Most of the time, I don’t mind having Type 2 diabetes. We’ve been together for a number of years now, and it’s like a pair of old slippers. A pair of old slippers that occasionally steps on a banana peel.
This morning, I woke up hungry and grouchy. I really wanted to sleep some more — and could have. After all, it wasn’t even 5 AM yet. But there was a cat messing with my quality sleep time. Only one of our cats is allowed to stay in our room any time she wishes, and there is another who is usually welcome. This was neither of those cats. I’d already tossed him out the door once, but he snuck back in when my husband went to the bathroom.
At any rate, I gave up on sleep.
As I said, I was hungry and I was hungry NOW. I did NOT want to make an omelet. I did NOT want to toast bread. I wanted a bagel and cream cheese — and forget about taking time to toast the bagel. I wanted to pour cereal and milk willy-nilly into a bowl. I wanted a Danish.
But, no. I’m in the middle of this thing where my endocrinologist and I are trying to bring my blood glucose levels under some kind of control and I need to know exactly what I am eating so we can get my ratios, correction factors, basal rates, and such fine-tuned.
So I toasted a piece of (whole-wheat, double-fiber) bread (21 grams of carbohydrate) and I made an omelet (0 grams). And tossed a banana on the gram scale (22 grams of carbohydrate).
Oh. On top of the sleepy-grouchy-hungry-having-to-cook thing, my cleaning lady came yesterday and I was playing the “where did Lori put the ____ ?” game. In this case, it was the tea I woke up craving. (Found it on the other side of the room.)
Most of the time when my glucose gets out of whack, it’s a simple fix: Tweak a basal here and there and I’m done. Whatever is going on now isn’t a simple fix.
It kind of started last spring when my white blood cell count shot up and an infected kidney and giant kidney stone were found. Before I could get my glucose settled down from that, they started to whack out again. Interestingly, my white cell count is up again. Or it was in late December. I need to head to the lab tomorrow for a follow-up test.
My basals need fixed. (I’ve increased them more than 1 unit an hour around the clock.) My ratios need fixed. (I’ve gone from 1 unit of insulin for every 10 grams of carbohydrate to 1:4.) My correction factor needs fixed. (It was 1 unit of insulin to drop my glucose 10 points. I have no idea what it is now. I just fake it.)
At my side is a piece of paper where I write down my blood glucose before meals. Two hours after I begin eating. Bedtime. Nighttime. Three o’clock in the morning. And I write down how many carbs I’ve consumed and how much insulin I took.
I’m more of a free-spirit snacker rather than a 3-meal-a-day person, but I suppose a week out of a lifetime isn’t all that much to sacrifice for good control. Or…hmmmm…maybe that’s what those “other” boxes are all about. Snacks!
At any rate, I’m running high and having the devil’s own time bringing — and keeping — those numbers down. In fact, I’m not very successful. My last HbA1c was 7.9%. It usually runs below 6.5%. I’m tired all of the time. I’m hungry. I run to the bathroom a lot. And I swear my contact lenses don’t fit any more. (I should call my ophthalmologist.)
Something is going on in my body. My doctors and I are working on it and will get it figured out one of these days. When we do, and when we get it taken care of, my blood glucose will crash and I’ll start all over again, from trying to get my numbers down to trying to get them up.
Eh. I’ll get through it. It’s just that quirky diabetes. Which I don’t want to have today.
