Is It Just Me?

As some of you already know I went abroad in May and suffered with stubborn high blood sugars for 95% of the trip, numerous corrections, leaving me a bit of a tired and emotional mess for a few weeks.

Before I left for my trip, the general consensus  from my DSN, Consultant, and other PWD was that hot weather reduces your BG so you need to reduce your insulin as the heat and exercise will absorb it much quicker...

At my Grandma's today we were talking about it and my Dad turned to me and said "did anyone else say that they've had a similar experience  to you whilst going on holiday?"

Ummm...

Sometimes it's great being unique and different from everyone else..but with something like that, another person going yeah I know exactly what you mean would have been brilliant and a bit of a relief. My parents were awesome but didn't really know what to say or how to help me =/

Have any of you suffered with this as well? Or had your D go against what everyone said making you feel like the odd one out?

Happy Birfday!

I found out today (via Twitter cos it's awesome) that it's 90 years today since insulin was created.
Happy birthday insulin ♥ have a whopping great big mahoosive jam doughnut to celebrate!

It's amazing to think of all the millions of lives that have been saved thanks to Banting & Best over the past 90 years, if they hadn't you wouldn't be reading this right now!

Dear Mr Banting and Mr Best

I don't think anyone will ever be able to put into words how grateful they are to you both for discovering insulin.

Over the past 90 years you've turned Diabetes from a death sentence into something that can be managed day to day by millions of people across the world. You've saved parents from losing their little ones, children from losing their parents and husbands & wives from losing their spouses.

Thanks to you:

♥ I'm still around today
♥ I've shared some great memories with my family (and puppy)
♥ I've got an amazing best friend
♥ I've met other people on and offline with Diabetes who inspire me to do better
♥ I'm stronger
♥ I blog about my D sharing my experiences, good and bad
♥ I got to celebrate my 18th and 21st birthdays with lots more to come
♥ I'll go travelling
♥ I'll have some awesome times with lots of laughing
♥ I'll (hopefully) find someone to settle down with and have a family
♥ I'll live to a ripe old age, with grey hair, lots of wrinkles and many happy memories

♥ I CAN KICK DIABETES BUTT! *KAPOW*

 

I toast my doughnuts and cupcakes to you both, and thank you sincerely for saving my life.

Yours,

Teapot Diabetic.

Brighton With The Betes

Last weekend was the annual forum meet in sunny Brighton :)

Me and Amy decided a few months ago to make a weekend of it, as we'd never been to Brighton before, and stay for a long weekend so we could have a little holiday and a proper catch up with the forum D-Peeps!

The hotel was pretty basic but clean, and unfortunately didn't come with a mini-fridge.. luckily I'd sorted my Frio bag for my spare pens!! After a while settling in and unpacking we decided to go have a wander and explore our new surroundings (we were literally across the road from the beach).

Diabetes: "Oh I'm sorry, you've had it easy all day so I'm going to throw in a hypo! Moo ha ha"

About an hour and a half went by with me testing and scoffing the jelly beans until I reached the low 5's so off we went! The pier was about a 10/15 minute walk away along with the beach bars/shops and the city centre was about the same. We nipped back to the hotel to get our gladrags on - and I had to give a correction as had shot up to 14mmol!! - went to the pier to have a look round and grabbed some food.

Have to admit I was a little wary of the deckchairs as I've seen plenty of You've Been Framed clips of people falling straight through on their butts! But I stuck with it and even did my jab right on the middle of the pier! :D

Visited a couple of local bars (diet coke for me obv.) and then hit the hay after 11. Me being the clever soul I am had no idea how loud things would get and how noisy god damn seagulls can be!! Took until half 4 in the morning to finally get some sleep...

I'm sodding awful not great when I've had no sleep, as Amy found out on Saturday morning.. :)

But we did make it to the meet! (Did have a shower and go on some rides to wake me up a bit more). As this was my second one it was a lot less nerve wracking and I was actually chatting to new people instead of going all shy and quiet. I love being with other PWD because you can share your stories all day long and have a giggle without being asked 'are you sure you can have that?'. Due to my serious lack of sleep I started flagging by the afternoon so we did leave early and ended up having a mid-afternoon nap followed by an indian takeaway eaten with teaspoons!

