diabetes for me has been the monotony of it, the relentlessness of it, the way it permeates every part of my life. I would, quite easily, feel overcome and overwhelmed by these aspects of diabetes.

Without a doubt, that has changed. My new diabetes feels lighter and less encumbering. And with that, my attitude towards my diabetes has become somewhat kinder. I used to say I hated diabetes, but I think what I meant was that I hated how it was so present all the time.

These days, I feel less bitterness about my fucked up beta cells and the resulting long term health condition I have. Perhaps I feel ambivalent – but not in a ‘I’m over it and don’t care’ kind of way. No. Now, for the first time, I feel that diabetes and I are coexisting, if not happily, at least comfortably.

My day’s first though of diabetes is just before my first hit of caffeine. (Click photo for where to buy Casualty Girl pouch.)