Wolves, a Medic Alert Bracelet, and Diabetic Cows
I’m at a bowling alley. Bowling. Chilling. Talking. Bowling. Chilling. Drinking. Chilling. Bowling. Talking.
Something happens and I decide I have to run to my apartment real quick and grab something. I exchange my bowling shoes for my regular wear shoes and I head outside. It’s the wee hours of the morning so it’s considerably dark out. There’s a line of trees between the bowling alley and the apartment complex and I don’t have to go far and there’s enough light to get from the bowling alley to the apartments. Crossing from the bowling alley to the apartments isn’t difficult at all as we’ve blazed a trail between the trees. It’s well worn. It’s like a hop, skip, and a jump, and then BAM! you’re there.
Except not on this night.
I walk outside, see my breath as I breathe, and I look up to see the stars. It’s a beautifully clear night and the air is crisp. I start walking away from the building and towards the row of trees when wolves with yellowish, goldenish, like a yellow lab or a golden retriever, colored hair circle around me and encroach upon my space. They’re growling and as they approach I notice they have green eyes and they stand almost 4 feet tall at their back. They’re teeth are eerily white and shiny like they’ve been using crest whitestrips. They get closer and closer until I can feel them breathing on me and then one of them flips his head and rips my medic alert bracelet off my left arm (ooh shiny?) They all circle around the wolf that has the bracelet leaving me mostly unattended. I turn to run, but at the sight of my movement they jump towards me with mouths wide open. I get torn to shreds.
It was a dream.
But it made me think.
The examining of my bracelet, like they were checking to see if I was edible, as though I needed to be FDA approved or something before they ate me. It made me think of cows for some reason. And if diabetic cows taste different from non-diabetic cows. And can we taste the insulin in cows, because that stuff stinks to high heaven, the smell of insulin, it’s horrible, so can the insulin be tasted in things that are using it, can we taste it in our cows. And then I thought, they wouldn’t give a diabetic cow insulin, they’d just kill it, it’s meat. But then I thought, that’d be a sad cow to kill, all skinny, there wouldn’t be much meat on it. Which brought me back to giving cows insulin. They’d be healthy if they had insulin, the diabetic cows, and so there’d be more meat on them, and then they could be killed for us to eat, so would they give the diabetic cows insulin long enough to make them healthy so that they could turn around and kill them for their meat?
And then of course I thought, do cows even get diabetes? Humans get diabetes. Cats get diabetes. Dogs get diabetes. What would make cows impervious to diabetes, yeah, cows can get diabetes, but you never hear about cows having diabetes…do fish get diabetes, can you imagine being a shark with diabetes, talk about mood swings, everything dies in it’s path as it is (okay, that might be slightly exaggerated), what if he went low, think of the destruction that could happen if a shark had a low blood sugar. Sharks don’t each much carbs, I mean, fish is like a free food, so could they just manage their diabetes with diet, it practically would be anyways…i wonder how many carbs are in grass…wheat grass, is that what cows graze on, out there in the lush green fields, are they eating a lot of carbs?
Cold And Windy
If I had gone cycling yesterday, “Cold, Wet and Windy” would’ve been the title. But I didn’t go cycling yesterday, or Saturday for that matter, because it was cold, wet, and windy. But I did go cycling last Sunday and it was cold and windy. I was very tempted to not ride too. And so was Misty. We were grumbling. It was cold. We didn’t go down the big hill. We did get to the top of the big hill though. Where my tire went flat. With 2 holes.
One of the holes filled up with slime because it was a small little puncture wound, but then the other hole, there was no filling it up, it was the size of a small rock. And, after some consideration, I decided that it was because I didn’t patch the hole from the prior week, I just let the slime fill it, put more air in it, and went on my way. In retrospect, that was stupid, and I will never do it again (at least, I have no intentions of ever doing it again.)
So, it was cold and windy, and I had to fix my rear tire. And then we decided to mosey back home, at a slow happy conversational pace. And, things would’ve been interesting had there not been a post in the sidewalk that saved me from falling. But there was a post, so I didn’t call, so there was nothing interesting.
I think we maybe rode 15 miles. It was cold and windy, but it was a happy ride. (and as a side note, my blood sugars were decent)
Like The Tail Of An Angry Stegosaurus
It’s not something I would normally notice, but it’s something that I’ve noticed since I’m not eating except for when I go low. At which point, I’m not bolusing so I therefore go high. And then I bolus when I see the high and I drop the first 2 hours, I’m steady from hour 2 into hour 3 and by hour 4, I’m low. Every. Single. Time.
