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.

Dying Little Key Makers

Just so we are clear: because someone is overweight does NOT mean that they will become a diabetic.

It's truly sad that I really have to spell that out. The one thing that I have seen in the media, on blog comments, etc. that really angers me is when someone says that because I am fat I chose to become a type 2 diabetic. Is weight a contributing factor? Probably. The way my doctor explained it to me, however, is that there are little locked doors on each of my cells where sugar enters them. Insulin is the key to unlock those doors. For some reason my cell doors stop opening all the way when the key gets inserted (also known as insulin resistance). My cells then send the message that they are starving. So, the pancreas decides that it isn't making enough keys to do its' job successfully, so it starts requiring all the little key makers to work OVERTIME. (Imagine the hours Santa's elves are currently working and you get a pretty good idea of what is going on...). So the key makers put in their mandatory overtime hours and it seems to be working. However, the pancreas currently suffers from a hiring freeze and no matter what happens the little key makers won't be replaced.

Meanwhile, across town, the sugar storage facility (more commonly called the liver) starts receiving orders to distribute more sugar. When the pancreas hears this it goes,"Uh, what? We already have too much sugar and we're already working overtime to deal with this!" But the liver replies, "Sorry guys, the cells are claiming that they're starving. My whole purpose in life is to take care of those little cells out there and make sure they're happy. Send more sugar!" And, even though there's more sugar than they could use in a century cruising through their little industrial microcosm, the liver dumps more sugar out there for the cells to consume.

Meanwhile, back at the key factory, the workers making the keys start to drop like flies due to the 168 hour work weeks they've been working. It's slowly at first, but soon turns into an epidemic. With nobody to replace the dying workers the factory shuts down and all of a sudden the whole ecosystem collapses.

From what I understand (and I'm no doctor or specialist so this is the world according to Eric) they haven't found the cause as to why insulin resistance occurs. They have some pretty good guesses that seem to be leading in the right direction, but no set in stone answers. Genetics might play a role (my skin and bones vegan non-insulin dependent type 2 diabetic brother seems to confirm that one). Weight might too (me and my heavyset brother seems to confirm that one too). So might additives and preservatives in our food supply. So might... So might... So might... Well, you get the idea.

So, to come full circle, my weight does NOT mean that I CHOSE to become a Type 2 Diabetic. And I think it's pretty darn rude and irresponsible to say that to someone.