I’m happy to report that sensible eating, a little bit of exercise and a positive attitude have helped my blood sugars. Since starting walking a little (did a mile over my lunch hour yesterday) my blood sugars are back on target – I think the highest post meal blood sugar I’ve had is in the 140’s – pretty good!!!

This morning’s wake up fasting blood sugar was 90 – right in the range!!!

I do miss those darned Ding Dongs!!!! – once in awhile I’ll have one again (someday!!!)

Ok, the last three months I’ve been as lazy as a three-toed sloth and ate everything in sight. It was so easy. Eat and punch a few buttons on my pump. Then I noticed that my jeans were fitting a bit tighter and my blood sugars weren’t quite as good as they had been in the past 6 months.

Friday I had my 3 month checkup with my pump doctor and got the crappy news. I have gained 20 lbs in the past nine months (since going on the pump) and my 6.6 A1C in December had climbed up to 7.6. My blood pressure was also up. NOT GOOD!!!!!

I started eating sensibly again over the weekend and my blood sugars are better. I’ve also started walking just a little bit, too. The drainage ditch right in front of our house has a bridge on 22nd street and another one on Cody Ave. Each lap around the ditch is .5 miles, so I’ve made a goal of walking two miles every other day (and hopefully more as the weather gets better).

I want to weigh 30 lbs lighter by August. We’ll see!

Scientists are working on a tattoo ink that would monitor blood glucose levels. Instead of poking my finger 8 times a day, I’d love to have a tattoo that would check it out!

Nano Ink ‘Tattoo’ Could Monitor Diabetes: Discovery News

I’ll have to say that blood sugar wise, 2009 is starting off to be a good one. Six out of seven of my morning blood sugar readings have been in “normal” range. If this keeps up – I can’t wait to see my next A1C!!

Next week starts a new wellness initiative at FHSU for employees. The University is providing free wellness health assessments and wellness training programs for faculty and staff. I’m going to be brave and start. I’m a wuss when it comes to exercise, but I really need to drop about 30 lbs. I’ve gained 10 lbs since starting on the pump in July! We’ll see how that goes!!!

Today is the beginning of a new year – 2009. It started off good as far as blood sugars go.

88

I wonder just how many times I’ll poke my finger this year? How many times I’ll have to change infusion sets? However many they are, the’ll help me do the finer things in life.

Hugging my kids.
Kissing my wife.
Talking to a friend.
Watching the flowers pop up in the spring.
Swimming this summer.

The list goes on and on, and I’m going to make sure I’m around for a lot more New Years!

What is World Diabetes Day? A day set aside for all of us living with the big D to spread the word about diabetes awareness. I’ll choose to share a typical day in my life living with the big D.

Thursday, 9:30 p.m. I go to bed battling a cold or the latest crud. As a person living with diabetes, it is easier for me to catch the latest thing my kids bring home from school or the babysitter.

Thursday 11:15 p.m.
I wake up knowing my blood sugar is low. I typically don’t have too many lows anymore since being on the pump, but they happen. I check my blood sugar and it is 61. The kids drank all of my OJ a couple of days ago and there’s no milk (we need to go to the grocery store), so I have two pieces of toast with butter and honey. This gets my blood sugar up but not before I go into total shakes and cold sweats. Fall asleep/pass out in the chair until my blood sugar comes back up.

Friday 7:15 a.m.
Wake up. Test my blood sugar – it is 81. GREAT!!!! Some mornings it is good, some not so good. Disconnect my insulin pump, take a shower, brush my teeth (because of my bad teeth and my diabetes, I have to make sure I take extra care of my teeth – my dental hygienist and I have a love/hate relationship – she loves to scrape all of the crap off my teeth and gums and I hate it!). Take all of my medications – quite a bit of medications for my blood pressure, cholesterol and other aches and pains of being almost 40. Reconnect my insulin pump and then decide on what to wear today. It’s Friday, so I’ll just choose jeans/t-shirt. My pump clips right on to my jeans pocket today. Some people freak out about where to put their pump, but mine goes right on my waist, belt or on the pocket of my jeans. Some days are better than others on dealing with the tubing.