Novolog has a tail for me. A tail with a spiky end on it, it’s got extra power, and I go from happy steady, stable looking numbers, to low. BAM! just like that. And I shouldn’t. It’s like an ankylosaurus all cute lookin until you see his tail. Wait, his tail is like a mace, but without the spikes…
Stegosaurus, he’s all cute but with spikes on the end of his tail. Yes, that’s what novolog is, a stegosaurus, you think it’s all not so dangerous because he’s a veggietarian but you get too close and he whacks you with his spiky tail. The last hour of novolog running in my system, that’s the spiky tail.
I’ll be walking along happily by the creek, listening to the water gently run down stream. Enjoying the greenness of the plants. The smooth round river rocks under my feet. AND THEN BAM! I get whacked by a stegosaurus that I (unbeknownced to me) wandered to close to, that sends me through the air, and next thing I know, I’m falling off the edge of a waterfall and when I try to grab something to stop myself, there’s nothing there and then I’m beneath the surface of the water at the bottom of the waterfall fighting to swim back up.
That there is the image of what my insulin does to me in the last hour of it running in my system. If it were doing what it should be doing (or what I think it should be doing, or what a real pancreas does *sigh*), I’d still be walking along happily by the creek. There’d be no stegosaurus with a dangerous tail snacking on the lush green foliage to whack me over the waterfall.
There is going to be a conversation about this nasty tail that novolog has at my next endo appointment (i.e. tomorrow) I find this unacceptable. It makes me wonder how many of the lows I experience from day to day and the seizures from the past are results of this stupid tail.
2009 Goal Review - Round 3
I’m a little late, but we’re here in the 4th month of 2009 which means the third month has gone flying past us. Things are starting to being kicked into gear and I’m falling into place of something that I should’ve never left (stupidicy, go figure). And so, it’s time to do a review of what went on last month and readjust the goals for April.
Big Goal: I will work towards my A1c dropping below 6.5%.
March Benchmark: I will do 4 session of basal testing. 1 each week.
The week of March 1-7 I’ll test the night time numbers into the morning.
The week of March 8-14 I’ll test the morning numbers through lunch time.
The week of March 15-21 I’ll test the lunch numbers through the dinner numbers.
The week of March 22-28 I’ll test the mid afternoon numbers through the bed time numbers.
This benchmark was shot to hell when I got sick and remained sick for half the month. I did however in a way start logging numbers and that led me to some trends and I was able to make some adjustments. I’m still encountering lows consistently when I think I shouldn’t be having them so basal testing the morning numbers through lunch time is imperative. That will be done during the week of April 6-10. The other thing I’m going to nail down is logging my blood sugars. Last week (March 31-April 3) I created a spread sheet with a graph and because I’m a geek and want to see my numbers in a certain fashion it’s about to be turned into a pivot chart.
The April benchmark is to simply log. I’ll start small, blood sugars only. I’ll get complicated with insulin doses and carbs at a later date. (Mental note, I think my bolus rates are off, but the only way to figure that out is to get serious about carb counting *rolls eyes and sighs* who wants to do that anyways?)
Big Goal: I will do 3 triathlons as an individual -> Jay Benson (May 10, 2009), Bottomless Lakes (July 11, 2009) and Socorro (August 1, 2009).
March Benchmark: When I get back on the 9th, I’ll cycle to work on Monday’s, Wednesday’s, and Friday’s. It will give me 30 miles a day with some good hill workouts for 3 weeks. Also, I’m going to force myself to get up and get out for a walk at 10am and 2pm daily at work. It’s important and I’ve got to do it.
Meh. I think I’m not tri-ing this year unless I’m on a team and I’m cycling…I’m just not feeling it. I wouldn’t be cycling if it weren’t for Misty. The rides we do on Saturday (2 in a row now) are the only reason I’m riding and yes, I do try to get out of them. I try very hard to get out of them…The weather you know, it’s been cold and windy…that’s reason enough to not ride right???
April Benchmark: get on the bike every weekend. short and sweet. if I can do that, I’m making progress. End of Story
Big Goal: I will read a minimum of 24 new books (2 a month).
March Benchmark: 2 new books will be read.
I read Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. I got part way through Cheating Destiny and part way through Shadow of the Wind. Needless to say, I didn’t finish 2 books. The good news, I’ll finish two books for April seeing as how I’m in the middle of two books now anyways. Well, barring that I don’t start another book and not finish any.
April Benchmark: 2 new books will be read.
