A Measured Approach

and as soon as I saw that in my queue, it knew it was going to be something fairly serious, since she can (and regularly does) make light of just about anything.  Any, you can read it yourselves (if you haven’t already) but the gist of it is that she’s gotten some scary test results back recently, that sent her mind to whirring about the possibility of all the plans she’s made for herself and, even more so, her family, getting terrifically derailed.

I happened to read it on the same day (monday) that I also got some test results that sent me scrambling for answers (answers that will hopefully come in a couple weeks after all the analysis comes back on the 9 tubes of blood – a new personal best! – that I surrendered today at a follow-up lab session).

There’s an old saying in business that I believe is attributed to Peter Drucker (but a quick Googling didn’t confirm that) which says You Manage What You Measure.  It is of course gospel for diabetics too. Certainly every increase in data that I’ve received, beginning in the days when I rarely tested (I know, shame on me), to then getting on a proper testing schedule, and then adding a CGM, has brought with it noticeable improvements in blood sugar levels and control.  Ditto with my diet, as I paid more attention to measuring the effect of carbohydrates, I exerted more control on my intake, and that, too, had positive effects.  Ditto with cholesterol.  In fact, one way of summarizing my life with Diabetes thus far is a continuous exercise in refining a new lifestyle, based on feedback from my personal testing routines and quarterly labs.  In a nutshell, trying to continually improve my measurement, and hence my management.  And, until this week, basically, so far so good.

But sooner or later, we’re all faced with the reality that while it’s difficult to manage that which you don’t measure, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the inverse is going to be true.  In business or in health.  Sometimes, despite our best efforts, things don’t go as planned.  Sometimes in small ways, but, at least once for all of us, also in big ones.  A lot of what we do together online here is distract ourselves with the small stuff: decrying the ignorance of the general public about Diabetes, venting about insurance companies, confiding (to the whole world) about a guilty indulgence, or sharing a little triumph, such as an exercise goal reached, or a lab target beaten.  But in the back of our minds, we all know that there are other forces at work, and that it’s not all small stuff.  In many ways, part of what Diabetes forces us to do, more so than 99% of the rest of the world, is measure our own mortality.  And that, ultimately, is something that no one can truly manage.