Post-Thanksgiving Lows

We don't do Black Friday shopping, so today we slept in. I woke up at 8 to LOW on Dex. No alarm from Nightscout. Does it look like compression low? No. 

I rushed to his room. Didn't even wait to watch for breathing. Touched his arm. It was cold, so I rubbed it and he woke up. Huge sigh of relief. I looked at the receiver and the sensor had been stopped. Why did you stop the sensor? Shrug. Are you low? No. He pointed to the juice box trash beside the bed. Not sure how many are from last night.

I noticed the sensor sitting there. Why did you pull your sensor? Another shrug.

I waited for my heart to restart then slept a bit more while I had the chance. 

Diabetes Awareness and Thankfulness

November is diabetes awareness month.  It is also Thanksgiving month, so many people do 30 days of thankfulness.  For 3 years, I've tried to resolve those 2 things in my mind. Sure, I'm thankful for insulin, glucose meters, Dexcom, and all those other things that make this disease more manageable than it has ever been.  But can I find something about the disease itself to be thankful for?  That's where I've struggled.  How can you be thankful for a chronic life-threatening illness?

Then I heard this song:

It describes so perfectly what life has been like the last 3 years.  We are so thankful every day for another day.  It would be poor manners to tell someone else that they aren't promised another day, but I can tell myself!

Our family has always valued our time together, but since diagnosis that time has been even more precious.  We've taken a couple of weekend trips as a family and even took a vacation last year, something we hadn't done in a very long time. We all worked together this past summer.  Jason and I teach at the same school, and the boys attend the same college. They even have a class together.  So yes, we are embracing living life and loving each other every day, more than ever before.  There aren't many things to be thankful for with diabetes, but I think living life to the fullest every single day is a pretty great thing!

Snow Ice Cream

For the past 2 1/2 years, 2 cans of sweetened condensed milk have haunted me from the top shelf of my pantry.  You see, those 2 cans were bought before Seth's diagnosis, when we thought he had mono.  He was losing weight and we were making shakes trying to put some pounds back on.  I couldn't throw the cans away, but I didn't have an occasion to use them either.  So they just sat there on the top shelf of the pantry, bringing back those scary, sad memories.

Today, we turned the sad memory into a happy one.  It snowed quite a bit overnight, unusual for Texas and almost unheard of in March.  We set out some big bowls in the back yard last night, and this morning I made snow ice cream.  I used both cans of that sweetened condensed milk.  Yum!

And with that, I can open my pantry for the first time since diagnosis without thinking about diagnosis.

Trying Dex

I decided to try Dex for a week.  I was using an old transmitter and receiver, so the first few days of my data isn't stellar (lots of gaps).  Even though I was only getting sporadic readings, the data was fascinating  enough that I decided to leave it on for a few days.  Then, on day 4 it sprang to life.  Don't know how long it will keep giving consistent readings, but I'll try to keep it on as long as I can.

Here are some things I have observed:

1) I have spikes after meals.  They aren't as large and don't last as long, but they're there.

2) I really need my 2 pm snack.  I eat lunch at 11, so I have gotten into the habit of eating a snack after my last class leaves (2:08 to be exact).  I was afraid it was just a bad habit, but Dex revealed that my blood sugar is actually getting pretty low at that time of day.  That snack is not just a bad habit.  I need that snack to make it through the rest of the day!

3) Apparently I need a snack at 10 as well.  I wouldn't have known except Dex buzzed below 55.  It was only an hour before lunch, but ate a snack anyway because I was giving a test and didn't want Dex to alarm!

4) I've seen lots of women/parents of t1 girls talk about how their menstrual cycle affects their blood sugar.  I can confirm that it affected me as well. Higher for the first day or 2, then lower.  Lower than normal?  I have no clue.  Maybe I'll be able to leave it on long enough to figure out what "normal" is.

5) Wake up is not my lowest fasting blood sugar.  It actually goes down a little bit between the time I wake up and when I eat breakfast (an hour or so).

6) Mexican food caused a pretty long spike for me as well.  Not as high or as long as it does for Jason or Seth (and I assume all PWD), but it's there.

Jason had one interesting observation.  He came in the bathroom when I was showering and said, "That looks weird on you."  I know what he meant, but doesn't it look weird on everyone?  I mean, I love the security/information/help it gives, but having something like that attached to a human just isn't normal.

The thing that keeps coming up in my mind over and over is how if things affect ME this way, how much more they affect those without functioning beta cells.  It is absolutely fascinating.  Strange, I know, but I'm a science teacher so all this data is really intriguing.

Stay tuned....if I get any more earth-shattering revelations I'll be sure to share!  I've had several requests of things to try out, and as long as I'm getting data I plan to try all the things I can.

24 hour graph.  It's not a flat line, and you can clearly see the Mexican food!

New Year, Fresh Start

I've been absent from blogging for a while, and today seems like a great day to get back to it!

First and foremost - Seth was featured in the blog Happy Medium last Monday!  Stephen is doing a series of blog posts about Champion Athletes with Diabetes.  You can read his awesome article here.  I'm so proud of Seth and his accomplishments. Thank you Stephen, for recognizing these awesome type 1 athletes!  Leave a comment on Stephen's blog thanking him, if you don't mind. And read the others in his series.  There are some type 1 athletes out there seriously KDA every day!

Second - last semester in school was really difficult.  Jason and I were both taking a graduate chemistry course and it pretty much consumed every spare second.  Also, starting back at the beginning of the school year, Jason is now the swim coach for our campus (assistant coach for the district). That takes quite a bit of our time as well.  Grad school is over, at least for now, so hopefully I can get back to regular posts.  As I'm sure you know, diabetes has not been silent or easy these last few months, so I have lots to tell!

As a preview (and because I think every post needs a picture), here's a pic from our recent vacation.  Cruising with diabetes is definitely a challenge, but what isn't with diabetes tagging along?  That's just one of the things I have coming up to write about!

Happy 2015!  May it be the best year yet!