In Denmark 18 is the legal age, allowing you to get a drivers license, vote, and officially take care of your self etc. Today, D and me turn 18 together, but somehow it doesn’t seem quite as big and important as when I turned 18 twelve years ago :-) Still, I cannot help to think about the progress within D research and treatment the past 18 years have shown. Although the cure that was also promised me within a few years when I was diagnosed still remains to be found, a lot of other important milestones have been reached. I remember a nurse on the hospital where I was admitted as newly diagnosed showing and telling me and my parents about how she could now eat and enjoy sweets again (as in not eating them to correct hypoglycemia) because she had gotten an insulin pump. Obtaining more information on the insulin pumps of the time blurred that picture quite a bit, and for several years I thought that I would never want to be treated that way because of the risk of DKA. 16 years and 3 months – and, indeed, a lot of progress – later I was hooked up to one for the first time, and while being somewhat reluctant about it, I have come to appreciate what this treatment strategy offers me in terms of freedom. It does of course have its issues and drawbacks, but I guess most treatments and/or equipment have that ;-)
Hypoglycemia and a busy schedule do not work well together. Today, once again my afternoon has been disturbed by a low BG, causing me to have to take a break from what I was doing. I couldn’t concentrate on what I was reading, and thought that I might as well take advantage of the time I needed to spend away from it, repairing the low BG, and write on my blog :-)
I am in the process of working this out, but it a process that is significantly slowed down by an immense amount of work-/study stress. Just after New Year I actually started the process of thoroughly testing my basal rates, as my numbers the last couple of months – and in general if you ask my loving pump- and D-nurse ;-) – clearly indicate that insulin levels need to be reduced. Even though I had a lot of plans to effectuate at work along with planning my trip to Glasgow at late January or beginning of February, I felt that I could work some basal test into the scheme. In the first week of 2008 I felt I was moving at a very decent pace, working out plans for experiments to carry out during week 2, researching the areas that I should check out when coming to Glasgow, as well as putting down the experiments and other practical issues that I should take care of over there. I knew that I was expected to stay in Odense until end of January to help an Italian post-doc with some data analysis, and I wanted to test the data and the software necessary for its analysis prior to her arrival mid month. This was a clever thought as I have, of course, run into trouble with this – bioinformatics is always a challenge :-)
My feeling of energy for the different tasks and assignments suffered an abrupt disappearance when I opened my University of Strathclyde mailbox in the beginning of week 2. I had received an e-mail telling me that my 3 month literature review was due now, and should be uploaded electronically as soon as possible. Reading the mail my jaw dropped down, and my mind started racing: What 3 month literature review? What should it contain? When is the exact deadline? Have I heard about this before?........ I search the university web-site to find information as I cursed the inability to obtain sufficient information about the obligations as a Scottish PhD-student. I couldn’t find the information I needed so I replied to the e-mail to inquire about it. That gave me an attachment of the institute’s post graduate study handbook with a note that I could find the information in that. Reading the 52-page Word-document sure provided me with some needed answers, both regarding assignments that should be handed in during the study (the intended contents of some of these reports were very well described) and the courses that I should attend. Unfortunately, the 3 month literature review that I was most keen on obtaining information about, was only just mentioned, its contents not described (I have later received another handbook, where it is described in more detail). Therefore, I started sending out inquiries to my supervisor in Glasgow as well as one of his colleagues. I didn’t want to start writing anything before I had some guidelines on it, and I could see that I was actually supposed to attend a course during my first year of study, where writing of literature reviews would be dealt with, but of course, since I have yet to come to Glasgow for several reasons, I haven’t attended said course :-/
Thursday last week and Monday this week, I finally received some information about what this review should contain, how long it should be, and when it should be handed in. I have 2-4 weeks to prepare an exposition about the literature available within the area of research in my PhD project, concluding with the aim and reasons for doing the actual project! It should, of course, be fully referenced. Now, if I didn’t have the data analysis of a post-doc coming up with all its issues, and the planning of my trip to Glasgow already at my plate, I probably wouldn’t fuss about this deadline, as I am not starting from scratch after all. I might even have enough energy to focus more on the basal testing I am supposed to do. But this isn’t the case, and even though I’m annoyed at low BG’s interfering with my ability to perform and concentrate, I find it very difficult to sit down and focus on analyzing the data that I have on my BG excursions in order to make reasonable changes. It is actually crazy, as taking the time to get an overview of it would probably safe me a lot more time and energy than it would cost me in the first place. Does that make any sense? As it is now, I just make minor changes from day to day, but this also means that it will take somewhat longer to get it all adjusted. I don’t know, I guess at the bottom-line I’m merely frustrated about the work load that have suddenly been placed upon my shoulders, and adding diabetes management to that doesn’t make it any easier. Anyway, it was nice to vent here :-)
