Cognitive Stopping as Coping Mechanism

I’m doing better today. Surprising, considering multiple factors: I took both the 2 am and 6 am shifts, we sprang forward for Daylight Savings, effectively losing an hour, and I’m writing reports from home most of the day. I didn’t sleep restfully last night, which may be a few weeks away still. But, I was able to employ a technique I’ve talked with others about: cognitive stopping.  Research  appears sketchy on whom this technique works for, but it’s helping me for now.

The details are fuzzy now. It was the middle of the night; I can’t recall the exact scenario that I kept turning over and over in my head. I only recall that it was about Blaine and whatever it was, it made me very sad.  Somehow I also remembered that I could control my thoughts. In the middle of the night I remembered that not all in my life is doom and gloom. I reminded myself that I could choose to think about something else. So that’s what I did. I let myself drift back to sleep while replaying in my mind Aislin’s basketball practice.

Practice has started for her travel team. I laid there remembering the focused look her eyes as she intently watched and listened to her coach. They must have ran the same drills 50 times, which made for a steady and constant stream of images for me to play back in my sleep. I watched her attempt her lay-ups on the 10 foot goal, until one after another they were all going in.  I don’t know why it took me 6 days to remember the cognitive stopping technique. My head feels less foggy. Maybe I’m coping better, maybe it’s just temporary. It could be that in an hour everything hits me again. I don’t know. All I know is to take it moment by moment, with the hope that it will get better.

It’s like everything we do now with Blaine is a new first: His first day back at school, his first track practice, our first afternoon being out running errands. I’m learning how to do everything again, just like a new mom. I am a new mom, a new mom to the life of T1.  Questions constantly pop up, like do I take his diabetes bag into Kroger with us? Or leave in the car?

Today his friend Zack called to see if Blaine could go play at his house. I can’t keep him glued to my side forever.  So we let him go. When Zack’s mom arrived to get him we checked his BG. It was 260, which is too high, so we corrected with insulin. I worried about giving him the amount that I did and thought maybe I should have given him less. It wasn’t until after he left that I thought about whether or not the boys would be going outside to play.  An hour later I sent Julia, Zack’s mom a text to check in on him. I asked for him to call me by 3 pm and let me know how he was.  It turns out that after the 7 units of insulin I gave him, plus the insulin he had for breakfast, he and Zack had gone outside to play for a while.

Blaine realized he didn’t feel good, and came in, telling Zack’s mom that he felt hot.  He checked his BG and it was 61. His range is 70-150 for now.  He was slightly low.  He knew what to do. He drank the juice box from his bag and had two glucose tablets.  By the time Zack’s dad dropped him back at our house he was in a great mood.

Another sigh of relief. We survived his first play-date away from home.  He knew what to do when he didn’t feel well, or felt low, in the language of diabetes. Everything was okay.  I just need to keep experiencing everything being okay and stop myself from the negative thoughts.