Here are the numbers from the week:
Average number of glucose readings: 5.8
Highest level: 264
Lowest level: 50
Average glucose level: 163
Now that the holidays are over, I’m expecting to get things back under control a bit better.
The Yo-yo
A lot of time and energy that goes into keeping on top of glucose levels. Over time, diabetics generally get pretty good at managing this part of their daily lives.
But sometimes the disease just refuses to cooperate.
Last Friday was one of those days for me. I started the day high (190) and spent the next 14 hours in a futile attempt to get my numbers under control. I didn’t eat anything out of the ordinary. I wasn’t sick. But I definitely wasn’t ok.
These kinds of days are incredibly frustrating. Trying to get the glucose down with insulin led to a multiple crashes. At 240 for no good reason? How about a 50? Enjoy the roller coaster!
No matter what I did, the glucose would not stabilize. This meant increasing frustration throughout the day to go along with the physical exhaustion that comes with such big swings in glucose levels.
It was a humbling day for sure, but in the humility their was a good reminder for me. Diabetes isn’t something that rests, so I have to be careful not to get too relaxed in doing the things I need to do to stay healthy.
Why Do I Want To Do a Triathlon Again?
One of my New Year’s resolutions is to complete a Half Ironman Triathlon. I want to share a bit more about why I made that commitment to myself for the coming year.
First and foremost, exercise is a crucial part of how I manage my diabetes. I’ll be talking about this a lot more as I share my preparation for the triathlon.
Second, it is really, really hard. And probably not the smartest thing to do when you really think about it. A mile swim, 56 miles on a bike, and then a half marathon to finish up. Any one of those things would be difficult on its own. Doing them all in a row is harder still. Doing them as a diabetic and managing blood sugar across five or more hours of straight exercise is probably the hardest part of the idea.
Third, the race is a doable thing if I work hard. People complete these races every year. There is absolutely no reason I can’t do the same just because I have diabetes.
One of my favorite quotes is John F. Kennedy’s explanation of why he was committing American resources to put a man on the moon.
Watch here for the full speech given at Rice University on 9/12/62. The part I like the best: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”
I’m choosing to do this not because it is easy, but because it is hard.
Happy New Year
I spent New Year’s Eve with family and friends. We celebrated with plenty of good food, champagne, and the obligatory resolutions.
Sometimes thinking about goals for the coming year can be a difficult thing, but with diabetes, I’ve found stating my goals and journeying towards them is actually pretty easy.
An obvious goal: keep my A1C below 6.5.
Another obvious goal: continue to approach my day and my year with the confidence that I have the upper hand on diabetes in the ways that matter.
A final goal that isn’t so obvious that I settled on: completing a Half Ironman Triathlon. Stay Tuned for my next post on what I’ve stated this as a goal.
Until then, Happy New Year!
Needles
In my last post, I mentioned a question I think about a lot but have never answered: just how many times have I sent a needle through my skin over the course of a year?
I decided to answer.
If I assume an average of 4 shots of insulin a day (three meals plus a snack), I’ve got 1,460 pricks. I also assume an average of 4 glucose readings a day another 1,460 pricks. The trick with thinking about glucose readings is that my fingers are so calloused that sometimes it takes three or four attempts to get a drop of blood. I’ll add another 500 pricks for this.
My guess, then, is that I’ve sent a needle through my skin about 3,400 times. I have a very close relationship with needles.
If I didn’t use needles I’d be dead, so I’ve learned to live with them. I’ve accepted them. But I still don’t like them.
I paid attention this morning to what is going through my mind when I check my glucose or give myself an insulin shot. I noticed that there is a slight delay from the point when I’m ready to use the needle and when I actually do. I automatically resist what I am about to do.
When I realized this, I started thinking about the process of choosing to stick a needle in my body. Skin is there, after all, to keep things out. It is a bit unnatural to run counter to the basic purpose my skin serves. No matter how important it is to use needles, I still can’t make it a “normal” thing to do. My mind knows better.
This small realization is really an analogy for my entire life as a diabetic. Living with the disease just isn’t “normal. Most days, that doesn’t matter. Some days it is really hard. But everyday is a choice to do what I need to do.
My closing thought this morning is how I want to wrap up 2013: I’m looking forward to the next 3,500 (or so) needles in the coming year. Life really is worth it. No matter how many needles I use, diabetes won’t get the last say.
