Eeeww!

So I just got in the door from work, and Numbers Two and Three Sons meet me at the door. "Puzzle got a mouse."

What, in the house? "No, outside. We brought her in and put her in her crate. The mouse is on the patio." Puzzle is a sixty pound Labradoodle, not a cat, BTW. She has also gotten rabbits and once a possum (that got up and ran off after playing dead on our patio for an hour).

So I grab a bag and to pooper scooper, figuring I'll tie it up and toss it in the barrel. Kids get so squeamish. I walk to the back patio, glance around, then turn toward the door.

Mouse my a$$! There was an ENORMOUS, DEAD RAT right next to my back steps. We're talking larger than most squirrels.

I knock on the back door, request a larger bag, gingerly lift said enormous rodent by the tail using the scooper - "Jaws" - and drop it in the bag. A few minutes before I can touch the bag and tie it shut. I wheeled the barrel out of the garage and then put the bag in it.

If you need me, I'll be hiding in my room, watching the adrenalin based BG spike....

Losing It

I broke an almost-new bottle of insulin this week. It had been opened less than 48 hours, had only 150 units removed. It wasn’t an accident or a cat attack, though.

The short story is it broke because I threw it at a wall. Twice.

The long story starts with it being a typical day at work. Getting ready to drive home, I tested at 160. Which was kind of high for that time of day. But, I was about to get in the car so I figured I would keep an eye on it and check again after I got home.

Now, at home this wasn’t a typical day. This was Number Two Son’s 13th birthday, so we were skipping most of our kids extra activities to stay home and celebrate as a family. So from the minute I got home I was rushing around, trying to hustle the boxes from Amazon upstairs, clear the table, and work on dinner. Normally Number Two Son helps me prepare, but since it was his birthday he had the day off.

Brown rice, chicken with spicy Thai basil sauce. I start the rice, start digging out ingredients, chopping veggies, and getting it all set to cook. I run around, glancing down at Dex. About 170. Well, not great, but I’m too busy to deal with that now, I will just add in a correction at dinner.

Life happened. Grandparents stopped in to see the kids, husband was late trying to pick up the cake on the way home. As grandparents leave I resume cooking, really hungry now. Chicken smells amazing. Even more so as I add the fresh basil, ginger and garlic and that wonderful smell fills the kitchen. Husband arrives home, with carrot cake and Samoa Girl Scout Cookie ice cream. I add the curry paste, broth, and cornstarch and give one more stir. Dinner should be ready in five minutes - just an hour later than originally planned.

And then it happened. That sudden metallic taste at the back of my mouth. High. I glance down at Dex. Crap! I wash my hands, test. 379. Nooo! Now here is where I doubt the conventional “being high makes you cranky” symptom. I felt absolutely fine until I saw that number.

I got cranky pretty damn fast, though.

You see, I should have been expecting this number. Two days before, I had to jettison a half-empty vial, because my numbers were running high and I’d realized, after opening the new one, that it was from the same lot number and might cause a problem too. But the first 36 hours had been fine, nothing that couldn’t have been explained by typical D fluctuations.

But with the 200-points-in-two-hours jump, I knew exactly what it was.

“I can’t eat, I’m high. This is ready. I’ve got to go up and pull the site, I’ll be down when he opens his presents.” I grab a fresh vial from the fridge (different lot number), and I go upstairs, the smell of that incredible curry following me.

At least knowing it was a bad batch saved me from the usual litany of blame:

1 - Is it me (miscalculated the carbs)?

2 - Is it me (forgot a bolus)?

3 - Is it me (missed seeing an air bubble)?

4 - Is it me (caught site on clothing)?

5 - Is it me (should have changed site earlier)?

6 - Is it me (didn’t do my usual exercise)?

etc, etc, up to about

129 - Is the insulin bad?

I was able to cut right to the chase, yank out the perfectly good site, fill the pump with new (and cold!) insulin and blast in a correction. Then I sat at the edge of the bed. I should have used a syringe to correct - but I knew I had essentially been pumping dishwater for the afternoon and the fresh Apidra should fix it. And that’s when the meltdown began. I didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to have to deal with this, wanted to be downstairs with my family eating a yummy dinner, followed by birthday cake, ice cream, and no thinking.

