I have a confession: I'm a sweet girl. Too sweet, in fact. I have Type 1 Diabetes and that means that my body has lost the ability to process sugar (think carbs) when I eat. Because of this I have to take insulin all day, every day, for all the days of my life. I wear an insulin pump which looks like a little pager attached to my body with a tiny tube that goes just underneath my skin to deliver insulin.
My days are a series of word problems, which is a funny predicament to be in when you're as terrible at math as I am. For example: If Kelli eats <blank> amount of food at <blank> time with a blood sugar of <blank> how many units of insulin will she take? and later ... "If Kelli took <blank> units of insulin at <blank>o'clock and her blood sugar now measures <blank> how many grams of carbs does she need to/not need to eat to balance her sugar? Fun, right?
As if this math wasn't enough to keep me busy, I decided to sign up for the Dirty Girl Colorado Run 3 months ago. Training for a run has taken me from Math 101 to Advanced Calculus. Now, instead of keeping my blood sugar readings in normal numbers(90-110) my sugars have to be higher depending on how far or how hard I want to work out(150-180), and then it's a careful balancing game after the workout to make sure I don't plummet into dizzying, heart racing, shaky hands, incoherent low blood sugars or nauseating , headachey, dry mouthed high sugar. Training and Diabetes are not a match made in heaven - it requires hard work and constant attention. It's like giving the monkey on your back a squirmy pet kitten that you have to carry around too. So why do it?
After the birth of my daughter 10 months ago I felt inspired. Being a Diabetic coupled with my health history, there are many things -pregnancy included- that were not or should not have been very realistic for me. The pregnancy was a few minor hiccups short of flawless, and my baby girl turns a happy, completely healthy, totally amazing 10 months old this week. So why not see what else I can do?
I am always inspired by reading other stories of why people chose to conquer an obstacle in their life. I have loved reading even the facebook posts and blogs from the DG website because it makes me feel like I'm a part of something that's changing women's lives. We all have our reasons - for some it's to support a friend or loved one who has been diagnosed with Breast Cancer - for others - it's a mountain to climb or goal to conquer in other aspects of life. We're using the event to redefine ourselves, reinvent, remake, remember or rediscover. For some women like me its to prove that as Mr. Swayze himself said best in Dirty Dancing,: "Nobody puts Baby in a corner" not Cancer, or Diabetes, nerve damage, surgery, disease, age, gender, or time - Nobody. We do it for our babies, our mothers, our best friends or lovers. We do it for ourselves. It's not the reasons themselves that we all necessarily have in common, it's that we've got a reason to better ourselves and challenge one another and damn it we're chasing after our reason strait into the mud and back out again!
I'm running this race in September to cross the finish line and feel a sense of accomplishment I don't know that I've ever felt. But I'm training for this race so that when my baby grows up and someone tells her that because you are "x" you cannot/should not do "y" she can look them strait in the eyes and say "watch me" with her sassy little crooked grin painted across her face.
Diabetes sucks but I am not made weaker because of it. I am stronger in ways most will never even get to experience. Training for Dirty Girl has taught me that.
