No Cake at This Party

TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY!  Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear mmeeeee, happy birthday to me!  Was that a bit much?  Oh well, we all get 1 birthday a year and I see it as perfectly acceptable to be self-centered for 1 day a year.

Diabetic Dorothy has a birthday-what to do, what to do?  So how do you celebrate a diabetic’s birthday?  How will I be celebrating mine? Do we celebrate with cake? NO.  How about ice cream?  NO!  Oh, Ok, I got it, “sugar free” foods, right? NO!  In fact, there will be NO SWEETS at all, not even fruit.  My birthday meal will be steak and broccoli; perhaps we’ll stick my birthday candle in the steak (we get creative, one year my bday candles were in a bowl of oatmeal).  Maybe I’ll get froggy later on and make some fake fro-yo from unsweetened Greek yogurt.    

You say, “Oh, Dorothy, you’re no fun at all.  Indulge a little, it’s your birthday!  Everyone deserves a treat!”  I say, it’s not worth the extra insulin, elevated blood sugars and feeling like crap or putting myself out of ketosis.  I work very hard to maintain where I am and I’ve learned that over the years, those “little indulgences,” have a tendency to turn into BIG splurges.  I’m not the kind of person that can have, “just a taste” or “a little bit” of something to be satisfied.  I’d rather be safe than sorry so birthday cake and special treats are not invited to this party!

One thing I’ve come to accept over the past few months of MDI’s is that I was a food focused person.  I thought about food all the time.  It was an obsession.  Partly because I thought I needed way more than I actually did to maintain good blood sugars.  I had frequent lows (on the pump) which always made me scared that I wouldn’t have food at the exact moment my meter read “50,” and that I’d die trying to find the nearest juice box or granola bar.   Basically, fear drove my eating habits, now, not so much.  Continuing on to some helpful tips…

Maybe you have a diabetic (either type 1 or 2) member of your family and perhaps you’d like some non-life threatening ideas to celebrate a birthday.  Here are some:

1)      Make a “cake” out of watermelon, cantaloupe and berries, like in this picture.   I’d rather see someone with diabetes eat real food than crud out of a box or from a bakery that uses transfats, white flour, white sugar, garbage. (If I had the correct URL I’d give credit to whoever really made this, but know it wasn’t me.)

2)      Look up “Ketogenic” recipes for cheesecakes.  I made one for Easter and it was amazing.  I used almond flour and crushed pecans for the crust instead of graham crackers and stevia instead of sugar.  These recipes will be low in carbs which will help not to spike blood sugar.

3)      Take the focus off of the food!  Plan a family outing, like a hike, bowling, biking or kayaking.  Get active!  It’s great for everyone!

4)      Have a party, but make the focus something like “field day,” set up corn hole, volleyball, kickball, tug of war, relay races.  It’s still active and competitive and give out awards, adults and kids can have fun with this one. 

 

5)      Go to a sporting event, football, baseball, basketball, hockey, whatever.  Get totally decked out in your favorite teams stuff and have a blast cheering them on.   

There are tons of things you can do, just think outside of the box!  Don’t focus on the food and instead focus on the celebration and what it represents.  Life is about more than eating, it’s about family and memories. 

Speaking of memories, I’m done blogging now so I can go make some with my family.  Thanks for reading.

~D

I Get Low, Low Blood Sugar That Is!

Recently I’ve had numerous non-diabetic people ask me, “what does low blood sugar feel like?”  “How do you know your sugar is low,” “How long does it last,” etc.  There may be others of you out there that are curious, so I’ll give you my two cents.

If you webmd hypoglycemia, which is the clinical term for low blood sugar they say that the symptoms are: shakiness, hunger, lightheadedness, and sweating.  Let me tell you, there is a lot more to it than these 4 symptoms. 

Front side of my medicalet

 Now, since I’ve been diagnosed I have been incredibly blessed to never have lost consciousness due to low blood sugar, though I’m sure I’ve been very close.  Passing out, coma and death by hypoglycemia are possible and that is why it is very important to stay on top of blood sugar readings and ALWAYS carry a glucagon (emergency kit), glucose tabs and snack.  It is equally important for those of us with diabetes (type 1 or 2) to wear a medicalert bracelet stating type of diabetes, name and medication.  I have always worn one and the few times I’ve had to take it off, I’ve panicked.  The idea of being somewhere and something happening and no one knowing why is scary!  

For me, the most common symptoms are shaking, cold sweats, very rapid heartbeat, heat that radiates so strongly from the inside of my body that I feel like I’m in a volcano and weakness.  When I say weakness, what I mean is that my limbs feel heavy, unsteady and as if I cannot control my muscles like I should be able to.  Typically the heat, cold sweats and strong shakes happen mostly at night.  They will wake me up from a solid sleep and I can usually guess that my sugar will be under 55mg/dl.  When the night time lows hit, I won’t say that I panic but I’m definitely more concerned.  The night time lows tend to be lower than day lows since it takes me longer to wake up and determine what’s going on. 

One of my worst episodes

An example of a bad night low was about 3 years ago.  My husband and I had traveled to visit a soldier from his unit that lives in PA.  Riding in the car and having my typical eating and exercising habits off had caused some turbulence in the blood sugar department as traveling normally does with me.  Before bed I set my meter up on the bed stand as I do every night, along with my cell phone which I use on a regular basis as a flashlight to check at night so I don’t disturb my husband’s sleep.  I was at a normal level when going to bed, but around 2am I woke in a confused, panicked state.  I was shaking so badly that I dropped my glucometer on the floor, I couldn’t find my cellphone on the bed stand in the dark, I didn’t remember where I was and by the time I finally got blood in the strip it registered as “LOW,” oh crap, oh crap, oh crap, serious panic mode.  I tried one more time, “35,” now I am shaking, confused, freaking out, sweating like a pig but cold at the same time and I couldn’t remember my husband’s name!  I stumbled around in the dark bedroom until I kicked the bag I’d packed with food.  I quickly began stuffing my face with muffins that I had made for our trip, almost choking before the noise woke my husband.  I must have looked like death because he even looked scared.  I was purely in survival mode.  

