Bawling Lows

So last night I had one of those wonderful very public lows while I was working.

I had been a little funky so I tested, came up 60. So I went over and bought myself a cookie to take care of that.

My manager came over and asked me to go to the sales floor to help them out since they were so short. I was kinda having trouble talking but I said, "I-I just had a... low blood sugar... I'll be good in a sec, do you mind if I take my meter and juice with me?" I asked as I pulled them from the door greeter cupboard.

She replied with a bit of irritation, "Actually, I do mind, you can just leave those there and go, thank-you."

So I put them back in mumbling kind of incoherently about my low blood sugar. I was kind of struggling to string two thoughts together. After a bit of my mumbling she finally understood a little of what I was trying to say. She asked me if I was having "sugar troubles".  That coupled with the fact that I was low and that she had grumpily told me I couldn't have my meter and juice with me set me to tears.

Ugh, I hate going low. Usually a low robs me of my ability to talk, walk and much of anything else at least for a few minutes, but this one was worse than usual for some reason. (Might have had something to do with forgetting to eat all day.)

But here I was sobbing in front of my manager, who instantly started apologizing for upsetting me as I attempted to explain what was wrong. I was trying to explain that I had eaten the cookie and I should be fine in just a few minutes, but I was still low and how embarrassed I was that I was just bent over one of the registers bawling for no apparent reason. Eventually she figured out my mumbling well enough to ask if I was diabetic. I nodded and she instantly understood. But that did nothing to save my poor dignity. It took me a good five minutes before I could finally control my tears. 

She told me that if I needed, I could definitely come back and grab my meter or my juice if I needed, but she'd rather I leave them at the cupboard by the door while I went to the sales floor.

After my shift, I went back to her to apologize and explain why I had acted the way I had. I wanted to explain it while my BS was within a normal range. She said she understood, but nobody had told her that I was diabetic. I could have sworn I made it a point to tell all of the managers that I was diabetic. But I guess I had missed her, or she hadn't remembered. So she and another manager asked me that I come in early today to fill out some medical papers documenting my diabetes. They say for reasons of an emergency, such as if I ever pass out on them, they have all my information to give to the ambulance.

So I'll probably be heading down to do that soon. But man, I haven't been that irritated and embarrassed in a while. Last night I just curled up with Sweet Guy for a little while, telling him how much I wish I could just get rid of diabetes. I hate lows, with a fiery, burny passion. And some days, I  really hate being diabetic.

Tagged!!

Here are the rules: -
I have to answer the following questions with one word answers, then I must pass it on to seven others. The questions are as follows: -
1. Where is your cell phone?.................... Dead-
2. Where is your significant other?........Snoring-
3. Your hair color?.....................................Golden-
4. Your mother?.........................................Worried-
5. Your father?...........................................Crazy-
6. Your favorite thing?..............................Music-
7. Your dream last night?..................................Sweet Guy-
8. Your dream/goal?..................................Change-
9. The room you're in?........................................Apartment-
10. Your hobby?........................................Blogging-
11. Your fear?...........................Hate-
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years?.........Family-
13. Where were you last night?...........................Work-
14. What you're not?.........................................Graceful-
15. One of your wish-list items?.........................Health-
16. Where you grew up?.....................................Malad -
17. The last thing you did?......................................Read-
18. What are you wearing?..................................Pants-
19. Your TV?............................................................Imaginary-
20. Your pet?...........................................................Gone-
21. Your computer?..........................................Dying-
22. Your mood?.................................................Twitterpated-
23. Missing someone?............................................Always-
24. Your car?...................................................Non-existant-
25. Something you're not wearing?................Make-up-
26. Favorite store?.................................................Barnes and Noble-
27. Your summer?................................................Engaging!-
28. Love someone?..............................................Extremely-
29. Your favorite color?......................................Blue-
30. When is the last time you laughed?...............Earlier-
31. Last time you cried?.............................Last night-
I award the following people with the "I love your blog award" and in so doing tag them to complete the above questions. -
Whomever reads this, but you have to leave me a comment letting me know.

Toll

I was reading Kerri's post today. And it got me thinking about more than just my situation. Yes, I am the person that lives with a diabetic body everyday. But who else worries about said diabetic body? What toll does it take on those who love me?

I know my parent's worry about me. I know they've done research and have seen what diabetes can do to a body.

I know the rest of my family has done similar research or has asked me for the details and what all diabetes entails. 

