It's A Wrap

Everyone is doing a year end review/new year resolutions. I might as well join the train.

2013

What a year, and oh how it flew by! It was a year with lots of curve balls and lots of learning. I can’t believe it’s almost been a year already, but February 8^th I will have had my insulin pump for a year. February 22^nd will be a year since my first consultation with my parenatalogist who has now been acting as my endocrinologist since then. March 13^th I met with my T1D BFF for the first time, aka my CDE (certified diabetes educator) who is out of my parenatalologist’s office. Meeting Deb and Dr. Morris has been life changing. I have learned so much from Deb and she has been an essential figure in my self management and getting my body baby ready. Always encouraging and understanding, so very thankful to have had her in my life this year. She is also the reason I decided to dump my original endo and have Dr. Morris act as my endo for now. This was in hopes that I would be pregnant by now and he would be treating me anyway but that has not happened.

 January I was diagnosed with a hypo thyroid which of course diabetics are more likely to develop, but thanks to momma and the genes in her family every woman in her family has it. Why should I feel left out? Although that was incredibly frustrating to have another diagnosis to add to the list of things I have to deal with, it was also a relief. I had all the symptoms but had ignored them. I was only diagnosed because my endo did yearly blood work and always checked for that. I had the awful fatigue, brittle nails, weight gain/bloating, dry skin and possibly other things that I’m forgetting about.

 Back to a good thing from this year. I just started using a Dexcom continuous glucose monitor at the beginning of December! That’s pretty exciting. Lots to learn there, including patience as I watch the graphs. It’s neat to be able to see on a small screen what my blood sugar levels are, it updates every 5 minutes. It’s a tremendous help on getting tight control, getting ahead of the curve and correcting ASAP.

 First time going through airport security with my insulin pump. You can read about both experiences here. They were not the greatest.

 March 26^th we celebrated 2 years of marriage. It’s been an adventure, and never ever boring. He is my constant rock and support system. I couldn’t do diabetes, at least not successfully without him.

 I was sucked into the DOC in March after reading an article on Kim @ textingmypancreas.

 I started blogging myself on March 27^th.

 July I had the best A1C ever! 5.7 How did that even happen?! I don’t know.

 Non diabetic related, we had a wonderful family vacation on the beach of Florida and did a day road trip, with my sister and brother in law, from Ft. Lauderdale to the Florida Keys which I had never been to before. We were in a beautiful wedding in June, I’d say it was in the top three of beautiful weddings I’ve been in with of course my own being #1! J My sister also got married in November to a great guy who is totally perfect for her weird quirky self. They are great together and always amusing. We had lots of trips to and visits from hubbby’s brother and his family. Love him, his wife and my niece and nephew. I know everyone thinks theirs are the cutest, but I really do think I have the cutes niece and nephew.

2014

New endocrinologist appointment scheduled for March 5^th, excited and apprehensive for a new doctor.

Baby? Maybe, we can hope and pray to God that He will bless us with a little rolly polly Panke bug that will make its entrance into our home and arms.

Of course as always aiming for a good A1C and self management.

 A new little niece will be making her appearance sometime in February, so excited for that!

Other than that, we will have to see what 2014 will bring. There were lots of tears and frustrations, laughs and hugs, learning curves and experiences, trips and adventures throughout 2013. Hopefully 2014 will be full of more happy tears, laughter and adventures. Happy new year everyone!

Cinnamon Rolls & Hash Browns

Talk about diabetes having a mind of its own and making no sense whatsoever! That would be this last Christmas weekend.

We went out of town to visit family over the weekend and came back on Monday. Saturday and Sunday mornings there were homemade cinnamon rolls that I just couldn’t resist. I had one each morning. I had no way of knowing how many carbs were in each or how many units of insulin to give so I just guessed. You know what happened? NOTHING!!! I was fine! I had no crazy highs or lows at all from the cinnamon rolls or anything else I ate. I think I had one low and a short time of being high after going out to eat one night, but overall that’s not bad.  Yippee, yay for me!

