Five minute creativity

I read Karen's post from yesterday, followed her link and was hooked. So here's my reminder for cases of inexplicable high blood sugars when I can't wait for them to come down (which is mostly the case as inexplicable high blood sugars drive me slightly mad).

133

Parties always wreck havoc on my bloodsugars. I try to guestimate carbs, but I usually loose track or underestimate the amount of carbs and then end up around 300. Always. I don't really get why, because I try every single time to make it better than last time, but it doesn't work out. So in this respect, parties are no fun for me.

Yesterday I came back from a birthday party at around 2 a.m. and tested before I got to bed. 133. And half a unit of IOB to bring me right back to my target of 100.

I'm speechless. This is huge! I'm still dancing through the flat singing "133! 133!" :D

Protest

My way to vent today. I have been really angry with my diabetes and then there's not even somebody responsible to whom you can complain. Arrgh. So I wrote this letter to... whom it may concern. German version below, because English officialese really isn't my strong suit.

Dear Sir or Madam,


hereby I would like to enter a protest. A protest against the fact that on Thursday, 17th of January, 2012, I have not been allowed to eat pudding.


I would first like to say that I eat pudding as joyous as any other person. While other people not even waste a thought on what they are just cramning into their mouths though, let alone thinking of its ingredients and their subsequent metabolic processes, my case is somewhat more complicated.


Now to the events of the aformentioned day: Due to a completely to me inexplicable and unknown event in the course of this day, my blood glucose levels showed a nonstandard high reading of 308 mg/dl at 6 p.m.. Despite my intervention by means of an insulin injection, my blood glucose levels only decreased to 259 mg/dl during the next two hours and therefore still far from the normal range. With regard to my health and to prevent a metabolic crisis in the sequel of the evening I was forced to act against my wishes and hunger and to prescind from the consumption of sweet and comforting foods despite peer effect and imminent social dissociation.


This decision moved me deeply and painfully. Particulary the unattainability of a responsible body to whom I can enter a protest is not beneficial to my emotional stability.


Sincerely yours.
  Vera, type I diabetic

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Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,


hiermit möchte ich offiziellen Protest einlegen. Protest dagegen, dass es mir am Dienstag, den 17.01.2012, 20:00 Uhr, nicht gestattet war, Pudding zu essen.


Lassen Sie mich vorausschicken, dass ich Pudding genauso gerne esse, wie jede andere Person. Während andere Menschen jedoch noch nicht einmal einen Gedanken daran verschwenden, was sie gerade in ihren Mund stopfen, geschweige denn an die Inhaltsstoffe und darauffolgenden Stoffwechselprozesse, die in ihrem Körper ausgelöst werden, liegt der Fall bei mir komplizierter.


Nun zu den Ereignissen des benannten Tages: Aufgrund eines mir völlig unerklärlichen und unbekannten Ereignisses im Verlauf des Tages, wies mein Blutzucker um 18:00 Uhr eine nicht normgerechte Höhe von 308 mg/dl auf. Trotz meines Eingreifens mittels einer Insuliinjektion, war der Blutzzucker zwei Stunden später lediglich auf 259 mg/dl gesunken und damit immer noch weit ab von der Norm. Mit Rücksicht auf meine Gesundheit und zur Vermeidung von Stoffwechselentgleisungen im weiteren Verlauf des Abends, war ich deswegen gezwungen, von dem Konsum süßer und wohliger Nachspeisen gegen meinen Willen und Hunger und trotz Gruppeneinfluss und drohender sozialer Abgrenzung, Abstand zu nehmen.


Diese Entscheidung hat mich schmerzlich berührt. Insbesondere ist die schwere Erreichbarkeit eines verantwortlichen Gremiums zum Erheben von Protest meiner emotionalen Ausgeglichenheit nicht zuträglich.


Mit freundlichen Grüßen
  Vera, Typ I Diabetikerin

Stupid.

I'm so stupid. Stupid as in eating a hole lot of cookies without even realizing it, than testing a blatant 455 afterwards and having to inject a scary amount of insulin. Scary because, as we all know, large amounts of insulin usually can be really dangerous. Guess I can only sit it out now. It's my own stupid fault. Knowing that still doesn't stop the situation from giving me the creeps, unfortunately.

(link to source)

World Diabetes Day (with brackets)

"Can I use your computer when you're done?"
"It's late. Do you need to do it today?"
"Well, the 14th is only today and I wanted to blog."
"Oh! Sorry, you told me and I forgot. Do you, like, say anything [for World Diabetes Day]?"

My boyfriend is a cutie. (I told him to say "I want a cure".)

My version of the Big Blue Test:
I planned to test and then to climb a moutain by bike. (Ok, it's more a hill but still, it's always a fight. By now I have enough training to beat it on a regular basis though. (That means I am no longer forced to get off and push the bike.)) And then test again. Unfortunately, when I tested before mounting the bike I caught a 45. That's right. Good I checked, not good to climb a mountain. I treated my low and then started to freewheel (as far as terrain allowed). When it was (about) 14 minutes later I tested again: 70. Stopping to test (and to tranquilize my phone) I realized that my nose was running and I didn't have any tissues and that I had just cracked a fingernail.

