Sunday, December 11, 2011

Travels and Transitions

Well, it's been a long, busy road since my last post - taking me out of N.C. and into France. From there I traveled through Switzerland, into the edge of Austria, up into the corner of Germany and back again to my home base in the Loire Valley. Along the way I stopped in Zurich, Montreaux, Chamonix, and other parts of France. I carried my insulin in frio packs from hostel to hostel, sometimes finding a refrigerator and sometimes continuing to re-wet the pack every day or so to keep them cold. I ate an elaborate array of cheeses and pates in Paris, sausage and pretzel breads in Austria, and not much in Switzerland since everything was so expensive! It was a bread-filled time for me, lots of baguettes and butter, but also a lot of walking. Traveling for 2.5 months without a car necessitates a lot of time on your feet. And for a month of that I carried a 40 lb. backpack with me, full of medical supplies, clothes, hiking boots, and the essential memory recording equipment; a journal, camera, and two sketchpads. This was a solo adventure for me in many ways, even through the times that I was with friends or my french family. It was part of my journey towards feeling unrestrained, and yet in many ways I did feel constricted for parts of it. I realize in hindsight how that has opened up my life now; how like in yoga class after an intense twist your body is filled with oxygen and energy once you release the bind. I feel a new sense of direction and motivation after my trip that releases at unexpected moments.
Diabetically speaking, carrying my supplies was less of a hassle and challenge than I expected. I guess I'm getting better at it. When I traveled in Costa Rica during my Junior year of college, I had a lot of scary lows, a lot of fear over not having my supplies or finding myself unprepared and without access to what I needed, food or medical-wise. But even though I traveled for much of the time alone, staying in hostels where no one knew I was diabetic and even if I'd wanted to tell them I might have had to do it in German (French and Spanish I can do, but there are so many languages in Europe!), I don't have any poignant memories of diabetes impeding what I wanted to do. Realizing that makes me want to shout with joy. I have become accepting of this condition to the point that I was surprised to suddenly recognize at some point that I had not been thinking about it. That is like stage three acceptance! (I have a feeling there are many more stages).
So I want to talk more about the trip, but my brain is already catapulting into the future with dreams and plans of my life as a nutritionist, diabetes educator, and food policy activist. Maybe I'll never call diabetes a blessing in disguise, but it is really powerful for me to admit that having this condition has and still is shaping my passion, my drive, and my relationship with my body for the better. It is even shaping my career choices at this point, and I am so excited to be on the cusp of dealing with this global epidemic that is such an indicator of the pressing issues of our time. The rise in diabetes correlates with our disconnection and disharmony with the Earth, it follows poverty and economic inequality, it speaks to racial and economic separation, it illustrates how our lifestyles and priorities have so rapidly changed, largely affected by media and marketing.
Whoo, I feel I'm off on a tangent. I am experimenting with using this technology information share free-for-all as a way to be more connected, not less so, and I think blogging is an amazing way to empower the individual. Between managing a new job and diabetes it's hard to find time to write, but writing is one way I manage my stress, and stress is the main culprit in my diabetes management. I kept a journal all through my trip and wrote in it nearly everyday - I think it served as a friend and comfort to me through my lonely times, of which there were many. Journaling for me is a way to jump into a self-expression that requires no explanation, no background, and no structure; no sense has to be made. It almost always grounds me when I am floating for some reason or the other, maybe it's traveling, searching for a job and purpose, or uncertainty in my relationships. It is for me, and it is simple. In a world of complicated diabetes management that changes everyday, my journal is stable and always ready to listen. In a strange way it holds me accountable to myself as well. I have read back over past journals and realized that at some level I knew all along whether a situation was going to be healthy or sustainable for me, even if I have not always heeded that intuition. I've realized too that I have the power to view diabetes as a blessing and the lessons that it has brought to me as gifts, all through reassuring myself before I ever needed reassuring. It is powerful and amazing to honor yourself by recording whatever speaks to you in the moment.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

On the RUUUUUNNNNN!

