10: Ups and Downs Into Darkness

 

This Star Trek: The Next Generation scene summarizes what happened after November 18, 2021. Data struggled after losing a game to a biological creature, an alien. Data being an android did not feel he should have lost. He made all the correct moves and did everything right from his calculations, but ultimately, he lost the game. He could not process this failure and questioned all of his capabilities, including serving aboard the Enterprise. In this scene, Picard had to remind Data of his duties with the quote above, more sternly as a captain would. Data had to recognize that we all lose sometimes. Such is life.

While living with diabetes, I convinced myself it was possible to eliminate the problem. To win no matter what. I was going to beat this with no issues, and although it seemed to be heading that way, there was one thing standing in my way--vanity. Remember that word? Data experienced it too. Self-pity makes you do strange things sometimes. You start questioning everything. But all self-pity represents is another form of vanity. When your ego can't take what has happened. "Definitely my favorite sin." Always keep that quote in mind.

It broke my heart that day to see my A1c go up, especially with all the work I had put in to accomplish my goal of staying healthy. Coupled with increasing the Glucophage, I felt utterly defeated. Never mind all of the other accomplishments I had made. All of my other numbers were excellent. My weight was exactly where I wanted it. I was about to run my third 5K that year at the Electric City Gobbler, yet another race under 29 minutes for my time on Thanksgiving Day, but none of that mattered.

The A1c went up! I have to take more medicine! Woes me.

It's the same response as remembering how the Atlanta Braves of the 1990s lost 4 World Series instead of always thinking about the 1 championship they did win and, of course, all of the team's other accomplishments. They should have won more. That is a bad thought process spurred by worldly nonsense.

In this case, I was giving in to the worldly nonsense myself instead of enjoying the accomplishments I had made, much like Data.

With my Glucophage being increased, that unnerved me. I convinced myself I'll have to start eating more. That was probably not true, but that's what I did anyway.

But the worst part was the next day.

I did something I hadn't done before after my visit with my provider in April 2021. I donated blood to the Clemson/South Carolina Blood Drive. This blood drive is an annual event set up right before Clemson and South Carolina play each other in the Palmetto State Bowl at the end of the football season. It's all part of Rivalry Week in College Football. I had never donated to this event, so I looked forward to doing so for the first time.

I loved donating blood. The gift of life or a chance to save one. Those slogans are a mix of the common ones I see. I have been giving blood almost annually since working at AnMed Health. I even gave during the height of the Covid Pandemic in the Fall of 2020. So, giving blood when I was perfectly healthy in November 2021 seemed like a great idea. My hemoglobin was still excellent, and I was feeling good. However, I couldn't shake some of the negativity in my mind, and something was telling me not to give blood that day. Probably because of self-pity.

However, my blood wasn't coming out like it should during the donation. The phlebotomist kept having to move the needle around in my arm to try and help, but that only hindered me. Eventually, I had a vagal response.  What that means is the pain of the needle moving, combined with a lower amount of blood, started making my blood pressure drop. I began to feel woozy and had tunnel vision. I turned pale and almost passed out. They put all of these fans on me and lowered the head of the bed I was in to help send blood back up to my heart. It was a terrifying experience I had never had when donating blood. Because of this experience, I've never given blood again. This was only the beginning of the negative things I was letting in, and it was only a day after the higher A1c result.

I got to feeling better that weekend and ran my 5K the next week, again doing well and feeling good. Amidst all this turmoil with the slightly higher A1c, I was also stressing pretty well. I had defended my proposal for my PhD, but now I had to submit the IRB application to conduct the study. That process was not nearly as involved, but I had a deadline to get it done by the beginning of December. I also threw in earning certification for the first time, as if I needed something else to occupy my time. However, I earned my Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator certification, also known as CHSE, pronounced "chessy."  I was proud of all that I had done by the end of November, but in league with the negatives of the higher A1c, the blood donation gone wrong, and being overly stressed finally took its toll.

My heart skipped a beat that day in early December.

This took me completely off guard and scared the life out of me that day. It kept happening too. I contacted my provider to let them know what was happening. They were very helpful, trying to get me to calm down more than anything. What was happening was known as a PVC. Premature Ventricular Contraction. A PVC gives the impression of fluttering of the heart. It can sometimes feel like racing or even like your heart skips a beat. For a brief instant, you get this sensation as if your heart stops, then starts back up again. It's unnerving the first time you feel one.

I've had palpitations before, once when I got really dehydrated during the summer while out walking the kids as they sat in a stroller. That was my bad for not drinking enough water before, during, and after.

This, too, was my fault that day in December.

I had worked myself up into a frenzy worrying about this A1c. How could I do everything right, and this ends up being the result?

Deep down, something was trying to tell me to chill, but I didn't want to listen to it. My vanity wouldn't let me settle down. I think the point of this is to illustrate how our mindset can shift very quickly. When it does, it's because you let it. I let myself get carried away, and I had to regroup. The problem is that regrouping would take several months to achieve.

My stress level was so high by December 2021. I knew I had to finish my PhD by July 1, 2022, or was out of the program. That's right! If I didn't finish by July, I didn't earn the degree I had been pursuing for almost 7 years at that point. I was also trying to apply for a new position at Clemson and kept stressing about that. I needed to begin my study no later than February 2022 if I wanted to get done in time to defend my dissertation and complete my degree. I still had all of my usual stressors of family, work, and life, with these added on, and managing sugar issues. Let's not forget Omicron variant showed up too about this time and wreaked havoc well into 2022, although in no way near as deadly as the variants that came before it. 

All of this was enough to stress anyone out, but I was letting one thing drive my stress. A slightly elevated A1c. Two-tenths of a point was all it took to drive my mindset backward. 5.8 isn't even bad, folks. It isn't even bad and something you can fix easily. But it would take its toll on me in the weeks ahead as I headed further down that rabbit hole, descending further into darkness until heartache commenced. My only hope was that I would get it together, much like Data, and realize a new plan of action.

Stay tuned for the next segment, 10: Ups and Downs of Heartache.