Randomness for a Friday

I’m not noticing lows until my BG is in the 60’s. I’ve hit somewhere in the 70’s everyday for the last week…. of course most of the time it’s after I’ve had horrible control and my numbers have been hovering around the 200 mark. Just checked and I was at 74…. didn’t feel shaky at all. The only symptom that I had was hunger. That’s a major change from when my body would freak at a number in the 80’s or 90’s…. I’m just going to believe that for the most part that’s a good sign; a sign that I’m getting use to normal BG. Don’t tell me any different….Mkay?

My wedding ring no longer fits me. I need to get it resized but I’m going to wait until I drop this last 25 pounds. In the mean time, I’m ring-less because I’m afraid I’ll loose it.

I have to break down and go grocery shopping. I just haven’t had time but it’s getting pretty serious now since I have nothing in my fridge but condiments. Tons of salad dressings, low fat mayo and catsup. I have noodles of every variety from before D’day that I can’t bring myself to get rid of. And rice…. I must have a ton of rice. I tell myself I’m keeping it around because Mister Man shouldn’t be condemned to never eating rice again just because a teaspoon of it sends my glucose off the charts, but the truth is I do all the cooking (for the most part) and if I’m not making it…. he’s not eating it. Every so often I try to have a little…. maybe a few sushi rolls (my favorite) only to test and have confirmed what I already knew…. the diabetes fairy didn’t magically bonk me on the head and make me able to eat rice…or noodles…. or sourdough bread.

I really have to learn how to manage this disease on the run. I’m ok when I’m at home and able to plan what I’m going to eat and have a captive fridge near by but once I get out and about it’s hard to know what to bring with me. What travels well…what I can eat on the ‘go’? Forget remembering to eat…that’s only half the issue. I haven’t even been to a restaurant since my diagnoses and I work ridicules hours, which keep me away from home, and make it harder to eat at scheduled times. I had hoped that I would get a routine down quickly while my work schedule was slower, before festival season kicked in. But that hasn’t happened and now that work is getting busier I’m learning by trail and error…. well…. mostly error.

So I’m going to look back on all of this someday and laugh…right? Come on….lie to me.

I fell off the wagon

In a big bold way this morning. I woke up at the ungodly time of 4:30, laid in bed watching CNN until 6, when I tested my blood (106) and fell right back to sleep. I woke up for the second time at 8am, went to make coffee and realized that we had no coffee. Damn….threw on some clothes and headed to the corner store where I paid too much for the smallest amount of coffee they had. Got home….made coffee and instead of having breakfast I went back to bed. By the time I got back up (a half hour later) I was rushed because I had to get my butt to work. Coffee with nondairy creamer and two teaspoons of Splenda later and I still hadn’t had anything to eat.

That was when I spied the raisin bran cereal…..truly I had intended to only have a half cup (it’s 45 carbs for a full cup) and even at that I knew I would be sorry two hours later when I tested and saw what my peak number was. But I found myself eating a cup of it with 2 percent milk because that was all I had in the house.

Raisin Bran….what the heck was I thinking? I really do know better then that. I keep raisins in my glove compartment to treat lows and here I was eating a handful of them for breakfast. One hour later, my BG was 204…..because….well….I’m an idiot, don’tcha know.

So for the rest of the day I get to play…”what’s the meter say?” A fun little game where I become obsessive about testing my blood and seeing what the magic number is….ah…like I’m not obsessive enough on a good day.

And later: (2:50pm)

Skipped my snack time (because of the ugly 204) and by the time I started feeling crappy I was down to 65….so I ate one of those itty bitty microware cans of Chef Boyardee Beefaroni but that only got me up to 74 and an hour later I was heading back down 70….so I was forced to eat 4 mini junior mints (HA)…84. I just had a tortilla with chicken.

This always happens…. I get an ugly high in the morning because of my own stupidity…. I over compensate by not eating my snack or lunch…. I bottom out and feel like a truck ran me over.
I really need to get a handle on breakfast so the rest of my day isn’t spent obsessing and testing and feeling like crap.