And it’s not just the two duds in a row that got to me. This is the fourth time since Christmas (yes, Christmas day I got bad insulin - talk about unfair! How long does it take to deduce bad insulin on a day you expect to run high??). There is nothing obviously wrong with my fridge, and when I pick up my last refill at the phamacy, I’m going to skip the fridge entirely and see if if goes bad in two weeks at room temperature. The next script is going to get filled at a different pharmacy, just to see if it’s their handling, not mine [editor’s note, see litany of blame, #130 - Is it me (did I do something to make the insulin go bad)? ].

I started collecting all the various bits of site-change garbage off my dresser, remembering to “flip off” the little blue cap like it asks you too (they probably don’t mean given it the bird, but then they should be more specific). Then I see the old, dead bottle and pick it up. I even check it to see if there’s any outward sign - good til April 2011, clear, no floating crap. Just dead. Sigh. I head for the trash, and and am suddenly hit by an overwhelming urge the throw something.

Well, what better thing to throw than a defective bottle of what is supposed to be life-sustaining medication? I toss it, startling the cats but not really doing much else (the phrase “throw like a girl” did come to mind). So I retrieve it from the floor, scope out a nice blank section of bedroom wall, and really put my heart into it. The top and bottom broke off, although the plastic label kept the rest of it intact.

I feel somewhat better, retreating to a corner with a book to wait for my sugar to go down. I even went down to watch Number Two Son cut the cake and open his presents, pretending to be in a good mood until I could slink back upstairs.

I finally got to eat about three hours later. Rice AND curry AND birthday cake AND ice cream. Morning BG? 74.

Fuck you, diabetes!

The Gusher

Site change day. Given my more or less complete zombie state in the mornings, I was quite proud of myself for remembering. I shut off the alarm clock, took my synthroid, checked my BG (114) and fumbled around until I got a grip on the tape on my stomach for my infusion set and pulled it loose. I left the pump in the bed, grabbed Dex, and headed for the bathroom, my eyes barely open enough to keep me from stepping on the cats. They twined around my legs, meowing in eerie harmonies. We feed Sarah in our bathroom, and Tucker in our bedroom to keep the food away from the dog, so they associate alarm clocks with breakfast. And they want it NOW.

It was only after I'd chased the cats out and turned on the light that I happened to look down. Blood was running down my bare legs, and my bedtime tee shirt looked like something from a slasher flick. There was a huge pattern of blood drops all over the front of my shirt, like I'd been standing right next to Freddy Kreuger's latest victim. Ugh. A dozen large drops on the bathroom floor (and presumably the cats as well, as they are yowling unhappily outside the door).

Good morning, diabetesland! I ball up the tee shirt and press it against my belly, then feed the cats to shut them up before tossing the shirt into the sink next to Dex and hopping into the shower. Only to be interrupted a few minutes later by my husband, pounding on the door to ask if I'm all right. Apparently Freddy Kreuger got the bed too.

Bleeding stopped. New site in. Bathroom floor wiped down. Pajamas, sheets, and bathmat in the wash. Cats at least are self-washing. Just another day with diabetes.

Only I don't like the way the cats are looking at me. Maybe tonight I'll put a baseball bat under my pillow next to Dex. Just in case.

Turning D-blog day into D-log day

I did it. After several months, tonight I finally started the beta test of my logging software. This is the idea I pitched last spring for the DiabetesMine design contest, which I've been using to log my own readings since March. In June I bought a MacBook and now take that along to my endo's and look at the output together.

It's been working pretty well for me, and my inherent laziness had kicked in, and I had really stalled on doing anything else with it. Until I was contacted by someone who found the ChaosTracker website, and asked if I still needed beta testers. And after weeks of email tag, I had something almost ready to send out - and as I was writing up the directions, two more people found me and asked to help. Which is probably all I can handle at this point, until I clear up the know bugs and start looking at enhancements.

So now I have my beta test starting, with the goal of putting in a real effort between Christmas and New Year's this year and actually getting this out the door shortly afterwards. Wish me luck - and happy D-(b)log day!

Can somebody make this movie?

Back in college, I had a friend who was a pretty good juggler. Sometimes, he would start off with just 2 or 3 objects, and we'd toss more and more in, until eventually he'd have maybe 7 or 8 items going, and then they'd all fall down, except for a few he'd manage to catch before they hit the floor.

If anyone out there has the coordination (it sure ain't me), could you do a "life with D" juggling video? Start with a meter and pump, then add in an apple or something ("eat healthy"), then a sneaker ("exercise"), then a juice box ("you're low"), bottle of ketone strips, wallet, alarm clock, CGMS, whatever. I think it would be a great visual on the juggling we have to do every day, along with a reminder that no one can get it perfect all the time...

