I wanted to provide an answer to the question everyone (and by everyone, I mean no one) has been asking: what's it like to be a type 1 diabetic vegan?
Well, I'll tell you!
It's not that different than it was before, in a lot of ways. At least not right now- after the initial shock has worn away and the ever-impending complete cessation of pancreatic function looms in the distance.
I've long stopped asking God when I would have died, mainly because I am pretty sure that time has already elapsed...
I've almost stopped whining that I can never again pig out on carb-rich (or any other, really) foods. That said, I've also lost some of my zeal for healthful eating- but I've retained enough of that to keep up a more healthy and well-rounded version of my former vegan diet.
I'm eating complex carbs (yes, glorious carbs! Diabetics, fear the complex ones not!), vegetable proteins, and vegetable fats. (Perhaps too many of all three.) I'm eating peanut butter out the "wazoo" (whatever that really means...) and more than my fair share of tofu, sweet potatoes, pumpkin seeds, bananas, grapefruit, avocados, spinach, and quinoa. I tend to eat a dessert every day. I eat tacos, lasagna, spring rolls, oatmeal (LOTSA OATMEAL), "fudge babies" (and other Chocolate-Covered Katie creations), smoothies, soups, and my personal favorite lately, stir fry smothered in coconut milk on brown rice.
I exercise in my own slightly pathetic way each day: sometimes I'm the silent, awkward, and weak half-blonde/half-brunette girl taking her pathetic rests between reps of 50 on the shoulder press, sometimes I'm the girl (slightly) huffing after her one-minute running interval. Other times I'm power walking at the park, past all God's beautiful creation, or doing yoga in my bedroom and failing at keeping my balance. Often, the calories I exercise off are almost immediately re-consumed when my blood sugar dips.
Yet really not much feels different. So far, I wake each morning anticipating my testing and my injecting and all "that jazz" (such an asinine thing to say); so far I take my little kid-ish pink camouflage diabetes tote thing with me everywhere I do; so far I have not neglected to take my juice box in hand as I traverse off , but I'm wagering one day I just might forget all-together.
Which could be bad.
But it might all be "sound and fury, which amount to nothing."
And that's precisely what my life is at the moment! :)
2 comments:
You know, your condition IS a gift from God. So many people never appreciate every day they wake up, every breath they draw. They take it for granted. You don't. And you have to work at staying alive. That's actually a wonderful thing, a new perspective that most people don't have, and are poorer without.
I'm so glad you're doing well! How's school going? How did your SATs turn out? I know you're making your parents proud of you!
Hello Marvin,
Thanks for the visit!
As my latest post attests, I'm being quite lackluster in the school department. This whole semester I've been far less prepared than last...
I have yet to take the SAT, as sad as that is to say. I hope to take it within the next few months, though.
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