It's my party and I'll whine if I want to

I’ve been feeling particularly icky lately. My BG levels have been bouncing all over the place. I’m not eating the way I should, I’ve forgot to pack a lunch everyday last week and again today…. I’m just not all that interested in food. The food I know I can eat just doesn’t sound appetizing. I’m tired all the time and I’m sick of managing this disease. I just want everything to go back to the way it was when I was blissfully unaware I was diabetic. I’m sick of having to think about what I’m going to eat…. I’m sick of having to plan meals…. I’m sick of having to test my blood…I’m sick of having to take medication. I haven’t lost any more weight, even though I’m walking and riding my exercise bike. I’m not eating things I shouldn’t; I’m just not eating much of anything. Meal planning just seems like too much work right now. I miss the days when I could just grab something from a drive thru because I was too tired after work to come home and deal with cooking. This disease turns everything into a major production…. and I’m not in major production mode.

Yes I’m having my own little pity party…..only I don’t even get to have cake.

Just a quickie from the sickie

Yes I’m alive and semi-well. I had yesterday off and had a wonderful day. Walked for an hour with J, came home and slept like the dead. Got up this morning and made breakfast for Sweetness & Light, got dressed and headed to work and immediately got sick…. throwing up hugging the great white Buddha sick. WTF? Since I haven’t done anything differently and Sweetness and I ate the same thing for breakfast and she’s not ill…. all I can think is it’s one of two things. Either my meds hit me wrong this morning…. or (and more likely) I just have a twenty-four-hour bug.

So…. not able to keep anything in my stomach…. everything including water comes right back up. (And yes I am trying to eat and drink something, even though the mere thought of it makes my eyes roll back in my head from nausea) SO….how do you keep your BG level when you’re sick as a dog?

I’m grabbing my stuff and going home, climbing back into bed and wishing for death. Because. This. Sucks.

I'll knock you OUT

My employee's just set up a punching bag for me in the warehouse. ;) complete with boxing gloves. Oh boy....

Just had my first boxing lesson....flabby arms be gone.

Grocery shopping, hitting a plateau and 157

When I was diagnosed, Dr. N sent me to a certified diabetes educator. I promptly went to her office to schedule my appointment, thrilled that I would have her expertise at my disposal. The first appointment she had available was 4 weeks away…4 weeks…. one month…. 30 days…. what? Did they think I wouldn’t need to eat before then? I was mortified. In the days since I heard the lovely news I had goggled myself silly, searched the entire web over for anything and everything diabetes related. I was going to take this bull by the horns. But as so many of us find when faced with this, for every question asked there are a dozen conflicting answers…dozens of opinions on how to manage this disease and what works for one person many not work for another. Heck we have completely different opinions on what constitutes normal BG levels. The more I searched the more confused I got…. the more confused I got, the more overwhelmed I felt.

But I had to eat. Which meant that I had to brave the isles of a dreaded grocery store. I managed to figure out where my BG level should land. I got advice on how many carbs I should be consuming, but that was really all the information I had. I bought books recommended by other diabetics and started wading though the different eating plans out there. I learned quickly that the exchange system didn’t work for me…. much to complicated, so I settled on counting carbs. So arm with this new found system I headed to the grocery store. Holy crap. I wandered the isles reading labels…. I read and read and ended up putting very little in my cart. No pasta (which had been a staple) no rice (I actually have tried several time and nope can’t eat it) none of the usually trusty old standbys. That first trip ended with me abandoning my cart, heading for my car and sitting in the parking lot in tears. It’s gotten better in the months that followed, but grocery shopping still isn’t one of my favorite things and it still takes me twice as long as it use to. For the first month I ate nothing but apples and non-fat yogurt…. I’m pretty sick of apples and I’ve only recently been able to stomach yogurt again. I’ve learned to make shopping lists…. I’ve learned to eat simply…. meat, veggie, little bitty carbs work best and by the time I had my appointment with my CDE she informed me that she didn’t think there was much she could teach me that I hadn’t already learn on my own…. Right now I’m just waiting for diabetes burn out to hit…. because I’m human and I hate this and it’s just bound to happen one day soon.

