Road Trip

Good Morning Father, I have sinned. It’s been three weeks since my last confession..…or blog post. Or more accurately about 6 weeks since I’ve written anything of substance. Work has been extremely ridiculous since I got back from vacation so I haven’t had as much free time as I needed to sit down and finally write a post.

On May 25th, my husband and I took our son and drove down to Omaha for a family reunion. It takes about 25 hours to drive there so we ended up stopping our first night in Great Falls, Montana and our second night in Rapid City, South Dakota. We’ve taken the trip before and had planned to spend a couple of days in Rapid City doing touristy stuff but it was raining the whole way down so we decided to push on and get to Omaha as quickly as possible. We got there on May 27th.

Maps.google.com

If any of you are thinking of spending three days in a car with a 15 month old, don’t. It was not pleasant. We specifically chose hotels that had pools so that we could get as much energy used up as possible before we headed out the next day. It worked for the first day. Unfortunately when we got to Rapid City, Connor had somehow gotten the flu. Thankfully we had already decided to leave the next day as I really pity the poor cleaning crew that had to deal with our room. We used a lot of towels. Thankfully Connor seemed ok the next morning so we headed out as planned and got to Omaha late afternoon.

By the next morning, my husband and father-in-law had come down with the flu as well. Followed the next day by my sister-in-law and her daughter. The worst parts of it only seemed to last for about 24 hours and most of the people were feeling a lot better by Friday.

Most of the week we spent in Omaha was great. We made it to the Henry Doorly Zoo, the botanical gardens, the children’s museum, and to a photographer to get some great family photos.

Having learned from our trip on the way down, we decided to stop by 2 or 3 pm everyday so that Connor could get a lot of exercise in. This made the trip home four days. We finally rolled back into Edmonton on June 6th. While we love road trips, I think we will definitely be flying the next time we head down. 3-4 days in a car son was just a little too much for our son. I think we’ll keep road trips to less than a day away.

As for the Diabetes front, my BG’s were actually amazing. It was a little shocking actually considering we ate out almost the entire trip. I’m talking about McDonald’s, Culver’s (mmmmm…butter buns), pizza ranch, you name it, if it was bad for you we probably ate there. I became very familiar with my dual wave feature on my pump and apparently am now super pro. Yay Me! We also did a ton of walking though as you can probably tell from all the activities above. I’m betting that had some to do with it. It just goes to show that exercise really does stabilize your BG’s. Now I just need to figure out how to add in more activities to my everyday life.

Back from Vacation

After a long two week road trip, I'm finally back and mostly caught up on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest (although I don't think you can ever get completely caught up on Pinterest), Tumbler, and blog reading. Not to mention unpacking, laundry, putting stuff away, cleaning the dust out of my house, etc that goes along with returning home from vacation. I can now focus on writing about my trip. Unfortunately it will probably take a day or two as I still need to get caught up at work. ;-)

I'll leave you with this though.

Gene Leahy Mall

Diabetes Blog Week – Spread The Love

As another Diabetes Blog Week draws to a close, let’s reflect on some of the great bloggers we’ve found this week. Give some love to three blog posts you’ve read and loved during Diabetes Blog Week, and tell us why they’re worth reading. Or share three blogs you’ve found this week that are new to you.

I’ve put off writing this post as long as I could with the hope that I would actually finish reading all of the submissions for Blog Week but I wouldn’t put it off any longer. I’ve still only finished reading up to the end of Day 3 so the below are my favourites up until then. As I finish reading the rest of the submissions, I’ll make sure to update.

Favourite Posts

Carey Potash’s and George from Ninjabetic submissions for We, the Undersigned were the funniest posts I’ve read in quite a while.

Heather at Insulin Resilience memory of her daughter attending diabetes camp was so touching.

D-Log Cabin’s memory about her vision and surgery made me realize how important it is to not take my health for granted and to enjoy every minute with my family

Hilary at Rainie and Me reminded me that "I have Diabetes and I'm ok"

Andrea at No Retreat. No Surrender. made me remember why it's so important to keep advocating for Diabetes

In addition to these amazing posts, I’ve also found some wonderful new sites that I had never read before. I can’t wait to start reading their sites from their beginnings.

•  1Type1
•  Probably Rachel
•  A1Conceive

Diabetes Blog Week - Diabetes Art Day

This year Diabetes Art moves up from the Wildcard choices as we all channel our creativity with art in the broadest sense. Do some “traditional” art like drawing, painting, collage or any other craft you enjoy. Or look to the literary arts and perhaps write a d-poem or share and discuss a favorite quote. Groove to some musical arts by sharing a song that inspires you diabetes-wise, reworking some song lyrics with a d-twist, or even writing your own song. Don’t forget dramatic arts too, perhaps you can create a diabetes reality show or play. These are just a starting point today – there are no right or wrong ways to get creative!

So I didn't have any time to make anything new this week for Diabetes Art day but I'm rather proud of the project below.

