I'm tired. Emotionally and physically I'm just worn out and all my exhaustion hit me square in the face this morning.
To understand why I'm so tired I need to give you a look at a typical day. I leave for work at 5 pm and work until 6 am...unless I'm working overtime, then I either work noon to 6 am or 6 pm until noon...that's a minimum of 12 hours a day and several 18 hour shifts a month. When I get off work I change clothes and go straight to the gym where I ride a stationary bike for an hour normally completing 10 or more miles, then I go swim for 45 minutes to an hour. After swimming I relax my muscles by soaking for a few minutes in the gym's whirlpool, then I sit in the sauna and sweat for 10 minutes. After that I shower and go home.
When I get home I make a quick high protein breakfast of scrambled egg whites and cheese with two pieces of diet bread. By the time I'm done it's after 9 am so I'm off to bed where I sleep for a couple hours, then I'm up taking care of Bella until (if I'm lucky) she's ready to take a nap, then we lay down together and I get another hour or so of sleep before work. I work all night then go straight back to the gym and begin my day again.
There are some altercations of course. Sometimes my mom keeps Bella when I'm working and sometimes Brandi is feeling well enough to watch her, but for the most part I'm Bella's primary caretaker. I'm NOT complaining, just stating a fact. We also have doctor appointments, house cleaning, cooking meals, laundry, grocery shopping...normal stuff that everyone has in their life.
When I'm off and it's nice out I ride my bike after Bella is asleep (DJ and Brandi are home to care for her.) I love riding a real bike and it's important for me to get as much time in the saddle as possible if I'm going to achieve this 100 mile Ride to Cure. When I first started training I couldn't ride completely around the block, now I can ride 10 miles without any pain... but I need to get to the point of being able to ride a minimum of 70 miles at one stretch before I'm ready for the ride,. so I have a long way to go.
So this morning I got off work and I was exhausted, twelve hours of drama and people screaming will do that to a person. I headed off to the gym determined to get my training in for the day, but when I climbed on the stationary bike something happened....instead of starting the equipment and peddling my little legs off I just sat there staring at the controls, feeling so overwhelmed I wanted to cry. I sat for a good five minutes just willing myself the energy to start...and I did...eventually. I sat there peddling and listening to the music, struggling to get my speed up to where it needed to be. I fought through the machine's hills and just kept pumping for what seemed like hours. Then I made the mistake of looking at the timer and found I'd only been riding for 15 minutes and the tears started to flow. I knew in my heart I wasn't going to make it a full hour, but I didn't stop until I'd gotten 5 miles done and then I went home and wrote about my failure training on Facebook.
I've been feeling really alone in all this Ride to Cure thing for the last several days. This is hard work, I mean REALLY hard work...much harder than I anticipated, and it's important that I get the emotional support and motivation I need to succeed, so a couple of days ago I reached out to all my Facebook friends, all my family, the entire diabetic on line community asking for emotional support...a "YOU GO GIRL, YOU CAN DO THIS!" type of support.
I have 453 Facebook friends, the majority of them touched in some way by diabetes. All of my family with the exception of one of my brothers is on Facebook. My nieces and nephews...almost all are on Facebook. Then of course there's all the diabetes related pages I posted my request . on. In all I estimate my message was seen by well over 1000 people, but out of all these people less than 20 took a few seconds to post a message of support.
Yeah, I'm feeling VERY alone in all of this.
So I'm going to ask again because I'm running on empty and I need you all to help fill my emotional gas tank. I need support, I need to hear the stories of your children and loved ones with diabetes, I need to see the faces of those I'm fighting so hard to help. Please, tell me about your families, tell me your stories, send me a picture so I can see their faces. I would love to make a video composed of these pictures that I can watch while I'm training because seeing their faces, seeing their names and ages...young and old, Type 1 and Type 2....THAT will inspire me to keep going.
If you're willing to share your story and photo to help me please either post them on my Facebook page, send them to me in Facebook Messenger, or email them to me at tmoder762@gmail.com with Inspiration to Ride in the subject line.
I'm not going to quit, I AM going to do this ride...but it would be so much easier if I could see who I'm riding for.
Well let me just say, I applaude what your doing. My son, who is 10, was diagnosed with T1D on 03/21/12. In 1 day, it will be a full year dealing with this crap. My son and I did the "walk for the cure" last Oct and raised almost $1000. Our children poke themselves, inject themselves, eat when they dont want to, cant eat when they want to, feel highs and lows every single day of their lives. This will never end for them unless, we, the community do what it takes to help find a cure for them. Just remember why you are doing this. Your going through all this as a small reminder of what they go through and will go through forever, unless we help find that cure. I live in Arizona, and this past Saturday, at 10:00 AM I was leaving my house with my son to go to his Soccer game. Just as we turn the corner, we see it. "Tour De Cure". Hundreds of bike riders, peddling there butts off for us. I couldn't belive it. I seen people riding that looked like pros, I seen Grandmas, Grandpas, men and women of all ages, I seen a old lady on a 3 wheeler bicycle and a couple on one of those 2 person bikes. You know, where its one bike but 2 seats! They were so cute! Anyway, as we turn the corner to drive to Soccer we roll our windows down and I am blowing my horn the whole way, my son is waving his hands out the window cheering on these beautiful people fighting for him. I had tears rolling down my cheeks and goose bumps all over because I knew then, we aren't alone. It was a very beautiful site to see. I felt hope, I felt community and I knew that as long as I and people like you and them continue to fight, we will find a cure so that we no longer...have to fight. I hope you continue to fight, I hope you continue this path. I thank you and my son thanks you. We must find a Cure.
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