Hypoglycemia and a busy schedule do not work well together. Today, once again my afternoon has been disturbed by a low BG, causing me to have to take a break from what I was doing. I couldn’t concentrate on what I was reading, and thought that I might as well take advantage of the time I needed to spend away from it, repairing the low BG, and write on my blog :-)
I am in the process of working this out, but it a process that is significantly slowed down by an immense amount of work-/study stress. Just after New Year I actually started the process of thoroughly testing my basal rates, as my numbers the last couple of months – and in general if you ask my loving pump- and D-nurse ;-) – clearly indicate that insulin levels need to be reduced. Even though I had a lot of plans to effectuate at work along with planning my trip to Glasgow at late January or beginning of February, I felt that I could work some basal test into the scheme. In the first week of 2008 I felt I was moving at a very decent pace, working out plans for experiments to carry out during week 2, researching the areas that I should check out when coming to Glasgow, as well as putting down the experiments and other practical issues that I should take care of over there. I knew that I was expected to stay in Odense until end of January to help an Italian post-doc with some data analysis, and I wanted to test the data and the software necessary for its analysis prior to her arrival mid month. This was a clever thought as I have, of course, run into trouble with this – bioinformatics is always a challenge :-)
My feeling of energy for the different tasks and assignments suffered an abrupt disappearance when I opened my University of Strathclyde mailbox in the beginning of week 2. I had received an e-mail telling me that my 3 month literature review was due now, and should be uploaded electronically as soon as possible. Reading the mail my jaw dropped down, and my mind started racing: What 3 month literature review? What should it contain? When is the exact deadline? Have I heard about this before?........ I search the university web-site to find information as I cursed the inability to obtain sufficient information about the obligations as a Scottish PhD-student. I couldn’t find the information I needed so I replied to the e-mail to inquire about it. That gave me an attachment of the institute’s post graduate study handbook with a note that I could find the information in that. Reading the 52-page Word-document sure provided me with some needed answers, both regarding assignments that should be handed in during the study (the intended contents of some of these reports were very well described) and the courses that I should attend. Unfortunately, the 3 month literature review that I was most keen on obtaining information about, was only just mentioned, its contents not described (I have later received another handbook, where it is described in more detail). Therefore, I started sending out inquiries to my supervisor in Glasgow as well as one of his colleagues. I didn’t want to start writing anything before I had some guidelines on it, and I could see that I was actually supposed to attend a course during my first year of study, where writing of literature reviews would be dealt with, but of course, since I have yet to come to Glasgow for several reasons, I haven’t attended said course :-/
Thursday last week and Monday this week, I finally received some information about what this review should contain, how long it should be, and when it should be handed in. I have 2-4 weeks to prepare an exposition about the literature available within the area of research in my PhD project, concluding with the aim and reasons for doing the actual project! It should, of course, be fully referenced. Now, if I didn’t have the data analysis of a post-doc coming up with all its issues, and the planning of my trip to Glasgow already at my plate, I probably wouldn’t fuss about this deadline, as I am not starting from scratch after all. I might even have enough energy to focus more on the basal testing I am supposed to do. But this isn’t the case, and even though I’m annoyed at low BG’s interfering with my ability to perform and concentrate, I find it very difficult to sit down and focus on analyzing the data that I have on my BG excursions in order to make reasonable changes. It is actually crazy, as taking the time to get an overview of it would probably safe me a lot more time and energy than it would cost me in the first place. Does that make any sense? As it is now, I just make minor changes from day to day, but this also means that it will take somewhat longer to get it all adjusted. I don’t know, I guess at the bottom-line I’m merely frustrated about the work load that have suddenly been placed upon my shoulders, and adding diabetes management to that doesn’t make it any easier. Anyway, it was nice to vent here :-)
2 comments:
A busy life often pushes my good intentions of stellar diabetes management to the back burner.
Diabetes still takes a lot of energy and so does life - so where is the balance! Silly when we think about it, because if we don't have our health, what do we have? But it's all too easy to forget that.
Glad to see an update from you - take care!
thank for good articles......time management is the key to pass the busy situation......well, hypo is very danger, more danger than hyper
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