Gainer uses Diagnosis to Overcome Adversity.

[joeg 69]

Gainer uses Diagnosis to Overcome Adversity

 

EDITORS NOTE: Change the sport in this story from hockey to football, and this story is 100% true. This is my story of dealing with type 1 diabetes.

 

The Mississauga Hounds find themselves in a difficult place. They are losers of 7 straight games, dropping 11 of their last 12. Add onto that the recent trade of all-star forward and team leader Andrew Su, and the departure of general manager doktorfunk, and Berockas squad finds itself facing an uphill battle. For the Hounds, every time this season has seemed to reach a new low, and someone has uttered the phrase “it can go nowhere but up from here” things have somehow found a way to get worse. And while this is a difficult time, it is not as if players have not experienced adversity in their lives before and they will need to draw on their past experiences to battle through this rough patch. For Mississauga rookie Joseph Gainer, he has called on lessons he learned facing his own adversity in his teens during this losing skid. For him, he has lived every day since he was 13 fighting an invisible enemy, making up to 150 extra decisions per day, and having decisions he makes today determining

possible negative outcomes in his future.  For Gainer no matter how hard the current situation is, it will never be as hard as his daily fight against type 1 diabetes.

 

On a warm September afternoon at his high school in Hamilton, Joseph Gainer was talking with a group of his teachers in the hallway. One of the teachers made a comment of how Gainer was looking jaundice that day. Gainer brushed it off, telling his teacher that he was fine, but had a doctor’s appointment after school just as a precaution. He told his hockey coach that he may be a few minutes late for practice that afternoon, but that he was sure he would make it. “It’s funny” Gainer recalls, “because all of the warning signs were there. I was constantly thirsty drinking water at an unnatural rate and yet was unable to quench my thirst. I was using the washroom 15-20 times per day. I would great leg spasms every night from being so dehydrated. And yet I brushed it all off.” Being in the midst of training camp for the upcoming hockey season, Gainer and his family figured that all of that was just a consequence of the heavy, long, daily practices. It was when he lost over 30 pounds in less than a month that Gainer released that something serious was wrong. Even as he was talking to the doctor at his appointment and taking some tests, he didn’t feel like his body was attacking itself. Gainer recalled the faithful appointment. “The doctor had one hell of a poker face. She kept telling me she thought everything was fine, and that she was just going to run a couple of simple tests to ensure that I was ok and then I would be on my way. I actually felt better when she went to run the tests, telling my dad that I guess I just over reacted. As soon as she came back into the room though, you could tell that she was going to tell me something I didn’t want to hear.” It might sound cliché, but Gainer doesn’t remember much after that. I remember the doctor telling my dad I needed to go to the emergency room ASAP. I remember him calling my mom on the car ride down. The rest is a blur of tears, anger and sadness, at what was ahead.

 

“My time in the emergency room is also a little bit of a blur,” said Gainer, while pulling out his blood sugar glucose monitor to check is blood sugar level. “The first day was spent just trying to stabilize me. The nurses would come in a tell me what they were giving me, but hell if I can remember it. Something I do remember is them trying to put the first IV in. First of all, I am terrified of needles. Not hate them, not find them an inconvenience, but run away, avoid at all costs, parents had to hold me down as a kid for my flu shot terrified of needles. So, having them try to insert an IV into my tiny, dehydrated veins was my first experience in the hard-core crash course of becoming desensitized to needles.” Gainer went on to recall how his visit continued, commenting that it’s incredible how quickly someone can become desensitized to needles when their life depends on multiple daily shots of insulin. “My dad, God bless him, spent the first night with me in the ER, sleeping in one of those stereotypical, uncomfortable hospital chairs. That was only a one-time thing, as after that, they would leave around 10 pm and come back at 8 am,” Gainer said, emphasizing how thankful he was for the support and sacrifices his parents made in the early days of his diagnosis. His teacher in his mother came out in full force, furiously taking notes as person after person came in to give Gainer a 4-day crash course in living with type 1 diabetes. His dad took care of arranging the new litany of prescriptions at the pharmacy, co-ordinating with Gainers school and work, as well as keeping family and friends updated. They also helped to arrange some visitors to come and see Gainer during his hospitals stay. “One of my coaches came to see me the second day in the hospital, and I tried to get out of the bed to greet him. Problem was I had and IV in each hand, and another one in each arm,” Gainer reminisced. “I was told to not do that again. Some of my teammates came to visit me a couple days later. They later told me they had a fierce debate over whether or not it would be funny to bring doughnuts to me. They ultimately decided against it, which was greatly appreciated.” When he was finally released from the hospital, the first place he went was to hockey practice to see his team before their game the next day against their neighbouring rivals. It was a game he always looked forward to playing, but one that he would not get to play in. Gainer had had the opportunity to jump up to the next level of hockey, but made the decision to stay at his age level and play another year with his friends. It would be their last year together, and he wanted to be a part of it. So, when his diagnosis took him out of commission for an indefinite amount of time, it hurt a lot. “I remember one day deciding that I wanted to grab this thing by the horns, and get back to hockey as soon as possible. I got cleared to begin non-contact cardio activities, and 4 weeks after my diagnosis, I was back into the lineup. I am not kidding when I say that was the worst game I ever played in my entire life.” Gainers team won that game, in a blow-out fashion to top it off. Yet it triggered a crisis of confidence in Gainer. “I remember my coach seeing me at practice on Monday, who was known as being sometimes too blunt towards others. He told me it was the worst game I had ever played under him. Whatever confidence I had left vanished quicker than my beta cells (responsible for the production of insulin). Don’t get me wrong, that coach was family to me, and always looked out for us. But it took me weeks after that to regain my confidence to my pre-diagnosis levels. Even then, nothing felt normal while playing anymore. Always in the back of my mind was the status of my health, wanting to make sure it would not affect my play.”

