I want to start by thanking you for all your sweet support after my last blog post a month ago. It is much much appreciated and made me very happy. You are the best, all of you!
I've had a reasonably calm and quiet month. Reasonably because of course I wasn't on vacation or anything, so I had to work and live my regular life. I just did not blog or do my morning art. In fact I did very little art at all, because of this:
I'm having trouble with my middle finger. It seems to be drawing related, but I'm not totally sure. I do have a tendency to hold my pens too tightly and this gives pressure on that finger, because that's what they rest on. Anyway, at some point it got so bad I went to see my doctor and she suggested the above contraption to take the pressure off. It was very impractical, but it did seem to help a little.
As we speak things are definitely better than they were, but it's not over yet. So I'm trying to take care and not overdo it. We'll see how it goes.
As for my diabetes, I had a more extensive blood test halfway July and things are indeed improving, but we are not there yet. I am taking pretty good care of myself though and am getting a bit more used to counting and keeping track of every damn thing I eat. I'm no saint, but I'm quite proud of myself.
The most frustrating thing to me is that my body is responding differently than it used to. My glucose levels seem way more sensitive to any kind of stress. Even just getting up in the morning and doing my regular morning stuff can up the glucose by 2 mmol without having eaten anything! Exercise should put your glucose levels down, but after a long walk mine are up! I have refrained from extra straining walks and only go on shorter ones now and hope to build things up again soon, because I miss my long hikes.
All the above has to do with putting stress on your body, not necessarily terribly depressing stress as in being super busy, on overload or pressured, but just stuff that gets your system going or that makes your body have to work a little harder. A friend of mine wondered if it had anything to do with oncoming menopause and that doesn't even seem that farfetched as things are definitely changing. In the end the cause is irrelevant, because I have to learn to find balance with the results and there's only so much a person can do. I think most of all it will take time and patience and good medical care.
I have lost a little weight, but I try not to focus on that. Not because I couldn't stand to lose a few (read 'many') pounds, but because it makes me cranky as hell to keep track of everything and let my mood depend on both the number on a scale and a glucose meter. So I'd rather just focus on my blood glucose and healthy choices and just see what happens. So far so good. I have to keep up the current care and will get another blood test in September to see if it continues to improve. Keep your fingers crossed.
Still, all in all I am feeling better than a month ago. I feel like doing stuff again and I really started missing my morning art practice and keeping up the blog. It was nice not to have to think about these things for a while, but it's good to be back.
Here are some images from July so you know what I've been up to:
 |
| Retail therapy! |
 |
| Walks, walks, walks and some more walks. |
 |
| Going to the beach, because it's good for everything. |
 |
| Reading and journaling. |
 |
| A tiny bit of art here and there. |
 |
| Received some lovely snail mail. Yes, that's a Belgian hat for Spooky! |
 |
| Enjoying the beauty and adorableness that is my spooky cat. |
 |
| Spent several lunches in the office garden accompanied by this handsome fellow who belongs to a coworker. |
 |
| Reading outside and lazing about. |
 | |
| A very kind local man (almost) finished making my jungle into a terrace. The cat is one of Spooky's frenemies. |
 |
| Fell in love. He belongs to one my neighbours but loves to come and play with Spooky. A lot. |
Looking at these pictures there are a lot of animals in them! I actually interacted with humans too, I promise. I had a nice barbecue party of a friend who turned fifty for instance and my friend Monique came to the island for two weeks and we spent some nice time together roaming the island. In fact my next post will show some pics made on a day we spent together.
Well, with this is declare this blog back in use! I would love to read what you've been up to the past month so tell me about in the comments.
Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy weekend!