Focus

I wrote For now, last Tuesday's post, the night before. 

I usually try to write ahead anyway; I believe it increases the quality and I know it decreases the stress. My extra motivation was that I had an early morning doctor's appointment Tuesday, which was going to make the morning hectic.

I have been doing appointments early when possible because it is too stressful worrying about being able to get the time off after making the appointment, or scheduling the time off first and then not getting the appointment. I start at 9:30, so if I can drag myself in somewhere between 7:15 to 7:45, I can be done in time for work. 

I never love going to the doctor, but I was kind of dreading it more because my most recent A1c was not as good as I had been hoping. I had been doing pretty well, but when things went spiraling out of control in June/July, it threw my sleep off pretty badly. 

The most important variables for my blood sugar (assuming the medication is where it should be) are my water consumption and the amount of sleep I am getting; that's where changes make the most difference.

I may have written this already, but I had been doing pretty well getting to bed around 11:30. My sense was that if I could start getting to bed at 10:30, I would really have something. Unfortunately, my natural inclination is to be a night owl. It had taken effort to get to where 11:30 was regular, and I was going to put in more effort to get to 10:30.

Then came the stressful phone calls and the hospital trips and waiting for updates. 

I lost a lot of ground.

Even when that situation had stabilized (an overly optimistic term), I had not.

Oddly, no matter how much I berate myself for staying up late -- kind of worrying/kind of vegetating, and really quite pointless -- it does not get me into bed any faster.

I had started getting back on track, averaging 11:38 PM. My blood sugar scores were getting back into range, but I was still not happy.

As we were discussing it, I found myself telling the doctor that if I get my sleep under control over these next few months, I'll be set for life.

I had not thought of it that way before, but yes, if I can make it through open enrollment and garnished wages and holidays and my mother's decline and so much that I want to do in so little time... if over the course of that I can get on track where I am actually making myself/allowing myself to/managing my life so I can get enough sleep...

I can probably do it under any circumstance that comes along.

I feel like I need to do this. Maybe that's why.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/07/please-excuse-gina-for-not-writing.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-new-stress.html