My friends, everyday, see my sucesses and trials. They see me wince at a bad number or become elated at wonderful numbers.

They've come to the point where they all know what effect each number has on my future.

Everyone around me is affected. Even my new family.

What Kerri's post got me thinking about most was my soon to be husband. He is a man that astounds me everyday. He is doing 14 credit hours of 3000 level classes and on top of that he has recently worked to become promoted to a shift manager at Carl's Jr. He works full time doing the closing shift there. Why does he do that? Partially to work through school debt free but probably one of the things that drives him to do it most is that I can have insurance. So my diabetes is taken care of.

It just astounds me... that's all I can say. 

Yet I know that at some point, my disease takes it's toll on everyone around me. Most especially him. I can see him worry. And I can see the stress he is under.

I know he thinks about our future family. I know I am no longer the only one worrying about my ability to safely be pregnant. It seems there is a bit of a history of trouble with pregnancy in my family. Put diabetes on top of that..... And now, this post has turned into a rant. :/ Hmm... 

The point of this post is the toll that my disease takes on not only me, but the ones I love. There are days I really wish I could remove diabetes from my life, just to spare other's worry about me. To spare my dear fiance a little stress.

I do my best to do what I can by taking the best care of myself I know how. I keep myself healthy as best I can. 

"You're not dying."

Well yes, I know that. And that's not why I'm checking my pump so often.

The other day, one of my co-workers suddenly asked why I was so paranoid. I asked what she meant.

"Well you look at your pump like every five minutes, what the heck are you doing? It's not like if you don't check it, you'll keel over and die."

I looked at her for a moment, trying to sort the three ridiculous emotions that instantly flaired. The first was to laugh uncontrolably at her naive assumption, the second was oddly enough feeling irritation, because if I was checking my blood sugar or something that often, obviously, I shouldn't worry so much about my health. The last was kinda hurt.

But I marshalled all those random emotions, and pulled out my pump, showing her the screen. "Ah, I can see why you'd be so confused, actually, if you hadn't noticed, I don't wear a watch. My pump has a clock on it."

I swear you could see the lightbulb as it suddenly made sense.

Pumps are making the wristwatch obsolete. ;)

My Supermen

So today was an adventure. About an hour into work, my infusion site decided to start melting off. And since my only transportation is the bus or my feet. I had to call my friends to go dig through my apartment, find me a new site and bring one in for me.

I called up the CSM (Customer Service Manager), explained the situation and asked her to have someone watch the door while I went and made calls. She had no problem with that. She just said, "Please don't pass out on me." I chuckled and said I haven't yet. I was disinclined to tell her the effect ice cream, pizza, pasta or any high, fast acting carb has on me when I forget insulin. ;) It wasn't really relevant.

I called up the Drewicus (one of Sweet Guy's roommates and one of our best friends) and he handed me off ("Hey man, it's your fiance.") to Sweet Guy. Thank goodness he was there since none of the other guys know all the parts of my pump and would have no clue what I needed. (BTW, Sweet Guy doesn't have a cell, that's why I didn't call him direct.)

"Hey hon, what's up?"

"Sweetie, my site is falling out and my last number read 345. Could you do me a huge favor, go to my apartment, grab me a new site and get here as soon as you can?"

I instantly heard a tone in his voice. "I'll be there as soon as I can, I'll see you soon Love." He hung up.

I ran back up to the front and waited while Sweet Guy got there. Since he doesn't have a car either he had to ride the bus, it took him about an hour (quite a pain in the butt since it's only a five minute drive... we really need a car). During that hour, I swear the CSM came over five times just to make sure I was still standing and I know she had a few other associates watching me too.

Sweet Guy finally walked in the door, sweat was beaded all across his face, I thought it was only because it was 85 degrees outside. But after we both got off work tonight, he admitted he had been sweating so hard because all he could think was, "Crap, Jess is going to pass out on me before I get there, stupid, idiotic, slow buses... crap crap crap." Obviously he had a few stronger words.

I had no idea how affected he would be just by hearing that number. (Since, anymore, the highest I usually go is 220 and even that's rare, I can see why 345 threw him.) I may feel like crap in the 300s but I don't start freaking out until I can't get out of the 500s or higher.

But still, the moral of the story is, I have an amazing group of friends, a pretty decent place to work and one hell of a fiance. Oh yeah, also, follow the diabetic motto a little better: Be Prepared.

