BURNOUT

You know what I'm talking about.

It's the sinking feeling that we all get every once and awhile (and always more often that we'd like) when we realize that we haven't been making our best effort. We've become accustomed to post-prandials in the 250's for a few weeks, and now we're shrugging them off. We've started relying on our ability to "feel" our blood sugars, or we've stopped actually checking bg's aside from when the CGMS attached to our hip DEMANDS a real blood sugar. Maybe it is worse (thank God it is not this time). Maybe we've stopped checking all together for a bit. Maybe we've become beaten down by everything else that life has thrown at us, and we've just forgotten to pay attention to this disease. Of course, the other side of this is that we probably think we'll be fine, regardless of our minimal efforts lately. Because this is OUR disease. Because we know our bodies. Because we always are. Ahhh burnout. If you don't believe it is a side effect of diabetes, you're wrong. If you pretend you haven't felt it, you are lucky. And if you're dealing with it right now, oh buddy, I am with you!

It is dead week here at Indiana University. Finals are next week (officially... most of mine are this week, which is weird). I've spent the last few weeks absolutely swamped with STUFF to do. Tests, papers, lab reports, assignments, and then there's that thing where you actually have to physically get out of bed and GO to class...

All of my friends are feeling school burnout. I just. don't. care. about. this. semester. anymore. I am a senior, I'm inches away from graduating, and I'm already accepted into medical school. I'm set! It is a wonderful feeling. But, it also makes me want to curl up on my couch with my house-mates, bake Christmas cookies, watch movies, cross-stitch dish towels... basically, I want to do anything but school work. And also, apparently, anything but micromanage my diabetes. I'm still checking, carb-counting, etc... but I'm not micromanaging. I'm not spending time every night thinking about what I can do differently tomorrow to be more successful. And I should be! I KNOW that micromanaging is how I deal successfully with diabetes. I know that when I make time for it in my day... everything else still gets done and falls into place.

But... (there is always a but!) when I'm busy, I feel like I don't have time to micromanage my life... let alone a disease that requires a significant amount of brain power each day. No! I can't devote that brain power to diabetes! I need it for my microbiology final tomorrow night! I need it for my inorganic chemistry quiz this afternoon! All of the work piles up... and all I want to do is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!! This is true for school sometimes, and it is true for diabetes sometimes... and it is BAD.

I realize that I'm burnt out. I realize that I'm slacking off. And now I'm ready to jump back on top of my diabetes. The semester is winding down, and it's time to refocus my attention where it really needs to be so that I am successful. I know that my level of awesome-ness is high enough to do great things professionally ... and in school ... and in my social life, and relationship life, and family life... AND do great things with my health at the same time. It's just about re-finding that balance.

So... stay tuned. I am going to try to post more (because when I'm blogging about diabetes, I'm thinking about diabetes!) and tweet more. And I'm going to flatten out my less than attractive Dexcom graphs before I lose my motivation. Ready, go!