If you build it... (nothing to do with D)

This is where I send myself when I'm in desperate need of a "Mommy time-out".


The Castle Room, with elliptical decorated for effect:

Close up of the doors to The Crawlspace of Unfinished Projects (like half-finished afghans, needlepoint, curtains, and shirts. That visible "table" leg is from my great-grandmother's 1931 electric Singer sewing machine, which I still use)

... THEY WILL COME:

That's Tucker (big gray one) and Sarah (little brown one), in their favorite spot in the house.

Comments from the castle

I'm trying a vlog today from my "castle room", the room over the garage the kids and I turned into the perfect reading nook...

Come again?

What the weather forecaster says:

"Increasing clouds tonight with scattered thunderstorms, some severe. Lows around 70."

What a PWD hears:

"Increasing clouds tonight with scattered thunderstorms. Some severe lows around 70." Severe lows? What do they mean, seventy's not bad at all... WTF?

... oh

The Magic Brownie

Okay, okay, it's not that kind of magic brownie. I was always too much of a goody-two-shoes to ever try anything stronger than alcohol. But this particular magic brownie was I think even better than what first leapt into your mind.

Let me preface this by saying my BG is always wacky. Diabetes seldom lets me get away with anything. I actually need to bolus about 1.2 units (from a TDD of under 30) for a cup of decaf coffee with a tablespoon of milk in it. I can be 100, eat 10g of carbs, not forget to bolus, and still be 340 an hour later. It's more or less completely random. That is why I have been wearing a CGMS since the minimed FDA approval study - I cannot reliably predict what can happen, I can only react to what is happening now. (Yes, I do know how to count carbs, use a scale, exercise, etc, etc. It doesn't get me to predictable, it only keeps me conscious). Although, as my immune system has taken out a few more hormone-producing organs after killing off my islets, things are slowly getting easier.

Anyway, back to the actual story, last night's dinner was stir-fried organic farm veggies with some leftover pork chops, brown rice, and biriyani spices thrown in. And a glass of milk. Tasty, but hard to predict. So I bolused conservatively, because I was about to get in the car to go to my writers group and down that aforementioned cup of decaf coffee. I figured I would recheck then and add in any extra along with my coffee bolus.

At the bookshop cafe, there was a line. There usually isn't. I had to stand for ten minutes, staring at their yummy display case. They all looked good, but the brownie, well, it was like one of those early dracula movies - me standing there, all innocent and confused, and the brownie on the other side of the glass, beckoning, beckoning...

I tore my concentration away and looked at Dex, to remind myself why I needed to virtuously avert my eyes from the evil confection. 110. With two arrows straight down. Obviously a sign from above. Or below.

I carried brownie and coffee back to my table, doublechecked with the meter. 94. Okay, let's eat. I will keep an eye on Dex, and as soon as I start rising I will bolus, because this brownie has gotta be at least 50g all on its lonesome, so even if the fat takes a while to hit, it's not going to be pretty.

Writer's group over: 112. Run into Staples and Target for kids school supplies: 81. Drink 15g juice box. Drive home. 110. Get ready for bed: 108. These are fingersticks, btw, as Dex looks too good to be true.

Okay, I'm too tired to stay up for the carb blast, either Dex will wake me or I'll treat him like a snooze and fix it in the morning.

Wake at 6:30. 71.

Like I said, a magic brownie.

We all deserve one now and again.

It's d-blog day

Back when I started blogging in Sept 2005 it was out of a sense of desperation. Was there anyone else out there who knew what I was going through? All the reading I had done on type 1 talked about blood glucose levels that behaved correctly as long as you counted carbs properly, exercised, and found your "patterns".

What a relief it was to discover the non-textbook reality: people whose BG refused to fall into predictable patterns, people to remind me that 2+2 almost never equals 4 in the world of diabetes, people who said the same things I wanted to say, only much more eloquently.

A big part of the reason I don't blog as often is that I am no longer so frustrated with this disease. And that is because of the comments, support, and writing of all of the other d-bloggers out there. Thank you all, and happy D-blog day!

Hanging out at the D.R.I

Yesterday I had what was probably one of my all-time most frustrating D-days, but with the greatest people to hang out with. I got up at 4:30 (after 2 below-40 lows overnight) and was already rebounding high as I took the train down to NYC and the Diabetes Research Institute’s “Diabetes 2.0” conference. I did a small correction on the train (no breakfast yet, and I didn’t want to worry about being low while trying to find the conference).