(BTW, there are two other posts in creation, be sure to check below this one for the other two.)

My Roofie

The other night me, Mike and Rob were at Mike's house watching Venture Brother's while we waited for Sweet Guy to get off work. He closes most nights.

So as usual there were treats. Mike offered me a few Airhead candy's. Which I've discovered are 14 grams of carbs. I hadn't eaten an Airhead since I was diagnosed Jan. '07. So I had no clue what they do to my BS....

Apparently they knock me out faster than a knock to the back of the head. I munched on three of them and within 20 minutes, I was down for the count. At least until the insulin I had punched in finally hit my system which was a good hour or so later.

I sat up groggily when my BS finally came within decent range again and asked how many episodes I had slept through. They told me and then Mike said to Rob, "See? Roofies!"

I laughed. "What did I miss?"

Rob: "Well once we noticed you were out, Mike made the comment: 'You know. These things are like diabetic roofies. She was out in under twenty minutes.' "

I just laughed. I love how the guys can always find ways to make me giggle about my diabetes. It's never a problem, they know better than to be 'food police'. They're well educated in how it all works so they understand all my jargon. (SWAG has become a part of all of our vocabularies) They know how to test my BS and know where I always keep a stash of sugar... just in case.

When we picked up Sweet Guy from work that night the guys were only too eager to share my 'roofie'. LOL He laughed along with us and jokingly said he'll have to plot how he can use that to his advantage. ;)


Now, on this matter of things that hit me hard. Holy cow, I've been finding things that I just can't eat without finding myself sound asleep within the hour even with a proper bolus of insulin, unless I fight to stay awake.

Pasta knocks me flat out for a couple of hours. Potatoes are hard. Regular pop or juice are really hard on me. I drink them very sparingly. White bread is a pain.

My personal favorite is ice cream. hehe, if I ever want to get drunk, I don't need alcohol, just a tub of ice cream and I'm good to go. I get extremely goofy, like a funny drunk, 'pass out' (more like get really tired and curl up for a nap) and then wake up with a hang over and have to pee like no body's business. If that isn't getting drunk, I don't know what is. (BTW, I don't drink and never will so I'll never know what it's like to be actually drunk, but if I were to guess, I'd guess it'd be similar to my ice cream experiences.)

I Live!!

Why do I always feel the need to apologize at the beginning of all my posts lately? Oh right... because I'm never on any more. Seriously, I've had people wondering if I'm doing okay. I am... I'm doing great. I'm just ridiculously busy. As in, more busy than I have ever been in my life. It might have something to do with getting married in under 100 freaking days. -giggle- :)



So an update. Um... Basically, I got the apartment with an awesome roommate. I am employed at the "Oh so wonderful" Wally World (Wal-Mart). Hey, it's a job, and I have rent to pay, a wedding band to buy, medical to pay... it goes on, yeah, I'm officially joining this club called adulthood. ;) I'm going to get into management as soon as I can.



Sweet Guy is going to get a promotion by the end of the month, moving into an employment class that offers insurance. So we'll have insurance for me. That's a good thing. We've put in for married student housing. We should get notification by November and I'll move in at the first of December.

Let's see, what else... Hmmm, just keeping myself busy, helping Sweet Guy with his 14 credit hours, 35 hour work weeks, keeping both of us up with friends and staying sane on top of it all. My diabetes took a bit of a back burner for a short while but now that I finally have a job, I'm getting back into the swing of testing regularly and watching my numbers closely again.

I'm just enjoying having a social life again, gossiping with my friends (even all my poor guy friends, since most of my friends are guys) about wedding reception plans and ideas. I've done a little dress browsing with a girlfriend. But I'm waiting till my mom has a little time so she and I can go properly looking.

I've been trying to figure out what kind of band to get Sweet Guy, I just can't decide and he really doesn't have a preference. We're working on getting my engagement ring and wedding band, we've had trouble with the ring company.  Yes, I am very excited to be able to show friends something shiny from  Sweet Guy. No, I'm not that shallow, but I am ADOS.... Attention Defacit- Oh Shiny!!!! hehe I like shiny. (Yes I am being a bit ridiculous, why you ask?) 

Humm.... what else, what else. Well so far, we've found a washer and a dryer, but that's about it as far as furnishings for our apartment. We'll probably hit up Deseret Industries (D.I., it's like Salvation Army or Goodwill, except the L.D.S. version.) for further furniture.