 Then we come home…………

 Christmas eve morning I had a breakfast of scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon, an orange and coffee. No crazy sweets whatsoever. I counted my carbs correctly, I’ve eaten this countless time with no problems. But not this day. BAM!!! Shortly after eating I climbed, and climbed some more, and kept climbing until I got to about 290’s, and I couldn’t get down until late afternoon. I rage bolused, and bolused some more, and more, and just kept at it and would slowly drop and then go up a few points and then maybe drop a bit more to where I thought I was finally coming down from my high and then I’d plato and not drop anymore so I’d have to bolus again!!! By the time I was finally feeling better and getting to a happy BG place it was time to eat a big Italian Christmas meal and it all went to crap again. I stayed close to 300 all night until after I fell asleep. I evened out in the middle of the night and coasted along in the 150’s between 2am and waking up around 10am. Did I mention that I was feeling like I was coming down with a cold? Then again I’m really not sure if it’s that or if it’s my jacked up blood sugars are making me feel like I’m getting sick or if I’m really fighting something off. So Christmas morning we got up late because neither of us were feeling that great. I had an orange and not even a half a cup of coffee on our way to my uncle’s for family Christmas lunch and my BG went through the roof again. I started checking my bg like crazy and watching it climb and then bolusing to try and get things back down. We got to my uncle’s around noon, and it was closer to 1:00 maybe before everyone was ready to eat and guess what! I didn’t eat! Well, if you call eating salad eating then sure I ate. I sat there checking Dexie (my Dexcom CGM as I like to call her, brilliant I know.), munching on salad as my stomach was grumbling for mashed potatoes, chicken and dumplings and green bean casserole. This is the first time I’ve ever passed on eating a meal like this because my blood sugar was being a jerk. It seems like I’m getting more insulin resistant lately. Again, maybe all of this is because my body has been trying to fight something off on and off over the past month, I don’t know. But yesterday, Christmas day, it took close to two hours for my blood sugar to come down enough for me to feel comfortable enough to eat real food. I had even bolused for a high carb meal, therefore I had a little over 15 units of insulin in my system and it still took me close to two hours to come down. Thats a lot of insulin! Even when I did finally eat, I only ate a small portion because I was so frustrated that I would spike again.  If it hadn’t have been for the day before I probably would have ignored Dexie and expected things to even out faster. Today I think I’ve been prepared for being high because I’ve been going possibly over board with the amount of insulin.

 I have to say, as much as I may resent having the pump attached to me at all times, I’m loving the temp basal setting and I’ve been making good use of it a lot lately with the nasty highs.

Robotic Me

Robotic Me In A Nutshell……………

Ok, so to sum up the last week and a half since I’ve been pretty incognito with this whole blogging thing……….Well, maybe not sum up because this will probably be longer than I plan......

This is pretty much an educational post for those of you that read this that don't have diabetes or know anything bout these battery operated/robot parts that keep me living and my quality of life just that, quality.
Be warned, I got some pics below you may not like.

I started using the Dexcom CGM 14 days ago. I’m becoming more and more robot like. I put it on right when I got home from work the first night and it was all good up until about 10pm when a “Faulty Sensor” warning popped up on the receiver screen. I called Dexom’s 24hr tech support right away and talked to a very nice and helpful lady right off the bat. After going over things with her we came to the conclusion that it was just a faulty sensor and nothing that I had done. They sent me a replacement overnight at no charge. Sweetness!!!

 Since it was time for me to be getting to bed I didn’t bother with the CGM system again until the next morning because I didn’t want to have to mess with it. After inserting the sensor into yourself there is a 2 hour warm up period and then you have to do a finger stick twice and put into the receiver what the bg reading is both times.

  This is the receiver and my meter. They are right on in this picture. Oh, I'm kinda a dummy and can't figure why this picture is sideways when it's not like this on my computer and I can't get it to flip.



 That’s why I waiting until the next day so that I could go bedyby. Next morning, I ran into an issue with two more that I tried to insert.

This is the applicator that is attached to the sensor, it seemed to be stuck to the sensor itself. You should be able to pinch the release tabs on the sides and rock the applicator out, but that wouldn't work. It seemed like the entire things was melded together. It happened twice before I tired the last one that I had and the 4^th time was the charm. (I know, you're thinking operator error, but I promise, hubby tried too and couldn't get it to budge!). Now that I've really been living with this new attachment for a full 14 days here is my opinion and how it works…..