I got to the conference just as the first speaker was about to begin, grabbed some breakfast, elbowed my way to a seat between Allison and Kelly… and proceeded to spend the next 22 hours fighting against The High that Would Not Die. You’ve heard the expression “glass ceiling”? Well, this was a glass floor. I passed quickly through the “maybe-I-underestimated” and “just-bolus-again-might-have-been-an-air-bubble” stages, while my BG hit the 300s and would not go down. I could see the nice little dotted-line high threshold on my Dexcom, and soon rage bolus followed rage bolus as I kept trying to tap, stomp, and finally jackhammer my way back through the glass floor into somewhat normal BG readings. I mean, if you can’t risk a low by stacking insulin sitting at a table with a bunch of Type 1s, when can you do it?

But the amazing thing about the day was, I was not alone. Really, really, not alone. While I was fuming and running through the whole troubleshooting checklist (can’t be the site, I was low all night; basal is at 180%, 5 units on board, why the hell am I still 280) Kelly next to me was doing the same thing. While the mom in one session was talking about being worried that her son would be over-bolusing for highs while away at college, I was attempting, unsuccessfully I need not add, to over-bolus myself back down. When Bernard complained he had been above his Dexcom’s high threshold all day, I knew exactly how he felt – we even had the same threshold set! And when Dr. Rappaport asked how we react when we see a 300 on the meter, I had just seen a 304 on mine. And Kelly’s quick response of “W.T.F?” was exactly how I felt. Kelly, you are my new hero!

Other people have written about how great it is to get together with other Type 1s, other people who really “get it”. I can’t agree more. If I had been home, I would have been in the throwing things and swearing stage. Instead, we were laughing, hugging… and still swearing. Let’s face it, diabetes is pretty damn frustrating sometimes. And that’s why it was so great to spend a day with the people who “get it” – with the bloggers I am always surreptitiously reading from work: Amy, Bernard, Scott, Allison, Gina, LeeAnn, Kelly, Karen – and anybody else I forgot. Thanks guys, for turning a crappy BG day into such a great time!

Oh, and that high?

After a day with no fewer than nine correction boluses, doubled basal rates, and a 3am site change by the light of my dex did nothing it finally faded away - of its own accord - around 9 the following morning. W. T. F.?!?

Oh, for crying out loud!

Even though there is another blog post I’ve been meaning to write for weeks.. um, months … now, in honor of Raise Your Voice Day, I figured this one would be more appropriate. I’m not going to do a “type one 101” session, as you can find many good examples here at Kerri’s blog. And, in previous posts I’ve covered my diagnosis, a 24 hour log of life with diabetes, and a short humorous summary of the impact of this disease. So for today, I will instead write about being a Type 1 in a world trying to cut Type 2 costs – fun with health care chronic illness “support”. My snide comments on the Q&A will be in italics, their questions in bold.

My new health care plan at work has this wonderful (this word should be dripping with sarcasm by the way) perk for people with chronic illness: your own personalized version of the “diabetes police”. Just what every diabetic needs – a “friend” to call you up and chat about your diet (don’t have one) your weight (doing fine, thank you) and remind you to test your blood sugar (I’m pretty compulsive about this - as my Number Three Son has observed “Just like the dog leaves black hair everywhere, Mommy sheds those little test strips”).

A few years ago I had inadvertently been signed up for one of these and hated it. The first call wasn’t too bad. Do you know what a hemoglobin a1C test is? Yes, I had one last week. Every three months, in fact. Do you know it’s important to keep your a1C below 6.0? Actually, given the huge fluctuations in my BG, like dropping 150 points in an hour for no reason, trying to get my a1c below 6.0 would probably kill me. I already have to treat two 50s a day to keep myself in the sevens. How often do you test your blood sugar? Ten times a day. [dead silence on the phone]. Then: “Oh. Keep up the good work then.”

From there on in, the calls got more annoying. Next was the 6pm call on Halloween. Yeah, sure, maybe it’s a tough day for diabetics, but it’s not like I’m sitting here contemplating eating the whole bag of Almond Joys. I’ve got three kids to get into costumes, a dog having a nervous breakdown (she’s scared of flapping robes but loves barking at the door) and I live in a development where my doorbell is guaranteed to ring no less than 150 times tonight. I do not want to discuss the exchange diet with someone who tells me if I don’t control my weight I could wind up on insulin.

