Back on the horse

Hi everyone,

It has been a while since I posted and that was a bit sporadic but I am getting back on the horse and giving it all another go, the blogging and the diabetes control! I was surprised to see that I have actually posted 27 times to this blog since I started it, i thought it was less than 10 (how the mind can fool us!) and that the blog has received over 1000 hits. I'm sure that is because it is linked to diabetes daily.

Anyway, to catch up on things chez Dee...........

The husband is doing very well, we have everything crossed that the tumour is a minor blip and that he will have no further problems. He is being kept an eye on with scans every 3 months so anything untoward will be dealt with quickly if needs be. But he is his normal self, and basically life is carrying on as if nothing ever happened which is great.

Sadly we lost our gorgeous dog in October but on 30th December we went out and bought a West Highland Terrier puppy and called him Charlie. Here he is at 14 weeks old. He is very cute but can have his moments and last week he nearly drove me to distraction. We are starting to do a bit of training with him now and I think he is starting to get the hang of it!!

On the diabetes front............... my HbA1c climbed to 11.5!! I was due to have an operation on my hands on 11th January but when I went in, they refused to do it because the blood sugars were so high and if I had got an infection it would have been really nasty. Also the healing wouldn't have been as quick. So my diabetes consultant decided it was time I went in and spent a few days in hospital so they could sort me out!! I spent 4 days in, while my basals were checked and I bolused correctly for carbs and the upshot was that my basals were pretty much correct, and that it is all the messing about with the bolusing that i do that was the problem. I am now paying privately for a psychologist (the hospital couldn't provide one on the NHS) and yesterday we really made some progress. I really need to do this because my consultant is threatening to take me off the pump if I don't improve my HbA1c, because it was actually lower on MDI - 9.9 before the pump.

Anyway this mornong I was woken by a hypo of 3.7 (66) and didn't panic. I had a couple of glucotabs and a biscuit and an hour later was at 7.3 (131).

So I am going to use this blog to chart how I get on. I still think I want to have a baby but I'm 40 in August so there's a hell of a lot to do if that is going to ever happen.

I hope some of my previous readers are still out there, I'd love to hear any comments or suggestions you may have for me.

Thanks for reading,
Dee

Where does the panic come from?

At 1.20pm my bgs were 13.8. (248) I took 4 units extended over an hour and had about 50g of carbs.

At 2.10pm my bgs were 14.6. (263) I drove to work.

At 2.40pm - 13.2. (237) Brain kicks in, "you are dropping - start getting anxious!!!" So I did!

At 3.00pm - 12.2. (219) Brain says "YOU ARE DROPPING FAST, PANIC AND DRINK LUCOZADE!!!!!!!!!!! So I did!!!!!

At 3.20pm - 13.2. (237) Phew, going back up, think "Stupid woman, now you are full of Lucozade and you'll have to correct later!!!!!!!!!!!

What happened was my immediate panic response kicked in. I believed that my stomach wasn't absorbing the food (gastroparesis kicking in) and that I would drop right down and pass out at work and have to have an ambulance, etc etc, big hoo hah!!!!

The fact was that had not happened, my brain just convinced me that it had. I was already too high to start with and had a LONG way to go to end up hypo.

HOW CAN I STOP THIS HAPPENING?????????????? I am seeing my GP on Monday about some dizziness I've been having so I may ask if I can be referred to the psychologist for some help or I'm never going to get these bgs down.

Update

Well I guess I left things hanging a few months ago. It turned out the news wasn't good and we had a huge shock when the tests revealed that my husband had a malignant tumour on his forearm. It was a soft tissue sarcoma and is quite rare. He had it diagnosed on 12th September and had it removed the next day. The surgeons were happy they had removed all of it but he is currently having radiotherapy as a "mopping up" exercise just in case.

As you can imagine we were both extremely shocked, having been told for several months that it was just a fatty lump. I had not had any contact with cancer before, except for my grandmother dying of breast cancer so I immediately thought the worst. However, my husband is the opposite and is a very positive person so he just told everyone we knew. The messages we got back were amazing, and all kinds of people came out of the woodwork admitting to either having cancer themselves or having close relatives with it. And ALL the stories were of survivors! This was such a great help to me, and his treatment has gone so well that I can almost forget about it. But not quite.

He will be closely monitored now but we are hoping that this has just been a temporary blip and that once the radiotherapy is finished we can get back to normal in the New Year.

As for my diabetes over this time.......don't ask!!!

Ulgh, where does the time go.

Well circumstances have gotten in the way a bit lately and so I have had to postpone my operation for a month. I will now be going on 28th September. At least it is not something urgent that needs to be sorted out. And I'm only getting it done so that I can knit again!!

My husband is currently having some tests which are a bit scary and have taken up a lot of our thinking time, hence the blogging break. Hopefully we will be getting some good news on that front at the end of the week. Can't say anymore until then.

Date for my op

I am going in to have my trigger finger and thumb op on 29th August. I don't know if they are doing them one at a time or both on the same day. Hopefully it will sort out my problem though and I can get a bit of knitting done soon.

Bugger the diabetes, its my birthday!!

Sod the diabetes for today, its my birthday and I only have one more year in my thirties! I've been out and had a big frothy Starbucks cappucino, then had a french stick with roasted peppers and feta cheese. And I've had some chocolate too! And last night we went out for a meal and I shared Colin's rhubarb and ginger sponge with cream. Deeeee-lish!!

Back on the wagon tomorrow.

morning basals this time

After yesterdays night time basal testing I decided to check my morning ones. I didn't go to work, just pottered around the house and kept an eye on them.....

5am - 9.9 (178)
8am - 6.9 (124)
9am - 6.4 (115)
10am - 5.8 (104)
10.30am 4.9 (88)

At this point I stopped and had something to eat as I was feeling a bit wonky. I'm a bit confused about the drop between 5am and 8am as this didn't happen yesterday. I didn't take a correction bolus at 5 am but I did take half a unit before bed, but I would have thought that would have all gone before 5am.

At 10.30am I ate 20g of carb with no bolus and at 1pm my bg was 10.4 (187). I didn't half enjoy my lunch though, I was starving!!! So my conclusion is that my breakfast bolusing is causing me problems as I will get a huge spike after breakfast. I need to get over the fear that the insulin is going to work before the food is absorbed, and take more up front.

Do I need to adjust any basals though, going on these past two days results? My instinct would be to reduce by 0.1 between 9-10am. Any suggestions gratefully received!