Fin des olympiques!

After a relaxing two-week reading break, the Olympics have come to a close. In their wake, I have an Olympic amount of work coming at me this week.

I will be finishing the second of my two choral pieces within the next few days.

On Thursday, I will be presenting/leading the discussion in my seminar class.

For my contemporary players course, I will start learning one or two new pieces to be performed sometime this next month or two.

I will be learning 4 pieces (one of those is my own Piano Trio) for the Sonic Boom new music festival, to be performed on April 8th.

I still need to line up a baritone for my conversational piece 'Gramps Ain't No Namby-Pamby'.

I will be teaching piano lessons on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.

Because of the piano-heavy nature of my tasks that lie ahead, I'm going tomorrow piano shopping. Ish. The piano-teaching income, in addition to helping pay down debt, will free up some budget room to rent a piano. I've been finding it increasingly hard to survive without a piano. Nevertheless, I have and I will continue to do so, for a short while longer. With any luck, I'll have a piano by next week!

Often times, I read online about other bloggers who grew up with diabetes. They have a special, close connection with their parents - specific to diabetes.

I am jealous of that.

Whenever I talk to my parents about diabetes, it's not much different than talking to strangers. They have some basic knowledge about it, but it's from standards that were in practice 10-20 years ago. I also get frustrated, because they treat my diabetes like they did when I was 12...

This is my own doing.

I'd always been a decently well-behaved kid, but I was fiercely stubborn and independent. In my teens, this became even more prominent. At some point, my parents much have perceived an ultimatum:

'Do we continue pressing Michael for information, struggling to get blood-sugars out of him, peering over his shoulder to see what his reading was, reminding him to test, asking him to write down his BGs, take his insulin?

or should we trust that he can take care of himself and hope that he will become slightly more open?'

I don't want anyone to mistake the second option for 'giving up' because it certainly isn't. They knew that I was testing regularly and taking my insulin. I had shown that I was proactive, I would get my own juice if I was low, they would find juice boxes and granola bar wrappers lying around which they knew meant I had treated a low. Looking back, it's clear that they were trying to have an open dialogue with me about my diabetes. It's even more clear that I wasn't ready or willing to have that at that time.

My parents chose the second option. They pulled back and stopped pestering little Michael. I was relieved and happy. I continued doing everything the same, maintaining decent control and strengthening my independence and problem-solving abilities.

Reverse psychology actually worked - I started writing my BGs down in the book. When they weren't always asking to see my glucose book, I was more free about leaving it lying around. I honestly don't know if they were looking at it or not when I wasn't around.

Because of this new freedom, things got better; everyone was more relaxed and our non-diabetes relationship improved. Diabetes was my private, autonomous area.

Now, this is the part I regret....

Independence turned to isolation.

While I was opening up, I wasn't making it apparent. I secretly craved that overseeing that I had fought so hard against. Nevertheless, I continued to do everything myself. Every successful diabetic moment reinforced my independence. Where my parents had once attended Endocrinologist appointments with me, now they were only getting the A1C number. As long as that number wasn't going up, they were happy. That became their sole measure of my diabetes, and it started to have less and less tangible meaning. It certainly had no bearing on my day-to-day life.

This is where my parents and I are today, and have been for the last decade or so.

I love them dearly and I'm grateful that they've helped me become so independent.

I just feel that there is no one in the world who knows about my diabetes. I remember once being in the hospital and the doctor wanted to take me off long-acting insulin and put me on a drip. I was naive enough to think that they knew what they were doing. It was the worst control I've ever been under!

Sometimes you just want to feel like there's someone out there that's got your back...

One more thing - I love(/hate) the online community, but even there, there are so few friends who share my situation. Most diabetic bloggers are people who've come into it later in the game. I only have one real life friend and follow one blogger (Kerri at SUM) who are Type 1 since childhood. It may seem super picky, but I think when you were diagnosed makes a huge difference in how you live your life.

Ok, enough blabbering for today. I don't intend to sounds down on myself here, I just realized that I've never blogged about this in detail and it's something that is a huge part of me as a person.

Post 950

As the first half of my Olympic sized (2 week) reading week comes to a close, I realize just how little I've gotten done, and how quickly time passes!

I've gotten some stuff done, but the bulk of everything will happen this week.

Keeping me looking forward is the confirmation of my first professional, paid engagement as a pianist. Though I've been paid to play piano before, that was always within the educational system - school recitals or festivals.

I will have more details as they come together, but I will be playing three pieces in a concert at one of Vancouver's new music festivals in April.

I'm reasonably certain that getting this gig had something to do with the success of the 'Michael Park and Friends' concert, which was one of my intentions: to promote myself through that concert in order to get further professional opportunities. While the upcoming concert is an end in itself, it also presents further opportunities to promote myself for additional opportunities. Hooray for feet in doors!