Big Goal: I will take a picture each day that represents diabetes in my life for the diabetes365 photo a day project.
March Benchmark: 31 pictures, 1 picture a day
All 31 pictures got taken. All 31 got uploaded. 30 got labeled. 29 got described and posted to the D365 group. I’m a tad bit behind. But they all got taken. So that counts for something.
April Benchmark: 30 pictures, 1 picture a day.
Big Goal: I will see a new movie each month.
March Benchmark: I can’t remember what movies are coming to theatre but I know there’s got to be at least 1 that I want to see so I’ll be seeing at least 1 movie in theatre.
I went and saw Knowing. In the theatre. Goal Met.
April Benchmark: go see a movie (which, I’ve already met because I went and saw duplicity this last weekend)
At a minimum, I’d like to blog every week day this month. That gives me weekends off if I need them, but it also challenges me to actually say what’s in my head.
I think this happened for most the month. But then I started storing my thoughts away instead of sharing them. And my D365 photos became my post for the day. But the D365 photos also became more intense, I was expressing my feelings through them, and speaking what was on my mind there. So, I’m counting them, we’ll say this goal was met. But still, I’ve got posts half started, thoughts stored in the back of my mind, notes in my moleskine, there’s a lot to say, a lot. I don’t have a benchmark for this one this month…we’ll just see what happens.
On the road(bike) again
I’ve been a sloth. Yes, a sloth. It’s the truth. I’ve done nothing that can even remotely be considered exercise since my marathon in January. And while there was a period of time when I wanted to be able to do something but couldn’t because of my injury, that desire to get out and do anything was faded by the time I was released back into the wild able to run or bike or whatever else I wanted to do that involved using my foot.
3 months have passed since my marathon.
4 months have passed since I was last on a bike (because I took a break from cycling to train for my marathon…and it got cold outside and I can’t bike in cold weather).
So, after weeks of making excuses as to why I couldn’t get out and cycle (everything ranging from it’s cold, it’s windy, my blood sugars are whack (which really isn’t so much an excuse but the truth, but still) I went riding on Saturday thanks very much to Misty. And yes, I tried to weasel out of it. But regardless, I showed up, and we rode, and for not being on a bike in 4 months, I did pretty well. The only complaint I have is my aching butt.
The ride was good. For not being on a bike in 4 months I did a whole lot better than I thought I would’ve. At first I wasn’t sure if I remembered how to ride a bike, I felt unstable on the pedals. But then I was happy to be back in the saddle. It felt soooo good to have the wind in my face. To be able to speed down hills, and to make it up the hills.
The most exciting part of the ride was flying down the big hill. I mean flying, according to my speedometer I went 64.5mph down the hill. I love speeding down hills. But, I did almost get a flat flying down this hill, but my slime tubes saved me. But having to slam on my breaks so that I could stop and check my tire was slightly discomforting. I don’t even want to think of what would’ve happened if I hadn’t decided to stop and the tire had gone all the way flat. That would’ve been bad news. But I would’ve had some gnarly wounds to show for it, that might’ve been cool.
The other exciting thing was that I didn’t have to stop to get up this hill. Which was a far cry from the last time when I went up this hill and it was absolutely horrible and I had to constantly stop. But there was no stopping this time. I’m proud to report that I only stopped on my own accord twice and it was to check my blood and it was on a flat both times. Any other time I stopped was because of stop lights.
Here, see the hill, it’s the one in the middle, the one I got to fly down, and crawl back up (seriously, crawl, i was in my most sissiest gear available and had I had a more sissier gear, I might’ve been in it)
Diabetes Notes:
2 hours before the ride I reduced my basal rate to 70%.
1/2 hour before the ride I ate a powerbar, consuming 44 carbs and not taking any insulin
at ride time, my blood sugar was 196.
a half hour later i was 107. I slightly panicked at how quickly my blood sugar was dropping, I took in 40 carbs, and readjusted my basal rate to 50%
an hour and a half later i was 183. I almost crashed because I was bolusing while on my bike, I bolused .4U
During the ride, I consumed 100 carbs in fluids
after the ride I was 209, I took in another 40 carbs in the form of a peanut butter and sugar free grape jelly sammich. It was yummy.
2 hours after that I was a wonderful 116.
All in all it was a good ride, I’ve just got to figure out how to not drop so rapidly, which has always been a problem, but I didn’t technically go low so that’s a step up from where I was when I was riding last fall.
