DECISIONS DECISIONS

Last winter, Caroline Dorn looked down at her left hand to find it riddled with pen marks. Two hundred and forty-seven to be exact. The American teen had decided to run a little experiment in which she put a pen mark on her hand every time she had a thought related to her type 1 (such as calculating carbs, dosing insulin or checking her Dexcom). “I’d had some frustrating days where making decisions about diabetes was constantly interrupting my train of thought, my homework, my classwork,” says the 18-year-old, who was astonished by the number of marks she’d tallied that day. She took a photo of her pen-riddled hand for a Facebook post that went viral, with more than 7100 shares and 1100 comments. “I did it to prove to myself that it’s OK to be tired or tell people no when they invite you out,” says Dorn. “But it touched a lot of other people too.”

The silent burden of decisionmaking for people with diabetes can often feel downright overwhelming. That’s exactly why so many experts preach the ‘three Ps’ when it comes to managing it: planning, planning and more planning. But anticipating and avoiding challenges can’t be the only tool in your arsenal for dealing with diabetes, as unexpected challenges will always come up.

“Blood glucose regulation is affected not only by activity, diet and medication but