I don't now if you are familiar with the moment during or shortly after a low, where you get emotional (or irrational) for no apparent reason and small annoying things can make you burst into tears of frustration?

This didn't happen to me today. But it could have. (And in this case, the roommates of my boyfriend would have gotten a huge package of diabetes awareness, in terms of swearing.) Thinking of that while staring at my cracked fingernail, I also remembered how unfair I still think it is, that I cannot ride up a friggin hill, without thinking about all kinds of stuff - blood sugar, insulin on board, last meal, time (very important in my case - while sports in the morning hours does absolutely nothing to my glucose levels, sports in the evening with active insulin can leed to major lows within a few minutes).

I started to climb the mountain. Slowly. Very slow. So slow actually, that my bike dared to topple over. I now, it sounds like a mistake, but I had taken precautions according to the factors named above (that is, taking only a half bolus for the last meal, but of course I could not anticipate the low...). Another (about) 14 minutes later I had beaten the hill, but of course also had ended up with another low (50).

My version of wearing Blue
Ok, I explicitly wore blue today. (That is, I didn't do it by chance but on purpose. Somehow, I didn't manage to do it on Fridays yet.). I don't think anyone noticed. Two years ago, when I still was a lot more goth, people probably would have. I also wore my pump openly, instead of tucked into my jeans pocket as I usually do. (Just to be clear: I am very open with my diabetes and try to educate whenever possible.)

My version of the WDD Postcard exchange
Unfortunately, I did not yet receive a postcard. But seeing that it probably has to travel quite a distance around this beautiful globe, I think that's understandable. Meanwhile, I can show you what I dropped (a few weeks ago) to the letterbox. I hope it survived the trip to the US unharmed!

Real People Sick and other Bits 'n' Pieces

• I'm real people sick. I hate it. I don't feel human, because my head feels like a doll's head - all stuffed with cotton batting. It makes me and my blood glucose kind of cranky.
• I took this pic some days ago. It's from the category "you know you're a PWD when..."
  

  Spots, gushers, smearings - you know you're a diabetic when blood is everywhere.

• I participate in the World Diabetes Day Postcard Exchange organized by Lee Ann and I dropped my postcard the week before last. I hope it arrives on time and I'm so excitedly waiting for the reply!
  
• I might be participating in a clinic study, which will be testing a Lantus-like insulin. The preliminary physical examination has yet to take place, but up to now everything sounds good and very interesting. I'll keep you updated!

Plan of Action needed

My A1c has been in the high sevens for quite a while now and while I am overall satisfied with my "compliance" and control, I'm eager to get to the next level of blood glucose control. Especially with my eye doctor appointment coming up in January, I want to be able to say "I really am doing everything that's possible". Because in case of a discouraging result I don't want to have to start working on my control when I am scared and frustrated already.

I think that a large part of my A1c has to be accounted to post-prandial spikes as those high's are the ones I don't catch. Unfortunately, before I can get started on tuning the distance of the space-time events "bolusing" and "eating" to give my insulin a head start, I have to guarantee that my basals are ok and that my bolus factors and correction factors are ok. (I think they are, but I need to check.)
My next blood work is scheduled for mid November. I guess I can figure out the prerequisites until than although I hate basal testing.

So the plan of action is as follows:

1. Check your basals. Check your factors. Tweak if necessary. Complete task until November 16 (date of blood test).
2. Vary time delay between bolusing and eating until post-prandials are in range. Complete task until January 26.

But this planning is of course the easy part. Everything's easy in theory. The hard part is: Start logging again. Be disciplined. Don't guestimate. Eat regularly. Try again, every day. Start now.

Hopefully this decleration of my goals will help to keep me accountable. I'd like to have smaller steps in my plan, like things to do or to improve for every week or so, but I'm not sure how to do that.

By the way, does any of you have experiences with fat-protein units? Is it worth the effort?

Wordless Wednesday

Venting and Ranting

I hate being sick. And I even more hate to be sick, when I'm don't know that I am. When I feel completely fine^* and just my friggin bs gives a hint on the fact that something might not be okay. There's nothing I can do about it, other than treating the second bs over 300 mg/dl today and now also ketones. I'd like to eat something at some point!

I just feel so at the mercy and pretty vulnerable because I do not - cannot - understand what's happening inside me.
Also it's only few weeks since this happend the last time and I'm really fed up with this. At least this time I'm not frightend, I'm just angry.

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* By fine I mean fine despite the dry mouth, evolving hunger due to meal skipping and named emotions.

Glucocoaster

Often when I'm high, I know why (because I again couldn't keep track of all the tiny snacks I was eating at the party or because I couldn't hold my horses when drinking juicy cocktails with friends or because of overtreating lows) or I find it out later (when they don't budge for days and hours I'm probably sick, etc). Today, I didn't have a clue. But - and this is something noteworthy - I did not freak out over it. Nope. Even though I was scary high, I tested 406 and retested 509 mg /dl (yes, 20% accuracy is not enough). Just corrected for it via pen, changed my set (which had to be changed anyway but seemed to be fine) and then, admittedly impatient and unable to really concentrate on anything (else), waited for the sugars to come down. I did not rage bolus, in fact, I corrected for the 400 only and then again for the remaining 191 three hours later. Carefully. And now I'm at 61.

Glucocoasters. I haz them.