I’ve hit a plateau. Two weeks at 168 and if the scale moves at all, it moves up to 170 and then back down to 168. This bites…. I hate it. Before D Day I had convinced myself that I was ‘ok in my own skin’…. I was much more evolved then all those diet obsessed people out there living and breathing by the bathroom scale. I was happy in my size 18 pants and truly that was all that mattered…right? Yep…lies all lies. Now that I have to watch what I eat…. now that I need to drop some weight, I’ve become obsessed. Early on I was dropping several pounds a week and of course I had calculated how much I would loose at that pace by a certain date, every time I lost a little more just reinforced my hitting my goal by that arbitrary date I had set up in my own mind…. heck it was doable. Right? Damn body with a mind of its own. Damn plateau. Damn unrealistic goal. Damn hating to exercise…..damn diabetes.

I caved this morning…. caved to the new coffee creamer flavor I found. Chocolate caramel….oh yummy….. 157 two hours after one cup.

Forgive me my sweet splenda and welcome me back into your goodness.

Crap…..

The Diabetes Police

The granddaughter (Sweetness & Light) stays with Mister Man and I every Thursday night and every other weekend so her mother can pull her12-hour shifts at the hospital. Sweetness is fascinated with my lancet and meter. She comes running at the sound of my test strip vile opening. “Can I help Nana?” I hand her the lancet and help her place it into position while she pushes the button. “Cool, blood” “Let me see the number” ….I’ve created my very own diabetes police in training. I was sure I would someday regret this, but I had no idea that I would be ‘sorry’ so soon. This morning I was sitting down to a breakfast of one egg, 1 piece of sausage and 1 waffle with sugar free syrup…. when Sweetness and Light asked me “you sure you can eat that Nana? It’s not going to mess up your blood is it?”

I found myself attempting to explain that I can eat carbs when I also have protein…to a 4-year-old. Oh hell…

In other news:

Am I the only person in America that HATES the aftertaste of Splenda? Or wait maybe a better question is…. Am I the only person in America that can actually TASTE the aftertaste of Splenda? Everywhere I turn people are toting the wonders of it…. it’s a miracle….tastes just like sugar. Ah….no….the emperor has no clothes….it doesn’t taste JUST like sugar. It tastes like the sweet chemical it is. Don’t get me wrong….I will use it when I must. And I must have pudding and Jello and coffee with sweetness and soda and tea….But I don’t have to be thrilled by it and I can wish that I wasn’t such a slave to sweetness and every morning when I have my coffee, take the first sip, swallow…. I wish I could learn to like drinking my coffee black.

I'm off and running tomorrow....have a wonderful weekend.

It's overcast and raining.....

heck it’s really storming like crazy with thunder and lightening. So this morning I got dressed in the dark, because I didn’t want to turn on the light and wake up Mister Man. As a result I cut my arm on the screw holding my dresser handle in place….blood everywhere. Nice size cut…..and you know the first thing that entered my mind? Ok the second thing….the first thing was “ouch damn it”.

I thought what a waste of perfectly good blood….where the heck is my meter?

How sick is that?

Only getting part of the picture

I’ve lost 23 pounds since April so I must be doing something right for the most part. But there are other things that I know I should be doing…other things that are important to my control of this disease…. things that I know I have to do, but that I choose to ignore.

I hate exercising. I always have. Hated P.E. as a kid and wasn’t anymore fond of it when I grew up. I remember going out of my way to find creative excuses for why I wouldn’t be able to participate in ‘gym class today’. I was pretty good at it…. of course that had nothing to do with why I was constantly struggling with my weight as a child…. oh hell no. It was cool to skip gym and I was a cool kid….

Periodically though the years I’d forget how much I hated sweating and get a burst of motivation and start some sort of exercise program. There was yoga and Jane Fonda and Kathy Smith’s winning workout…. sweating to the oldies and once I even tried to stop the insanity. I would stick with each for a few months and then slowly peter off…. skipping one day…. then two, then a week. Before long my video was collecting dust and I was basking in my sedentary ways.

A week after my diagnoses (or ‘D’ Day) I drug the exercise bike that I had bought during one of those forgetful bursts of motivation, out of the shed, dusted it off and schlepped it into the house, to the bedroom where it now resides. I got myself on that bike and managed to ride 6.5 miles in 30 minutes everyday for three days and then every other day for 2 weeks and then once last night but only for 15 minute…. are you seeing a pattern here? When I managed to ride the bike fairly regularly my BG level was lower…. yep everything everyone had said about exercising being important for diabetes control is true. I know this. But I really really hate to exercise.

