Random Weirdness & Welcome Surprises

Is weird good or bad?  Maybe it depends don’t you think?  I try not to be a black & white thinker & it is not difficult at least for me because my brain often has a circus going on inside of it.  A lot of us gals may agree that we are proficient multi taskers.  Layer on being a Mom and having type 1 diabetes & the escalation for muli tasking skyrockets I have experienced.  In our home there is Mom & Not Mom.  We fill a lot of roles as parents that’s a certainty.  And if we live with type 1 then we may feel like a type of parent to a frequently melting down , spazzed out, tantrum filled toddler of roller coastering blood sugars.  You cannot take a break though from type 1.  A vacation or even an afternoon off would be delightful from type 1 don’t you think?  That is not our reality though…far from it.

A random weirdness that I tried to neutralize in terms of stressing out about occurred this past week.  You know the deal about once there is 1 autoimmune disease we are statistically much more likely to go on to have additional autoimmune diseases?  There are lots of outliers & of course everyone has a very specific tendency towards the level of health they are experiencing & most importantly I am not a medical professional as a reminder.  I am repeating what I have read & been told by my healthcare team who are phenomenal.  (Hats off to them all for having the patience to deal with rascal me).  In my case I have 4 autoimmune diseases & I manage the hell out of type 1 diabetes. (and the rest of them)  Diseases are not fair though.  I try not to fixate on the fairness of anything.  I am a fortunate rascal to have the life I have so I choose to be grateful for the weirdness & surprises of day to day life.  This comes with some swearing at type 1 & its nonsense. I loathe the land of denial.   I remain upbeat (for the most part) & a realistic rascal who guzzles way too much espresso (never going to stop) who faces adversity head on.  My weird yet welcome surprise day started out like any other weekday.  I put on the school bus catching (no correction, bus chasing literally) music for our middle son as the timer counted down in the kitchen to the time we would need to leave the house to catch his bus without being late.  June has been especially challenging for our sloth like in the morning son as I think he has run out of gas so to speak for the school year so he is getting even more sloth like in his speed each morning.  Hyper me has tried various creative approaches to trying to remedy the sloth speed however to no avail.  As a humorous aside the bus catching or chasing music that I play each morning for our sloth like son is “Rush Hour” from the movie “Planes, Trains & Automobiles.”  It is the instrumental piece from the scene in which Steve Martin is trying to hail a cab because he is running late & Kevin Bacon steals his cab & Steve Martin flips out.  That is my favourite movie of all time.  I laugh my face off each & every time I watch it.  It was a rare, smooth start to the morning on the day I am about to share with you.   At 7:54am it was bus catching time & we arrived with a whole bountiful 4 minutes to spare.  Our youngest son was off to school at 8am & I then had a full hour before I needed to be across the other side of town to make my appointment with one of my specialists.  I became overconfident about the amount of time I had to get to the appointment which is usually only a wee 15 minute drive.  I believed that I had a plethora of time & some to spare.  I didn’t & did it turns out.  It was Camp Day at Tim Horton’s that day.  Doing a small part to help send a child to camp is a cause near & dear to my heart.  It is a win win too since my coffee addiction is no secret so once both our younger sons were safely off to school I headed for the nearest “Timmy’s.”  (a 1 km drive)  You know the saying, “so close yet so far away?”  That could have been the perfect description to what happened next.  The Tim’s was within sight & all I needed to do was make a quick left at the lights.  Once I got to the traffic lights though there were police officers holding flares all over the place blocking off traffic (as well as even pedestrians).  We were all diverted right & naturally the result became an instant bottle neck of traffic congestion when you layer on the morning rush hour traffic.  We went along at a snail’s pace & because I am beyond stubborn I went ahead & got to the next Timmy’s 3 kms away but it took a half hour to get there.  2 coffee cups in hand (one for my husband who I had planned to pick up from home to come with me to my specialist appointment & one for me.)  To make a long story short by the time I left the Tim’s parking lot the traffic jam had gone from bad to worse.  I ended up needing to call my husband & have him meet me at the specialist’s office.  Although this specialist tends to run at least 45 minutes behind I could not count on it with my appointment being the first timeslot of the morning upon their office opening.  I felt quite disheveled literally running from the office parking lot to my appointment once I arrived at the specialist’s office with 2 minutes to spare.  Then I proceeded to do something that you will be very familiar with & that was to wait 50 minutes anyway.  If only there were a way to be alerted ahead of time wouldn’t that be a dream?  I initially felt grumpy about the wait time yet then restored my better attitude.  I reminded myself that other patients may be there for emergencies so I decided to stop being negative about wait times.  The welcome surprise came when my specialist took a generous amount of time with me during the appointment to answer all the questions that had been perplexing me for months & in some cases years concerning some of the challenges with psoriasis.  It is a curse provoking autoimmune disease as well with no cure in sight.  The specialist gave me different avenues that I could pursue.  I love choices & I love knowing that I am the one in charge of my own health decisions.  I finally admitted to her that it was time to see the rheumatoid arthritis specialist about the budding psoriases arthritis as the joint pain has really ramped up.  I am really concerned about the possibility of having to go onto biologics (not the needle part obviously) but more the affects since my immune system is already pretty sucky.  Being an adult about it can be difficult because rascal me just does not want to add yet another specialist or more tests, appointments & prescribed drugs & more to my already prescribed drug regime.  Still though, I know I will learn more by going to see the specialist for this & maybe just maybe there will be better options than the ones that I am dreading.  Be in the present right?  That is a work in progress for me because I continue to be challenged in the patience department & tend to skip ahead to the possible outcomes well before needed.