I think that's about it for now, I'm gonna crash for now and catch you all on the flip side.

I'm Engaged!

Hey, I've been trying to figure out how to say this, I've dreamed up wonderful posts describing everything, I've had flippant and funny ways to say it, but I realized, I just don't have much more than a moment to sit down and write the blog just how I want right now. So here’s the story barely edited and nearly entirely raw.

The basics, this Sweet Guy I am always talking about on here. Well he and I have been discussing getting married in May ‘09 for quite a while (read: months). We just wanted to get through the next school year and one of us needed to find insurance (mostly for my diabetes) before we could get married which usually means a full time job. Which is rather challenging during school. But as things would happen, my financial aid fell through, so I cannot afford school this year, which means I lost my school housing in Logan too. So between last Monday and today, I very luckily found an apartment within walking distance of Sweet Guy (remember Logan is a college town and he lives on campus, VERY LUCKY, school starts on the 25th), turned in an application and was accepted (again lucky because another girl had already applied for the same room), signed the contract, emailed that off and have paid my deposit and first rent. I’m putting in any online job applications I can find. And I’ve gotten engaged. My whole life seems to have changed direction faster than I had originally planned.

Continue for detail on engagement stuffs.

On Tuesday morning, around 2am, we were chatting on MSN, Sweet Guy asked me a question:

Sweet Guy: Would you rather get married sooner?
Jess: Want an honest answer?
Sweet Guy: Yes
Jess: Hell yes.

(I have told him this counts his proposal, he says he doesn't care, he's still going to do it properly.)
:)

It may not seem the most profound thing to many others, but to me, it's unforgettable.

We moved the wedding date up to December and went to bed after deciding that we'd talk to our families and that if we didn’t sleep soon, we’d probably have heart attacks from excitement.

When we both told our parents and I told my grandparents, I think they ALL smiled or chuckled. They had known we'd never keep the date in May. And his parents had actually been wondering if it would be December we moved the date to. So it looks like Sweet Guy and I were the most surprised parties. (It seems most friends who are ever around us believed the same.)

I talked to his Mom that afternoon after I got home from work. She said Sweet Guy's feet hadn't touched the floor since he woke up. He was just floating through the house. :) I have to admit; I still haven't found the floor. I'm stuck on cloud 9.

Tuesday night, Sweet Guy set up conference call between himself, my parents and me. (Since I'm in Delta, he's in West Jordan and my parents are in Malad, we’re a little spread between Utah and Idaho.) I watched him over the web cam and listened to him as he talked. I swear I've never heard him stutter so much or seen sweat go down his forehead like that before, but he took a deep breath anyway and asked my Dad for permission to have my hand in marriage. And he survived.

Since Sweet Guy's in West Jordan and I'm in Delta (two hours apart through the middle of nowhere), he hasn't had the opportunity to get down on his knee and propose but he's working on that. But we decided to label ourselves Engaged anyway, we’ll need all of the four months we have to plan a wedding and we just couldn't wait to tell people our news. And of course, the first thing we did was go change our Facebook status. LOL.

So up to this point, we've set a date, December 20, 2008. We've set a place, the Salt Lake City LDS Temple. And most everything else is still in the works.

Sweet Guy and I are still trying to believe that this isn't just a dream; I've pinched myself more than once just to be sure.

So there’s the news in a huge nutshell. I’m working on packing to move back to Logan right now and fielding emails, phone calls, and Facebook messages as best I can. Leave me a note but just be aware it may take me a little time to get back to you.

On a side note, I swear getting engaged has cured my diabetes. (Grandpa says it wasn’t diabetes, it was single-itis.) I’m not kidding, I seriously haven’t had any high blood sugars; I think the highest I’ve been since Tuesday was 125. Now on the flipside, I’ve had low after low rain down on me at work, at home, everywhere, I’ve drunk so much juice I never want to look at it again. And I’ve taken nearly no bolus insulin, I'm living off basal, it is freaky. If anyone has any idea’s about this please help. Thanks.

(And yeah, I do remember that a side affect of Sweet Guy is going low but.... there's two hours of desert between us, I mean come on. ;))

And now, I’ll go back to my insane life and hope to be back soon.

5 am Meandering

-yawn- Hey, it's 5 in the morning I haven't slept since yesterday morning... Why don't I blog? ;) That should put me right to sleep.

