I've been away from computerland for a few days - rather blissfully, I must admit. We go to our little shack in the woods (swamp-front property, as I call it) regularly when the weather warms up . It's a usually-peaceful break that feels far from our usual lives, even though it's only 20 minutes from our house (good thing, or we'd never make it there!).
I'm mulling an unusual opportunity: long-term-care insurance. How many diabetics have that? For a short time, they're offering though my company with limited underwriting - which means far fewer health questions. I just squeak by because I don't yet officially have any complications. I grilled my eye doctor recently, because he saw a few "blots and dots." Was it retinopathy? No, he said, not yet, but he wants to keep a close watch on it. So I'd better get in on the insurance while I can, even though I'll probably be paying premiums for a long time before I need it. I am worried, though, that eventually (after I've paid premiums for years) someone might look at that record from my eye doctor and claim I have retinopathy already. (It is amazing that I don't, considering I've had diabetes for going on 25 years.)
It's scary to think about that part of my future - I'm sure I will need care at some point. But who won't, if they live long enough? When, and how much? Who knows. Maybe I'll get hit by a bus first. I've never thought much about this sort of thing, only because it seemed there was nothing I could do about it. I have only the limited life insurance I get through my work without going through a health screening - which is nice enough to have, considering. I've never bothered to try for more. I've heard of people who are not diabetic, officially, being denied because of risk factors for diabetes - like one woman I know who had gestational diabetes, and later applied and was denied, although she no longer had diabetes. I'm certain that, in another few decades, people will begin to realize our life expectancy is much better than it used to be, at least for people with type 1 diabetes. But will that ever change their view of us as just a huge liability? For insurance purposes, maybe not.
I do wonder if this offer has anything to do with the recent healthcare bill's passage, part of which apparently is going to involve government-funded long-term care insurance that doesn't exclude based on a person's current health. Whether that will work out, and how expensive it might be, is anyone's guess at this point, though.
Meanwhile, I'm trying to enjoy this break from reality, and trying not think too much about such morbid things. My sugars have been running particularly low lately - maybe it's the warmer weather - so I have that to focus on, instead, along with keeping my daughter alive as she throws herself completely into everything she does - from climbing the outside of the staircase, to climbing nearly every structure at the playground (and tottering close to the edges, mainly just to tease me), to insisting on taking her own sweater off (and getting stuck). She's always been enthusiastic, but now her activity level seems to be peaking (I hope!). Gee, maybe that's part of the reason for the lows. I feel guilty sometimes when I have to, say, make her wait another 15 minutes to go to the playground while I treat a low (or eat to avoid one). But then I think, how silly; every parent has things they have to do, that take time from their kid. I just don't like it when my diabetes is one of those things.
Showing posts with label low blood sugar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label low blood sugar. Show all posts
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Nothing Goes as Planned
Everyone knows that there are exceptions to rules. The rule for treating low blood sugar is to take about 15 grams of sugar (be it orange juice, glucose tablets, soda, or something else sweet without much fat to slow down absorption), then wait 10 to 15 minutes. If the blood sugar level hasn't started to go up, eat another 15 grams, and so on. In reality, trying to follow the rules when your blood sugar is low rarely works, because you're starving, tired, and your brain has (duh!) very little fuel to use in trying to follow the rules.
Last night, I was feeling extra groggy and tested by blood sugar: 69 mg/dL (very marginally low). I knew it was dropping, though, so I ate some glucose tablets, and a granola bar (what I had on hand, and I was ravenous). I suppose the 6 grams of fat in the granola bar slowed things down a little, but it shouldn't have mattered very much. Yet 15 minutes later, my blood sugar was 48. I was feeling like I might pass out - not a good thing, as I was home alone, with my daughter asleep -- so I disconnected my insulin pump (a nice thing to be able to do), ate 6 more glucose tablets and a banana, and about a half hour later started to feel marginally better. By the time I went to bed, my blood sugar was normal. But I knew I wasn't out of the woods: I'd eaten more than 100 grams of sugar, so I was bound to go high eventually. I took a little insulin, but I knew if I took too much I'd drop again. The only way to keep from going high would have been to stay up half the night, taking a little insulin at a time. Or maybe I could have programmed my pump to give me a little insulin over a couple of hours. But was my brain up to calculating how much I should take, for how long? And as far as I know, there isn't a rule for doing that - you're supposed to follow the first rule, silly! (If you want to know what happened: Yes, my blood sugar was quite high in the morning, but I had a pretty good night's sleep. I just couldn't eat breakfast for a while, but good thing it was Sunday.)
How often do you end up off a cliff because you missed seeing a stop sign? (If you live in coastal California, please don't answer that question.) It happens all the time with diabetes; one wrong calculation, made when you're least able to make calculations, and you're suddenly completely off track, and you have to scramble up a cliff to get back. We have a lot of rules and calculations to follow these days, especially those of us who do carb counting and use insulin pumps. But for every rule, there are seemingly infinite exceptions, and no signposts to lead the way back.