 

One of Gainers main ways of coping with his diagnosis was what he called “reality checks.” He described them as comparing his situation to those of others. “It may not have been the healthiest way to deal with it, but it worked for me. I tried to remind myself that while what I had was a lifelong, chronic illness, it was a manageable one. There were treatments which would enable me to live a pseudo normal life. I didn’t have cancer, or some type of disease that was much more life threatening. And to me, that meant I had a duty to do everything I could to ensure I took advantage of the hand I was dealt. It could have been a lot worse. So instead of wallowing in my sorrows, I wanted to do my best every day.” While this strategy had some upside, it particularly was hard on Gainer when he hit a road bump. If he used the wrong amount of insulin, or forgot to take his nighttime insulin, he said he felt as if he failed. It took talks with diabetes professional, mental health experts and family and friends to realize how he had to frame this. It couldn’t be 100 or nothing. It couldn’t be the view that either this was the worst possible news he could get, or that everything was fine and nothing had changed. It had to be somewhere in the middle. Something had changed, and not in a good way. On the other hand, it is a treatable illness that he can take on. “Initially it was just finding that balance in order to ensure that I was not only physically, but also mentally in a good place. And thankfully now I can say that I am in a pretty good spot.”

 

While nothing will compare to the rocky road that was his first couple of months with diabetes, sometimes things still aren’t easy Gainer told us. “There are 45 different things that effect a person’s blood sugar levels. From things in your control such as caffeine and alcohol intake, to less controllable things such as stress, any number of things can cause a person’s blood sugar to go out of whack.  Exercise is another one of those. So, it’s really all about trial and error to ensure that I’m keeping my blood sugar at the best levels possible.” Gainer admits that it always isn’t easy, and that he often times becomes frustrated. Sometimes, he said, you can do the same thing twice and end up with 2 completely different outcomes. He said that’s life with diabetes though, and that you just have to do the best you can. Gainer has also said that new technologies have made his diabetes much more manageable. Continuous glucose monitors allow for me to see a real time update of my blood sugar as opposed to a single point in the day. It allows for closer monitoring of my blood sugar levels, and changes can be made easier and more accurately. And with the ever-advanced insulin pumps, I am able to have a finer control over my blood sugar. Gainer laughed when he noted that the insulin pump allowed for less needles as well. While his phobia of needles has dramatically decreased over the years, he still doesn’t place it in his top 500 favourite activities.

 

Gainer said his diagnosis is one that he wouldn’t change if he could. It has allowed him to become the person he is today, and his diabetes has become a part of him. For better or for worse, his diagnosis is here to stay, and so he wants to do the best he can with the hand he was dealt. “I’m still the same Joseph Gainer I was 1 day before my official diagnosis. And I truly believe that this has helped sculpt me.” Gainer said. He feels very fortunate to have his family and friends in his corner since day one, helping him on this journey. “If I can wake up every day and take on diabetes, then no matter the scoring slump, or losing streak, or adversity I find myself in, I know that I will get through it. I may fall down along the way, and I’ll need help from family and friends, but I will get through it.”

 

2022 Words (that is just the article length, not the title, editors note or this)

 

Using for PT weeks:

 

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Edited April 15, 2020 by joeg
Title spelling error

[Jayrad28 397]

Awesome story man, you’re a Warrior!