Highs and Lows

Since my visit to the endocrinologist, things have been rough, to say the least. I've had a hectic few weeks and between getting my bloodsugar back in check to attempting to get my apartment rented out, I've been pretty stressed out.

Last night I had pasta for dinner. In moderation, I can control everything. I was in moderation. And yet, my blood sugar spiked to 400, and I wasn't feeling good. After a while of taking insulin and not coming back down, I freaked out. My head felt light, my body ached, and I wanted to cry. So, I had my boyfriend drive me to my mom's so I could change an infusion site that I'd already changed once that day. That ended up doing the trick.

Of course, while I'm there, why not weigh myself with a belly full of pasta and the rest of the day's delights?

211. I weighed 211 pounds.

I'm so embarrassed. I've weighed around 200 for a few years now, priding myself on not gaining a freshman fifteen. But now, here we are.

I do martial arts, I don't consider myself weak or incredibly out of shape (although recently I've had to focus more on school and my diabetes than my workouts). But this? I'd thought I'd lost weight, things were fitting looser. But it may be that my muscle is converting to (gulp!) fat.

It's a vicious cycle. Bloodsugar is low, eat, feel better, feel worse, bloodsugar is high, take insulin. I'm so sick of it. Last night I talked out loud during a state of crisis about how I wish I wasn't diabetic for the first time since I was in middle school. I wish I wasn't, because then I'd feel well enough to be in class right now.

I'm so tired.

The Hypo After the Endo

I visited my endocrinologist yesterday and learned about my future options in pumps, got to be weighed on the giant weighing station (that's always the best -- not), and most importantly, got my a1c taken. For the last nine or ten months, I've been in the 8s, and was hoping for an improvement from my 8.7.

The nurse was nice and he made small talk with me, and when I told him the a1c had me real nervous, he said he'd get it to me as soon as he had it so I wouldn't have to wait in fear.

When he told me it was 8.8, I cried a little. It was embarrassing, but I've had a rough week and probably would've cried more if he wasn't in there consoling me. He said it wasn't too bad, that he's seen people jump from 8 to 11 (8.8 is the highest I've been), and at the very least, I'm consistent. Before leaving he asked if I wanted a glass of water, and I said no. When the door shut, I focused on calming myself. It wasn't a jump like last time, you didn't go up .6 like last time, and you've been doing what you're told.

Sure enough, everything on me spiked. Basal and bolus both went up, the diabetes educators talked to me about the Medtronic cgm system and the newly approved system that will adjust basal rates based on your readings from your cgm sensor.

Gee, I wish I had that last night. After taking a correction dosage for a high of 300, I caught myself before I dropped. It was bedtime, I was tired, and I shuddered to think about the result of if I'd gone to sleep without checking.

Sure enough, about midnight, I'm coming back up, but now I'm feeling sick. Swishing Coca-Cola will do that to you, I suppose. So, instead of going to bed, where my boyfriend slept peacefully, I slept halfway upright on the couch so I wouldn't feel the need to barf I got when lying down. After a fitful three hours on the couch, I finally felt well enough to go to bed.

Waking up, my bloodsugar is high. Again. But now I'm scared to bolus, I don't want to drop again and feel that horrible Coca-Cola-induced anxiety and jitters. I'll be calling the diabetes educators... After a nap, that is.

Am I Afraid of Death?

Recently I've had the idea of premature death due to complications of diabetes brought up to me (thanks to a troll on Reddit, no less, but Reddit is full of them and I don't really care anymore).  So that brings the question to my mind, am I afraid of death?  Am I afraid of a premature death due to diabetic complications?

The answer is no, not necessarily.  I think I've accepted the fact that the majority of diabetics die younger than the general population, but statistics show it's usually only by ten or fifteen years.  I can accept not having ten or fifteen years of my life.  It's better than how my grandma went.

Dementia-related death is what scares me.  My grandpa was terrible at keeping himself healthy -- the man had three triple bypasses.  Yes, you read that correctly.  The man had a slew of health problems, including trouble with his heart, his cholesterol, his kidneys, and any other mass assortment of things. He was also a type 2 diabetic. However, what ended up taking him was a stroke and the aftermath of that. He didnt walk with a cane or walker, and had no wheelchair. I remember him as a boisterous man who clicked his dentures at my brother and I as a kid, not as someone going through hardened arteries, potential amputations, or retinopathy. For someone who took such poor care of himself, he didn't get taken from us because of his diabetes. He was taken from us from a love of food and too little exercise.

My grandma though, she was healthy as a horse. She had no major problems, no diabetes or kidney or heart disease and took medications that helped with arthritis and some, from what I understand as mild, cholesterol problems. Her glasses were an inch thick and she'd had cataracts, but nothing life-threatening for goodness sake.

