Tuesday 9th November 2011

So. My dreams of good blood sugars on Tuesday morning were rudely interrupted by a hypo at 3 am. My own fault: I had dinner and injected the normal amount of insulin, forgetting to adjust it to accommodate for the effects of the gym earlier in the evening. I made the same mistake at breakfast on Tuesday morning and ended up hypoing again at school later in the day. As I said yesterday, I prefer hypoing to being high (although I would get hung, drawn and quartered if my doctor at home heard me say that...) so, to be honest, I got through the day feeling pretty apathetic towards it all.

And then... Today I had a minor breakthrough! The other day I decided to put my night time basal dose up by one unit, from 19 to 20. So far I've not noticed any difference but I woke up this morning with a blood sugar of 68. Now, officially, a hypo begins at 72, so anything lower than that is technically a hypo, but I was just so relieved not to be in the 300's that I really didn't care that I had to have a carton of orange juice with my breakfast, in fact, I quite enjoyed it! And the rest of the day has been good too. My body seems to understand what's expected of it for once!While I hypoed once more (4 hypoes in 2 days is NOT good really...) my blood sugars have not gone out of range the other way all day.

I even went to the gym this evening and, for once, the exercise made my blood sugars do what they should do: fall. Before I went I was 124 (perfect for exercise, although I've only recently realised this, before I would always have eaten something sugary to stave off a hypo; I've discovered I don't need to do this) and now, post-exercise, I am 98, a perfect pre-dinner level. Wow. So tonight I'm going to bask in the glory of a whole day of in-range blood glucose levels and I'm also going to congratulate myself for making myself actually do some exercise over the last few weeks. Maybe that extra nighttime unit coupled with a bit of almost-regular exercise really is the magic formula? For now it is anyway, and I'm going to enjoy it while I can!

Monday 7th November 2011

It’s been a while since my last post. I was trying to think about why and I guess there are a few reasons. One is that it’s been a school holiday and I’ve been away. So that’s my excuse for all 5 weekdays last week! As for the other days… Well. After my last post I started feeling pretty despondent with it all. This isn’t abnormal. This comes and goes and it’s something I live with, even though I’m not sure I will ever get used to it. Then there’s the very simple fact that, actually, I don’t always want to think about my diabetes. Sometimes, just sometimes, it’s nice to pretend that it doesn’t exist. Or at least not give it the satisfaction of acknowledging its presence!  See, to me, my diabetes is like a person. It’s my shadow, only it doesn’t need the sun to be there. Sometimes it gets so big that it blocks my view of everything else. And sometimes I like to gag it and squish it into my pocket. One day, I may even manage to make a friend out of it. But that day is not here yet!

To be honest the despondency is still with me a little. Over the week I was away I barely gave my diabetes a thought, other than to test my blood to check in and to inject accordingly. I had a few hypoes, but then I did a lot of walking. Hypoes frustrate me but their symptoms are short-lived. Once I’ve shovelled sugar in my mouth I generally start to feel human reasonably quickly. They’re not a good thing; too many can lead to diabetics losing their hypo-awareness symptoms, but high blood sugars are another story. They scare me. And they make me feel horrible. So a week with decent blood sugars and a few hypoes sprinkled into the mix was, overall, great.

However, this morning the monster reared its head again. I went to bed with a blood sugar just a little higher than I would have liked and woke up sky high: the curse of work is back. I don’t know what happens. I’ve talked already about stress hormones and that’s the only explanation I can come up with. I don’t mean I spend my life at work perpetually stressed; I don’t. Or even that I dread going to work; I don’t. But my body seems to silently react. It’s a sniper attack from within. Maybe it’s adrenaline, I don’t know. But whatever it is I just don’t know how to combat it. I’ve just been to the gym so I’m hoping that tomorrow morning I will miraculously awake from my slumber to be greeted by a shadow that is behaving itself. I’m not sure my chances are too good. Cross your fingers everyone!