The Myth of the Perfect BSL
Do you ever feel like the mouse on the wheel; running as fast as you can but frustratingly never reaching the cheese? You know the cheese is right there; you see it, you smell it, you're heading in the right direction but it still remains just out of reach. You thought the wheel would lead you to the cheese but instead it just leaves you exhausted and discouraged. Guess what little mouse? It's time to jump off that wheel; there are smarter and possibly less sweatier ways to get your cheese!
No one's going to argue that living in this century can be challenging - there's more to know, more to do and more to aspire to. The 'lifestyle bar' is high and keeps rising - seemingly anything less than a booming home theatre set up, an iPod and a Top 30 ring tone equals a life distilled. Success and perfection, or at least other peoples' interpretation of it, imprint on us each day. Is it any wonder we sometimes feel like the mouse on the wheel? As fate would have it, us groovy young thangs with the big D have another 'piece of cheese' to chase; the perfect BSL.
The perfect BSL. I feel a bit nauseous as the sentence rolls off my tongue. Not nauseous like sitting on 20.0mmol, more like splashing a hundred bucks on a new outfit then having it come on sale, type of nausea. As unrealistic as it is, we continue to strive for the perfect blood sugar level - try to deny biting your lip and crossing your fingers as you look wide-eyed at your meter to divulge a post dinner party BSL.
You want it to be 5.0 mmol, you'd accept an 8.0 or at a stretch, low double numbers. It's none of these. It's 16.0 mmol. 16 dammit. Who would have known grazing on hommus and jatz, swilling a few cowboy shooters and chopsticking your way through a Chinese banquet would make you high. You test again, just to make sure it wasn't picking up the plum sauce under your nails. Nope, fingers are clean as a whistle and this time it reads 16.5.
Right on cue, your best friend bounces into the kitchen, Stoli in hand, and casts her eyes across the readout.
"Ohhhh, been naughty have we...?"
Like one of those scenes from Ally McBeal when real feelings, never admitted, are played out in dream sequence, you duct tape your friend to the wall and proceed to play pin the pork ball on the food Nazi. Snapping back to reality, you simply sigh 'yes' and continue to whimper to yourself for minutes after said friend and Stoli have returned to the party to be in the company of people with perfect blood sugar levels.
Moving on from an elevation, crappy reading, bloody high or whatever you want to call it, is not easy. The phases of denial, anger, guilt, acceptance and finally resolution (when you promise yourself it'll never happen again, you'll test more often and start exercising tomorrow), occupy your mind while divine insulin saturates your veins and clear thinking becomes possible again. Feeling slightly battered, but in the realms of 'perfection', your insulin flooded body then drives you to seek sustenance. You cautiously experiment: a drink, a cursory dip and nibble of an innocent looking rice cracker and before you can say, 'can't wait to see my next HbA1c', you're on your way to becoming 'imperfect' once more.
Before you scream - take a breath and ponder the possibility that everything is exactly as it should be. Your 16.5 mmol is actually as far from imperfection as a tear-shaped raindrop. Put another way, your 16.5 mmol is perfect. A higher than healthy BSL is simply a transient, fleeting expression of your physical state. It is not you. It does not make you bad, naughty, wrong or incapable. It just is. It can't be anything else than that. And that's perfect.
As clever as humans are, we also have an innate talent for making life more difficult for ourselves. We distort the concept of perfection to spur feelings of inadequacy, comparison, judgment, jealousy and failure and ostracise ourselves in the process. It's like using a pretzel to jack up a car; not its intended purpose! We erroneously use the word 'perfect' as a general description when we mean to describe a particular result. If a bead of rain is perfect then why isn't a puppy with an undershot jaw, a picture coloured 'outside the lines' or a fashion model with a rubenesque figure? Of course they are perfect - they may not be what we expect, but they are perfect.
So how will a goofy looking puppy help with high BSLs? Well, why not accept the puppy as simply a puppy and a high BSL as a high BSL without the pressuring influence of wishing it was something else. Naturally, it's a positive goal to lower BSLs to achieve health, well-being and longevity - so why not make the journey a self-affirming one with a supportive point of reference? Acknowledge each BSL for what it is (a temporary measure of the sugar in your blood), instead of approaching it with perfection in mind. Remember our bodies are perfect despite the omission of a functioning pancreas. they do the best they can with what they have and how we fuel them. Comparisons to those without diabetes are futile and even comparing yourself to others with diabetes is sure to incite anxiety and a rampant case of 'Perfectionitis'. If you still feel disillusioned by this holistic view of perfection, take comfort in Confucius' quote, "Wherever you go, there you are".
Life as a reformed BSL perfectionist is not all 'gosh' and 'darn it' though. Some of my best expletives evolve from a higher than healthy reading. Take the challenge - you'll never know the joy of creating the expletive alphabet until you try. The trick is to then let it go. Sometimes there's an easy answer to solving a high BSL, and sometimes not, but whatever the case, accept that, 'that's where you are'. My perfectionist tendencies are now channeled into much worthier causes; there's always a rogue ball of fluff on the carpet that begs to be plucked and don't even get me started about dust on my indoor plants!
However you look at it, it's our choice: we can 'jump off the wheel' and take charge of the way we feel about fluctuating BSLs or continue chasing cheesy expectations. Speaking of our flavorsome from age friend, I'm feeling a bit peckish so might wander up to the market. First things first, I'd better give a bolus and continue working on my alphabet. my b#stard BSL's 15.0.
Published 1st October 2004