Overall I had a brill weekend and my D behaved about 85% of the time which I'm pretty pleased with. Just wish I'd have had a better night so I could have had longer at the meet! *frowns*

Thank you Amy for putting up with me this weekend, it's not all been plain sailing but you've kept me smiling and have been an awesome BFF/adopted pancreas. I really enjoyed myself, so Brighton next year? ;)

*The guys in the background were from a Ginger Spice themed stag-do! :D

Balderdash And Piffle

Yesterday was the seventh annual Chap Olympiad in London's Bedford Square Gardens (my second) :

THE CHAP OLYMPIAD. Saturday 16th July, London. The nation's most challenging sporting occasion - if your idea of a challenge is pitting your finest trouser creases against another man's, or seeing who can hurl a plate of cucumber sandwiches with the most panache. The Chap Olympiad is open to all comers, male or female, moustachioed or clean shaven, top drawer or bargain basement, just so long as you are keen to cut the mustard on the field of drachms.

It's one of the most surreal days out you can have but brilliant! Am already looked at potential outfits for next year :D

Our day started at around half 8 (as we were intending to help set-up our Subs stand) and by the time we got into Kings Cross the heavens opened. The entire event is outside without much cover so we were a little worried that everything would be cancelled...

Everyone persevered despite the awful weather and at 12pm the gates opened. It was great to see so many people arrive complete with picnic baskets, waterproofs and umbrella's, and within a couple of hours the sun came out so on went the events and dancing. It was a credit to both Gustav and team!

Unfortunately we didn't get to see as many events as last year (where we had front row seats) as we were working selling subs, books etc however we met the lovely Gustav (Editor) and the slightly naughty Atters (a regular contributor to the mag), and we even sold some wares within a couple of hours!

Q How did D react to such an awesome day out?
A Badly, very very bad.

We each had an Angus burger for our dinner (which were scrummy) and mine was with a little burger relish. I injected about 6u in my leg - through my tights which was very strange - as the burger was homemade so a little bigger than supermarkets ones. I was 6.5mmol before dinner so decided to test again at around 3pm to make sure everything was going okay.

28.4mmol are your fking kidding me?

I almost cried then and there on the spot. How could this have happened? I felt so ill for the rest of the day and worried both Fliss and Amy. I injected another 6u in my leg and sat back down in a daze. We decided to call it a day at around 4pm and walking back to the tube station I felt woozy, wobbly and like someone had rammed my head through a brick wall.

Delays on on of the tube lines meant walking to Covent Garden to grab the tube to Kings Cross, I grabbed a couple of Ribena cartons and downed one within seconds. I had to walk holding Amy's hand to steady myself (sorry again for almost cutting your circulation off Aims!) and felt a little better when we eventually got on the train home.

Tested again on the train, 13mmol. Better. Tested again when at home 5.4mmol. Phew.

Had some tea and then went off to bed at about 9 as was absolutely exhausted. But D had one last surprise for me. Another high? Nope, a hypo! 2.2mmol

Went to town on some jelly babies and went to sleep. Not the most responsible thing to do after such a bad day with D, but my body had reached it's limit.

Woke this morning to 9mmol, not bad considering the past 24hrs!

What caused the mahoosive high? Burger relish? Fresh air? Too many chaps in one garden?

Bah, you're a bitch Diabetes and I hate you for ruining a day I'd looked forward to for about a year.

Why, Why, Why Delilah?

So right now I'm recovering from a low, a bad one.

Numb shaky hands, feeling like I'm about to fall over flat on my face, 2.6mmol.

I seem to go on autopilot when I see numbers like this, and it's not a brilliant autopilot. I've just managed to eat 4 little packets of animal biscuits in one go and now feel pretty gross (if you've never heard of them then are half chocolate, half biscuit shaped like animals xp). I have hypogel, glucotabs and glucojuice in my room.. but I never reach for them.

Why? I have no idea!