Tis the Season
I’ve been quiet for a stretch. You can blame part of that on the holiday season. Between shopping, end of year work to tie off, and preparing for Christmas, time slipped away.
But if I’m honest (and I always want to be honest in this space), these are explanations I’m using to mask the mental toll that year end activities bring. When there is so much going on that signals the year is ending, thinking about diabetes in manageable chunks becomes much harder.
Some sample questions that I couldn’t shake:
1) How many times did I stick a needle through my skin this year?
2) How much did I spend on diabetes?
3) If it is this hard for a year, how about 20 years? 30? 50?
You can sum up my mindset recently by saying I’m tired. Not defeated, but definitely tired. When I think about things like this, the distance between my day-to-day routine and the horizon of my life seems impossible long, pockmarked with challenges, and surrounded daily (at least during the holidays) with so many tasty things that will send my blood sugars yo-yoing.
The good news is that I’m feeling a bit better. Christmas is over and things aren’t quite as hectic. I’m turning the corner into the new year with a lot of good goals, challenges, and expectations for myself and for this blog.
I’ll share more soon after I have a bit more rest.
Weekly Readings
Here are my weekly numbers for the week:
Average Number of Daily Readings: 4.1
Average Blood Sugar Reading: 132.5
Highest Recorded Blood Sugar Reading: 211
Lowest Recorded Blood Sugar Reading: 68
The Impact of Simple Mistakes
I hope that some of this blog’s readers are people who don’t have diabetes. My goal is, in part, to offer a window into the diabetic experience for those who don’t have the disease. Maybe you have a family member who is diabetic or maybe you are wondering how to support your friend.
For these readers, I want to explain how little things in life can have a significant and frustrating impact on living with diabetes.
Last night I attended an event that my friend’s non-profit organization was putting on to raise money. I volunteered to pick up some drinks for the reception. The drinks had to be to the venue on time and I was running late getting out of the house. In the chaos of trying to have everything I needed for the event, I forgot my insulin.
On the surface, this was a simple mistake, but it changed the rest of the evening.
The menu for the evening included Christmas-themed donuts, biscuits with different kinds of fillings, beer, wine, and champagne cocktails.
Without insulin, there simply wasn’t a good option for me to eat. If I had a donut or a biscuit, my blood sugar would skyrocket. Not a good choice.
Without eating, I would risk my blood sugar dropping too low. Even if I didn’t drop too low, I would still be hungry. Not a good choice.
The result, then, of forgetting the insulin was to choose between two things, both of which would make me feel bad.
The real problem is how often diabetes can put someone in this kind of scenario. Unless you plan ahead, you can get caught without a good choice. I know this and I do everything I can to make sure I am prepared, but the reality of a busy life is that I forget things. When that happens, I know it because there are immediate consequences.
In any one situation, this isn’t an insurmountable thing (I opted not to eat and I solved the problem by drinking a little bit of beer throughout the night to keep my blood sugar stable). Still, these kinds of circumstances can weigh on a diabetic. Over time these little moments can add up to a lot of frustration.
If you know someone who is diabetic, simply being aware of these kinds of scenarios can be helpful. We know you can’t change our disease (and we don’t expect you to), but empathizing with us is appreciated. I promise we appreciate the support.
Looking at Old Things in New Ways
Because diabetes is a lifelong disease, I try to be intentional about varying the ways I manage the disease.
You may have noticed by now that I particularly like to think about my data. I enjoy looking for patterns in how my body responds to different things. I like to think about the stories my blood sugar is telling me.
I’m not surprised, then, that I absolutely love my new Misfit Shine. It is a great device to help me track my daily activity (and it gives me another way to tie information about my day to how I am feeling).
Here are the results from my first day wearing the device:
I set a daily goal for points based on my activity level and then I go about my day. The Shine automatically tracks my movement and figures out how well I’m doing against that goal. I even get a trophy for being active.
The thing I particularly like (other than the technology and the data) is that it is an easy way to keep an eye on whether I’m moving around. Whether we’re talking about walking, running, swimming, biking, playing with my kids, or any other activity, not being stationary is an important part of daily maintenance with diabetes. My Shine is going to make it clear when I do a good job and when I don’t.
The Shine also gives me a way to challenge myself. So I got 1867 points yesterday? I’m going for 1900 today. I’ll let you know how I end up doing.
Sometimes You Need a Break
Today was one of those days when I took a little time off from managing diabetes.
It was absolutely worth it.