You're Going Down, Diabetes!

So I had this weird, creepy, morbid dream last week. When I first woke up, the details were vivid and fresh, but now most of the dream is just a shadow. All I really remember is that I was pregnant with our first baby, and I was killing her with my diabetes. Needless to say, I woke up pretty shaken and have spent a good amount of time being haunted by that dream. I have always believed that bad dreams do not come from Jesus ... for example: when I was little, I had a recurring dream where a wrinkled, ET-like creature lived in our basement and told me lies. That is clearly not of God. But when I woke from this dream last week, I couldn't shake the notion that the Lord was trying to tell me something. This was not the first time He has convicted me of the way that I handle my diabetes, but somehow the realization that I could forever mar my own child made His message much more poignant.
So I made an appointment with my endocrinologist, and saw her two days ago. She was disappointed and frustrated with my out-of-control blood sugars, and my sky-high A1C test (for those of you who understand, it was 9.9 -- I know ... terrible). Though she expresses similar sentiments every time, I don't really change. But when she found out I was married, she said earnestly, "PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do NOT get pregnant!"
Apparently, high blood sugars can cause problems with the baby's heart, spine and other organs not forming well in the early weeks of pregnancy. Too much sugar from the mother causes the baby to grow too large, causing the baby’s lungs to develop more slowly, risk of early delivery, risk for injury during birth, and low blood sugar in the baby at birth. And it creates risk of stillbirth. Oh my goodness.
Just to clarify, I am not pregnant. And we are not planning on getting pregnant. But what if I did? What is my sweet first baby is stillborn because I was flippant and irresponsible? NO WAY.

So the bad blood sugars end here. And I need all the support, encouragement and accountability I can get.
Here is the plan.
1. Stop living in denial and actually take care of my diabetes. No excuses. This means actually taking my long-acting insulin, checking my blood-sugar obsessively and not pretending that little snacks don't require insulin.
2. Avoid unnecessary, simple sugars.
3. Start exercising.

I have made these kind of promises to myself before, but there is some maternal gumption involved this time. For you, unborn-fetus-child, I shall conquer this stupid disease!
So this morning I went for a run/walk. After about 5 minutes, I was already thinking about heading home ... my legs felt like lead. Maybe it was the biting cold, or the fact that I was up at 2am with a low blood sugar eating donuts, or maybe it was just my fear of failure. And that's when a favorite worship song started playing on my iPod.

If You say go, we will go
If You say wait, we will wait
If You say step out on the water
And they say it can't be done
We'll fix our eyes on You and we will come

All the evidence suggests that I can't muster self-discipline and start excelling at my diabetic care. But, turns out, I know that God desires change and he will leverage his expansive power on my behalf. So watch out, diabetes.

Side note: I started reading "Street of Crocodiles," which I mentioned in an earlier post, and I cannot stop mulling over something from the introduction. When speaking of a favorite book, Schulz said, "The existence of this book is a pledge that the tangled, mute masses of things unformulated within us may yet emerge to the surface miraculously distilled." How true is that of scripture? The Bible doesn't itself create perfect clarity, but promises that miraculous distillation. Awesome. This makes me wish I could teach a class on reading the Bible through the eyes of chemistry.