If disaster arrives

Every time when I watch those adventure/tragedy/horror movies, I will imagine myself in that scene running away, to save my life from the disaster with a bag of insulins, insulin pens, glucometer, whole lots of test strips and pen needles. 

Like the movie "2012" and "The Impossible". When the enormous big splash of water is coming towards my face, all I can do is run. And if the water gets on me, all my test strips gonna be wet by then! That's gonna be very challenging, because eventhough I survived through the disaster (which is very lucky), I guess I will not survive through T1D by then.

Or in the movie "World War Z", zombies are cominggg! But, yeah! Zombies won't attack a vulnerable non-healthy body like mine, so I am safe! And probably I can help in getting the vaccines from the lab, without getting chase after by the disgusting zombies. After watching this movie, I am not afraid of zombies anymore haha!

What will you do when you know that a disaster is about to come? 

Call your parent? Pack your money? Hug your partner?

I guess I will pack my medical supplies first, before I do all the above. 

Cauliflower Pizza Crust

I can eat quite a lot of food at one go. For pizza, I can eat up to 3 slices of thick crust pizza and still having some spaces for Diet Coke. 

Pizza always gives me high BG due to the thick crust of flour and tomato paste and etc. And I will never get satisfied eating thin crust, unless I eat the whole personal thin crust pizza all by myself. haha! 

Last week I was browsing through some culinary videos on YouTube and was locked on low carb pizza making videos! Low carb pizza? How can it be possible? To make the crust, still have to use flour, isn't it? Cauliflower itself will not form a pizza crust dough, but we can always use binders like cheese and egg! What a wonderful piece of creation for those like me! :)

It was a last minute thought of making a pizza at home. I just went out to buy those shredded pizza cheese and cheddar cheese, which are never available in my mom's fridge. At my home, Asian dishes are the staple food :p

These are the ingredients that I used.

These are for the pizza toppings. You can put in everything that you preferred! But please don't go overboard. At the end, these toppings are too bulky for my small pizza dough. So, I gave up putting tomatoes. I did pan-fry the chicken slices, broccolis and carrot pieces before they were being topped on pizza.

For the cauliflower pizza dough:

I used a whole cauliflower head that was available in the fridge. Coarsely cut it into pieces and put into the food processor. Then, pulse all the pieces until they were all shredded like picture below.

Pour some olive oil on the pan, and pan-fry the shredded cauliflower for about 5-10 minutes until softened and cooked. I added some salt to taste during this process. But, thinking back, it is actually not necessary to put salt here because the cheese that I used to bind later on already has flavors. 

Now making the dough!

After letting those shredded cauliflower cooled down, please dry it by putting the shredded cauliflower on a piece of white cloth (I used the cloth that my mom used to filter her homemade soya milk), then hand-squeezed all the water out! Make sure the cauliflower flour is dry! This is the most crucial part, otherwise your dough won't be successful. Mine was a little bit slight wet, then :p

I put in the wrong cheese. Should have put in the shredded mozzarella pizza cheese instead, not this cheddar cheese piece.

Preheat the oven to 180 degree C. And spread out the pizza dough on the baking pan like this.

Put the baking pan into the oven and bake for 5 to 10minutes or until the cheese bubbles up and there are slight brown edges on the sides.

Little claps when I saw these lovely brown edges!

The last step is all according to your preferences. I topped on my pan-fried chicken, broccoli, carrots, onions and mushroom. Of course, not forgetting the shredded mozzarella pizza cheese! Now, into the oven for about 10 minutes.

TA-DAHHHH!

I should put in more cheese, right? :p

I will definitely make this again when I am back home next time. Because I didn't eat much that day because this small pizza was shared among 4 people and many of my family members didn't get the chance to have the whole piece of it.

Oh ya, the video that I refered to is this one. So easy to make! :)

Ashamed?

My mom always tells others about my T1D and she would gladly explain to her friends about what T1D is and how her daughter is different from another diabetes, T2D. I used to dislike the act of my mom telling others, especially to her new friends about my T1D impromptuly. Whenever their chatting topic goes on about their respective children, my mom will eventually pull the topic to talk about me and talk about my T1D. Anyway, my mom certainly does a better job in explaining about the differences between T1D and T2D than some of the nurses in hospital. 

Honestly, I really don't like the way my mom's friends look at me after they found out the whole story about me having diabetes. Sometimes if I were to meet them again, they will look at me one kind and ask in an odd way: "How are you? 你现在过得好没有啊？" I know from the looks in their eyes, actually what they wanted to ask is "How is your T1D doing now?" "So, are you still doing the injection thing?". When I told them that I am doing good and I am still doing all the injections every day, they will againnnn give me those puppy eyes as if I am very miserable. (I am just unlucky, hmmm also lucky for the availability of insulin and devices nowadays)

I understand the reason behind my mom's action. She doesn't want me to feel ashamed of myself being diagnosed with diabetes and I realised how much she wanted others to understand my condition which is very much different from eating pills and getting cure. 

Diabetes is not something that I should be hiding, and of course I should not feel ashamed of it. It is a part of my life, why should I be ashamed of it? I wish I can reach out to more and more T1D in Malaysia, and tell them that they're not alone, a Big proportion of us exists in the DOC (Diabetes Online Community), always there for support! Reading diabetes blogs and sharing my stories in my blog make me feel less "alien". My story is a norm in all the T1D's eyes, and it really comforts me a lots. I feel so much better when I know that my story is not odd and what I encountered is reassured by other T1D's stories. 

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I am a person with strong need for reassurance of worth. I always ask for people's opinion about me when I was small. I always wanted people around me to reassure that I am good, and how I can do better. The need for reassurance of worth, especially from the closed one is so crucial for me. I know I am not ashamed of being diagnosed with T1D. However, sometimes I take in others' opinion too much, I take them to heart. 

My brother asked me the other day: Why don't you start eating candy or drinking regular coke right away when you realise that you're not feeling right and starting to lose focus while in the restaurant?

I told him that it's because I don't want to be viewed as a bad diabetic that drinks regular coke or eats candy right after a meal. I hate that I am looking so helpless in front of my friends. 

Then my brother asked again: After all these years, are you still feeling ashamed of being a diabetic? What's wrong with drinking regular coke or eating candy after a meal? You need to get your sugar up, that's it. 

I just silenced and shook my head: No, I am not ashamed of T1D. I am not. It's just that I don't like to be viewed as a vulnerable person because I have diabetes. This kind of ego causes me to end up in an even more embarrassed moment, which is banging a person's car. 

I am not ashamed of having diabetes. Just don't want to look too helpless when I actually need help. (omg why such complicated feelings?)

A battle of angel and demon in my head when I am hypo *sighed