My motivation for running has finally picked back up after the first real visit from winter this season. As a comfortably warm-natured person for the first eighteen years of my life, I have struggled with the effort it now takes me to achieve and maintain warmth since becoming diabetic. My creativity and motivation wanes in the winter time for outdoor activities, so this year I am exercising at the YMCA and planning for outdoor warmth through layering and the right gear. Later this month I will run the Hot Chocolate 10k and I expect I will need that hot cocoa not only to bring up my blood sugar after 6 miles but also to warm my blood back up.
I ran my first (and only so far) 10k this summer with my father who has just become a runner now in his late fifties. It was a trail run through the mountainous Dupont State Forest and the longest distance I'd run before was maybe 4 miles, so I knew I would have to train. This summer I followed the plan suggested by my most fit friend, Alison, running 2 miles one day, 3 the next, then 4, then five. I would rest a day and run 2 again the day after, just about twenty minutes. Sometimes I would throw in some sprint work or hills, although not as much as I probably should have. The day before the race I took a short two mile run through the campsite in Brevard where my parents had a pop-up camper set up for the weekend. I was terrified. My run was slow but my mind raced over the possibilities. What if I get two miles into the woods and my blood sugar plummets? - how do you ask competitive runners for help? - would I even be able to make myself ask? It couldn't come to that. Well it could have...and if it had I would have had to make my situation known to someone so they could run on to a water station and inform the staff. I'm sure my instincts would have conquered my embarassment. But my anxiety produced sufficient planning to rise over hills and low blood sugar.
The morning of the race I awoke to percolating coffee and whole wheat toast with spun honey. I cut my normal dose of insulin in half and packed a banana for the car ride to the race site. Belly in knots, Dad and I stretched before the final line up. I checked my blood sugar...160...a little low to start a 6 mile run with. I ate the banana. Surely that would last me. We lined up, a pack of about 70 runners in the cool, foggy air of a mountain morning. The long grass was dewey and I was eager to get running and warm up my body. The whistle blew, the pack took off. There were old and young, men and women, even a high school track team and some ten year old kids weaving around the taller legs. Mile one and two were shaky, but then I saw a girl down in the trail up ahead. She was with a friend - it was two of the runners from the track team. Her ankle was hurt in someway and the friend would stay with her and help, so I decided to run on to the water station to tell the staff there was a runner injured. It was the motivation I needed to forget about my blood sugar fears and book it. Farther than I thought, I reached the station a mile and half later. I let the staff know and they attended to the downed runner - after the race it seemed like it had been only a twist - and I ran on towards the finish with renewed energy.
That energy quickly dissipated in mile four when I met the hill so steep that even the fastest finishing woman later reported that she power walked. There was just no way to run it without gravity taking you back down, so I moved my upper body like I was running and firmly planted my feet with each step. In 0.4 mile it was over though and on the 0.6 steep downhill I let go of the brakes and struggled to keep up with my churning legs as gravity really did rush me down the hill. The last mile was a test of my mantra which had moved from "walking is not an option" to "stopping is not an option." I ran deliberately, then strongly as I neared a runner about 30 years my senior and another maybe 4 years my junior. I passed the younger runner and tailed the man who was now setting my finishing pace. We both heard shouts and cowbells as we navigated the narrow trail and approaced a blind curve up ahead. I had paced him once but he had overtaken me again and was pulling away. I was letting him go, resolving to finish but not magnificently, when rounding the corner I heard very familiar shouts and then saw my mother standing there, right before the final straightaway, shouting for me to run just like Forrest Gump. I gave her a little shout back and felt myself take off, loving the finish, sailing through the field, forgetting my exhaustion and all the fears I had gone into the race with about blood sugar, about stamina, about making it. The man led me and the young girl behind me by seconds but we all raced through strongly, motivated to better finishing times by the final mile competition. If I'd had wings I would have flown, but instead I just collapsed to a seat on the grass before regaining my strength with a juice bottle waiting for me at the finish line while we watched other runners pushing to the end.