There was progress. And I was on a bike, and I guess that’s all that matters 
Diabetes Showers - Diabetes 365, Year 2 - Day 88
when i’m wearing my constant glucose monitoring system i need to have my pump near to me. it’s hit or miss on whether or not my pump receives the transmission when it’s any further from me than the edge of the tub. And so, I put my pump on the edge of the tub. It’s not been an issue thus far, and since I put it on the tub and there’s no crazy animals to knock it into the tub so I feel comfortable with it on the edge.
Little Less Mountainous - Diabetes 365, Year 2 - Day 87
About a week ago I blogged about the mountains and the foothills that comprise the graphs on my pump. In a way, the mountains and the foothills are becoming a little less and that excites me. That’s not to say that I don’t get the massive stretches between highs and lows, but there are times where the stretches are so much more minuscule and that’s exciting.
To me, that means I’m doing something right.
(pardon the bad picture, I think I was moving)
Hardly Seen - Diabetes 365, Year 2 - Day 86
100. That’s the perfect number. It’s my goal. It’s the range I want to be in. Not above 100, not below 100, 100. It’s a rarely seen number. It’s the number that all my corrections are correcting for. It’s my base number for everything.
It puts a big big smile on my face when 100 pops up on my meter.
You think I’d learn or at least pretend that I’d learned
March 2003
I almost died, which really translates to, I almost killed myself. I took a year off from taking care of my diabetes and I was drinking fairly heavily during that year as well. After I almost died, after the doctors told my mom that they had no clue what I had done to myself, after I was released from the hospital, I was rather sick for about a year. I couldn’t get healthy. My body’s immune system and resistance to germs was shot. But still, even after that near death experience, it took me several more years to get serious about taking care of my diabetes.
March 2007
Cycling saved my life. Cycling gave me a reason to take care of my diabetes. I don’t think that if I hadn’t thought about how I could be an athlete/cyclist that I would’ve ever found a reason or felt a need to take care or my diabetes.
September 2008
I went back to my old ways. I started drinking again, my diabetes care slipped (which, to be completely honest, wasn’t really all that great anyways.) Nothing was worth taking care of my diabetes for because I wasn’t cycling because I was constantly injured because the idiot in me who has a bum knee decided that running would be a great thing.
My first half marathon at the end of August severely injured my knee (that was already injured).
My second half marathon in October was ok because I walked the entire thing.
And then I trained for a marathon and was mostly injuryless during that time but because I was training for a marathon I wasn’t cycling (and it was cold and it’s easier to run in the cold than to cycle). And then I got injured during my marathon, severely strained my peroneous longus. That took me out for another month after the marathon.
And then, I was lazy, and it was still cold outside, and I had no desire to cycle. And then when I wanted to cycle, I got sick, so sick I was lying in bed whining like a baby for 10 days. And I’m still sick, fighting off whatever has got a hold of me.
This is where one would think that I would’ve learned. Not taking care of my diabetes leads to bad things, like getting sick and my body not having the strength to kill the bacteria that is “killin” me. Which leads to me not wanting to do anything in general, which leads to me not wanting to take care of my diabetes because I can’t do things because my diabetes interferes anyhow…see the vicious circle I’ve got going here.
Currently I’m where I’m sick, and so I don’t want to cycle, but I also feel like I don’t want to cycle because it takes too much for me to manage my diabetes in order for me to be able to cycle, and so, I’m doing a mediocre job of managing my diabetes…(well, ok, honestly, in the past several weeks I’ve done better than mediocre, it’s just so hard not seeing things snap into place as quickly as I can make them snap out.)
It’s a phase, and I know I’ll step out of it sooner or later…I just had to get this off my chest…
What’s in your insulin pump? - Diabetes 365, Year 2 - Day 85
To say I have some anger issues with diabetes would be an understatement.
If diabetes was something I could go after and kill, I’d do it with an axe, a little axe because I’d want to see it’s face and it’s fear and the pain that I was causing it.
I’d come barging through it’s front door as it was sitting on the couch watching tv and I’d come in, in a fury, yelling (like the romans when they invaded territories or something). I’d catch it so off guard that it would fall off the couch trembling and it would curl into the fetus position and cover it’s face. It might even be screaming "no, don’t hurt me, please don’t hurt me". And I’d ask it why. "Why shouldn’t I kill you?"
Yes, I might just take a moment to ask questions up front instead of killing first and asking later. Of course, with me holding an axe over it, it probably wouldn’t be able to do anything but stutter and beg that I let it live. And my patience would wear thin and I’d hack it into a million little pieces. And then I’d be satisfied because I had destroyed it. And then I’d live happily ever after