After the second call, I started just saying “If you really cared about improving my health you would pay for my continuous monitoring system.” When the next year’s health care flavor showed up, I made sure they did not sign me up. I don’t return the messages left by various perky sounding people, offering to tell me of an exciting new benefit free with my healthcare plan. I considered issuing the callers a test to see if they even know there is a chance they could be talking to a person with type one. You know, “can you explain the significance of a positive GAD64 antibody test?”….but then I decided that took too much energy.

Last week at work, we were told that if we completed an online health survey, we would get a few bucks taken off the cost of next year’s health care plan. OK, so it wasn’t much money, but I figure they are at least trying to do something good, so I should play along. Even though I knew what I would be in for.

To start off, I resolved to be as honest as possible with the thing. Honesty is the best policy, right? I did fine with the gender, age, height, weight, non-smoker, non-drug-abuser, teeth-brusher, exerciser, seatbelt-wearer, single-partner, occasional-drinker questions.

The general state of my health? Well, excellent is out. Good, I guess. With one glaring exception. I smile a bit, remembering my favorite great-aunt saying "For the shape I’m in, I’m healthy."

Have I missed more than one day of work in the past month due to illness? Well, considering I had strep throat and a 102 fever the week before, spent two days home asleep… Yes. Yes I have.

Have I ever been told by a doctor that I had diabetes or pre-diabetes? Um. Yeah. How long ago? Within the past 5 years.

Have I seen a doctor since that time? What are you smoking? Yes. (duh!)

Has my doctor ever told me my blood sugar was high? Is a bear Catholic? Does the pope shit in the woods?

Have I tested my blood sugar in the past three weeks? Yes. They only ask yes or no, so I can’t put “over 200 times”.

What was it? Excuse me? My choices are “80-110”, “120-140”, “150-180”, or “above 200”. No “All of the above”? No “below 40”? No “above 400” (thank you, strep throat!) I decide in the interest of honesty here to go with my most recent reading. “120-140”.

OK, I am now booted out of the information collection stage and into the “diabetes for idiots” stage. I’ll try and reproduce the gist of the canned messages here, cleverly tailored with personal data from the collection stage inserted in so I know they really care…

Diabetes can be controlled through diet and exercise. Hooray! I’m throwing out my pump! You indicated that you exercise 5 times a week. You should exercise at least 3 times a week for 30 minutes. I should cut down? Exercise doesn’t have to be tough. Try starting with a brisk walk for 15 minutes and work your way up.

Maintaining a healthy weight is important also. Your BMI is 21. An ideal BMI is 19-24, so yours is in range. Dieting is an effective way to control your weight. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t see results immediately. Remember that controlling portion size is important to losing weight.

Your fasting blood sugar was 120-140, which is above the ideal range of 80-100. It’s also not a fasting BG, you morons, it was dead-on after lunch! You never asked for a fasting reading. Elevated fasting blood sugar can lead to crippling complications. Yes, I know that. This may be a good time to speak with your doctor about changing your medication to something that may more effectively control your diabetes. Yeah, fine. I’ll tell him I want to stop insulin and switch to something more effective. Should give him a good laugh.

Controlling your blood sugar is easy with proper diet, exercise, and regular doctor visits. Obviously written by a person without diabetes, any acquaintances with diabetes, or any knowledge of diabetes – of any type. Contact your doctor for more information and help and directions on how to manage this illness. Oh, yeah, maybe I should call every time my BG is out of range… Remember, it’s all up to you. And that is the exact kind of blame-the-victim bullshit that makes ANY TYPE of diabetes so hard to live with. It is NOT just up to me. But now I’m going to be haunted by those perky phone idiots who call during supper to ask what I weigh. I just know it.

The final page of the survey asked if we had ever been the victim of a medical error. And for once instead of a multiple choice we could actually write in 250 chars to explain. So of course I put in that my medical error was being misdiagnosed as a type 2 diabetic when I was type 1 and would die without insulin. I’m hoping if my answers get spit out to their telephone police, maybe they’ll actually glance at that and decide not to call.

If not, I’m compiling my own list of questions. Maybe I’ll ask my personal policeman what they weigh and how often they exercise. If they test their blood sugar at least eight times a day. If they have tested their basal rates recently. How many abstracts they have read on PubMed. If they have noticed different insulin sensitivity at different times of the day. If they re-evaluate their insulin to carb ratios periodically..........

