I’m up at some ungodly hour of the morning. Not that it was planned. But I was in bed, dozing peacefully, when phantom pain decided to hit. It felt as if a knife was being thrust into my left foot and lower leg. Every time the knife struck, my leg would jerk violently. Not a good sleeping atmosphere.
Fortunately, I have very little phantom pain. My now-missing foot is always there. It falls asleep. It itches. My calf cramps. But even that is infrequent.
At any rate, I got up to take a prescription medicine that helps alleviate phantom pain. That’s when I discovered the reservoir on my insulin pump was nearly empty. There wasn’t enough insulin to last the rest of the night. So I came into the den to fill ’er up.
My grandson walked in (he’s an owl) and settled in for a nice, long chat. Just a nice, pleasant conversation. One part of me wanted to go back to bed. But even more of me was enjoying that rare pleasant chat.
He eventually went back to his room. Then I checked my continuous glucose monitor and discovered I was heading toward the wonderful world of hypoglycemia.
At that point, going back to bed anytime soon was out of the question, so I started working on this blog entry. Web Editor Diane Fennell will probably be happy I’m not getting it in at the last second.
Maybe I needed to change my basal rates? I get s-o-o-o-o tired of doing that! Up and down. Up and down. Sometimes for no apparent reason. This time, however, it was a molar behind the glucose changes. I had a tooth that had been bothering me. At first I thought it was a molar on the lower right side. Or maybe on the upper right side. Teeth are strange like that. But the dentist couldn’t find anything wrong.
Finally, a tooth really started bothering me. I noticed a molar on the lower left side of my mouth was loose. I knew I should go to the dentist, but kept putting it off. As long as I didn’t chew on that side of my mouth, it was pretty much OK.
Then my left ear started to bother me. Oh, bother! I went to the dentist. There had been a lot of bone deterioration in that tooth — and just since May! That was less than four months since my checkup, when x-rays were taken. I can be lax about going to regular dentist appointments, which is not a good thing, but I absolutely detest having my teeth cleaned. I’d rather have a root canal. (Yes, I’m weird.) Ya think I should grit my teeth and get on my dentist’s schedule instead of mine?
So it had to come out. And I had to go on antibiotics. And, as usually happens when I start a round of antibiotics, my insulin requirements began dropping. Then about three days later, after I had done absolutely nothing about lowering my basal rates…my glucose rose to higher than before the antibiotics. And stayed there. So I raised my basal rates. For some reason, it’s more difficult for me to be lazy when my glucose is higher than I like than it is when it’s lower than usual.
Silly me, but I don’t mind being a little low. Fortunately, I can set my continuous glucose monitor to alarm when my glucose starts to get close to the hypoglycemia stage, which is defined as being below 70 mg/dl. My hypo awareness is pretty much gone: The only symptom I have is sweating (and my glucose pretty much has to be in the 40s before I do that). And it’s summer. You know; heat and humidity. So is it hot or am I low?
It reminds me when I was going through perimenopause and would wake up sweating. I’d have to check my blood glucose to see if I was low or having a hot flash. (That was pre-continuous monitor.)
Ah, the joys of diabetes.
It’s still busy around here, mostly with pro bono work. Thankfully, I told myself, I’m almost finished with those tasks and getting into having the time to do something that pays. And, for the first time in more than two years, I actually feel up to working. I had cut back to almost nothing while going through multiple surgeries.
Then maybe it will be time for a short trip. It will be a bit of a break from the cats. M(2), one of the polydactyl kittens, has learned to remove the keys from my scooter, so I now have to remember to take them out and put them in my pocket when I’m off the scooter (such as now, when I’m sitting in my desk chair). Otherwise, they have to be retrieved from the floor — difficult to reach. Ritz, the other polydactyl, has discovered the blue light on the computer tower. He likes to tap on it until it goes out. Which means he turns my computer off. Ya think he might learn one of these days that when the computer is off he can’t sit — between me and the monitor, no less — and watch things move on the screen?
In another cat trick, I went into the bathroom a couple of days ago to find the water in the sink on full force — and three cats trying to look nonchalant. We may have to rethink choosing a faucet set that has levers instead of knobs. Although I suspect the polydactyls could figure out how to turn a knob.
