Highs and Lows

For almost two weeks now I have been a wee bit under the weather. You see, I had this ugly sinus infection that decided it didn't like its' current place of residence. So, seeing the "for rent" sign posted by my lungs, it decided that a move was in order. Needless to say, walking pneumonia really isn't that cool of a thing to be dealing with (sugar readings all over the place and lots of other "quirky" things). But, this isn't what I wanted to write about today...

Last Friday, despite the moving party that was occurring inside my body, I trudged off to physical therapy (mainly because I had forgotten to cancel the appointment and was going to get charged either way). After donning my mask to prevent me from spreading any germs I proceeded to trudge through 10 minutes of wall slides, having my knee "knifed" to break up the scar tissue, 10 minutes on the stationary bike, three minutes of squats against the wall, two reps of 10 "four ways" fighting the resistance tubing attached to the wall, two reps of 15 hamstring curls, two reps of 20 ball tosses while only standing on my surgery leg and finally five minutes on the StairMaster 4000 (roughly 10 flights of stairs).

I was just cruising past the seventh floor of my imaginary ten story building when it happened: my body started to shake uncontrollably and instead of just trudging along through my last three flights of stairs I had to call it quits. After curling up on the therapy table and having the electrodes attached to and ice placed on my knee I pulled out my sugar tester and stabbed my finger. Shoot. Zombie finger (thanks Kerri for teaching me that term). So I felt around and found my warmest finger and stabbed it. Fortunately I was able to get just enough blood to get a reading: 68 mg/dl. I had just caught my first low.

For those of you just joining me here's the recap: 72 minutes into a 75 minute workout my sugars tanked. My physical therapy was first thing in the morning, I hadn't grabbed anything to eat and I hadn't brought anything with me to correct my shortsightedness.  And, I was paying the price.

And then it happened. I felt an intense wave of heat and dizziness sweep over my body.  I'd felt these same sensations before. I had always attributed them to being tired, but this time things were different. I was still a little disorientated from the low but was fearful that I was going even lower and that this was another sign of the low I was surfing. I pulled out my tester and went for the other side of my non-zombie finger to see where I was headed (I still had about nine minutes left of knee muscle shock therapy). Lo and behold I was reading 132 mg/dl. Can you say "LIVER DUMP" boys and girls?

I guess I should be grateful that my liver works somewhat correctly and did what it was supposed to (and had enough glucose in storage). I should be, but I'm not. I'm pretty scared that I had a 64 mg/dl swing in roughly eight minutes. I should be grateful that I have a better understanding of how my diabetes causes my body to work. Instead I have fears and insecurities that continue to haunt me.

New Years

Well, another year has slipped into the history books.  There was lots of change in my life over the last year.  Here are just a few of the highlights (I’ve included explanations by way of hash tags):

• Diagnosed a Type 2 Diabetic. #icandohardthings
• Knee surgery. #ouch
• Earlobe extension surgery. #checkingtoseeifyoureawake
• Cancer scare. #cancersucks
• Watching my children fail. #whydonttheylearn
• Surgery on wife’s ankle. #doubleouch
• Newtown, Connecticut. #tragedy
• Being banned from soda. #byebyedrpepper

Not everything was bad:

• Knee surgery. #nopain
• Weight loss. #20poundsgone
• Increased exercise. #walkskiporrun
• Didn’t have cancer. #cancersucks
• Camping with son in Wyoming. #martinscove
• Camping with family at Goblin Valley. #noberylliumspherehere
• Watching my children succeed. #theywerelistening
• Kissing my wife on New Year’s Eve. #stillinlove
• Newtown, Connecticut. #hugyourkids
• Being banned from soda. #drinkwater

I hope you and your family have a great 2013!

Vigilance

Wow.  I never thought that I would ever need to write this post, but the events of the last week have - shall we say - opened my eyes to a problem I have.

 

As I mentioned in a previous post, I recently had knee surgery.  To complicate this, my wife had surgery to remove a bone spur on her heal and stretch her achilles tendon.  To quote her Doctor, "Your toes need to be elevated above your nose for the next two weeks."  So, short of trips to the powder room (does anyone really call it that anymore?), she is flat on her back in bed.

 

What does this have to do with vigilance?  Let me start by saying that I have no clue how my beloved wife is able to accomplish everything she does in a day.  Having dealt with everything she does for the better part of a week now, I'm at a loss to explain how she has the time to do it short of magic (time-turner anyone?).

 

This morning while sitting in physical therapy with my knee wrapped in a pile of heat wraps I realized that I hadn't checked my blood glucose in almost two days.  Oops...  I also realized that I didn't take my meds yesterday.  Double oops... Would being on insulin make these "oops'" fewer and farther between? Definitely, as I'm sure having to put a needle into my body EVERY meal would be a constant reminder to do what is right... But for now I'm not on insulin and have got to figure out a better way of managing my diabetes (any and all suggestions are currently being solicited - leave a comment if you want to help this silly man out).