It's annoying because I know it doesn't get in to my system quick enough but yet autopilot brain grabs for them every time :(

Think I'm going to have to remove them from autopilot cotton wool brain's path for future hypo's so I train it to go for stuff that will actually work within minutes.

Now I'm in for more BG testing and corrections for over-treating my hypo...

AWESOME ._.

DSMA July Blog Carnival - D Technology

It's weird to think that only a few decades ago people were having to use glass syringes and boil them before injecting their insulin. Now thanks to disposable needles it takes a matter of seconds to get a pre-filled insulin pen ready to inject.

I'm not grateful in the slightest to have this condition, however I am extremely grateful that due to medical advances I should have a pretty normal life. There are so many different ways to deliver insulin now with pre-filled pens for MDI patients and varieties of insulin pumps for people to choose from in order to control their BG levels. We can also now download our BG results from our snazzy meters on to our laptops to identify trends/patterns ready for the next appointment with the DSN/Consultant. There is also another little beeping device (aka a Continuing Glucose Monitor) which lets you know if you're about to go too low/too high << I'd love one of these!

D Technology at the moment is great, however it is always evolving and getting better which is how it should be until a cure can be found! It definately needs to be reaching as many people suffering with D as possible, I imagine that there are thousands out there who have never even seen what an insulin pump looks like or a CGM, and because they're so expensive they probably never will.

As this technology is still relatively new, accuracy is still a pretty big issue. For me being on MDI my biggest issue is meter accuracy. One finger can be 2-3mmol different from another and it's incredibly frustrating because I depend heavily on my meter results.

What are you supposed to do if you can't trust your own BG meter?

Fixing this kinda problem would be brilliant and would give PWD so much more confidence in the D products they are using. Without it we are pretty much guestimating 24/7 which isn't fun especially when you get it seriously wrong. Also giving every PWD the opportunity to experience these gadgets would be a big adjustment that needs fixing because they all deserve it and need it!

As I'm on MDI and have been since diagnosis, most D technology both new and shiny, and not so new get me excited! Pumps fascinate me, all the different variations available and how they work (pre-warning to people at the Brighton meet with pumps!) and also CGMs. I've only ever seen them on DOC blogs as I think they're more widely used in the USA (along with pumps). Of course the Artificial Pancreas is a biggy, with trials currently underway in France let's hope it's a step closer to finding a permanent cure :)

This post is my July entry in the DSMA Blog Carnival. If you’d like to participate too, you can get all of the information at http://diabetessocmed.com/2011/july-dsma-blog-carnival/

It's My Party And I'll Hypo If I Want To!

Last night was the first Summer work party (normally it's each department doing there own thing) so we all got a chance to dress up and mingle with new people. The weather was great, the food looked good and the drinks vouchers were out in force! We had an awesome photo booth for the night along with props - I did try and persuade Amy to go fo the Bob Marley hat and dreads but she wasn't having any of it!
I took my fake fur coat (aka pimp coat) along and later in the evening started getting a bit hot.. looked down and my hands were clammy and a bit twitchy.
 
FFS.

Tested my sugars and got a 3.6. I had my Mary Poppins bag with me and downed a few strawberry cheescake jelly beans and got back to mingling.

I wasn't going to let D spoil my night for all the tea in China!! Got home just before 11 and tested again. 5.1mmol. Did my Lantus and scooted off to bed.. lucky me had work from 9-5 to look forward to.. D didn't like me ignoring her at all one bit and soon got her revenge.

D: Emma it's 2am, better get up *evil grin*
Me: Zzzzz what for???
D: Remember that low you had at the party? Well you got another one, and it's even lower. Can't ignore me now can you.
Me: God you are a pain in the arse *tests BG*
Me: 2.8, you're such a bitch D
D: I know :)
Me: *scoffs down more strawberry cheesecake jelly beans and animal biscuits*
Me: FU D, I'm going sleep!

So I've paid the price today with a bit more low blood sugar, headache and mega sleepyness. Most people from the the party will have have woken up with a normal hangover.. me not wanting to feel left out woke up with a hypo one instead!!