Now I’m crying, I’m scared, I still don’t know his name, I cannot even remember the name of my hometown…I think it starts with an A.  Oh who cares, I need another 37,000 muffins.  This shaking won’t stop, dear Lord I’m hot, I’m cold, I need to change my clothes because I’m soaked, God please don’t let me pass out, I keep dropping muffin everywhere, turn off this stupid insulin pump, my fingers won’t work, how do I turn this thing off?  I’m so confused.  I cannot move from my muffin eating spot on the floor, my legs don’t work, I can’t feel my arms, how are they getting the food to my mouth?  I don’t know, I don’t care.  Where’s the milk?  Do we have milk?  Oh God please make this stop.  These are the thoughts going through my brain meanwhile you’d never know it because my body is in a complete daze.

After about 30-35 minutes with this episode the shaking was gone, the sweating had stopped and now just the cold remains and I am so incredibly tired.  My body usually needs time to recover from these.  It literally wipes out all the energy I have.

Besides this episode, I’ve had dozens of others.  After 8 years of being together, my husband is pretty good at noticing the symptoms like aggravation before I do.  I have a tendency to get pretty feisty when I’m low.  My hubby will say, “You need to go check, you’re grouchy and I bet you’re low.”  Usually he’s right.  He’s also pretty good at noticing any glassy look to my eyes or if I am looking a little dazed and making me test.  Low blood sugar sometimes will sneak up on me and I won’t realize it is happening until I hit 50mg/dl.  That is a little frightening.  There have been times that he and my mom have had to feed me mashed up bananas or stick a juice box in my mouth, typically I could do these things myself even with a low but I tend to get emotional with my bad lows and I’ll be crying, inconsolably crying at that.

Do you guys see why cops may not realize the difference between a drunk and a diabetic?  We’re emotional, we may slur speech, can’t control our limbs like normal, we’re confused, we’re a mess.  So to all my cop friends out there take note to check for diabetes in folks!

Now I’ve covered what it feels like/symptoms, and obviously how I know is by how I feel and then testing.  How long do most episodes last?  Eh, depends on the reading but 15-20 minutes and I’m typically back to normal unless it was a significant drop (below 55mg/dl).  

What I always carry. Juice, tabs & glucagon.

If you need to help someone having a hypoglycemic episode and they are still conscious, a juice box works well, glucose tabs, bananas, most diabetics are taught anything with 15 grams of carbohydrates.  For me every 1 gram of carbohydrate will raise my blood sugar roughly 5mg/dl.  Therefore, if my sugar is 60mg/dl and I eat one glucose tab at 4 grams of carbohydrate my blood sugar should rise to 80mg/dl.  The hard thing is to keep from over doing it when correcting for a low.  They are scary and the symptoms typically last longer than the actual low itself.  As a diabetic when we over correct with food for a low blood sugar we rebound and will end up with a very high blood sugar…it’s a vicious cycle!

I suppose since I’ve covered low's, I’ll cover high’s in the near future.  Hyperglycemia is another lovely beast that accompanies this disease and reminds me that numbers rule my life.  

The long and short of this post, if you find me drinking a juicy juice box, help a girl out ;-)

~D

Oh Diabetes, You Confuse Me. . .

A rainy afternoon is fitting for my diabetes situation today.  There are days where my diabetes behaves seamlessly; my blood sugars are as perfect and flawless as a beautiful spring morning with the sun shining, birds chirping and flowers popping through the soil.  Then there are the days where despite my best efforts my sugars are dismal, disappointing and messy, much like the unexpected spring showers that bring soggy days and gray skies.  Unfortunately, today is the soggy spring day.  Just when I think I have the best system figured out for treating my diabetes, it’s almost as if my body decides, “Eh, let’s shake things up a little and piss her off.  Here, have a blood sugar of 250!” 

I literally eat the same breakfast every day and some mornings post-breakfast my blood sugar will creep up 100 points, while the next day the post-breakfast reading will be 10 points from where it was pre-breakfast.  I will take the same insulin dosage, within the same 10-15 minute window in the morning and the numbers can be drastically different day to day. 

Diabetes is so tricky, it is affected by everything.  Changes in my sleep will affect it, what time I wake up will impact it, hormonal “monthly” changes most definitely affect it and then there is the stress monster.  Stress, no matter good or bad stress causes my sugars to go insane.  If I have an argument it is guaranteed to skyrocket, if I have an interview, skyrocket, planning vacation, skyrocket, intense exercise, skyrocket, being stressed about my diabetes, skyrocket, living, skyrocket (it feels that way sometimes). 

Is there a way to live a stress free life to obtain optimal numbers?  Is there a way to live a “perfect” life with diabetes?  Will I ever figure out the mysteries of this disease? The answer is most likely no to these questions.  What I have to realize is that stress is inevitable and I have to let things go, walk away, count to ten, get a message, imagine people in their underwear, whatever it takes.  I need to remember that while my numbers may not be perfect, I’ve come a long way and made lots of progress in my care.  I have to realize that maybe I’m being too hard on myself and I just need to ride the glucose roller coaster that is my life today and be happy that, while not perfect, at least I’ve made it this far. 

~D