It's just a number

Diabetics are supposed to check their blood glucose before and after meals and around bedtime. Many of us check multiple times: between meals, before a long distance car ride, during illness, because there's a suspicion of a low or high blood glucose.. Sometimes even 10 times a day.. Every check means a report. The numbers on our blood glucose meter don't lie. They state nothing but facts. Not always pleasant facts, but facts nevertheless. Those numbers may be very confrontational, especially if those numbers are not within the range we want them to be.

A doctor's consultation requires a download of those numbers and seeing the print out can be even more disappointing. Sometimes you really dread those appointments and there must have been times when some of us rescheduled those appointments, because in advance we knew the outcome wasn't going to be comforting. So that's when you don't go.. But the numbers stay. They don't go anywhere, not even if you ignore them.

That's when diabetics may decide they no longer want that bad feeling. They stop checking their blood glucose and they skip the blood work. Because the confrontation is too hard. We don't always need numbers to know how we are doing. But sometimes the numbers decide for us. Highs and lows make us feel insecure. They may scare the heck out of us, because we know what longterm high A1c levels do to our bodies. Every blood work, every reading is some kind of report, like we are school kids. We sometimes get reprimanded for those numbers by our team, by our family, by ourselves..

Don't let the numbers get to you. They are just numbers. They don't say anything about you or about the person you are. At least, that's what doctors tell us. Doctors who don't have diabetes. Doctors who don't have to check their blood glucose 8 times a day and face the facts..