Just some random meandering of thoughts. Not a lot has been going on since I last popped on here. Working, listening to music, attempting to study, keeping up with family and friends. Just got invited to one of my high school friend's wedding receptions. I think that's 7 of the people from my grade of 71 that are now married or are engaged. That's 10%, kind of impressed.

But I've just been keeping up with everything as best I can through Facebook. Love that place.

But sometimes I get to thinking about random things, like... do all my friends that I don't talk to understand those Facebook status' that say I'm so high I can't see straight? They all know I'd never do drugs but they've gotta be scratching their heads trying to figure out what the heck I mean.

I mean, if you ever spend any time with me, you can't help but know I'm diabetic. But these people on Facebook, most don't know word one about diabetes.

I often have to catch myself when talking to them. A frequent question is how are you feeling today? Well my autopilot response usually involves something about my blood sugar numbers in between all the drama and boring fluff. I forget that they don't live with diabetes, that they don't automatically know exactly what I'm talking about.

There are very few friends who actually know exactly what I mean when I say I'm 55. The normal response is, "Is that ok?" or "Oh, that's good, right?" Very few people understand why I let out a yippee when my meter reads anything between 90 and 100. They don't understand my urge to share such wonderful numbers. They're just numbers to them. To me, they're much more. I try to just see them as status reports but I usually worry about what each out-of-range number is doing to my future health. They don't get why I groan when I see anything over 150.

Though, I've gotta say, I really appreciate that people around me do try to learn. They'll ask for what the range of good numbers are, they'll ask what a certain number makes me feel like.

There is one person who knows what all my numbers almost as well as I do, and he's getting talented at carb counts too. Yeah, I'm talking about that person I never stop talking about. ;) Sweet Guy, my boyfriend and best friend. The guy picked up the diabetes learning curve from the day he met me and ran with it.

He cheers me on when I'm down because of a really bad d-day, he helps me study my blood sugar charts, helps me bounce ideas to figure out why my latest BS average is nothing but BS. I definitely earned my name Lucky when I ran into this guy. And he has never lost the Sweet part of his name.

And if you're really curious as to what you might see me doing if you peeked into my life, you'd most likely find me chatting with him on MSN. You know, I haven't seen him in two months now. And I really hope I'm not causing too much eye rolling in whoever may be reading this. But I don't have a ton of diabetes stuff right now.

I've finally found an infusion set site that hasn't melted off yet. Top butt cheek. -shrug- I couldn't tell you why, but it has definitely stayed the week instead of sweating off the first day.

Other diabetes stuff, in my Primary Sunday school classes, it has become an event to watch Jessica test her blood sugar. I needed to do it once in class and they've been forever fascinated since. They all want a turn to poke the teacher. ;) One of my little students has started watching me in sacrament to see if I test my blood sugar. And then when we get to our classes, she proudly tells me that she saw me.. And that it was so cool, but still gross because "You licked off your finger... again, that's just yucky Jess." I love these kids, I teach about five 5 year old girls in my little class. A while back, when they asked me to explain why I had to test my blood sugar, they all accused me of being a liar when I explained that they had a pancreas. "We do not!! That's gross!! You must be lying teacher. I can't have a pancreas." Oh well, they all know I have Type 1 Diabetes and that I have to test my blood sugar to make sure I'm feeling good and that I have to have my pump to keep me healthy. (that's what they tell all the other kids not in my class) And of course that it's all very gross. I don't understand that, but it still makes me laugh when they all gather around to watch me test and then it's just hilarious the way all ten eyes watch my finger as I bring it up to lick it off. And then the subsequent groan "Ewwww", I've never left that class with anything less than a huge grin plastered on my face.

What else. Hmm, well I'm making a trip up to Malad next weekend with Sweet Guy. Gonna stay at my parent's house for the weekend and then go to Logan on Monday for a doctor's appointment with a new doctor. (YAY for finally having a driver's license!!) My last doctor decided to focus entirely on pediatrics and dropped all of his internal medicine patients. I'm hoping this new Doctor is good. I can't wait until I actually have the means to see an Endocrinologist. My last A1c was 7.1%. Not bad, but I want better but I'm not exactly sure how to change what I do. But anyway, for now, I'll just keep going to the docs that are close by so I can get my prescriptions and such.

Anyway, I should probably make another attempt at getting a little sleep. If you got this far down the post, kudos to you. I'm impressed. If you have any comments or want to know something, leave me a comment or question. I'll get you an answer asap.

tata. ;)

Five for Adults, Four for Kids

"Hey Jess, you still want to go to breakfast?"

