Baby Steps

It is April 24th.

Since April 1st I have spent $385 on prescriptions. Since January 1st I have spent $845.

Three hundred and eighty-five dollars. That is what I paid after benefits which pay 80% of all prescriptions (other than pump supplies).

Yes, I receive quarterly cheques for pump supplies (thank you thank you thank you). But that is a still a pretty big chunk of cash to wave goodbye to in three short weeks. Especially when I'm in serious pay down debt mode. Even more especially when my next quarterly cheque is still two months away which means that total gets added to my credit card and sits there until the cheque arrives.

Bah!

Why is it that I have tons of patience for baby steps in most areas of my life and yet very little patience for baby steps in my financial ones?

On Monday morning at the pool we sacrificed a hard workout to focus on technique. My goal was to learn to keep my head down and my eyes focused on the bottom of the pool (I lift my head too much when I swim). It took me a while to get the hang of where my head needed to be but I figured it out - only to completely lose my other skills that I thought I had mastered. Like bending my elbow properly and not crossing my arms in front of me. I immediately went back to my old swim technique...but my head looked good.

When I ignored my head-lowering issues and tried to just swim I could no longer remember what was the correct way for me to swim. I turned into an ungainly swimmer whose head was too high, whose elbows didn't bend and who crossed her arms in front of her. The only solution was to leave the pool hoping that I would get back in on Wednesday morning and remember how to swim.

Baby steps.

I can't run and won't be running for another month. When I do get back to it I will have gone from being able to run 20k sans problème to wondering if I can run 20 minutes. It will take weeks to build back up again and the injury could reappear during that time and sideline me again.

Baby steps.

Diabetes is crazy. I understand how something affects my blood sugar and master it. Something else goes wrong and I focus on fixing that only to lose control of the things that were working well. I focus on bringing those back and then I get sick which throws the whole thing off. Or I get my period. Or it's a stressful few days. I slowly wrestle my numbers back in order and then the season changes. Or I get injured and can't run. Or I recover from an injury and can run again.

Baby steps.

I paid $300 toward my credit card in April. I only put one purchase on my credit card in the month of April - a $385 charge for diabetes supplies.

Baby steps.

Just breathe.

You'll get there.