Two (bad) days

Monday, December 18, 2006 | 7 comment(s)

I'd like for this to be a happier, more upbeat post, but unfortunately, it's not.

Yesterday (Sunday) was a very sucky blood sugar day.

It actually started on Saturday night. Meg and I spent Saturday in the city doing some Christmas shopping and each of us getting haircuts (as odd as that sounds). We decided to stop in at a favorite Italian restaurant of ours. Meg gets the same dish there every time: bow tie pasta with prosciutto and mushrooms in a cream sauce. I don't eat the fungus, so I can't really speak to the spell it has cast on my wife, but she loves it.

I ordered penne pasta with "Mariscos del Adriático"
That is
"Seafood from the Adriatic Sea." Though I seriously doubt those shrimp and scallops and mussels were all the way from Adriatic sea (at least I hope not!).

close
and severly underestimated the duration that the carbs would affect my blood sugars.

I thought I had done a pretty good job of estimating when 2 hours post-meal I was at 126, but then at 3 hours post, I was at 168 and at 4 hours post I was at 273. I know that I gave at least a portion of the bolus as a square wave, and I know that I corrected like crazy once I was at 273 before going to bed. I even woke up in the middle of the night (circa 3am) and rang in at 134. I was pretty psyched and even in my sleepiness, I gave myself a tiny half-unit bolus so I would wake up below 100 on Sunday morning.

But no, that was not to be.

I got to sleep in a little on Sunday morning (which was nice), but woke up at 285(!!!!!) at 9:15am. WTF? Not a nice way to start a day.

And the day sucked from there on out, really.

Had a steep decent from there down to 72 mg/dl by 1pm, hung in the mid-100s through the late afternoon (which isn't really all that bad), but then topped out at 489 at the end of the day.

Here it is in all its roller-coaster glory.

We were on our way out to dinner at a friends place at 6:30pm and I ate a granola bar and only bolused for half of it because I knew we wouldn't be eating for some time. This makes no sense. This is old-school diabetes therapy thinking. Old habits are hard to break sometimes, though.

When I snuck off to test my blood sugar before the meal, I was pretty surprised by the 346 reading. I chalked it up to the half-ass bolus for the granola bar (though that really couldn't have caused it, and I should have been suspicious then) and gave a boatload of insulin to correct and account for the (now) small dinner I was going to eat. We ordered out Indian food, and I ate nothing but meat basically, and the smallest piece of Naan. Oh and I drank a beer and a half. After dinner, creme brulée, cookies, some sort of chocolate/pecan tart, AND pumpkin cheesecake was served. I ate none of it. I sipped my beer and as everyone else was eating their desserts, I started to develop an upset stomach.

I thought that maybe one of the mussels I'd eaten wasn't quite right. By the time we were walking out to the car, I tested again, and my blood sugar basically didn't budge: 352. I was pretty nauseous and asked Meg to drive home. When we got home, I thought I was going to be sick. After pacing around and drinking a little water, my stomach calmed down. I started to get ready for bed and tested my blood sugar again.

4-effin-89.

Not cool.

Then it was like the missing piece to a puzzle finally fell into place:

"Something is wrong!"
"Check out your site, Kevin!"

I inspected my site, and sure enough: the little blue arrows were not lined up, and furthermore, I could see that the cannula was full of blood. These were such rookie mistakes. I should have been on this at the first reading over 300. I was so disappointed with myself. I wanted to at least have eaten some of that pumpkin cheesecake to end up in the stratosphere like this!

I tested for ketones (oddly there were none), I switched out the site, took (another) boatload of insulin, and finally fell asleep when I was "all the way down" at 437. I woke up the next morning at 196 -- not as bad as Sunday morning, but still a pretty shitty way to start the week.

I hate this so much.

I'm trying so hard, being so damned disciplined, and then this sneaks up on me and pulls the rug out from under my efforts. I feel like such a whiner, but I'm going to say it anyway: It's just not fair.

I actually have a second bad day of news to share, but I've yammered on long enough -- tune in for more bad news tomorrow!!

7 Comment(s):

Blogger In Search Of Balance said...

Yesterday I forgot to blous for a sandwich I ate. Just forgot. And it was a sandwich. Lots of bread. I caught it at about an hour or so and scored a lovely 342, but that it was totally preventable just killed me.

Our disease is unforgiving to moments of forgetfullness. And it sucks. But all we can do is pick up and move on, and hope it won't happen again.

Best wishes with the rest of your week. May it get better and better.

Anonymous Anonymous said...

If there's only one thing to say for starting a week badly, it's that it can only get better! Keep your chin up and don't give up, it'll get better!

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Na, you're not a whiner. Yes it sucks. Yes it's not fair.

But don't beat yourself up for what you call "rookie mistakes". We make mistakes like this early on because we don't know any different. Then we learn from them. Then we get so damn good at taking care of ourselves as part of everyday routine and life, that we forget these lessons just a little. Making a little mistake like this is just a reminder. I'll bet it won't happen again for a while.

You do a good job in looking after yourself, and no one can be perfect. And as others have already said - things can only get better. I hope they soon do.

I made a stupid mistake this weekend and have a post percolating about it right now. Sucky it may be, but you are definitely not alone.

Blogger mel said...

My blood sugar is currently 309. Went to bed at 147. Had less than a handful of chex mix, bolused. Woke up and here I am.

I agree, this sucks and it's not fair.

Blogger Bernard said...

Kevin

I HATE IT when I have something like this and it takes me so long to think about my site.

I'm sorry you had such a lousy, awful, stinking, no-good, blood sugar day. Give yourself some time to recover, it always knocks me out physically and emotionally for about 36 hours afterwards.

I wish you 120ish days in the future.

Blogger floreksa said...

You are not a whiner.

I honestly thought as soon as I opened your log "How sad is it that we will understand the frustration and anger that a chart like that can bring?"

Non-D people would have no freakin clue what they were even looking at and for some reason that pissed me off this morning.

Blogger Scott K. Johnson said...

Major suckage indeed.

BUT - you were able to figure out what was going on! How frustrating would it have been if the site was fine?

I also don't think you're a whiner. If there is one place we should be able to unload and be understood - it's here.

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