I grunted at Grandpa, something affirmative sounding. Heck, it 6:50 am.

So I rolled out of bed, threw on some clothes and tested real quick before I followed him out the door.

Last night we had decided that when he got home from his graveyard shift, we'd hit the breakfast Delta was putting on for Independence Day.

They were just starting to assemble everything as we got there, but the food was hot and ready.

We walked up to pay for our breakfasts.

"Hey guys, it's five dollars for adults and four dollars for kids." He said looking at the two of us.

"Well I'm the kid and she's the adult so here's 10 dollars. Keep the change." Grandpa said giving me a cheeky grin.

The man had already pulled out a dollar change and was trying to hand it to Grandpa. This is when I finally spoke up. "I am 19 and a sophomore in college, does that count as being an adult?"

He looked at me like I'd sprouted a set of whiskers. I just smiled at him before Grandpa and I turned to get our breakfasts.

He mumbled, "I guess that would qualify you." before he slipped the dollar back in the tray with a slight flush.

I'm starting to wonder if I'll be 40 before people actually think I'm even 18. It has been a couple of years since I was handed a 10 and under menu.

;)

{Edit: Like Grandma Specht emailed me, I am enjoying this. haha, I just found it quite funny and had to share.}

One Hot Diabetic

As it heats up here in Delta, I notice that my body reacts differently to my diabetes care. It is normal for me and Tasha to be working in 90 -100 degree weather for most of the day. Some changes I've had to make in my care and things I've learned:

• I have to be sure to use less insulin when the temperatures spike because the heat makes me warmer, causing the insulin to work faster. Coupled with the physical work, I only need half the insulin for most of my meals during the work day.


• Lows are almost inevitable when you are working your butt off in the high heat. I thought I'd just carry around a bottle of orange juice to treat lows. Well Jessica (me, obviously) learned that orange juice tastes REALLY bad if it is left opened in her backpack for a couple of days. Apparently it does go bad. I also learned, (I know this is gross but it was a learning experience) that orange juice that has gone bad will still raise a low blood sugar. (What? I didn't have anything else with me.) It'll just make your stomach churn as well.


• I learned that carrying a small 12 oz. re-closable bottle of pop is better, pop doesn't go bad, it just goes flat.


• When you are pulling hoses all day make sure your pump site is somewhere it'll not have hose dragging across it. The hose will rub it off no matter how much tape you put over top of it.


• On that same note, Make sure your pump is secure and inside your pocket. If it's hanging off your pocket or belt, the hose will catch it and tear it off, causing you to have a flying pump that loves to try to pull your site out again as it swings in and out of your reach.


• You cannot skip meals at all when working hard, it causes more lows. I've tried a few times and every time has ended with me having to stop and nurse my low.


• Another reason to have your pump secure: When scaling fences to reach the backyard, you don't want it flying out and landing underneath you as you fall flat on your butt because you are as graceful as me and have yet to land on your feet when jumping a fence.


• Water is incredibly critical, if I don't keep hydrated I've noticed my bloodsugars seem to swing with the stress. I haven't the slightest clue why but that's what happens.


• Since I walk everywhere all day, I make sure to check my feet carefully every night for any bruises or blisters. Also, in the morning I make extra certain that my socks aren't wrinkled so I can avoid having sore spots.


• Another one I don't know the reason for: Adequate sleep is critical. Swinging bloodsugars are directly affected by the amount of sleep gotten the night before. So I've found I need at least 7 hours of sleep.


• I've learned a lot more than this but the most important thing is that there is no set formula, every single day will throw something different at me. So checking my blood sugar every 2 hours is nearly essential.

So I've got to head back out and continue melting my pants right off my butt. Cy'all later.

I Am Not Lazy, I Am Tired.

Today was another day the weather didn't cooperate with us so work was canceled for most of the day. I was able to sleep in. Catch up on sleep and re energize a bit.

Grandma came in at around 11:30 telling my to get my lazy bum out of bed. The "lazy" caught my attention and stung. She is not the first person to call me lazy. A couple of mornings ago my aunt said something similar. Now, I know most people say that in fun. Just being funny but enough honestly believe I'm just plain lazy, that it's starting to bother me. Roommates, brothers, family and friends think me lazy because when I'm not running a million miles an hour people usually find me knocked out on a couch, floor or where ever I sat down to rest.

