10: Fall 2022

 

Ah, Fall! My favorite time of year. Seeing autumn come makes me think of cooler temperatures, milder climates, multicolored leaves, less grass cutting, school is back in, football, Halloween, World Series, bonfires, and paving the way to Christmas time.

I love this time of year. I always start decorating for fall as soon as September hits, not September 21st, but September 1st. That is the start of the fall season for me. The true, most wonderful time of the year, at least for me.

The best thing I love about fall is running. In high school, running in the cooler autumn temps allowed my lungs to expand as much as possible to take in plenty of oxygen and run as fast as I could for 3.1 miles. My favorite course was always the Furman Invitational. The race was typically in mid-October, allowing for a nice crisp chill in the air on the race mornings. The course was on the golf course mostly, so almost completely flat with beautiful grass and landscapes. Every time I ran that race, I did a personal record of some kind. I just loved it!

But each race in high school was met with uncertainty where you had to show your capabilities. That was not unlike the Fall 2022 semester for me, as I was starting a new course for my career - as a researcher.

Having accepted a position on tenure track, I knew the next year would be busy trying to navigate the rigor and needs of research. But I was up to the challenge. I will admit, though, this added a layer of stress after finishing the dissertation. I replaced one stress with another stress.

Stress plays a huge factor in sugar control too. For one, if you are stressed, you are prone to eat and eat comfort foods. But much like the Fall of 2021, I still did well trying to balance things out. COVID helped some. My weight dropped by almost 8 pounds during COVID. However, I knew I would put that weight back on once I felt back to full strength. I didn't lose that weight initially like the year before; it was due to sickness.

Amazingly, my sugars never got out of control during COVID and remained steady in the 80-100 range thereafter. I wasn't checking my sugars nearly as often now, given a reprieve by my provider to save my fingers from needle sticks. I was checking my sugars twice a week now. Only one time during the fall did my sugar reading reach 100 during those checks. The stress of trying to write grants, manuscripts for publications, and submit abstracts was tough, but it wasn't quite as bad as the dissertation phase had been. This difference was largely because I was now working with a team of researchers.

Having gone to my first Prisma Health, Health Science Center (HSC) Mixer, I found myself working with a group as passionate about virtual reality (VR) as I am. The HSC Mixers are an opportunity for researchers to mingle and share ideas in the hopes of applying for seed grants offered by Prisma Health. When I planned to attend, I wanted to meet some people to start thinking of ideas so that I might apply for a seed grant the next fall in 2023. With it already being mid-September and the due date for the letters of intent was mid-October, I didn't think I could get a grant submission in time for fall 2022.

I was wrong.

That's the thing about being a novice. You don't really know anything until you actually do something. All your schooling really leads to entry-level. I felt like the doctor in the first episode of Scrubs.  It's also a lot like running cross country. You never knew what the courses might be like sometimes, although the coaches tried to prepare you. You still had to run the race. There was always something in the path you had to navigate around, obstacles even. But ultimately, you figured out the course and successfully completed the race without injury. The same rules applied here with grant writing and doing research. However, I was forewarned before the start of the semester. At orientation, President Jim Clements made it clear to all of the newest faculty and researchers of Clemson University that the best time to start doing your research for tenure track is NOW. Don't delay. So, when opportunity knocked that day at the HSC Mixer, I jumped on the train and never looked back.

This was the same philosophy I took with my diabetic concerns from March 31, 2021. I knew this was the only way to handle things, and I would be remiss if I didn't try. When you're faced with new challenges, all you can do is adapt and figure out ways to succeed. Much like Spring 2021, the Fall semester of 2022 was uncharted territory for me. How did I fair? Well, just like any race, steady as she goes, doing the best I could.

That effort would soon open the door for me to things I hadn't even considered before finishing my PhD. A new team. New affiliations. New opportunities. It was truly amazing, all the while still trying to maintain control of my sugars as I had the previous year and a half. How would the results end up this time?

Tune in for the next segment, 10: The 5.8 Syndrome.