The low-over

My numbers have been wacky lately. I mean seriously wacky, not just diabetes-wacky. For the longest time, lunch has been my most stable meal. I eat my usual lunch, do a 3-mile walk, and my BG does one of two things: either climbs to 260 or so and drifts gently down to 110 by 3pm, or dips first, meaning an occasional juice on my walk, then climbs to about 180 before back down by 4. I can live with that. That’s about as close as I get to being predictable.

But lately, things have been weird. I always knew if I skipped my walk, I need to add another 0-1.8 units (your guess as good as mine). Lately, even doing that, with or without the walk I hit 300 and stay there. Plus, missing lunch (which I don’t do too often) meant my BG goes up to 350 by 1pm. So, I decided it was time to do some midday basal testing.

Skipping breakfast has never been a big deal, except that as Mr Thyroid finally dies off I find it really tough to miss that a.m. coffee – actually cappuccino (make it myself 4oz milk, 2 oz espresso with our little electric cappuccio maker – best $40 I ever spent). So I decide I will just have my cappuccino at 6:30, then around 10:30 I should be in range to start a lunchtime basal check. I still pack a lunch figuring I’ll eat it around 3pm.

Wake up at 80, look real good overnight, like between 70-120. I’ve been level overnight for two months. Have my drink, bolus the usual amount and head off to work. Waiting for the traffic light two intersections from my office, my Dex’s high alarm goes off, saying I’ve passed 180. This happens almost every morning at the exact same spot, regardless of how long between having breakfast and actually going out the door.

Ten-thirty rolls around, and I check my BG in preparation to starting the basal test. 390. O-kaay, no lunchtime basal checking for me. Plus, thanks to my body’s completely backwards wiring, I am ravenously hungry anyway. Eat my lunch, bolus and correct. BG stays steady a bit, then drops, then back up….basically for the entire rest of the day I’m between 200-250.

At ten pm I’m around 190 and drifting down very gently. I decide not to do any corrections and just fix things tomorrow morning. But, I’m not sleepy yet so I spent forty minutes or so working on my “The Times’ Fiendish Sudoku” book I picked up in London.

After a while, making no progress on my current puzzle, I decide to turn off the light and go to sleep. But, let me just check first and see how out of range I really am. Thirty-one. WTF? Did I do a correction and forget about it? And where the hell are my juice boxes – my bedroom stash is empty.

I go downstairs, pour myself a glass of milk, and chug it. And interrupt my husband’s piano practice to tell him I’m low. I should be using something quicker, but I don’t have my little green juicy-juice boxes and stubbornly wont consider those darn sidewalk chalk glucose tablets. After about 5 minutes, I have a second glass of milk. And one of my homemade molasses cookies. So I don’t go low again. Then, because they’re tasty, I have another. And another.

OK, I’ve just gobbled down like 50 g of carbs. Now I’m tired. My husband comes up and reads to me, to make sure I’m going up before going back to sleep. It takes an hour for me to break 60. At this point I assure my husband that I’m most likely headed for 400 but that I really just want to sleep now and I’ll fix it tomorrow.

The alarm goes off. I hit the snooze, grab the meter, and test. 74. WTF x 2??? I pull Dex from under the pillow. According to him, I never went above 100 all night. Unhook pump, shower, get ready for work, sit down for breakfast, retest. 78. Hmm. Have a real breakfast – toast and cappucino. Low alarm goes off. Hang out for half an hour until fingerstick shows my bg hitting 78 again, then go in to work.

At work, I feel like I am completely wrapped in blankets. Muscles ache, brain hurts, and I bumble through the day, feeling as though I’ve switched brains with the dog. At least, maybe the dog could make more sense of the code I’m supposed to be working on today.

At lunchtime I’m 94. I eat, bolus lightly, and take a walk, hoping to clear my head. Nope. All I can think about is going back to bed, lying down, and sleeping.

Somehow I make it through the day – with a juice box at 3:30 as I dip down to 64 – and head home. Bed. Bed. Bed.

I call Number One Son over, explain to him what needs to get done for dinner, and go upstairs. Bed. Bed. Bed. I check my BG – 96 – and fall asleep instantly.

45 minutes later, my husband wakes me up for dinner. I feel about one thousand percent better. I can keep my eyes open. I go down to eat, do a fingerstick. 46. Hoo, boy.