I am becoming irritated with this assumption. I sleep because I am dead tired. Because I cannot keep my eyes open and have lost all concentration. I sleep to refuel so I am able to keep up with others and to do as much as I can. I do work hard. You may not see everything I do but I am doing it and it wears me down fast.

It drives me nuts that I wear out so fast and need to sleep and rest as often as I do. I am always tired. I am never not. I can only conclude that it must be attributed to my diabetes. I did not feel like this before I got diabetes. My numbers are always in flux, bouncing daily from the low sixties to the high 200s on many days. I have not figured out how to smooth out the instability, I'm working on it. But it wears me out. The only way I can keep up is to sleep and restore a bit of energy.

I identify with The Spoon Theory. (I would highly recommend clicking on the link if you are not familiar with the story) I may not have Lupus but I am rarely not tired and must pick and choose what I can do. When I don't, I feel the consequences.

So next time you come across me, fallen asleep on the couch or sleeping longer than you think I need to, please leave me be. I need it.

Helping. I Love It.

On Tuesday I went to a church Primary activity to see if I could help out. I didn't have work so I had the time. After we had sent the children home and we were cleaning up the Gym. The woman who was in charge came over to thank me.
"I appreciate the help, it's nice that you came." She thanked me.

"No prob, I had nothing else to do anyway."

"So I couldn't help but notice that you are diabetic." She pointed at my pump.

"Yeah, I love this thing. Makes life a lot easier." I grinned, I always love to brag about my pump.

"My niece just got one last week. We're hoping it helps her a lot. So what do you like about it?"

We jabber jawed a bit about diabetes and then switched to talking about who I am related to here in Delta. Like everyone else in Delta, she instantly knew my Grandparents and told me which of my aunts and uncles she went to school with.

When we had finished cleaning up I offered her my cell phone number just in case her sister ever needed some advice on using the pump or on Diabetes in general.

So this morning about 10 minutes after the 8 am phone call from my boss saying that we weren't working today, I got a call from the woman I had spoken with. I rolled back out of bed and answered the phone.

"Hey Jess? Could I ask you a favor? I'm babysitting my niece today and her infusion site pulled out and I can't figure out how to put in a new one."

"Sure, where you at?"

She gave me directions and I got over there as fast as I could. When I got there, Both Grandma's and a couple of aunts were gathered around the little girl, worried. I think the little girl is around 4 years old. Cute little girl. They showed me all the supplies and handed me the instruction book. They were telling about the night they'd had. Last night she had been so high the meter couldn't read her number and then she woke up this morning at 54. Sounds A LOT like my first few weeks on the pump. It took me a while to get used to it too. They showed me the site that had pulled out, asking if it were kinked, It was kinked right in the middle. So that explained why she had been so high the night before.

After about 20 minutes of fiddling with the site inserter I finally figured it out. The girl's pump is an Animas versus my Medtronic Paradigm. So it took me a bit to figure out I had to pull the tubing out before I could cock the inserter. But we finally got it done and got her arm cleaned off and that girl impressed me a lot. I know that it doesn't hurt to put a site in but she didn't even flinch when I told her that I was about to put it in. She was too engrossed in the juice she was sipping on. After about another 10 minutes I finally soldiered through the menu's and got her pump primed and running again. So after being badgered with thanks, I told them it was no problem and told them to call me if they ever needed help again or just wanted to talk.

I'm glad I went to that Primary activity on a lark, I'm glad I basically forced my cell number on her, (I'm a little awkward sometimes when exchanging information.) And I'm glad work was canceled so I could help out.

I feel good.

Evasion ID

Austin Cooper's website, Evasion ID, was brought to my attention yesterday and I have checked it out. I'm impressed. He is selling leather Type 1 Diabetic ID bracelets.

They look sturdy and Austin returned my email telling me that they are quite sturdy so I've bought myself a white thin bracelet. The price is quite unbeatable too. $19 for a thin bracelet and $24 for a thick. I'd recomend checking them out. I'm sure they'll appeal to guys more than gals but they look good.

I'll be sure to post as to how well it holds up this summer with my job.

Taking Care Of Eight.

No I'm not referring to the amount of kids the average LDS family has.
I'm referring to number eight on my Randomly Weird list. I just went and took the written part of my driver's test. I passed, missing two questions, giving me a 96%. So now all I need to do is pass Driver's Ed and I'm set to go. Woot!