From Left to Right - Oregano, Chives, Basil

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm trying to get healthier so as soon as spring hit, I thought I would try growing my own herbs. I thought it might inspire me to cook from scratch more. As I've never really grown anything (I killed a cactus in college) so I am extremely proud of these and consider growing an art form

Diabetes Blog Week – Freaky Friday

Just like in the movie, today we’re doing a swap. If you could switch chronic diseases, which one would you choose to deal with instead of diabetes? And while we’re considering other chronic conditions, do you think your participation in the DOC has affected how you treat friends and acquaintances with other medical conditions?

This was a really hard topic for me to write about. The only Chronic Diseases that I could think of sounded way worse to have than Diabetes. I don’t want Cancer. I don’t want Parkinsons. I don’t want a Cardio-Pulmonary Disease. I don’t want Lupus, Cerebral Palsy, Epilepsy, or Anemia. I’m probably already going to get Alzheimer’s as it runs in my family.

I KNOW Diabetes in all of its unpredictable glory and for the post part I live a completely normal healthy life. Sure it takes some planning to exercise or go out to a restaurant or have a baby, but I can still do all of those things. The other diseases, I’m not so sure. So I’ll stick with Diabetes.

As for my treatment of people with other medical conditions, I don’t think having Diabetes has changed that for me. Unfortunately I’ve known and currently know a quite a few people with other medical conditions. I would hope that I have always been supportive and interested in their condition and not a person that tries to “police” their activities. I’ll have to ask them especially if there’s anything I can do better.

Diabetes Blog Week – Accomplishments Big and Small

We don’t always realize it, but each one of us had come a long way since diabetes first came into our life. It doesn’t matter if it’s been 5 weeks, 5 years or 50 years, you’ve done something outstanding diabetes-wise. So today let’s share the greatest accomplishment you've made in terms of dealing with your (or your loved one’s) diabetes. No accomplishment is too big or too small - think about self-acceptance, something you’ve mastered (pump / exercise / diet / etc.), making a tough care decision (finding a new endo or support group / choosing to use or not use a technology / etc.).

Contrary to my petition, I’m actually most proud of my breakfast BG’s. The development is relatively new though. For the last 9 years, I have had issues with high after breakfast BG’s. They have routinely been in the high teens and low twenties. I have played around with basal rates and carb ratios and nothing seemed to work. I started eating the same thing every morning so that I could attain some level of consistent data to analyse. Nothing had seemed to work.

About a month ago I decided to try giving up caffeine. I had recently gotten back into reading blogs which of course led me to start writing my own again and quite a few of the blogs mentioned that they had to bolus for caffeine. As I’m trying to get my BG’s back in shape for pregnancy, I thought I should try it. It worked for about a week. The high teens came back. It then occurred to me to try giving myself insulin 15 minutes prior to eating. I know most of you are going “What? Isn’t that what everyone does already?” But no, I don’t. I usually wait until I’m finished eating and then give myself insulin. For the most part it worked so I never considered changing my ways. I was always scared that I would not eat enough for the insulin I gave myself and end up having a low. With breakfast it’s different though, I eat the same thing every morning (well except for the occasional treat like Mother’s day Brunch), two pieces of multigrain toast with light peanut butter, a small container of low fat yogurt, and a fruit. So I decided to try inserting the insulin beforehand and it worked.

For the last two weeks, I have had perfect BG’s after breakfast. They have been consistently within 2 mmol/L of my pre-breakfast results. Getting this great control has been my most amazing accomplishment. Yay Me!

(And yes, I am back to drinking coffee ;-) )

Diabetes Blog Week – Memories

Today we’re going to share our most memorable diabetes day. You can take this anywhere.... your or your loved one's diagnosis, a bad low, a bad high, a big success, any day that you’d like to share.

In my almost 10 years of being a diabetic, I have only had one day that caused me to leave work due to high blood sugars and it happened about a month ago.

As you can see from the above table, I was in the high teens and twenties for most of the day. What's weird about it is that this isn't a completely unusual day for me. It's not like I have them all of the time but it's nothing I haven't experienced before. What made it really memorable for me was how I felt. I probably shouldn't have gone to work that morning as it started as soon as I woke up but never having felt this way before, I thought it was just a weird blip. I was nauseous, sluggish, headachy (Love making up new words ;-) and pasty. Nothing out of the ordinary for high BG's but just intense. I've never really had an issue with ketones before (not that I really tested...oops) but I checked them a few times this day and there were absolutely none present. I probably should have reduced my carb intake but would that have fixed the issue? After lunch I couldn't take it anymore and went home. I changed my infusion site, took some Tylenol, had a nap, and then took a walk. Thankfully things started to even out by 8pm so I was able to go to sleep with a reasonable number. I have no idea what ended up fixing it. I could have been the site change but I was only on my second day. It could have been the Tylenol, maybe I had a minor fever. It could have been the walk. Maybe it was bad insulin. I drank about 7 - 8 litres of water that day, was that what fixed it? Who knows.  

This was just one of those days that I really hated Diabetes