Still, it's better than the old days: 20 years ago, all we had was lovely urine strips (stick it under the urine stream and watch the pretty colors) to tell us what our blood sugar was several hours ago, or blood test strips that required a series of precisely timed wipes with a messy cotton ball, with dubious results. It would take me days to get back on track, or what I thought might be on track, rather than half a day. I feel fortunate to live in a time when I can expect not to go blind from my illness, if I take the right steps. But those steps end up taking an awful lot of my brain power and anxiety.
Which leads me to try to explain why I've called this blog "One Sweet Day." It refers to a few things: The fact that I have to take things one sweet (diabetic) day at a time; and also the idea that in some unknown, probably impossible future, this disease will be just a memory. I doubt it will be in my lifetime (despite what everyone told me in the hospital when I was first diagnosed, at age 13, in the up-beat 80s). But maybe it will be in my daughter's - though I don't even dare think what I would do if she develops the disease. There's a lot of good research out there - not only beta-cell transplantation (the Edmonton protocol), but work on using the thymus to retrain the immune system to stop attacking the pancreas. So my hope is that that research will be supported and lead to something. No one should ever think that insulin pumps are a cure. They're keeping us alive and without complications for far longer than injections (although I know plenty of people do really well on injections; I myself couldn't). And they allow us more flexibility in what and when we eat. But they also create new hassles, and they're far from perfect (more on that in future postings!).
One Sweet Day also refers to my daughter's birthday (the actual day of her birth). For all that I went through (yes, that's another post as well), it was the most miraculous day of my life. I'm thankful, every day, that she was born. I try not to let that make me an overprotective mother; I'm sure it does somewhat, but I might be one anyway.
Sleep is calling, and a work day lurks behind it, so so long for now.
Last night, I was feeling extra groggy and tested by blood sugar: 69 mg/dL (very marginally low). I knew it was dropping, though, so I ate some glucose tablets, and a granola bar (what I had on hand, and I was ravenous). I suppose the 6 grams of fat in the granola bar slowed things down a little, but it shouldn't have mattered very much. Yet 15 minutes later, my blood sugar was 48. I was feeling like I might pass out - not a good thing, as I was home alone, with my daughter asleep -- so I disconnected my insulin pump (a nice thing to be able to do), ate 6 more glucose tablets and a banana, and about a half hour later started to feel marginally better. By the time I went to bed, my blood sugar was normal. But I knew I wasn't out of the woods: I'd eaten more than 100 grams of sugar, so I was bound to go high eventually. I took a little insulin, but I knew if I took too much I'd drop again. The only way to keep from going high would have been to stay up half the night, taking a little insulin at a time. Or maybe I could have programmed my pump to give me a little insulin over a couple of hours. But was my brain up to calculating how much I should take, for how long? And as far as I know, there isn't a rule for doing that - you're supposed to follow the first rule, silly! (If you want to know what happened: Yes, my blood sugar was quite high in the morning, but I had a pretty good night's sleep. I just couldn't eat breakfast for a while, but good thing it was Sunday.)
How often do you end up off a cliff because you missed seeing a stop sign? (If you live in coastal California, please don't answer that question.) It happens all the time with diabetes; one wrong calculation, made when you're least able to make calculations, and you're suddenly completely off track, and you have to scramble up a cliff to get back. We have a lot of rules and calculations to follow these days, especially those of us who do carb counting and use insulin pumps. But for every rule, there are seemingly infinite exceptions, and no signposts to lead the way back.
Still, it's better than the old days: 20 years ago, all we had was lovely urine strips (stick it under the urine stream and watch the pretty colors) to tell us what our blood sugar was several hours ago, or blood test strips that required a series of precisely timed wipes with a messy cotton ball, with dubious results. It would take me days to get back on track, or what I thought might be on track, rather than half a day. I feel fortunate to live in a time when I can expect not to go blind from my illness, if I take the right steps. But those steps end up taking an awful lot of my brain power and anxiety.
Which leads me to try to explain why I've called this blog "One Sweet Day." It refers to a few things: The fact that I have to take things one sweet (diabetic) day at a time; and also the idea that in some unknown, probably impossible future, this disease will be just a memory. I doubt it will be in my lifetime (despite what everyone told me in the hospital when I was first diagnosed, at age 13, in the up-beat 80s). But maybe it will be in my daughter's - though I don't even dare think what I would do if she develops the disease. There's a lot of good research out there - not only beta-cell transplantation (the Edmonton protocol), but work on using the thymus to retrain the immune system to stop attacking the pancreas. So my hope is that that research will be supported and lead to something. No one should ever think that insulin pumps are a cure. They're keeping us alive and without complications for far longer than injections (although I know plenty of people do really well on injections; I myself couldn't). And they allow us more flexibility in what and when we eat. But they also create new hassles, and they're far from perfect (more on that in future postings!).
One Sweet Day also refers to my daughter's birthday (the actual day of her birth). For all that I went through (yes, that's another post as well), it was the most miraculous day of my life. I'm thankful, every day, that she was born. I try not to let that make me an overprotective mother; I'm sure it does somewhat, but I might be one anyway.
Sleep is calling, and a work day lurks behind it, so so long for now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
