I’ve been telling people I was diagnosed with diabetes October 15 of 2004. But in reality, I was diagnosed August 18, 2000. Almost 5 years ago.

I was 5 weeks pregnant and decided to pull out my old glucose meter and test my BG since I had gestational diabetes with my last pregnancy. The numbers were bad and when I called my OB, they had me come in immediately and by that night I was admitted to the hospital where I learned to inject insulin. And continued to use insulin till the end of my pregnancy.

They did an A1C and it was 7.9. They said that could indicate that I was diabetic before I got pregnant. But, the official diagnosis for some reason was still “gestational diabetes”. I stuck with that.

After our baby was born, my BG levels dropped dramatically. And then in 2002 I had an A1C done and it was 6.1. I thought that was normal and since no one called me asking me what to do about it, I figured I wasn’t diabetic.

What has haunted me the past six months is the first thing my doctor said to me when I had my first visit with him.

“What brings you here today?” he asked.

“I believe I may have diabetes.” I replied.

“But you knew that.” he said.

I argued that I had an A1C done 2 years ago and it was 6.1 and that was good.

He said, “Yeah for a diabetic”.

I know I’ve posted this before.. but it really bothers me. Because if I dig down… I did know. Little bits come back to me from those early pregnancy months when I was being seen weekly to make sure the insulin injections were working. The head OB at Kaiser who told me on several occassions to be sure to follow up after the baby was born. She was convinced that I was diabetic before I got pregnant. I clearly brushed off that notion.

The other day I posted that I haven’t been updating this thing because I don’t have much to elaborate on. That I’m doing so good, blah blah blah. In reality, it had been months since I tested my BG. Months.

And then I got yet another stye in my eye. And then I decided that since I’ve lost 30 lbs and haven’t lost any more, I should start exercising. Then I decided to visit the message boards at the ADA site… and it was a reality check.

Then I got the books I mentioned in my last post and realized… I still live in a fantasy world. A world where I’m only “sorta” diabetic. A world where the diabetes would go away as soon as I lost more weight. A world where I didn’t need to test my BG because I had a good A1C 5 months ago. Clearly I’m doing everything ‘right’.

But I’m not!

“Recent research has shown that some long-term damage to the body, especially the heart and circulatory system, may already be occurring during pre-diabetes.”

That haunts me when I think about the 5 years I was diabetic and chose to live in my fantasy world rather than accept it. It haunts me that even though I’ve accomplished a few minor goals since the first big reality check last October that I still had not fully accepted that I have diabetes.

“Accepting that you have diabetes is the first step towards controlling it”.

That idea has been very hard for me. Over the past week I’ve come to realize how much I’ve still been in denial. That I still clung to a hope that it would go away once I got it under control. And then I realized the other night as I was falling asleep that this is simply not true. I’m a diabetic, and unless a cure is found, I will be a diabetic for the rest of my life.

So I decided to take charge. I’ve been testing more and the exercise, the books, etc. The best way to get this under control is to learn how certain foods affect me. The only way to determine that is to test often. But yesterday I ran out of test strips. I called my doctor and insurance company to find out how to get more. After many phone calls back and forth, my doctor’s nurse said she’d get a prescription from my doctor. She asked me how many I wanted. I told her I’d like to start testing 4 times a day at least. She said she’d have the script for me that afternoon.

Ten minutes later she called me back and said my doctor said no. If I was having to test that much he wanted to see me. I tried to explain to her that it wasn’t so much that I *had* to test that much. Then I choked up and bit my lip to not cry. I didn’t want to pour it all out to her… she babbled on about how the doc wanted to do another A1C and that the insurance wouldn’t cover that many strips since I’m on meds, blah blah. I reluctantly made the appointment thinking I would only go so I could get my strips.

Then I decided I would just cancel the appointment and buy the strips myself without insurance. I came up with a million excuses why I shouldn’t go to this appointment. I even decided since I don’t like my doc I’ll just find another one and start over with another doctor.

Then I realized this is the exact pattern of denial I’ve gotten used to. I have an appointment, I have a chance to talk to him about what’s really being going on, I have a chance to ask him for a referral to a dietician, I have a chance to have some good come of this. And I have a chance to really know how well I’ve been doing since December.

Why don’t I like my doc? Because he said, “But you knew that”. And I took his attitude as brushing me off. But maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe he was brushing off my denial. Maybe he was simply not going to allow me to act shocked. I didn’t like him because he never referred me to see a dietician. Then it ocurred to me that I never asked him to. I didn’t like him because he didn’t give me a target range for my BG levels. But.. you guessed it, I never asked, either.

So I’m going to the appointment. And I will ask the questions I should’ve asked six months ago.

Acceptance is hard.