Hitting Home

"It's like you're renting your life for $30 a day"

Have truer words ever been spoken about the diabetic experience?

I can't do this.

I took my CGM sensor off a few weeks ago. It died, near bedtime. I wanted to sleep (instead of wake up in 2 hours to calibrate), so I left it off. I woke up in the morning and I didn't feel like having to calibrate at work, so I left it off. I went out and I left it off. I came home and left it off. I kept making excuses, until I finally realized what I was really thinking....I can't do this. 

My Dexcom hurts. It really, really hurts to put in, even when I pinch the skin and think about fairies and rainbows and all of my favorite things. And it buzzes. It buzzes so much. And when it's not buzzing, it's there, in my face, reminding me of all my ups and downs. 

There is so much about diabetes that I have no choice in. I like feeling healthy. I want to feel that way for a long time. So when I think, I can't do this about bolusing, or changing my pump site, or just saying no to a cookie, I do it anyway. And I can do it. But sometimes it feels good to say, okay. Okay!! Okay, you can't do this right now. You have a lot on your plate and having your blood sugars In. Your. Face. all the time is not conducive to your mental health. 

So I'm taking a break. I'm being more responsible. I'm checking 5-7x a day, the old-fashioned way. I'm avoiding snacks and being careful about alcohol and fruit (two things that always manage to mess with my day). I can't do this right now. And, in a few weeks, I'll say to myself, you can do this. Or, you have to do this. It's time to do this. And I'll get out the Tegaderm and the Bandaids and the tape and the huge needle and charge up the receiver and get back on the horse. But for right now, I'm trotting along just fine.  

Real People

"Real People Sick"=

Having the chills but my blood sugar is still above 85.

A sore throat but no CGM mountains or terrifying plateaus.

Exhaustion even though I miraculously wasn't awoken by any alarms the night before.

Muscle aches not caused by a bruised pump site.

Dry, parched mouth that has nothing to do with anything I've eaten lately.

Is it any wonder that I sometimes miss the signs?

In Memorium

The other morning, I was opening the drawer under my bed and I noticed there was a thin bloodstain running down the front of it. Below that, a dried droplet on my hardwood floor. It's from a few nights ago, when I was changing my pod from a stomach site. I was in a rush and I was halfway to the trash can before I realized I'd hit a small gusher.

I haven't cleaned the mess up yet. It's small (obviously, since I didn't notice it for a while). I'm not quite sure why. In a way it's kind of like a monument. There are so few visible signs of the turmoil of diabetes, but I am fighting a war. There's bound to be some carnage. 

A Reminder

When the insulin you depend on might not be available for much longer it reminds me just how tenuous my grasp on this disease is after all. Just how elusive the illusion of control is. Just exactly how many things are out of my power, including unfortunately the care I want to receive. 

On Multitasking

Sometimes, my brain capacity amazes me. Like when I remember the names of every single parent during parent-teacher conferences.

Sometimes, it definitely doesn't. Like, when I'm trying to text and calibrate my CGM at the same time and I realize not only do I a) have blood smeared all over the screen of my phone but I also b) entered a phone number as my blood sugar. So....sorry Dexcom. No wonder you're confused trying to reconcile you thinking I'm at 130 and me telling you I'm at 415. That one's on me. 

I'm So High Right Now, Part 3 of ??? AKA: So When DO I Worry?

I spent a lot of the last post explaining about the day-to-day high blood sugar realities. And also reassuring people that they needn't worry about these. And it's true. There's a reason low BG gets all the hype, it's because when your sugar is dropping you can go from 80 mg/dL to dead in under an hour (probably. I would double check that science, for sure).

High blood sugars aren't immediately dangerous, but they are eventually deadly. High blood sugar leads to lots of fun long-term health complications, like diabetic neuropathy, eye damage, kidney damage, Alzheimer's...yeah, yeah, you know how to use Google so I'm sure you can figure this out on your own. The more high BGs, the more likely my chance of picking up these super-cool conditions. So, if you spend a lot of time with me or another diabetic and you notice that their BGs are consistently really high? Or they don't seem to really react when they have a high BG, or make comments or share that they haven't been taking care of themselves properly? Maybe they share with you that they sometimes let their BG run high on purpose in order to lose weight? Yeah, that's when you probably want to step in. Do what you gotta do, because that is dangerous. If you like having that person around you, and you think you might want it to be long-term, nothing says "I care about you" like, "let's discuss your personal private information AKA your blood sugar levels even though you probably don't want to AT ALL."

Lots of super-high BGs, like read: no insulin at all, can lead to a fun condition called diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). This is how many T1Ds (read: yours truly) were diagnosed. It's the step before the diabetic coma, where your body is so starved for glucose as an energy source (because all your glucose is floating around in your bloodstream rather than being ushered into your cells in order to fuel them) that it starts breaking down all your stored fat and protein (aka muscle) and desperately scrabbling to get to any last bits of glucose. Like in the olden days when they would burn the furniture to stay warm during the winter. Except then imagine they ran out of furniture and also started burning the walls, which not only defeats the purpose but also results in them all being in comas.

Sad side effect of this is that, when breaking down muscle to get glucose, there is a leftover acidic tail called a ketone. Suddenly you're producing those like crazy. Your body is full of acid!! Symptoms of DKA include sudden dramatic weight loss (burning up all your fat and muscle dude! You're becoming a bag of bones!), exhaustion (no good energy sources, sad), heartburn (your body is filling up with acid), dehydration, frequent urination (gotta get rid of all that acid!!), craving sugar (because even though you're full of it floating around, none of it is actually getting to where it should go so you're actually starving for it), and eventually a coma. If you see any of these symptoms in people around you, especially the coma, I would say it's time to worry. Totally your call though.

Bottom line is that, discussing someone's BG with them can be tricky. It's private. It feels embarrassing to have a high blood sugar, even when no one around you understands what the numbers mean or is judging you at all. I judge myself. I don't want to talk about it. There's also really not too much to say about it, since all that can be done is to drink water, apply insulin and/or exercise, and wait. So weigh that when you bring it up. And also remember that, unless you are dealing with your own child who is diabetic and they are under 18 years of age,  you never, never, never need to worry about whether or not they "should" or "can" be eating whatever the heck it is they're eating. There's only one thing a diabetic can't eat, and that's poison (stole that from an internet meme. So tech savvy). So don't be getting on anyone's case when they're just trying to binge on ice cream okay?? Ummmm....I mean....responsibly enjoy a small cookie, okay??