Monday, December 26, 2011

Happy holidays

Hello there everyone,

Sorry folks. I didn't have a chance to write a blog post this week.

Please enjoy some holiday music in a lame attempt to make up for it. Check out Blossom (currently on The Big Bang Theory) and President Obama in the Maccabeats' rendition of Matisyahu's song Miracle.



Ophir

Monday, December 12, 2011

505 and the calmness of a deep blue lake

I have not forgotten about this blog! That I promise you. I truly enjoy writing, and I love the conversations that this blog generates with all of you. I am finding it challenging though to write every week and take care of Ethan and Aria, who are all but seven months old. So, I have decided to start blogging every other week rather than weekly, with posts still on Mondays. Enjoy! - Ophir

505 and the calmness of a deep blue lake

I didn’t write last Monday for one simple reason: My blood sugar went all the way up to 505. It was scary. Not only because I care about my health and my diabetes, but also because I have the babies to think about. And high sugars like that could land me in the emergency room if not treated immediately.

Numbers like those happen to me very rarely, but I have my "Back to Normal BGs" strategy down to a science. The kids were napping, and so I changed my pump site immediately. The culprit was clear: A faulty infusion set. The canula was bent. I injected a correction bolus with a syringe and even threw away the old vial of insulin just in case. I changed infusion sites, also just in case.

And then I freaked. Usually I lay on the couch and rest drinking diet ginger ale while I wait for my sugars to go back to normal. The last time this happened was 2008, and so I didn’t have ginger ale lying around the house. And I also had no chance of resting on the couch for more than 15 minutes.

And in the midst of all of my panic on what to do and how to find help, I also thought about this blog. And how another week would go by without a posting. Without me writing about, ironically enough, living with diabetes consciously, in a balanced, healthy way.

I had been debating that morning about a blog topic. I knew I wanted to write about a Buddhist meditation on the deep blue lake and was looking for my own real life example. The gist of the meditation: Wind, rain, storm, or sun, the depths of a lake are still, unwavering, and serene despite what is happening on the surface. According to Buddhism, that stillness - deep inside - is a metaphor for your spirit.

I was trying to think of my own story to tie into the meditation when I went to check my sugar. And boom, there it was 505. At the time, I didn’t see it as a writing opportunity. I was not calm and serene like a deep blue lake. I was crying. I was crying that I couldn’t think of who to call for help that lived close by. And I was ready to move next door to my parents like in Everybody Loves Raymond. Or, to Allentown, PA (which is really not my style and yes, it's very far away from us) to be near where my husband works.

But rather than pack my bags, I did have enough wits about me to call my husband and a friend of mine to brainstorm a solution. I wound up calling a friend who left work to help me. She brought me two cases of diet ginger ale. I don’t know why. But it helps me. And I called my neighbor who came over within seconds to help me with the kids. She and I sat for a few hours and had a lovely conversation, and she told me to always feel free to pick up the phone and call her. The kids had a great time with her. And she even brought over some music CDs for the kids to play along to. My sugar dropped back to normal within a few hours. And everything wound up being more than okay.

By the end of the day, I realized that I had my real life example for this blog. It was clearly not an example of how to implement the meditation effectively. But rather, an example of a time when it could have helped. I had allowed the stuff on the surface get the better of me when things were rough. Rather than tap into the stillness of the lake for a bit of calm despite the craziness.

You see, the stuff on the surface changes all the time. One minute, the weather might be rainy and the next sunny without a cloud in the sky. But the depths of the lake always remain the same. Just like our inner spirits. We should all tap into that stillness when things on the surface get rough. It helps the stuff on the outside go much smoother, much easier, because it comes from a place of peace and acceptance.

I’ll see you all again in two weeks.