So, did we all see my whiplash decision coming? I mean, I kinda did. What I ultimately concluded is that my biggest issue is that I’d like to not be diabetic anymore. But in the absence of curing it, I will continue to adjust to life with a pod because long-acting shots are not dynamic enough for my taste and comfort.
Anyway…I’m reading a great book, “Range” by David Epstein. It discusses the value of being a generalist contrary to society’s increasing push for narrow specialization in everything from kids’ sports to organ specific cancer doctors to really everything, these days.
It’s super timely after my Lantus experiment. Going back to Lantus for just two days answered a question for me…and that was accurately identifying a Boogeyman that I’d been inaccurately identifying for a while. The completely unstable evenings that I’d fought forever on shots led me to a lot of incorrect conclusions and inaccurate fears. When you are afraid of the wrong Boogeyman, that makes everything scary. Going back to Lantus for two days turned on the lights, so to speak, and I found out that there were no monsters. And consequently, my bg graph has been the flattest it’s been in FOREVER.
One of the concepts that’s been discussed in “Range” is “cognitive entrenchment”. It is defined as the act of experienced groups becoming rigid under pressure and regressing to what they know best.
Well, if that hasn’t described my journey with blood sugar management through a string of admitted challenges, I don’t know what does.
Transitioning from pregnant to postpartum, on birth control to off birth control, reacting allergically to Humalog (maybe?) and switching to Novolog which I was SUPER sensitive to at first but then that settled down, and lots of pod troubleshooting for how I can and cannot use it functionally…that’s A LOT of challenges in my estimation. Because this was while working, raising babies, being targeted and pressured to leave my job by my boss for about seven years, and my husband traveling non-stop, and caring for sick family members. Not a lot of breathing room in there!
So, my point is…people with SOME experience get entrenched in what they know and are demonstrated to perform very poorly when presented with a new variable or parameter for their task. People with no experience perform better when faced with new challenges because they are not entrenched in one way of doing things.
I find this explanation helpful and forgiving to myself. I struggled for a long time with fear and it is such a relief to have that monkey off my back now. I did not know which Boogeyman was my problem, so everything was my problem. That two day Lantus experiment has really, really paid off for me moving forward. Kind of like a clean slate and fresh eyes for a sometimes changing challenge.
