Jul 17, 2007

Tales of Hyperglycemia, Procrastination, and a Full Moon

Jan Chait

How has my diabetes week gone? Don’t ask! While my blood glucose has been better than it had been for a couple of months, lack of maintenance on my feet resulted in some minor surgery, and attempts to keep a glucose sensor from coming loose led to me mooning the neighbor’s house. (Hopefully, said neighbor wasn’t looking out the window at the time.)

For some reason, my blood glucose had been running high for a while. There was some stress, from both good things and bad. Since my stress levels were up, my depression had deepened. Spring allergies were in there somewhere. And who knows what else. Maybe the Pluto formerly called Planet was revolting against Scorpio or something.

I knew I needed to increase my basal rate, but I have this thing about increasing my insulin, so I kept making excuses: It was something I ate. I really should get more exercise. I haven't been sleeping well.

And, finally, "I tripped over my granddaughter's suitcase and stubbed my toe." Which brings me to my second item.

It's no secret that I'm a klutz, and it was no less true as we were boarding the ship for a cruise last month. Cali was walking in front of me, hauling her rolling carry-on behind her. She slowed down. I didn't. Tripping over the suitcase wouldn't have been so bad, except that I hadn't been to the podiatrist for a while to have my toenails trimmed. Because my toenails were too long, the incident knocked one of them for a loop.

As if failing to keep up with maintenance on my feet wasn't enough, I then compounded the problem by pretending I didn't have diabetes and deciding that the toenail would just kind of fall off on its own, just like they did when I was a child and stubbed my toe.

It didn't. And it got a bit infected. Given no choice at that point, I went to the podiatrist, who removed my toenail. It hurts. And it could have been prevented if I'd just taken the time to have the routine maintenance done.

I'd been adjusting my basal rates and my blood glucose levels were coming down. Now, with the added stress of having that toenail off, I needed to keep a closer eye on my levels, so I was relying heavily on my continuous glucose monitor. However, I was down to my last sensor, and it would take a few days to get some new ones. (There's that procrastination thing again.)

Being on my last sensor, of course, Murphy's Law took over: The adhesive wasn't sticking very well. In fact, it started peeling loose the day after I inserted the sensor. I needed some adhesive tape to hold it down but, because of my toe, it hurt to wear shoes, and stores won't let you in without shoes.

I took my grandson with me to the pharmacy, gave him some money, and asked him to buy a roll of adhesive tape. He looked at me, puzzled. "It's white," I explained to him. "Get the widest roll you can."

Nodding, he disappeared into the pharmacy and came out with...wide, light-colored masking tape.

"This is not adhesive tape," I said.

"All tape is adhesive," he replied. Smart-aleck teenager.

"It's the medical tape," I said.

"Why didn't you say so in the first place?" he responded, and disappeared back into the pharmacy to return with...wide, light-colored athletic tape.

I got the adhesive tape myself.

Now comes the part where I mooned the neighbor's house.

Because I didn't want to disturb the sensor, I was wearing my jeans a bit low so the waistband wouldn't rub against the sensor and knock it totally loose. As I was going up the steps to my house (fortunately the back door), my jeans started slipping down and, finally, fell to the ground just as I reached the top step, taking my skivvies partway down my tush.

As I bent down to pick up my jeans, the only thing left hiding my dignity followed, falling to the ground and landing in a flowered heap atop my jeans. Furtively glancing around to see if anybody was watching, I quickly pulled my pants up the best I could, stepped up onto the porch, and slammed the door behind me.

Whew! Finally, I was able to tape down my sensor. Except...as I was carefully pulling off the old tape, the sensor came out. If I could have watched my blood glucose trend at that point, I'm sure it would have gone straight up.

At least I was safe behind closed doors in my house for the day—or at least until I took my turn carpooling children to swim team practice that evening. At which point I wore a dress. A long dress.

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