Diabetes wake-up call

So I just finished reading a post on my best friend's blog about the frustration of diabetes and it reminds me again of a lesson that I learned this last weekend. It took someone else to point it out to me too. It is a good thing that God is persistant in trying to get our attention. Here's the story.

I was diagnosed with Type I Diabetes in the fall of 1996. I had previously had Gestational Diabetes with my first child and was pregnant with my second. I thought for sure the Dr.s were wrong and when I gave birth to my child the diabetes would go away, just like it did the first time. Regretfully, I was wrong. I didn't understand why it hadn't gone away or why God hadn't healed me.

I had learned growing up, that if you had enough faith, God could heal you. I now realize that there is nothing I can do, or not do that "makes" things happen with God. He is the one in control. Sometimes He heals, sometimes He doesn't. The whole theory of God's Kingdom being in the now, and the not-yet is a fairly new concept for me. But that is a completely different post!

So, here I am, 10 years later still dealing with Diabetes. I have gone through times of really good control of my blood sugars, and REALLY BAD control of my sugars. In fact I purposefully stopped taking my insulin for a period of time when I was really depressed. And through it all, I have not suffered any serious consequences. When I went back to my Dr. after refusing my body the insulin it needed she was amazed that I was alive. This never really hit home for me until this weekend.

I have been working on controling my blood sugars for a couple years now. But sometimes life just gets crazy and I forget something. On Saturday we had one of the kids' friends over and had gone swimming and out to lunch. It was, by anyone's standards, chaotic, and I forgot to take my insulin with lunch. After getting home I laid down for a nap. When I got up I wasn't feeling well, but I ignored it. We then went out for some errands with the family. I realized while we were out that I had high blood sugar and needed to take some insulin but waited until we got home. We were gone for about an hour and a half.

By the time I got home, I was very short of breath, felt like I was going to faint, thought I was going to vomit, every muscle in my body ached... It was bad. I knew that my body was going into DKA. (Diabetic Ketoacidosis) Now, this is what happens when a diabetis doesn't take their insulin: Your body thinks that it is starving because it can't access the sugars in your blood, it starts using stored fat for energy, the by product of this is Ketones which make your blood acidic, the Ketones then send your body into shut-down mode. As long as you catch it, you can stop the process, if you don't catch it soon enough, it will kill you.

I test my blood and my Ketones. My blood sugar is at 597. (Testers only go to 600.) Normal is less that 100, higher than 80. And I was spilling Large amounts of Ketones. (Not good.) I had gone for months in years past with my blood sugar staying between 300 and 600, I hadn't gone into DKA. I can't tell you how many times I've tested my blood sugar and had the tester just say "HI" because it was over 600. Only once have I started to go into DKA. So for me to start getting that sick after just missing one dose of insulin was really weird!

I was able to get on top of it without going into ER which was good. The next morning I'm at church and I have a brownie. Literally 15 minutes later I am getting short of breath and feeling faint...

"What is going on?"

I had been convicted a couple of weeks ago that I had stopped asking God to heal me. I had been disappointed that He had not healed me and had given up asking. I felt let down. But I was realizing that God didn't want me to stop asking. I'm not sure why.

So I'm talking to my Pastor's wife on Monday and she points out to me that maybe God was showing me what would ahve happened all of these years if He wasn't protecting me and keeping my body healthy and functioning. Even though I didn't see it, He was working on my behalf! And now that I have the mental health to be responsible and do the things that I am supposed to do, He is giving me the sight to see what He has been doing for me.

Wow. I hate this disease, and I do hope that God will one day take this from me. But I am so thankful that He got me through the last 10 years. Thank you God!