 It’s great in the fact that it has woke me up a couple of nights to let me know that I’m crashing. It sucks/fantastic in the fact that I now see how much I actually spike. Altho I don’t feel sick, I have to wonder if I have been trying to fight something off for the last week because there are HOURS, I’m talking usually 3-4 hours AT LEAST that I’m spiking after lunch or dinner and I cannot get my numbers to come down. I know that before the CGM I would check 10+ times a day and I wouldn't always have this issue. It’s nice that I can see when I’m high and for how long so that I can get things in a better range. It’s just been really frustrating how craptastick my numbers have been for the last week. I've been using LOTS of temporary basal settings and yesterday afternoon I gave myself a correction bolus and then went and rode the exercise bike for a half hour. That did help a lot, even though after dinner I crept up higher and a little longer than I would have liked. What is weird is that I seem to be creeping up and staying up between 8pm and 9pm and staying steadily in the same high numbers until maybe 1am or so. Then I drop into the 120s or 130s and hang there steadily into 7am when it’s time to get up. My afternoons are not much better. Things are great in the mornings, no highs but after lunch around 1pm I creep up and can’t seem to get down to even out the 150s till after 4:30 or even closer to dinner time. I just keep giving myself the pep talk that I’m diabetic and this is how it goes, but something is up. These stubborn highs are really ticking me off. 

 Other than these goofed up unreasonable highs, I think I really do like the Dexcom. It’s encouraging when I see a good day, and it really is a good thing to see the highs and lows coming on. What I am struggling with a little, but not so much over the past 5-7 days because of the highs, is that when I see the lows I’m over treating. I need to forget about the Dexcom for 15 minutes and not worry about what the screen is saying. It freaks me out when I don’t see an upward arrow on the screen after 5 minutes. 60 seconds can feel like 6 hours during a low at times so waiting 15 minutes and not keep looking at the receiver screen to see what’s going on is like an eternity!!!

 I was able to get the first sensor to work for a total of 11 days and then I just felt like it wasn’t as accurate so I am now on #2 sensor. They have been FDA approved for 7 days, buuuuutttt.... as with most "D" items trying to get the most for the money and do what you can is kinda what I'm pushing for. It's possible to cheat the sensors. 

                                 Here is the sensor that goes under my skin............................

                                  Here is the top of the sensor that the transmitter attaches to

 Adhesive, I had to tape the first sensor within the first 24hrs I think. This one I haven’t yet, it’s still looking pretty stuck to me, so hopefully it will stay that way for a couple more days. I found after using I think 3 other tapes some clear stuff from Walgreens that seems to work for me pretty well and is water proof. My skin didn't like the adhesive so much, but it’s not as bad as I was afraid of.

                                              This is after wearing it for almost 11 days.

                                 My skin today after changing it out on Sunday, today is Thursday.


So I guess nothing was in a nutshell. Of course I'm going on and on and on.....................

There have been other "D" life things that maybe I'll get around to sharing one of these days.

It's A Meter Or An Ornament?

I decided that this Christmas I would carry on Brad's mom's tradition and get him an ornament. He then decided to do the same. This is what he gave me. It's really a meter he bought for a few dollars off of Ebay and then painted on the number.

Christmas For Diabetes!

It's here! It's like Christmas for diabetes. I'm totally starting my online training tonight.

Experiences

I haven't had a really BAD low in a while. As I've said in prior posts, I'm burnt out. That tends to lead to more highs than lows for me. I've been hitting high numbers that I'd rather not admit to. Today, I had a BAD low that I couldn't hide. Usually, I'm at home with hubs, or work when one like that hits and I either hide it, or just get through it with hubs watching over me. Somehow I haven't had one hit like this around friends or other family. Today, it happened. I was at a baby shower. I had just checked my bg, I was 80 but felt I could be dropping so I went ahead and ate a cake ball. I sat down next to my mother in law to eat it and watch gifts being opened. I started to get really hot and weird, but just wanted to wait it out. 20 minutes went by, she finished opening gifts and I was feeling worse. I went back to my purse to grab my meter and check. A good friend of mine was right there and asked how I was and before I could say anything saw I was at 42 and she knew I needed straight up sugar. I followed her to the kitchen for another cake ball feeling like I had to be dripping with sweat and like my head could just roll off my shoulders. As we walked to the kitchen my family was calling fur me to get my picture taken with the mommy to be and I had to just shake my head and throw my hand up for them to wait. I felt bad knowing they were all waiting on me and that others were waiting to talk to mommy to be, but I had to do what I had to do. I grabbed the cake ball, walked out for the picture and I think I heard my aunt in law say, "oh she is crashing" as I shoved half in my mouth. I posed for the picture and then shoved the other half in as they looked at the first one before taking another pic. Last few days with the highs and now this low have me anxious for the Dexcom  cgm. As much as I'm valuing my freedom from another attachment, I'm looking forward to something to tighten my control.

