Thursday, November 09, 2006

D-blog Day

I am taking a class called physiology right now. For those who don't know, it's pretty much the "How things work" for the body. It's crazy hard, but I like it. There is a three hour lab every week where we pretty much run medical test on ourselves. Today was the urine lab.
I dreaded this lab just about as much as the I am dreading the upcoming endocrine lab. What will my class say about my most likely abnormal test results? Which ones will be abnormal? Will I discover some complication today? Will there be blood or protein in my urine? Are you kidneys starting there decline? I'm sure others in my lab were not worried they would have abnormal test results. But I was.
I am a diabetic.
I have long accepted that.
I have been relatively lucky. I have had pretty decent control with not a whole lot of work. Except lately. Lately, is has take SO MUCH WORK! They say (who, I can't remember, but someone said it) that it takes an hour a day to manage diabetes. Some days that seems low, and some days it seems high. But let's think about that. An hour a day, for 17 years. That's 6,205 hours. 258 days. TWO HUNDRED FIFTY EIGHT DAYS!! Think of all I could have done with those days. That's three quarters of a year I could have wasted on something else entirely. Wow. If that doesn't blow you away, I don't know what will. I had another whole point, but I am so blow away by that, I'm just going to wait. 258 days. Gone.

10 comments:

Allison said...

194 days for me.

Wow.

I never ever thought about that statistic. That is so scary sounding.

Sandra Miller said...

What's really scary to me is that an hour a day seems like such a conservative number...

Kerri. said...

304 days for me.

Almost a full year, toasted. Holy cow.

And I agree with Sandra - an hour is rather conservative, considering.

jill. said...

Hey Jen, it's so bizarre that you write about phys lab in your post. I took phys lab in college too .. during the same semester I was diagnosed with type 1. I had lost weight and felt horrible .. and I discovered glucose and ketones in my urine. Needless to say, I missed the the endocrine lab a week later because I was at the hospital learning much more than I ever wanted about my pancreas. (But I did do well on all of those lab quizzes ;)) "How does insulin alter blood glucose levels?" ... Yeah I think I've got that ;)

Scott K. Johnson said...

408 days and counting for me.

And that's at only one hour per day.

I don't know about you guys, but when you start thinking about doctor appointments or "sick days", one hour per day simply doesn't cut it.

Very interesting twist on it Jen.

Where's Keith? I want to see his number!

asskeeper said...

319 days for me. I remember doing that lab in physiology also. Actually did it twice since took physiology one time in real college but not a 2 semester course had to take it again at a Community college.

Anonymous said...

Oh Jen,
It's better not to do too much math! (might be more damaging than the diabetes :)

Happy D-blog day to you indeed.

justme said...

i don't have that many days. the crap thing is that one day i will. and there is so much i can think of right now that i could fill those days with.

Anonymous said...

yeah but think of all the hours you waste watching tv or something else which we shouldn't do so much of. It's not so bad then.

Kassie said...

here's another optomistic way to look at it: I've given a year of my life to diabetes but my care and attention has given me years of life! Here's hoping, at least ;)