Another Update!

I will start with the not-so-pleasant details: mainly, diabetes. I feel know that recently my self-care as far as blood sugar goes has been lacking at best. Although I am not in any immediate danger as far as highs go, it is the highs that have been haunting me. I stopped wearing Dexcom (and then my transmitter died, but that's another story). The highs are not ridiculous, but they are highs nonetheless. I want better and deserve better. More adherence to low-carbing as well as some old-school logging is needed. I am adamant about living healthfully with diabetes, having more babies, and enjoying life, daily, and in the long term. And maybe I am being too hard on myself. At the same time, however, I have done better, know I can do better, and wish to do better.

OK, on to the awesome stuff: 1. I got four! remote jobs (teaching, writing, editing in the sciences). They are perfect and I love working from home (although I hate waking up at 5 am to get shit done). Sometimes I wonder if I am taking on too much, but it is a good problem to have in my book. ;) 2. I traveled to Peru (just B and I) recently. It was great - and I did it while using a breast pump every 3-4 hrs. - which was a pain in the ass, but I was able to continue breastfeeding when I returned from the trip. Baby will be six months later in May, so I am happy and proud of that. I became a mom and things changed, but I did not lose my wanderlust, nor did I lose myself, while maintaining a commitment to do what is best for my relationship with my husband, as well as for my daughter. All this makes me happy. 3. Baby is awesome; I may be a bit biased, but she is so beautiful and smart :) I want another. Soon. A large part of my strong desire to keep vigilant about diabetes management revolves around my kid (and future arbitrary kids). I also realized, however, during my pregnancy with baby A, that I deserve it too. I deserve normal blood sugar as much as possible. I feel better in normoglycemialand and I want to expect to be healthy for decades, despite diabetes. I understand also the normality of the ebb and flow that diabetes is. I respect biology and know I cannot be perfect. However, having found what works for me (as far as maintaining very tight control), I would now rather always eat low carb and succeed more consistently BG-wise, rather than struggle to eat whatever and feel like a failure or be constantly on edge about my BG.

It is interesting to me, the evolution in self-care I have undergone in the last decade. This applies to diabetes management, emotional aspects of living with diabetes (as well as growing up in general), becoming a mother, and making non-traditional career choices. I am excited to see what comes next.

Hello 2017

I am back and happy to write an update on life, travel, baby, pets, diabetes and all that! Let's organize;

1. Life

A lot has happened, so I will touch upon just one major thing concerning my work. I resigned from my job. That's a biggie, no?? Somewhere in the late stages of pregnancy I started to question my resolve to drive for 4.5 hours, drop my daughter off at daycare for 10 hours a day, 5 days a week just to work a job I didn't love. To be quite honest, I was and am proud of my work as a researcher and I was a bit hesitant to resign because I have always worked hard to keep working and I know that many would probably think I have let a big career opportunity slide away, resigning after just a few months from a Harvard-affiliated position. Also, to be quite honest. I did not know at all as a first-time mom what it would be like to have a baby. Once I knew, I made the decision that was right for me. It is a little strange to stay at home most of the time, after months (make that years!) of dedicated work (career-chasing?) It is for sure a new stage in my life.

On that topic, I have just started pursuing part-time remote writing/ editing opportunities. I have amassed quite a few publications and feel that my experience will allow me to competitively apply for such work-from-home opportunities. Specifically I am looking at the available scientific/medical/technical writing jobs, but also more off-the-path positions, such as article writing, etc. What would be even more exciting would be to begin to steer my career into the diabetes realm. There are not many part-time remote opportunities that I am fit to apply for, so (as always) I am not sure what will happen in the future. Sometimes I wish that I could use my blog to attest to my writing skills for job purposes. However, this blog has always been a semi-anonymous adventure that is messy, un-spell and -typo checked, not very well thought out, unpolished, and thus generally unusable for such purposes. Also I break a lot of grammatical rules because my English teacher always said, once you know them all it's fine, because rules are meant to be broken! Not to mention the swearing, perhaps too-personal details, and verbal diarrhea on occasion ;) It is what it is. Life is always an adventure, no? I am also trying to pick up whatever freelance or contract work I can get, ranging from editing to translating (because I am fluent in Russian). I also looked into transcribing because I type about 80 words a minute, but it sounds kind of boring and like it just doesn't pay enough.

2. Travel

Funny thing. The name of this blog "My Life: A Long Trip with T1D" was always meant to have more travel stories in it! Since travel these days pretty much means getting everything together to get to the grocery store or to the pediatrician, B and I felt enough wanderlust to book an 8 day trip to Peru this spring! Just the two of us. Which sounds a little nuts maybe but I trust my mom's willingness and abilities to babysit for such an extended period and baby A adores her. The stockpile of breast milk in the freezer continues to grow. And I have arranged for my grandparents to live at our place to take care of our dogs and cat. I am so freaking excited. I know I will miss my daughter but I also know it's important to continue to do what you love, and we love to travel.

3. Baby

I just love her so much and she is so beautiful, smart and generally perfect (says every mom who ever lived I believe).

4. Pets

...Are neglected a lot of the time. But once the weather improves we are all resuming our hiking, which I know will please them to no end, so this is temporary. By neglected, I mean they are always fed and let out on time, but they are lacking training and exercise at this particular moment. I am trying to not give myself too much of a hard time about this, as I know they had it perfect before, and now it's just meh for them, but it will get better soon.

5. Diabetes

...Is on the back burner somewhat. I am wearing Dexcom to stay on top of it as much as possible and it helps a lot. My meter average is around 130 mg/dl and Dexcom Clarity reports an A1C of about 5.8%. I can be fine with that. It's weird not to be as obsessive over some highs as I was during pregnancy, but I am doing OK I think ;) I am still annoyed by some of the (what I presume are) breastfeeding-induced lows. These tend to happen during the night, in particular the early-morning hours, so again I am grateful for Dexcom, and as a result have been eating waaay too any sour patch kids (which live on my nightstand). New goals: schedule and eye and a dentist appointment in the near future. I have an appointment with a NP (who if I like her, will do my primary care) at the beginning of June. I just need the prescriptions and blood work really. We will see how that goes.

More to come, I'm sure.