If Diabetes Had A Throat

If diabetes had a throat I really would punch it!

 I don’t know how many posts I’ve attempted lately. I probably won’t post this one either. I’ll draft them, think I’ll go over them and post them later, and I don’t. I go back, hate what I write and delete. Why do I hate what I write? Why am I not posting?

 My mind is a jumbled mess lately, none of it is necessarily good, happy or positive. I feel bad, even hubby asked the other day, stating I seemed to have a lot on my mind. I know, that sometimes writing helps, but not lately. Not for me. I think it’s partly because I see a lot of complaining on social media and I want to scream. I want to scream about the stupid things that people wine about, things like this that I would have a response like this to: “Really? A hang nail?! I’m so sorry that something so dumb snowballed and created such an awful day for you. Really?” Don’t people know that there are truly miserable, awful things in life that other people deal with and that life is wonderful and beautiful if you just look for it, yet………………

 But then I want to vent here, I feel like I have a valid reason, but then I don’t post because quite frankly, I really don’t think that anyone wants to read about it and I hate feeling like I’m jumping in on the complaining band wagon. No one really wants to know what daily life is like as a diabetic. (Not that I really want anyone to truly know, but at the same time misery love company as the saying goes right?) No one really wants to know how much work it is, how much it hurts mentally, physically, emotionally and financially. No one really wants to know what an A** hole diabetes was yesterday. No one really wants to hear about how no matter what I did my BG hung out in the mid to high 200s all day long. That I pretty much avoided the snacks at work for snack day and I stuck to my lunch I brought that I knew had exactly 32 carbs and I bolused for them and yet I still stayed in the 200s in the afternoon. No one wants to know that finally by the time I got home from work I was 129 right before eating the dinner that I really didn’t want because I felt like crap from blood sugar high hangover, but I tried to think positively because hey, I was finally at a better level. But then a couple of hours later I was back up around 270. I knew because of the random and very short times throughout the day that I was down in the lower 100’s that my insulin was fine, as was my sight, tubing and pump. Why did this happen yesterday? Because diabetes is a total B**ch. If diabetes had a throat, yesterday I would have punched it in the throat.

 I feel like I’m in my own little world, and it’s really lonely. I hate feeling like "D" is all-consuming but it really is.

  I know that I’m in diabetes burn out. I love how it was put in this posting from Alanna at Life On T1, “Yes, we can do anything with this disease, but we can ONLY do anything if we are ALWAYS thinking about we feel.” No wonder I’m on burn out. I gotta deal with this forever?!  Between diabetes and everything else that is all wonkey with my body it’s amazing that I’m still even semi sane.

 I’m thankful for my pump and the fact that we can afford it. I’m thankful that, at least I think I am, that we made the decision for me to get a Dexcom CGM, I'll have it early next week. God love my husband, but he said something the other day about how I want the Dexcom and my response was, “No I don’t. I don’t want any of these high tech diabetes things because I don’t want diabetes”. Am I thankful to have them, yes. Do I want them, not really. They are a necessity so maybe I’m a bit excited for the Dexcom just because it will help against days like yesterday to an extent. Want any of these gadgets, no,  not exactly looking forward to having another attachment on my body or another item to carry around in my purse or something that is going to keep me awake like a newborn at night. (Diabetes will turn into a newborn baby)

 I’m totally happy with my hubby, and life other than stupid “D” and my other physical issues that I’m dealing with right now, besides those everything else is great. I’m really not as depressed as I probably sound here. I just gotta vent cuz I’m pissed at the dead pancreas and non working beta cells that are snoozing in my body. Seriously, what are they doing in there other than an infinite vacation.