But then it happened. She had a mini-stroke while visiting her sister with my dad. Her sister was already sliding downhill, as she had already had a series of mini-strokes. She had them while taking a nap, and it scared the crap out of my dad when she woke up and didn't recognize him.

That's what I'm afraid of. Having this prolonged slide into death. I'd rather reach home base running, thank you very much. A year in a nursing home, medicated and confused out of my brain? No thanks.

A Little Background

So, this is my first time trying to blog in a very long time.  Like, middle school time.  I'm going to do my best to keep things normal around here, but I'm currently a college student and a part-timer, so it may degrade into posting when I get around to it as opposed to a schedule.  But isn't that what blogging is all about?  Freedom and expression of thoughts and experiences as they happen.

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition in which the beta insulin cells that the pancreas makes are attacked by the immune system.  They're attacked because the immune system makes white blood cells that attack diseases, and they have a certain set of "keys"; they normally match nothing made by your body, but in an autoimmune disease, they have a key matching something your body makes.  According to WebMD, 5% of people with diabetes have type 1.

I was diagnosed at the age of 5, during June of 2001.  I had been rapidly losing weight, a loss of appetite, drank a lot of fluids and used the bathroom a lot.  My grandfather was a type 2 diabetic, so we knew the warning signs, and my parents tried to take my to the doctor, but the doctor had a substitute in as he was on vacation.  The receptionist refused to let me be seen as they were only taking "sick children," so we waited.  And waited.  And sure enough, I got sick, massively sick, vomiting everywhere.  My parents rushed me off to the doctor's office again and after some convincing, I was allowed in, and subsequently rushed to a hospital.  I remember my mom making a phone call to my dad from the doctor's office, and she was crying, and I didn't really understand what was going on around me, so I cried.  I asked for my stuffed animal that I kept in bed to be brought.

When I was at the hospital, I was given a coloring book and an IV.  The staff tried to keep me entertained and my mind off the fact that my life was about to change in a very serious manner, and all I was concerned about was a giant indoor playground they had set up in a room they passed while I was being carted in.  My parents were nearly given a heart attack.  It was almost impossible to draw blood from me, and at several points in my life, my dad's told an anecdote about a nurse who did a urinalysis with the results being in color, the darker the worse.  He said that she said "Oh, I'm expecting her to be a dark green or maybe blue."  Sure enough, the color came out black.  He said her face paled and she rushed off to get a doctor.

I don't really remember a lot of my time in the hospital.  My mom says that the first night she thought that I was asleep, so she finally let out everything and started to cry, and that I told her everything would be alright.  I remember her sitting in the bed with me, coloring in the farm-themed coloring book, things seemingly normal in my life except for that fact that I was in the hospital.  Every day I asked if we could go to the playground, and my parents said that we could when I was discharged.  They had a computer lab in which there was an iSpy computer game that I absolutely loved (and consequently couldn't find once I was discharged, leaving me to instead fill in the gap with the books, which I still love).

My dad said that someone from the church we were going to visited, one of the officials, but not really anyone of importance.  It left my dad mad because he asked where the pastor was, because, while they were deeply ingrained in their faith and were a part of the church community there, the pastor was visiting one of the older members with deeper pockets who had a cold or a broken wrist or something of that sort.  He says that it's one of the reasons we left that church, because we were shunned for being lower middle class when the rest of the members were definitely upper class and donated more, and that this was rewarded in obvious situations like this.  "My daughter almost died and what do we get?" he'd fume.  I didn't really care.  I still don't.

And on the third day, I rose.  It was my discharge day.  Two of my best friends at the time, a brother and sister of a family we still keep in touch with came by and visited me.  They gave me a book on African animals that I enjoyed for years, and a glow-in-the-dark giraffe that I aptly named Jerry.  We got to leave my hospital room for good and finally visit the indoor playground, which, looking back was pretty bland.  The walls were white, with a flat green leaf sticker running all around the walls.  There were bridges and little huts all in dark wood.  I remember not feeling like I got to spend enough time there, but my parents were probably just wishing for nothing more than to never have to see a hospital again.

I don't really remember a time when I didn't have diabetes.  Being sick in the car is my first memory.  My dad says I didn't wanna take my shots when I got home at first because I was obviously all better now that I wasn't at the hospital.  I don't remember it, but I was five.

I used to just use syringes with humolog and lantus until about four years ago, when I got my first insulin pump, the Animas Ping, and that just uses humolog.  I'm looking to get into CGM possibly, and now the warranty is up on my Ping, I'm planning on getting a new pump.

So, yeah.  That's my diagnosis.  I'm gonna run this blog in an attempt to collect my thoughts and maybe help someone else out there who's freshly diagnosed, or parents of recent juvenile diabetics looking for some advice.