Happy 1 Year Diaversary! (Working Title: How an Email Helped Me Rediscover this Blog After 9 Months)

I am going to be honest with you, I have written about 5 different "hey, welcome back!" statements to open this blog post and each one is more awkward than the first. There is just no good way of kicking these types of things off. Instead I will just say welcome to my barely functioning blog where I tend to ramble on about things that are pretty much only relevant to me, but hope you can find some similarity or hilarity in said ramblings about my life.

As I hit publish today, Saturday, September 8th I celebrate my 1 year Diaversary. If you're unaware of the full backstory, here is a short summary: a whole 365 days ago I was diagnosed with the never-any-fun autoimmune disease better known as  Type 1 Diabetes. This is not the same kind of diabetes your Aunt Ruth has that she cured with cinnamon (unless your Aunt Ruth's pancreas actually doesn't work. And if she did indeed invest in some cinnamon voodoo magic that cured her, please give her my contact information). So that's that. I've been functioning as my own organ for an entire year now. Shout-out to the JDRF for creating the fun visual aid below.

It has been roughly 9 months since I "loosely committed" to this blog (please see blog post #2 NYE Resolutions. Yes, the last post was that long ago). Apparently I really did mean it as a  loose commitment. With that, here's a quick-ish update on what life has been like since January.

One of the bigger topics I had originally planned to talk (or write) about in these was my dating life. Who doesn't love to read about the trials and tribulations of online/app fueled dating? Everyone does, it's hot gossip that we all love to read about from the sidelines! But I never got around to it because no one loves to read about how you went on a first date with a guy, looked at a bunch of rocks at the State Museum, and have been with him ever since. To be fair there were more than rocks to look at. They had a great exhibit on forests and native Indiana species as well. Listen, I never expected to actually meet a decent human on a dating app-it was Bumble- but I did. So, let me briefly introduce you to Thom, who I did not get permission from to write about on this blog. He is pretty great and I love him a lot. He stores my insulin pens in an old wine box, doesn't get upset when my Dexcom alarm goes off in the middle of the night, and is really good at making omelettes. What's not to love? It is a little weird to me to publicly write  about all the things that make him great, our relationship great, and so on. But to put a story behind it, I knew Thom was different when he texted me after our second date to tell me everything he had learned about Type 1. Also when he ate the pork chops I very clearly over cooked on date four, and still told me it was good. Most recently he has committed to watching all 118 episodes of LOST. What.A.Guy.

*Side Note: I did find a draft blog post I wrote in early January that included a collection of 2018 online dating vocabulary terms, do's and don'ts, and advice on dating with a chronic illness (specifically my experiences). It was so embarrassing to read that I am beginning to think Thom was some sort of divine intervention to keep me from posting it.

Now that the dating update is out of the way, let's talk about how I did the most millennial thing ever and left my job without having another job this year! This happened back in June and is maybe one of the craziest, most ballsy things my routine/stick to the plan/OCD self has ever done. You might be thinking "She couldn't even commit to this blog, I am not shocked." Well, an income and health insurance is a lot more important to me than this blog, but I see your point. I am not going to go into the nitty-gritty, but it was time. Since my senior year of college I had been working in the college recruiting realm and it seemed as though there was no end in sight. I wasn't unhappy, but I needed more. So, I did it. I dove fully in to the job search to find something that was going to force me to grow. I am thrilled to tell you that less than a month later I found a role, as an HR and Office Manager for a small tech company in Indianapolis. In the last two months I have gotten to experience and do more than I ever imagined. It's hard, like really hard, a lot of the time, but I am learning more than ever. Although it was a tough decision to leave my previous role, finding this new position has helped me understand that I made the right choice, even if it was a crazy one at the time.

On the subject of that crazy decision, there is one thing that made it extra insane. A lapse in health insurance! Prior to my diagnosis, and having to refill prescriptions at CVS at least 4 times a month, I never really thought twice about not having insurance for an amount of time or how changing health insurance providers would impact my prescription coverage. Oh boy did I learn! I mostly learned that it sucks real bad, like it is really shitty. I can't express enough how important it is, and if you are able, to hoard, hoard, hoard supplies/medications. You never know when you might spontaneously decide to quit your job or when a zombie apocalypse might start. I am lucky to have stocked up on enough insulin, needles, Dexcom sensors, and all other things diabetes related that I didn't have to worry too much, but the thought always lingered. If you watch the news like we do, just about every morning and night, you have probably caught a story or two lately on how insulin manufacturers are hiking up prices. Which has resulted in people dying because they can't afford their medication, and our government is seemingly doing little about it, other than adding a former "big pharma" CEO, who has aided in the hiking of drug prices, as the Secretary of Health and Human Services (BIG EYE ROLL FOR DRAMATIC IMPACT). Politics is not a subject I am about to go into on here. Basically to sum it all up, without hopefully offending anyone, when you can't get the drugs you need to continue living something is obviously fucked up somewhere in the system. Pardon my appropriate use of the f word.

Moving on, and to try and wrap things up, I've come to realize and reflect on a lot the last couple of days since I began to write this post. A lot has changed in the last year, and honestly it feels like more than a year. I feel like a part of my life stopped, while another began. Functioning as  my own pancreas has been an adjustment, one that has not always been easy, but it has become my new life, my new normal. When I say it's not always easy, it is actually me saying sometimes I just really want a Blizzard from DQ without worrying about how terrible it will make me feel or how much insulin I can guesstimate on taking. Although it's always on my back of my mind, I have learned to live with it. In the past 9 months I have tried to continue to live the life I want and not let this illness stop me from doing the things I love.

I never intended for this post to turn into a short novel, but I guess that's what happens when you forget about something for 9 months and feel the need to catch everyone up on things they probably don't need to know about. Oops. To try and keep the rest brief(er), below are some high level bullet points of things I've done and learned since January.

• Drinking with Diabetes: craft beer = high. wine = low. booze in general = waking up with a high BG. Don't worry, I still do it. You gotta test it to figure it out. Science. 
• Traveling: Always bring extra supplies. Fun Fact: you get a third carry on bag for medical supplies. Also, flying makes my levels rise as high as the plane, so extra insulin is needed. Harry Potter World with three of your best friends and favorite munchkin is a truly magical experience and I only cried a little. 
• Goal Update: As of my race coming up on October 20th I will have completed my goal of competing in one 5K race a month and I will never have to do another one again. 

Now here are a few pictures to look at that show my life the last year-9 months.