In other news, one of my nearest and dearest friends recently got engaged. Suffice it to say, no one ever thought they would see the day that she would settle down, but that day has come! This is such exciting and happy news, I can't wait for the extravagant party that will ensue!

Slowly getting into the Olympic spirit

I'm not a big sports person... that is, I'm not really interested in sports at all.

The Olympics haven't really changed that, but I'm getting more into the Olympic spirit. I've even watched a few events with online streaming; more accurately, I've looked at the screen and paid slight attention when my roommate is engulfed in the events coverage.

It can be argued that the olympics have had either a terrible or wonderful effect on my sleeping habits. This is because I am taking advantage of the free things that the city has to offer lately.

The other day, I went zip-lining over downtown Vancouver!

Click here to see a video of me kicking/flailing/screaming.

It was free, but you had to wait in line to beat the crowd. It opened at 10am, so we got there at 7:45 am to secure our spot in the line. There were about 40 people in front of u

s, so we we zipping sometime just before 11 am.

I drank a lot of coffee, but it was still super early for me!

Tonight, I am faced with a similar challenge - another fantastic opportunity tomorrow morning. Some friends and I are going to see a taping of Stephen Colbert, but they tape at 9am, so we're leaving at 7:15 am... YIKES! Nevertheless, he is my favourite television personality so I will surely be there!

Ok, enough about the mornings.

There is a new addition to my animal family: a teddy bear.

His name is Ghetto Bear.

He is pretty awesome, in case you can't tell.

My roommate made his sunglasses because I am not good at making eyes and noses. They were creepy, but now they're cool!

Much like the elephant, he has multiple colours.

It's hard to have enough yarn for a whole project...

There is another bear that is all one colour in the works. I'm just waiting to get fiberfill instead of plastic bags because I'll be giving that one to an infant - safety first!

Anyway, off to bed for me; nobody wants a cranky Mikey tomorrow.

The Low that Your Body Fights!

Yesterday, I did an intense Kung Fu class. I ache from over-using muscles I didn't even know I had, haha!

Exercise effects you differently depending on intensity, but this time my sugars were elevated for the rest of the day. They had come down in the evening and before going to bed, they seemed to stabilize around 5.6 mmol. I went to bed sore from Kung Fu, but comfortable.

About an hour later, I woke up cold and my jaw was shaking, feeling kind of nauseous. I had a feeling I was low so I tested and was 5.4 - certainly not low enough for this reaction and seemed to be stable. I drank some water and readied myself for vomiting, but that just wasn't right. I tested with another machine and I was 5.7 - everything seemed stable as a mule.

Luckily, I've had this type of low before - the only reason your sugars are stable is because your body is turning its glycogen into glucose like nobody's business! This takes a LOT out of your body, so you feel horrible.

I was so tired, but I couldn't allow myself to sleep - my body couldn't keep it up; if I went to sleep, I likely wouldn't wake up.

I poured myself a glass of juice and drank it. Testing a few minutes later - 4.3 and dropping.

Long story short, I spent the next hour drinking juice and occasional granola bars. I would test every once in a while, but my sugars were staying the same. I stopped when my sugars went up to 7.5 and seemed to stay there between tests.

I must have consumed at least 150 carbs last night (likely more) to treat this massive low.

The rest of the night sucked. I woke up every few hours and I was unbelievably sore. Part of that was due to Kung Fu, but a lot of it was leftover from the toll this low took on my body.

In other news, today I bought a crock pot AND a stock pot from the local thrift shop!

I think I'm going to try my hand at a minestrone soup sometime in the next few days. There are a lot of recipes out there that seem quite different from each other, so I'd love to hear any recommendations.

I'm falling behind...

I'm falling behind... in my blogging, that is.

I've been doing pretty well with keeping up with my studies and all that.

The 'Michael Park and Friends' concert last week was a great success. I felt very happy with the performances, it was well attended, and from what I gather, it was well liked.

I'm currently writing a pair of songs for a choir at school. They will start working hard on them after reading break. I have one of them completed and handed in so they can look at it during the final rehearsal before break, and I'll finish the other over break.

I feel like everything in life is sorta, finally coming together.

Through Manitoba connections, I have a performance lined up for my thesis... 3.5 years down the road. It seems ridiculously early, but foresight is the key!

I've been teaching piano a lot lately - subbing for a friend. In addition, I have 3 students of my own that I teach privately, and I just got a job at a studio. Only one student to start, but it promises to start adding up - and it better; the studio is an hour away from home. The current 2 hours of travel time for half an hour of teaching seems like a bad balance... If I can get a few hours or more on one night, that would be incredibly helpful. The added income is welcomed, and becoming more of a priority!

This has been a busy, and slightly stressful, first half of the term, but next week is reading break and the Olympics. After the break, there will only be a month of class left in the first year of my DMA!

Anyway, let's not get ahead of ourself, Michael...