By the time dinner is over (juice, wait for BG to come up, dinner + extra 35g carbs so I don’t dip again) I am back wrapped in my metaphorical blanket, too dull to think of anything. I stand up. “I’m going back to bed.” It’s barely eight. BG 220.

Dex beeps at 1am. I’m 46 and drink juice (bedside stash has been restocked). Back to sleep, wake up at 90, go to work. Once again, high all afternoon and evening. I do no corrections, only bolus for the carb contents of meals. 224 at 11pm. Ignore it and go to sleep – last bolus 5:15.

I wake in the middle of the night, drenched with sweat and shivvering like mad. Check Dex; he says “LOW”. It’s 3:30, and I’ve been LOW for an hour. Flip to the 3 hour screen and see that BG went into free fall about 1am. I must have slapped the “below 90” and “below 55” alarms in my sleep. Wonderful. I feel much, much worse than the 31 two days ago. I know I should wake my husband, but all I can think of is that he’ll turn on the light, and I don’t want the light on. Poke straw into juice box in the dark, slurp, toss, roll over, sleep.
When the alarm goes off this morning I’m 46. Great. Another juice. Wait. Shower. Get ready. No way am I driving in to work this morning. I feel like I’ve been beaten with sticks, then taken a few turns in one of those witch dunker things, into ice water. I’m achy and tired and miserable and not able to think.

I try to log in from home, but after about 90 minutes of bumbling around in the code, doing things like spending fifteen minutes trying to figure out where I can find the script that updates the version info file, giving up and emailing a co-worker to ask where to look for it, then getting the sudden brainstorm that maybe the code is inside the file named “update_version_info.bat”. That sort of thing. A menace to myself and any poor sucker stuck working on the same code base. And my brain is running through the same loop, over and over : “I’m tired. I’m cold. I want to lay down. I don’t like these lights. I’m tired…”

I check out Dex's nine hour graph and see a perfect "W" 220 - LOW - 55 (after 3am juice) - LOW - 220.

I give up, email my boss that I’m sick, and go upstairs, proceeding to lie in bed for two hours with my brain going “I’m bored. I’m cold. This bed isn’t comfortable. Too much light….”

At least it’s Friday.

Seven Random Things

Sandra tapped me to join in.

To participate, one must:

• Link to the person’s blog who tagged you.


• Post these rules on your blog.


• List seven random and/or weird facts about yourself


• Tag seven random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.


• Let each person know that they have been tagged by posting a comment on their blog.

1. I am what my husband calls a “binge gardener”. I will often spend entire weekends outside setting up new flower beds, planting trees and whatnot – then ignore the whole thing for months. I figure any plant that can’t deal with this kind of neglect doesn’t deserve a spot in my yard.


2. For our honeymoon, we spent ten months doing some low-budget backpacking through the Mediterranean: Italy, Tunisia, Greece, Austria, Germany, France, Spain and Portugal on a fellowship my husband won. I always claim I married him for the ten-month honeymoon. He always claims he married me for the extra four grand he got as a married student.


3. I once took a completely bizarre language course that taught seven languages simultaneously. To this day, I can still say “Hello, Fish-face!” in German, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese and Arabic. This was after the honeymoon, when we were homesick for travelling and could not afford to go anyplace…


4. When I was little, my next-older brother’s nickname for me was “Grace”. This was because I was a complete klutz, and would fall down the entire flight of our non-carpeted stairs once a week or so. Surprisingly, I never once hurt myself doing that, though I would regularly turn my ankles just walking to school.


5. I really enjoy faux-finish painting. I started with the castle room, and just recently did this in our basement band room:


6. I am apparently a natural at ping-pong. Who knew?


7. I own a 1925 player piano that we just had restored. It’s the only way I’ll ever be able to play an instrument (see #4 above), and I’m sometimes found doing Singing Frog imitations while pumping away.

I don't know who hasn't been tagged, so if you read this and aren't tagged yet, consider this your tagging!

Val

Hugs

So on Saturday I'm in the kitchen, trying to clean up the mess of us being a virtual single-parent family for a week, when Number One Son walks in.

"Mommy! Are you still radioactive?"

"No," I say, and he runs over and gives me a big hug. Now Number One Son just turned 13, and hugs really aren't his thing, so I hug back happily, glad for a bit of spontaneous cuddling.

Then he backs up, grabs his neck, and gasps, "Ahh! My thyroid!"

Wise@$$.