Oh the frailty of the human body?

Well, its been a month since the resolutions were set... and its been a bit of a rough month at that. Around Christmas and New Years I started having problems with my blood sugars. In the middle of the night (a time I used to always drop low -- part of the reasoning behind me getting a pump) my blood sugars began spiking to the mid 300s. Each night I'd wake up needing to go to the restroom, I'd check my blood sugar, and treat the high. I started playing with the basals, trying to raise them. It would work for a day and then shoot back up the next night. I did middle of the night tests, trying to find out if a low blood sugar was triggering the high... no luck. I couldn't find the low. Finally I gave up on solving the problem myself and called my doctor.

It took a week of slowly returned phone calls to finally decide to rearrange my life so that I could get a straight conversation with my doctor. I was irritated and fearful that we wouldn't find anything different than "Just keep trying to raise the basal till it works." Once at the appointment, I decided to go into anything and everything that might be wrong and help explain the problem.

Around the same time that the highs started I had also started to have problems with my stomach. Each night, about 30 minutes after dinner, I would have severe stomach cramping, bloating... pain, lots of pain. Some nights the pain came on so suddenly that I'd be walking across the room and then double over. Ironic as it sounds, I had no inclination to go to the doctor -- I just figured my stomach didn't like food.

I explained this to my doctor and he did some poking around at my stomach and then asked me if anyone in my family had a history of gallbladder problems. Both my grandparents on my mothers side have had their gallbladders removed as well as my Aunt Julie. After hearing this he sent me in for an ultrasound to see if there were any stones.

Well, the test came back negative. I was told to try a generic brand of Prilosec and call my general practitioner if the stomach problems continued. I finally found the right basal to keep my sugars from spiking (most nights, anyway), but I now figured I probably should find out what was going on with my stomachs. This last Saturday the whole thing reached an all time high... (my blood sugar may literally have gone higher than its ever been before... at least one of the highest numbers its reached). The pain was awful. Monday I made a call to my doctor and went to see him.

As a matter of course, when I arrived at the office they did a urine test. My doctor asked a bunch of questions and then looked at my lab results. He said that even though my symptoms didn't match up, it did look like I had a bladder infection. He gave me an antibiotic and I've been told to call him if after 4-5 days I'm still having the stomach pain. If I do, I'll be sent in for a HIDA scan which would look for more problems with the gallbladder.

Well, its been 3 days and I'm doing pretty well. Headaches are my biggest complaint right now so I'm hopeful that this will clear things up. Sunday should be the test -- junkie foods with cheese are most likely to set me reelings and with the big game... well, you know how it goes. Hopefully I'll find myself doing well come Monday and it'll all be solved.

How does this relate to the resolutions? Well, the working out every day has failed me... I'm hoping to get back to it as I get back to "good" health. Right now I feel too weak to do much. My head hurts too much for anything that jumps around... My muscles feel to weak to do weights for very long. I'm hoping that by next week I'll feel up to more activity.

So in short, I'm focused on the diabetes but struggling with the work out goal. Surprise surprise. I really have good intentions... its just hard to get my self moving when I don't feel well. Alas!

Here's hoping for a better month in February! Wish me luck!

New Years Resolutions

I'm not too big on resolutions. My mind associates them with unrealistic weight loss goals and broken promises to yourself. Despite this, I usually make one or two and I'm generally pretty good about keeping them -- I try for realistic goals.

This year, one of my goals seems realistic, the other a little less. Both are in hopes of improving my diabetes control and general health.

The realistic goal:
Record my glucose readings at least weekly and look for general trends in my numbers (adjust accordingly).

I test frequently but I struggle recording everything as I go. So I've decided that if I at least catch up my records once a week, I'll be able to look for problems that are occurring. I did this already for this week and have adjusted some of my basals to reflect the patterns I see. I'm probably not a good diabetic, because I seldom call my doctor about the changes I've decided to make. I had a doctor when I was rather young who always made me come up with my own plans for adjustments in my insulin. It was effective. He taught me to think about what the insulin did and how to fix problems... but I think it frustrates my current doctor since I never have the same basals when I come to see him that I did the previous time.

The less realistic but still important goal:
Have an actual "work out" six times a week.

I've tried in the past to do 4 times a week or 5 times a week -- I leave myself too much room for wiggling. I'm much better at the all or nothing. I won't work out on Sunday, but I'm going to try and work out every other day. Sunday perhaps I'll go for a walk with my husband. So far, I've worked out the past 3 days so I'm on track. I don't do super long work outs and I try to mix it up (today I ran, the other two days I did muscle work), but I'm going for concistency.

The reason this goal is less realistic is life gets busy and I won't kill myself to fit in a work out on a day that I don't get home till 9 or 10 at night. I will do my best to stick as true to this as possible -- but I know it won't be perfect and thats okay.

Not a resultion, but I am trying to dial down on the sweets. I think I'm going to go for the "no sweets on my own" rule. If I'm at big family things, parties, etc, I can take my insulin and treat the sugar -- but if I can at least keep myself from snacking, that should help things too. Someday maybe I'll have the will power to completely cut the sweets -- but I'm not there yet and I think I can create good control with them so long as I'm careful to treat for the carbs properly.

Anyway, I thought by recording my goals I'd be more likely to keep them -- so here you are!