A random welcome surprise happened last week when I was flipping through the channels on the tv one evening & saw a commercial for Banting House in London, Ontario for the first time.  It was wonderfully done & brought back amazing memories of the visit that my family & I made there a few years ago.  Standing beside the flame of hope is indescribable.  If you find yourself near London, Ontario I urge you to go to Banting House to experience that feeling too.  I have a painting that my husband purchased for me a few years ago for Christmas that was painted by Sir Frederick Banting.  Ironically the painting is of a tree lined shoreline in Georgian Bay where I was fortunate enough to grow up.  I love that painting doubly because it reminds me of home & it also warms my heart as it is created by a person that is responsible for providing life sustaining medicine for those of us living with type 1 diabetes & insulin dependent diabetes.  Yes, I do love what the painting represents to me:  home & life. 

Random weirdness was present musically last week as well.  My husband has taken up the drums which I encouraged.  When he shared with me several months ago that one of his regrets was that he wished that he had learned to play the drums during his youth I looked him square in the eyes & said, “Do it now.”  For many weeks he has been practicing stick control & struggling to get the beats down since he admits that he is trying to think the music versus feeling the music.  Suddenly last week the music came together for him after all that practice & I heard awesome drum music coming from his efforts.  My sons & I gave him a standing ovation & celebrated the win that he had on getting to the music & creating something very cool musically.  Hours earlier weirdly (in my opinion) someone in our neighborhood was belting out Josh Groban on their stereo.  Josh Groban for sure is a talented young man however to hear one of his opera like tunes bellowing out at such a loud decibel was weird.  The antidote was to laugh a little & close the front door & turn up some 90’s music within our home.  The initial song for the antidote that I had in mind was released way before the 90’s & it is “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones.  Some music just plain has staying power.  And on a light “note” (pun intended) I think that song is a mantra of life with the “no satisfaction” of diabetes management…the no satisfaction of the blood sugar highs & lows for no logical reason.

There has been weirdness & welcome surprises diabetes wise lately too.  The weirdness is there more often than not.  You will know exactly what I mean if you live with type 1 too.  Blood sugars spiraling up & down for no logical reason is ongoing & aggravating.  The welcome surprise is that for 2 weeks I have not experienced a low blood sugar in the night.  So yes, all in all I celebrate the weirdness’s of everyday life with my bus catching/chasing music turned up Monday to Friday & I say bring on even more of the welcome surprises.

My heart’s hope for you is that anything approaching weird can be turned into an adventure or a win for you.  And may the welcome surprises be countless & infinite for beautiful you!  Smiles, Saundie ;)

May all your adventures be weirdly wonderful & as always, be gentle with yourself.  The next story sharing will be in 2 weeks time on Monday June 27th & it will likely include some treasured memories with our youngest son aka "the Alligator" from yesterday & the intersection of diabetes.