Living with Diabetes

Why me? How come I have deal with diabetes so early in my life? What did I do wrong to deserve a life of constant vigilance of my sugars? There are days when you just have to lie in bed and here these questions for which there are really no answers. I guess the big problem is that there are no answers to these questions. Science can't tell us, as yet, what is the main reason for our diabetes. If only there was a test that can tell you why your system is not performing to its best abilities. The why me question is a particular brutal. My brain has two sets of reactions to it. On a good day, ones filled with eternal sunshine and my optimistic self ruling my life, I always tell myself, because I can handle it. I feel like it is just another test in this life and you have to do your best to pass it. I see how my life is changed for the better and now I watch what I eat, get some regular exercise and keep myself in better health than ever before. I think that I was given this disease to...

Kerri brought up a good question about what to do with the rapidly rising count of meters that we have. I have collected four in the last year, a Freestyle, two freestyle flashes and an Accu-check. I vaguely remembered that Cindy on the diabetes blog had talked about it a while ago. So I went looking and found something, though it did not make me happy as in the US the meters are mostly given away free to make the money off the test strips. So what do I do with these leftover meters. Another quick google search brings me to an interesting site for recycling medical instruments and sending them to the developing world. http://www.amsa.org/global/ih/mierp.cfm

For the last year I was happily using the Freestyle Flash meter. It was nice and small and working great for me. But I was having to pay 35 copay with 100 test strips everytime. So my insurance sent me a letter that I could save some money by using one of the other recommended products. They had a couple there but not Freestyle. I decide to try out the Aviva Accu-Check meter. It promised to use the least amount of blood and faster results, almost as good as my freestyle. And the insurance copay would drop to 15, which would save me $20 each month, which is $120 for the year. Money that I guess I could invest in companies doing some research into diabetes or related medical activities., I am thinking Acusphere. So anyway, I get this new meter in mail, with no charge to me ofcourse. I finally take it out and take a look at this humongous meter and a pen shaped poking device. I load the lancet device and keep on trying to draw some blood from my forearm, my chose site. I could never ge...

Here I am sitting with the new infant trying to burp him while my mind is searching fir ideas to cut down my carbs some more and it hits me, I am now an infant myself, I am a diabetic infant. It is uncanny, but life as a diabetic seems to be a rebirth experience. Each day you learn something new. It seems like nothing is in your control and you are being taken care of by other people and things. You are taking small bites of food, trying to figure out what works for you. There are so many new things to learn. Contemplate and adopt. Eating habits have to change, exercise habits have to change. The concept of relaxation has to be redefined. TV watching has to be made an exercise somehow. Can't really eat out in any restaurant anymore. No more pigging out on cakes and pies. I do think about my mommy more. The flip side is the ability to take delights in small pleasures. Discovering that a McDonald's California Cobb salad without the dressing is very filling and excellent for sugar...

Lately I am having too much trouble getting a handle on my fasting sugars. They seem to be having a mind of their own. Here are some numbers from the last week - 125,149,134, 139, 128, 138 The delta between the number is just too great. I used to have better numbers, but might be worth looking into. Odd thing is that my dinner BG was 120, an excellent number for me. I just have two spoons of peanut butter, spend working on the computer for about and hour, went to sleep for 7 hours and the morning sugar is 138. I guess during the night my body decided to send some more sugar into the system. Odd that it needed to. I sometimes wonder is the body is like a machine. It needs to feel comfortable at a certain sugar number and if you drop, it will bring it back to that. Maybe I body wants to be in the 130 range. I am sure I can bring it down by some mind control and more exercise. It might also be time to investigate some late night snacking. Maybe some sandwich meat slices before I sleep. It...

Last week I made a mistake which made me feel such a rookie. I did not pay attention to serving sizes. I went to trader Joes looking for the Goat milk yogurt. There are way fewer carbs per serving (1/4 cup) than in regular yogurt's. They were out. So I got some Mediterranean style yogurt cheese and ate a 1/4 cup. I saw the rating on the side but did not see the serving size which was just 2 tsps. I was shocked in the morning to find incredibly high sugars. It took me two days to find out what went wrong. Made me feel pretty stupid. Lesson learned, never assume, always check and recheck the serving sizes.