I post a lot on social media about diabetes. I post pictures
of my diabetic alert dog, my pump, the fundraisers I do, and countless other
diabetes related things. Until now, however, I have never blogged about
diabetes. I also realized that most, if not all of my social media posts about
diabetes are overwhelmingly positive. As much as I like to advocate that people
with diabetes can accomplish anything they set their mind to, I never meant to
show my journey with diabetes with a rose-colored tint. Nobody is perfect,
especially not me.
For the past 3 weeks I have been down in South America
training and racing. For those that might not know, I am a professional skier
and a type one diabetic. When I packed for this trip I did everything right. I
brought enough diabetes supplies and low snacks to last me 3 months. I was
ready; and until yesterday everything went according to plan. Sure, I had some
lows and highs but my blood sugar was pretty much on point the whole trip. For
2 and a half weeks I was able to train productively without diabetes rearing
it’s ugly head. On Monday, I ran time trials for a race that was going to
happen on Tuesday, Chilean Nationals. I made finals and to say I was stoked
would be an understatement. I waxed my skis and went to bed early. I had my CGM
and pump on.
When I woke up in the morning I immediately knew my blood
sugar was high. My pump site had fallen off. When I look at my CGM it has the
dreaded “???”. When I tested my blood sugar it was over 400 mg/dl. After washing my
hands and testing again with same result I headed down to breakfast. I was in 4
heats that day and was on the hill from 9:00 AM until 5:30 PM and had 3 pod
failures. I guzzled water gave myself as much insulin as I though I could given
that I didn’t have my diabetic alert dog, a reliable CGM sensor, and had plenty
of exercise and adrenaline in the mix. There were moments when I skied well,
but mostly, I did not ski anywhere near my potential. I was sluggish, not
aggressive and made mistakes that were out of character. After weeks of
training with great blood sugars, the one-day I needed them to be spot on, they
were pretty darn poor. I would be remiss if I did not admit how upset I was,
not only with my performance, but also with circumstances surrounding it. I
wanted so badly for my teammates to understand how I was feeling, I wanted them
to “get it”. As supportive as my teammates are (they are some of the most
supportive kids you could imagine) they just can’t understand it all, the way
someone who has lived it can.
After taking time to think about the long, emotionally, and
physically draining day I had yesterday, I realized that the disparaging
feeling I had about my type one diabetes and performance were not only totally
normal, but that expressing these feelings does not make me weak.
To be honest, I was hesitant to write this post about the
negative aspect of diabetes. I was reluctant to write about my struggles
because I try so hard to be a positive force in the diabetes world, showing
that diabetes does not have to hold you back from accomplishing your goals and
that having type one is not an excuse for anything. Then I realized, that by
not acknowledging the struggle, I am doing a disservice to anyone that might be
feeling alone. We all struggle and that is more than OK.
I am a professional skier. I am a type one diabetic. I did
everything I could to take diabetes out of the equation on race day and it
didn’t matter. I will try again next time because it’s not about the blood
sugar number; it is about what you do about it.
Nobody is perfect, especially not me, but I will continue to
try.
