I will continue to reflect on that session for quite some time and I have no doubt it will be a critical skill to carry me through the tough times.

Speaking of tough times, I am LOVING the break from cancer life!  My Dr recently called and wanted to schedule a visit and do some labs…I thought to myself, “no thanks, we’re on a break.” HAHA!! Of course I scheduled the appointment and will do the labs. That is scheduled for next week (May 15th) and I’m sure will be fine.

The current problem I get to solve, is a bummer, but I get to learn a lot in a very short period of time. In my last post I shared that the treatment did not come without some harsh side effects and that is also an understatement. The good news is that I was able to come off the steroids and my gastrointestinal issues are still doing great. The tough news that as a result of the immunotherapy and that brief bout of pancreatitis, I now have diabetes. Everyone thought the high blood sugar was related to the steroids and as soon as I got off them everything would stabilize. I was hopeful they were right, but my gut told me this was something else. This came on fast. Everything was normal when i went in for my last scan and then when i went to the appointment to review the scans my blood sugar was 299. 

I was CRUSHED by this news because I have worked so hard to not have diabetes. For those that don’t know, I used to weigh 340 lbs and was at the early stages of diabetes. Thanks to weight loss surgery and a lot of hard work I was able to lose 160lbs and completely reverse it.  I spent the first few days after that appointment in tears at the prospect of having this be “another thing” I had to deal with. It completely overshadowed the good news that my cancer was stable and I just wanted to feel better. 

My Dr.’s office and Pallative care team worked magic to get me into UW’s Diabetic clinic as appointments were running six weeks out. All their hard work saved me an admission to the hospital…something I did not want to do because it would have further delayed my return to work and getting back to some normalcy was my top priority. I was seen by the most amazing Dr who shocked me when she told me she read my chart going back to 2017 and I didn’t have to explain a single thing/treatment I have done…anyone who has a complex medical history will understand how big this was…explaining constantly is exhausting. She too thought it was from prednisone, but we quickly learned it wasn’t. She started me on a continuous glucose monitor that day (what a lifesaver a CGM is…my fingers were tired of being poked). 

Three days after being off prednisone, my blood sugar only went higher. I was back to work at this point, but thankfully able to work from home. The Dr advised that I needed to start insulin, so we started with a long acting one and quickly realized that wasn’t enough. This Dr. called me on her drives home and sent me messages…sometimes multiple times a day. While it was all scary and I didn’t feel great, I did not worry about anything because she was monitoring me so closely.  I was fortunate to have a Cali friend in town who is Type 1 diabetic and he was able to give me tips and encouragement in those first few days. 

It’s been a new adventure for sure and I am still learning so much. Last week, I had a follow up appt and we are running a bunch of tests to help us know what type of diabetes this is; I had no idea there are more than two types, but there are and I likely have one of the others. I don’t know if I will ever be able to stop insulin, but thanks to many advances it’s not too terrible. I’m learning what foods are harder on my body and looking for new foods that make me feel better. I currently take insulin 4-5 times a day (1 long acting in the AM, before meals and then a bolus dose if my sugar stays too high four hours after eating).