How ’bout those Colts? If I’d known a few years ago they’d go this far, I would have taken the football Peyton Manning autographed for my granddaughter and kept it in a safe place. However, she slept with it and the writing is all rubbed off.
Frank (the cat) and I settled into the recliner to watch the game Sunday, but I don’t think either of us saw the kickoff. Yep. Sleeping again. I slept so long I didn’t even see the Saints come marching in, although I did open my eyes long enough to see the Saints and the Vikings were tied near the end of the fourth quarter. For you Jets fans who are gritting your teeth and vowing never to read my blog again, I can explain: I live in Indiana. And the Colts’ summer camp is about five miles from my house.
It’s been a l-o-n-g week. I have another infection, my grandson has pink eye, and my husband’s voice is making an effort to leave him. Antibiotics are working on my infection. How can I tell? My blood glucose is dropping and I’m scurrying to adjust my basal rates down.
This is getting annoying, you know. I take antibiotics and go low. I finish taking them and go high. I’m forever adjusting my basal rates to handle the swings in blood glucose.
One thing that’s happening on the bright side, however, is that I seem to be regaining some signs of hypoglycemia.
There are a number of signs of hypoglycemia — shaking, sweating, hunger, confusion — all kinds of neat stuff. Not everybody has the same symptoms and not everybody recognizes when their blood glucose is too low. Somewhere I read that people are pretty much out of it when their blood glucose is in the 50 mg/dl range. As I’ve said before, I’ve been known to carry on coherent conversations in the 40’s. (Wait a minute. That was in last week’s blog.)
Back in the beginning, one of my signs was that I would sit down on the floor and cry. Another was that I would get snarly (“I’m not angry because I’m low, I’m angry because it’s hot outside and I’ve been riding my bike for an hour.”) My husband once told me that, when my blood glucose got too low, my eyes would glaze over, I’d get grouchy and look as if I wanted to bite the head off a rattlesnake. Doesn’t that paint a lovely picture? Wouldn’t you like to be married to that woman?
Not too long ago, I got to the point where it seemed I could look at food and my blood glucose would soar into the 200’s and 300’s. I’d have to pour about a bucketload of insulin into my body to get my glucose down.
Then I started on antibiotics. Again. A few mornings ago, I woke up at 4:30 AM very thirsty. Wouldn’t you know there was nobody awake to get me a glass of water? The slackers! I actually had to wake up enough to hobble into the kitchen and get my own.
While I was sitting on a stool, gulping down ice water, I noticed that the lights had little halos around them. Strange. Things were looking just a wee bit fuzzy, too. Then I got hungry; hungry like I’d never been before. It was an “open the refrigerator and tip the contents into my mouth” hungry. I filled the basket of my walker with a banana and whatever other foods fit into there and made my way into the den, where I checked my glucose. It was in the 50’s.
Dang! Hypo awareness! It wasn’t just a one-time occurrence, as I thought when I wrote last week’s blog. My awareness apparently is coming back. On the one hand, I welcomed it, especially when my continuous glucose monitor was off — which it was that night, as it was warming up.
On the other hand, that hunger thing has got to go! I’ve vowed to book a cruise through the Panama Canal when I’ve lost 50 pounds. That was a couple of years ago and I’ve only lost about 23 pounds so far. If the hunger thing continues, I may have to change that to “if I don’t gain more than 50 pounds…”
