Hi Mareen and welcome from me too.
It is important to understand that there is a huge mental and emotional drain on you with a diabetes diagnosis and it takes time to work through that. What you are feeling is therefore perfectly normal and how most of us felt following our diagnosis.... It is considered to be a form of grieving and is common I believe with other long term conditions too. You are grieving the old carefree life you had when you didn't have to think before you ate or exercised or before you drove the car or went to sleep. The strain of keeping yourself safe and giving consideration to everything you put in your mouth and how much insulin you inject is huge, but you will learn to manage it given the right support and education and understanding and the right tools to help you.
If you are not yet carb counting then a pump would not really be appropriate I believe. They are not "plug and play". You need to have a good level of experience and understanding of carb counting and basal needs and they certainly don't do it all for you. Even the looped pumps need input and if they fail, you need to be able to go back to basics at a moments notice and run things yourself, so they are not by any means a simple solution.
The good news is that this forum can help you to build your knowledge and experience and confidence to the point that you might be considered for a pump but you might also find that you can manage things fine with the tools that you already have once you gain some knowledge and practical experience.
I'm not sure how I would have coped without the help of the good people here but I was lucky that I found the forum almost immediately after diagnosis and it was particularly helpful through that turbulent first few months/year. I have learned a massive amount in that 3.5 year period and now consider myself the expert in my diabetes, more so than a consultant or nurse who just sees me (or speaks to me) once or twice a year. My level of confidence is now so much better and not only that but I am fitter and healthier than I was pre-diagnosis and in fact I feel 20 years younger which at 58 is not bad at all.
My advice to you would be to become a regular visitor here on the forum. Ask lots of questions and educate yourself because you are the person who really needs to know how this all works as you live with it every day and every meal. The diabetes clinics are severely overstretched, particularly now after Covid, so taking responsibility yourself and learning how to manage this condition is not only important but empowering. And if I can do it (I am probably the least organized person I know, have comfort eaten for as long as I can remember, was a sugar addict pre-diagnosis and have suffered from anxiety and depression for over 20 years) then anyone can... especially with the help and support of this forum.
I look forward to getting to know you better and hopefully along with the rest of the forum members, helping you, not just come to terms with this, but to put it in it's place in your life and start managing it and living your life well.
I should also say that we all have hypos and hypers from time to time and that is not failure.... just as well as I had 4 hypos yesterday and 2 so far today
🙄 it is just the nature of the beast and you learn how to deal with them and do your best to work out why they happened and take steps to prevent them from happening again but sometimes they still happen....and when you have a bad day you hope/expect tomorrow will be a better one... and often it is!
Diabetes hasn't stopped me doing anything that I did before except eating multipacks of Snickers and having 3 sugars in my coffee and I consider that a good thing not a bad one. I fully expect to live 10 years longer and will want some explanation from the powers that be if I don't
🙄 and I am healthier as a result, so lots of positives. The way I see it, diabetes only makes me ill if I don't manage it well and that is my incentive.
