Early morning

On Monday we went to a study group on carbohydrate counting with a very nice lady named Anna, and learned lots of useful stuff. I have been terribly remiss about this, because after a long spell when Jan's bloods were well under control they suddenly went haywire towards the end of last year and nothing I could do seemed to bring them back under control, and not that it's an excuse but when you are suffering from depression it really doesn't take much to drain you of the will to carry on trying. It now looks as if what I've been doing has been pumping in the insulin all day to get Jan's blood sugar down, with the result that it goes down in the night, while we're both asleep, and then rebounds, so that it's high again in the morning. This is obviously not ideal, but it looks as if with a bit more attention and with tailoring the insulin to the carbs in what she's eating, rather than giving a flat amount every time (which is what we were told to do), we might have a bit more success.

When she was first diagnosed, we went through a succession of doctors who seemed to feel the need to frighten her to death with horror stories of what could go wrong and/or make her feel guilty for having been so unhelpful as to have become diabetic. I could have told them, and did on a couple of occasions, that this approach was disastrously wrong-headed and doomed to failure, but my own lack of confidence got in the way and I wasn't forceful enough. I believe this was a contributory factor in the years during which we made little or no attempt to keep the thing under control, which is why her complications got as bad as they did as quickly; that and the line we were given that "you can live a perfectly normal life with diabetes"--of course that may be true for given values of "normal" and at first, but make no mistake, diabetes will eventually have its way no matter how good your controls may be and you will find your life becoming less "normal" as time passes.

I was not good enough at helping her to stave off that moment. I have been--ghastly modern buzzword--an enabler. I still do not have the heart to say "no" when she needs something to comfort her, and the only thing she wants is a biscuit or something else bad. There is so much pain in her life, old and current, from so many different sources, that the weight of it nearly crushes me, and I can't even imagine what it's like for her. I read about the sufferings of the people in Japan and New Zealand and so many other places, and it tears at my heart, but it can't help but be eclipsed by the suffering of the soul in the next room, who is never out of pain except when she can snatch a couple of hours of sleep, and I am helpless to undo the mistakes of the past (my mistakes, much more than hers) or to offer even a glimmer of hope that the pain might someday be eased, except by that which eases all pain in the end.

But. By taking thought now, and with this new approach to the medication, and if I work harder at it (I will work harder), it might be possible to mitigate the decline in her health a little, and if that is all we can do, then we shall do it. And when I see her in the company of friends, laughing and telling her stories and shining the way only she can, I am bitterly ashamed of my own inability to rise above our troubles and be brave. When I see her like that, there is nothing I can do but love her.