Not a pretty sight

I had one of those great aha moments this morning.
Weeks ago I developed a stabbing pain in my stomach every time I bent over. It felt as if there was a syringe needle lodged about a couple of centimeters into the flesh (full disclosure: flab). As it was next to a sink-hole of lipohypertrophy caused by years of injecting into the same site, and the rest of my stomach was black and blue, I thought maybe it was time to be a big girl and try alternative sites like my upper arms and thighs and give the stomach a chance to recover.
So that's what I did, and I basically thought no more about it. Except that I hate the bruises on my arms, especially as T-shirt weather is here, and the needle marks on my legs look like mosquito bites. I know, vanity thy name is Jane, but it does bug me (pun intended).
Well, it looks like I'm going to have to suck it up, because last night I injected my Lantus in my stomach and the BG # this morning was 458!!!!!!!! And that was when it occurred to me that the reason my BG has been so good recently, on the low side even, is that it's actually getting into my blood stream rather than being absorbed by the scar tissue or the layer of fat I have accumulated over the past couple of years.
I know that the stomach is supposed to be the best absorption site but perhaps that's not always true. And maybe it was just a crazy anomaly, but the number was fine before I went to bed last night.
Anyway I am not about to conduct a scientific study here because I never want to see a BG score like this morning's again. Instead I took half the amount of Lantus and injected it into my arm and got the BG down to a reasonable 230 by lunchtime. I'll take my normal dose tonight, inject it in my leg and then we'll see.
Life with diabetes, it's so exciting.

Feeling a little nerdy

I've been spending a couple of hours doing geeky stuff to my websites due to the incessant rain that has been falling in this part of the world. So my brain and my fingers have been getting a great work out but the rest of my body has barely moved. BG has been kinda low for a while so it's no big deal but if I don't get some exercise every day I feel really cranky and a little bad tempered, so I'm going to get on the evil running machine for half an hour.
Before I go, a word to those who put the DiabetesOC webring navigator bar on their blogs and find it only points to a 404 error message - some webmail hosts insert forward slashes before and after html commands to foil cyberspace baddies. This renders the command invalid and you need to remove them manually *sigh*.
Wouldn't it be good if everything worked just the way we wanted it to?

Denied

I am denied once again my favourite Easter activity of walking to the chocolatier to lust after the chocolate creations like the one above before persuading my beloved to fork over fistfulls of euros so I can take a bite out the pralines inside until I find the one I like (caramel).
Yes, it's a disgusting habit but I can justify it because I have diabetes. Yes, honestly I can, at least to myself. And I don't spit out those I dislike in public. The truth is, I am extremely fussy about my chocolate and I crave the stuff I like, anything else just isn't worth it.
So this year I bought myself a rhododendron and then I planted it in the front yard. Very grown up of me, I think.



Unfortunately, it's done nothing for the chocolate craving.

Another day...another downer

Shannon why did you do this to me? I peeked at your blog Mom Wants a Diabetes Cure and you directed me to my downer for the day: Wikipedia dates. I share a birthday with Pinochet and the Bush twins. Woe is me.

Hypo or buzzing?

I'm not even sure whether to post this, it's so embarrassing. But in the interests of full disclosure and total honesty with myself......
I instituted a new rule since this morning: always clear up the kitchen before you go to bed. This will be of enormous help when I wake up hypo, stagger into the kitchen looking for OJ and some longer-lasting carbohydrate. That way I won't do what I did this morning, which was to reach for the glass on the countertop and drain it in one. The glass that contained white Rioja from dinner last night. A full glass of rioja at 6 am. It's like being a student again.

Fun testing

It's a wet Saturday morning so what better than a little testing to pass away the time. No not BG testing, I'm talking silly, stupid web tests.
I was pointed to this test by inkmusings

What European City Do You Belong In?

but I wasn't happy with the city they picked for me, even after I had played with the data a zillion times. (Yes I am a control freak).
However I did discover this one, and it was spot on except that my power colour is supposed to be tan. Tan? What are they thinking? Oh, and I don't really prefer machines to humans, just some humans.

Your Birthdate: November 25

You excel at anything difficult or high tech. In other words, you're a total (brilliant) geek. It's difficult for you to find people worth spending time with. Which is probably why you'll take over the world with your evil robots! Your strength: Your unfailing logic. Your weakness: Loving machines more than people. Your power color: Tan Your power symbol: Pi Your power month: July

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

It's back

Just as I was beginning to think I had discovered the miracle cure for diabetes (eat pasta and take less insulin, repeat until you no longer need the insulin) my BG levels came bounding back up with a vengeance: 317. Although I know about honeymoon periods, I've never heard of one happening twenty one years after diagnosis. Maybe it was a second honeymoon? Whatever it was it seems to be over now. I'm going to write it off as one more inexplicable thing about diabetes, one more thing that tests my sense of humour.
And now I'm going to forget about it for the time being. Josh Rouse is playing Town Hall in NYC tonight and we have tickets for that and for Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris tomorrow. I hope there will be singing along to the Brel even if we only know the words to one song in English, "Seasons in the Sun", and that's not even in the show. It's going to be a fun-packed weekend, folks.

And lower

In an attempt to avoid another early morning hypo, at dinner last night I carb-loaded like I was going to run a marathon. I also reduced my Lantus two units.
And the result? 42 at 5:30 am. Nuts.

Just lows

I am totally fed up of waking "low". I had maybe two days of perfect range bgs over a week ago and every day since then they've been below 60. You'd think my body would understand that I am not at my best in the morning. I need someone to give me a caffeine infusion and leave me alone for half an hour to adjust to another day here. On non-low days that I don't get coffee in bed I can function pretty well, although I tend to be a little tetchy, especially if I have to grind the beans myself.
But waking up with low bg is horrible, and it's been between five and seven am, so I'm befuddled, a little headachey and a little shakey; I have to fight the instinct to pull the duvet over my head and go back to sleep. I wonder what would happen if I tried that? I guess my self-preservation instinct is strong enough not to let me find out.
But it's driving me nuts that every morning I'm having to find the meter, test and find something to eat all before I fall over. And before I get my coffee. And I have used up all my Dextro Tablets that I brought back from Europe, and the American glucose tablets are freakishly expensive. Moan, whinge, whine.

Passing grade

Just back from the ophthalmologist where I got the results of last month's visual field test. Visiting the eye doctor is an exercise in torture for me because I get to imagine what it would be like to sit in an 8'x 5' cell with no natural light for years on end. I swear I am not normally claustrophobic but these offices are so tiny I have to hold on to the chair to stop myself running out screaming. By the time the doctor arrives my blood pressure and blood glucose levels are so elevated I can practically feel my small blood vessels dying off. Then the doctor sits down and says he would like to explain my results. Now all I can hear is the blood gushing in my ears. If he has to explain it, it must be bad, no?
Well, no, as it turns out, not bad at all. I have a blind spot on my left eye and a corresponding blind spot on my right. Which is what everyone has, the famous "blind spot". And when they made a nice computer map of my eyes and compared that to a model of people of my age I fell into the "normal" range. Despite the diabetes, despite the thyroid disease. It's so nice to be normal.
And the best news of all is that I don't have to go through any more eye tests for another twelve months.