It was cool to smoke too…. and I smoked in high school for a hot two minutes. Actually I started smoking Marlboro Menthol lights and they promptly stopped making them and in true noncommittal can’t stick to anything fashion I quit smoking. That lasted for 21 years and then Marlboro started making Menthol lights again and I thought ‘what the heck’ and off I went. I know I need to quit smoking…. I’ve seen all those lovely amputation pictures…. Goggle diabetes complications…. go on…. I’ll wait. Lovely aren’t they…. disturbing…yet not disturbing enough to get me to put the smokes down…yet. I say yet because I’ve convinced myself that once I get a handle on this disease and I’m not so overwhelmed…. I’ll quit.

I don’t have the answers…. I’m not sure how to get and maintain self-motivation but I do know that I need to figure it out. I need to learn to love to sweat…. I need to put the cigarettes down…. I need to get the whole picture.

Lilly asks doctors to limit Byetta scripts.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/060613/lilly_byetta.html?.v=6

well this certainly didn’t make my day, considering I had planned to speak with my doctor after my HBA1c in July about adding Byetta to my diabetes management plan. I have spent the last month doing research on different drugs in hopes I could find better tools to help keep my levels under control…..Byetta along with Metformin seemed like the best bet for me and I had been very excited about talking to Dr. N about it. I still plan on bringing it up…..keeping my fingers crossed that this cartridge shortage gets straightened out.

Morning Numbers

truly if I never had to hear those words again I could die a happy camper. I suffer from a fun little anomaly called ‘dawn phenomena’ which is really just a fancy way of saying…. my blood sugar sucks the big one first thing in the morning.

Seriously I can go to bed with a level of 98 and wake up with one of 138…. I can fast…. nothing changes. I can eat a snack so my liver doesn’t dump…. nope my liver has a mind of it’s own…. nothing changes. I have asked advice and tried all of the suggestions and nothing changes. No big deal you say…. well maybe in the big scheme of things it’s not, but it does set up the rest of my day with highs and lows that often take into the afternoon to straighten out. 138…. eat and jump to 180, watch my numbers drop like a rock to 80 and eat lunch. My body feels like a truck has hit it.

No one has a solution for this fasting blood sugar nightmare…. what works one day may not work the next. What works for one person may not work for another person. Gotta love that aspect of diabetes.

I’m tired today…. feeling drained and ready to just climb back in bed and call it a day. Problem with that is it’s only 10:30 in the morning and I’m at work. But I’m short of breath and just not feeling right. So in keeping with my meter obsession I tested and am at 135….three hours after eating one egg, two pieces of sausage and one waffle with sugar free goop on top. I’m clammy and sweating like a pig. Maybe my numbers are dropping like flies.....or maybe it's all in my head.
Either way this promises to be a interesting day.

When I was diagnosed with diabetes two things happened

I ended my love affair with chocolate and I was flung into the only diet I would ever be motivated enough to stick with. Fear of complications is a powerful motivation to eat right…. and I have a healthy fear. I like my eyesight and I’ve grown kind of fond of having feet…. so I’m doing my best to keep my blood glucose level within ‘range’…. and as a result I’m living, breathing and eating by the ‘meter’. To say my BG numbers obsesses me is an understatement. I test first thing in the morning and up to 8 times there after. Body feeling different…. better test. Got a high reading…. better test every damn hour until it goes down. Nuts…I know, but I’m not able to stop myself…. it’s a compulsion. Of course I was only diagnosed two months ago so there is hope that this obsession will stop on its own in time.

I’m making everyone around me crazy…. even though they love me (and I know they love me) they are sick to death of hearing about my life as a diabetic…they don’t want me announcing my BG levels…they don’t want me to qualify what I can eat “because my level is low enough” or complain what I can’t eat “because my number is too high”. They don’t want to know that Metformin is making my stomach do back flips or what new medicine I want to try and they are pretty sick of watching me test my blood. Heck I’m getting a little sick of myself….

So here I am….this blog is an attempt to make sense of what’s happening with my body while sparing those I love from having to smile politely and fein interest.