A tale of two days.

A Tale of Two Days.

I know I’m preaching to the choir for other diabetics and we all have crazy diabetes days. I had such a rough Monday, Tuesday was better but not great.

I am guilty of not prioritizing my diabetes management sometimes. That is the problem with diabetes the complications occur from long term lack of control and not so much the short term because I can get up exercise, go to work and basically have a “normal” life with this disease sometimes the management of it gets put second to every day issues that seem more pressing. However, sometimes you just have days that have no rhyme or reason…. like Monday and those days are frustrating.

The following paints a picture of my Monday and Tuesday.

MONDAY

Monday 4am- I woke up with my dexcom alarm telling me that my blood sugar was above 200 or 240 to be exact. Using my bolus wizard on my Medtronic pump I gave myself 2.4 units.

Monday 5am – My alarm went off, I snoozed and got up around 5:20 and did my morning physical therapy and some core/strength work. (I am really trying Ray!)

Monday 6am – I ate breakfast and gave myself a 25% bolus for my meal (vs full meal bolus) because I was going to be riding within the hour. That was 1.1 units. My BG was

Monday 6:50am – I finally got out of the house (I had to pack my pannier’s with my laptop, work, lunch, change of clothes, shoes etc. Figure out what to wear with the temperature). It was supposed to be nice so didn’t have too much to worry about finally. Needless to say my BG was rising during this time from breakfast. I didn’t give my bolus enough time to start acting before eating.

I rode 1 ½ hours as an extended ride to work. I had a glorious ride along the lake using the gravel and grass wherever I could.

Monday 8:50am – I arrived at work after showering at the gym. Shocker yes I made time to shower which believe it or not is sometimes a perk for me.

When I got to work I noticed my dexcom was showing that it was out of range. It wasn’t out of range, it was a new sensor so I’m not sure what the deal was.

Monday 10:45am – I finally took the time to test. I was at 320 WTF?. I bolused 4 units. I also noticed that my low reservoir warning was showing no bar’s time for new insulin. I refilled the pump without putting a new site in because for some reason at work I only had the tubing portion of my insertion site (note to self: restock work diabetes supplies) so I hoped that the reason for my high BG was not because the cannula that goes inside my body was not blocked and that I was running high because I was almost out of insulin. I had two bottles of insulin in my bag and I wasn’t entirely sure when I had opened them because of course I forgot to mark the bottle.

Monday 1:00pm – I ate a big salad 3 units. My dexcom was still over 200. I had an apple -another 2 units. I was getting very frustrated.

Monday 5:00 pm BG = 236 WTF! I gave myself a unit

Monday 5:15 pm I had a snack of a small banana – 2 units

Monday 7:30 I arrived home and changed my insertion site to a new area (the old site looked fine) that I don’t normally use – my upper thigh. I gave myself 4 units for dinner. I was still running above 200. For dinner I had some veggies half a sweet potato and some chicken.

Monday at 10:17 I tested as I was getting ready for bed BG 400! At this point I changed the site again remembering that if felt a little weird going in. I didn’t change the insulin. I just kept thinking this is going to work this time. I seem to not ever want to waste a drop of insulin even for my own health. I took the cannula out of my upper thigh and it started to gush blood. Ok, I figured this is it this time. I inserted a new one into my upper abdomen again a fairly fresh unused insertion site real estate. I set my alarm for 1 hour.

TUESDAY

Tuesday 12:00 am I woke up with the alarm and re-tested 396! ARgggggggggg at this point I was dead tired and just didn’t want to deal with changing my insulin. I bolused again at 2.6 units.

Tuesday 5:00 am I woke up above 200 with my alarm beeping, I’m pretty sure it beeped during the night and I turned it off a couple of times. I know, why do I have an alarm if I’m just going to turn it off. It was one of those days!

Tuesday 5:20 am I started my exercises again. I watched the dexcom and it actually dropped to 185 , interesting does this mean the insulin is working after all?

Tuesday 6:30 am I ate breakfast and gave myself a full 4.0 units THEN tossed the old bottles of insulin, guessing its age just isn’t worth it. I grabbed a new bottle of insulin from the fridge and threw it in my bag to change at work.

I rode to work

Tuesday 7:30 am I arrive at work with worst low I was at 66 and dropping . Ugh, of course NOW i’m low. I ate a few glucose tablets and a block and my blood sugar settled in at an even 150. I stayed that way for most of the morning, I snacked, I bolused and it was fine…. But it seems the tossed insulin was good after all or maybe it was just less potent.

I didn’t change the insulin in my pump.

Tuesday 12:15 pm bolused for lunch.

Tuesday 2:30 BG 234 2.0 units

Tuesday 3:00 pm I had a presentation to our audit committee and the adrenaline was making me high. I couldn’t dose myself during the meeting because I was dressed up and had the pump tucked in my bra, I didn’t think it would be a good idea to reach in there during a meeting with our CEO/CFO and board members so waited.

Tuesday 5:00 BG 228 0.8 units

Tuesday 6:00 pm rode to vision quest and plummeted.

Ate a bar and computrained for 45 minutes.

The rest of the night looked good until…

Tuesday 8:50 pm Dinner BG 100 bolused 2 units barely any carbs in dinner

Tuesday 10:30 pm low – BG 59 ate 2 glucose tabs before passing out (sleep).

I still have not changed the insulin in my pump to the new bottle as it seems to be working now and will wait until I need to change it.

OK Rant, over.

Just for shits and giggles here is the pretty picture of all my downloads from the last few weeks.