10:30 a.m.
Check my blood sugar at my desk – 130 – pretty good. It seems that teaching raises my blood sugar some days.

12:30 p.m.
LUNCH at Wendy’s drive through with Dana. Southwest Taco Salad and some french fries. I love french fries, but they play a number on my blood sugars. I’ll have to make sure to take a bit more insulin because of those damned carbs in the potatoes that convert directly to sugar in my body!

1:30 p.m.
Go to walgreens.com to refill insulin and blood testing strip rx. Thank God I have decent insurance and will only pay about $40 for the insulin and test strips. Without insulin it would be $200+.

2:22 p.m.
I’m feeling light headed and shaky – check my blood sugar and it is 65. Over compensated for the french fries and also since I’ve been sick lately, my blood sugars are reacting wacky to my insulin. Take a swig of Gabe’s chocolate milk and eat some honey.

Just a little snippet of my day with diabetes. Tomorrow will be different and so will the next day. I’ve been lucky today, as my blood sugars have been normal to low. Tomorrow they might be high – it’s always a guessing game.

D365 30/365

Originally uploaded by andystanton

Today was my doctor’s appointment with my diabetes guy (he’s not an endocrinologist, but a D.O. who has been living with diabetes since he was 16 and has been pumping insulin since the early 1980’s). He (and his fantastic office staff & nurses) have been helping me get the hang of being on an insulin pump. My first visit at his office was on May 30, 2008.

One of the first things a doctor asks a diabetic is “what was your last A1C?” A1C stands for Hemoglobin A1C – a blood test that gives the doctors an average of your blood sugars over the past three months. It ranges from 4% (representing a blood sugar average of 65 – too low for me!) to a 12% (representing a blood sugar average of 345 – very high for an average!!

At my May 30 dr appointment, my A1C was 8.8% (that equals out to about a 225 average blood sugar – NOT GOOD!!!). It has been about 2 1/2 months since I started pumping (began June 26) and today’s A1C was a 7.2%!!!!!! Okay, that isn’t perfect (7.2 averages out to about a 180 average blood sugar and the ‘normal’ blood sugar range is from 70 to 110) – but it has greatly improved since starting on the pump!!!!!!

My next goal is to a.) maintain the 7.2 A1C and b.) hopefully drop below a 7 (6 would be great but I want to have ATTAINABLE goals). My next A1C should be in the early part of December…. we’ll see what Clark can do for my A1C’s.

I’ve been pumping for almost 2 1/2 months (started the end June) and have read several pumpers’ blogs about infusion site blood gushers, but had never had one……till this morning.

I woke up with a blood sugar of 270!!!, so I knew that something was probably wrong. I was going to change my infusion site this morning anyway, so I suspended the pump, detached the tubing and took out the infusion site. Whoa!!!! Blood came out. Now it didn’t spurt everywhere, but quite a bit of blood came out and IT WOULDN’T STOP BLEEDING for about 20 minutes.

I took a shower, started a new infusion site and now my blood sugar is coming down happily.

Besides the fact that I am a bleeding heart liberal democrat and the thought of a 72 year old conservative republican sitting in the white house makes me shiver, there is a big reason I’m not voting for John McCan’t (my favorite name for him).

Federal funding for STEM CELL RESEARCH

He won’t even consider the fact that many deliberating diseases such as diabetes could be years ahead in research towards a cure if we could do more stem cell research. Anyone who doesn’t want to save millions of lives each year (including my life) kind of bothers me.

Barack The Vote

D365 29/365 Breakfast at the office

Originally uploaded by andystanton

One of my new favorite breakfast items is Kroger Carb Master Yogurt. It has great flavor and only 4 grams of carbohydrate!!! I put a little bit of cheerios or grape nuts in for some crunch and have nice, even blood sugars all morning long!