metablogging

In case you haven't noticed, I haven't been blogging much lately. I'm just working and that's about it. It's amazing how you make make whatever you do take up all your time. I know you can fit a lot into a day, because I've done it, but lately I do not much, but it still takes up all my time.

I've been trying to work out every day, and I'm succeeding most days. I do a latin dance inspired core training workout video - I enjoy it and it's a challenge so it keeps me going. I don't want to have an elaborate workout plan, I just need to make sure that I'm getting my heart rate up for around 45 minutes a day. I aim for everyday because I'm aware that failure is imminent, so if I get used to failing on a regular basis, it won't be so bad!

The other lifestyle change I'm attempting is to eat better. Working my call centre job is not making it easy, but I'm trying. Basically, I just need to stop eating out. Things I make at home are better for me and cheaper.

In other news, I go to find a place to live in Vancouver next week. I'm very excited!

Travel is all booked and we will be staying with my second cousin who lives right in the middle of where we will be looking for a place.

I will post slightly more often.

Doctor's Appointment

After three months of being on the insulin pump, my A1C was 8.6 - higher than it had been, but that was expected with the shitty control that starting the pump had caused.

In theory, those months are behind me. I should have a substantially lower A1C because I've been on the pump for a while and those problems should have been ironed out.

Today's A1C was 8.4. This confirmed my feelings that things haven't actually improved. With my sugars shooting up every 2 or 3 days, it's still causing the overall situation to be bad.

What does my A1C mean?

I'm 1.4 higher than the standard target for diabetes management.

That means I'm 14% more likely to have diabetes complications than they would like me to be.

That means I'm 24% more likely to lose a limb or go blind or kidney damage than a non-diabetic.

It frustrates me, because I was moving towards that target range when I was on MDI, but now insulin pumping is putting me back in the wrong direction.

Anyway, the worst part of my appointment was the fact that my endo had absolutely no knowledge of why my infusion sets might not be working for a few hours after inserting them

His only suggestion was that most of his patients only use their abdomen and they never have those problems. I explained to him that it happens in my abdomen as well, but that didn't change is suggestion.

This is unforgivable! I can understand that he might not have come across that in his own practice, but he wasn't even willing to think diagnostically about it - he just told me that I should talk to my pump educator, and that I should ONLY use my abdomen. That is a blatant contradiction to what every diabetes educator and pump information source I've ever read has said.

Passing the buck - sucks!

Hello, my name is Michael and I'm a stupid idiot.

Actually, I shouldn't blame myself too much, but I should have double checked like I usually do.

And now, time to elaborate.

I was doing laundry last night. The laundry room is just 10 steps from my apartment. Because there is no-one else in the building, I have the laundry to myself and I just leave my door unlocked. Long story short, last night the door must have been swung open wide enough that it pushed in that little locking thingy. In conclusion, I locked myself out of my apartment nearing 1am.

At that time of night, there is nothing open in downtown London. I had no socks on - they were in the drier. I must have wandered the halls of the apartment for an hour, searching for a secret spare key or way to jimmy my way back in before giving up and resigning myself to sleeping on the floor in the hallway.

Once I started falling asleep (not really..) I noticed that my sugars were going low. Reminder that nothing is open downtown, my tester is inside the apartment, and I have no sugar.

I did something that I had never consciously done before, and never want to have to do again. I stopped my pump waited until my liver kicked in some sugar. I was confident that my body would do this - it's done it countless times overnight while I was sleeping.

It was pretty horrible. I just laid there on the hallway floor, drenched in a cold sweat, pressing my eyes closed until it had passed. I don't know how much time passed, but eventually I could tell I was no longer low. I turned my pump back on, wiped my forehead and tried to fall asleep.

The bookstore next door opened at 10am today, so I went there and used the phone to call my landlord and I was back in my apartment with nicely folded laundry at 11am. Because of my liver kicking out the sugar, I was 15.3 when I tested, so I've corrected and I'm hoping to salvage some goodness out of the rest of today.

In conclusion,

My advice to the world is to not lock yourself out of your apartment - and if you do.. find a way to not have to sleep on the ground!

Quick spurts of updates

Work is going well - for a few weeks, sales were incredible. Now it is calming down and likely won't be as awesome for the rest of the summer.

The pump is still less-than-awesome. My latest infusion change was smooth-ish, but I was using my insulin pen for 6 hours to cover the time when it would be pooling. I miss the days of only having to bring the pen out when I needed it - I didn't have to carry around the 24/7 reminder that weights down my pockets.

My appointment is on Tuesday, so I need to start recording sugars so I have something to show for what my sugars do.

I'm on the verge of actually going hardcore with a fitness program of some type. I'm ridiculously out-of-shape and I really need to do something about it. I've been using an exercise video that I downloaded, walking, and playing the Wii fit game, but I know I need to be more serious. I'm looking into a possibly ghetto gym that's just around the corner. It's possibly a pyramid gym scam, but I'm still trying to figure out when and how they get money from you.

I haven't written any music this summer and I feel so lazy because of it.

Maybe I'll just jump into hardcore mode of everything:

Wake up early and work out everyday, then write music for a few hours and then go to work - all while keeping track of my sugars and being super-awesome!

I know it shouldn't, but it seems like such a ridiculous fantasy world...

I just realized on my schedule that I have an endocrinologist appointment next week, meaning that I need to get my blood-work done in the next day or so.

I'm really not looking forward to seeing my A1C... I know things have gotten better than they were in that first month, but not much... This will help me decide if pumping is something that i want to continue. The highs every 2 or 3 days due to infusion changes are not good. I'm hoping my doctor will have some inspiring advice for that. Whether or not they are affecting my A1C doesn't matter too much, I'm not sure how much longer I can handle them.

My convocation is tomorrow.  I won't be going to the long, boring ceremony; rather, I will go to the short ceremony of only music people that has food afterwards.

I will get to talk to my roommate for next year about how we are going to hunt and find an apartment when both of us think it's too damned expensive to make a trip out there in advance.

This is going to be an expensive next few months.

I have money set aside for the rest of rent and whatnot in London.  Pretty much 80% of my paychecks are going straight onto my mastercard.  I want to pay it down completely - in theory to get out of consumer debt, but in reality, I will need to have room on my card for:

-a trip to Winnipeg fairly soon

-the flight to Vancouver

-moving my things to Vancouver

-buying new furniture when I get there, bed and desk should be enough to get me by

Oh ya, I should also make sure I have some fluid cash to pay for first month's rent and deposit and the sort.

Despite the fact that I've been bitchy about and at work, I've been having a good week and making lots of money, so I'm thinking this will be a good summer for money.

I had my first of this month's Sunday church services; I'm filling in for a friend who is out of town.  It went well, and the reverend commented that something clicked this morning - I sounded like a natural.  I thought I did a pretty good job last summer, but I'll still take it as a compliment.  

Infusion Site Review: Right Arm

I managed to find 5 infusion sites on my right arm which saw me through about 2 weeks.

Not completely related to diabetes... one day I became startlingly aware of how little upper body strength I have when I tried to do push-ups and failed miserably.  Since then, I've been doing them everyday before my shower, systematically increasing the number each time they seem easier.  I do them with my arms on the bathtub so they are easier because the angle is lesser (Yes, I realize that this means I'm doing girl-pushups, but I'm fine with that!).  Within a few weeks, starting at 5 pathetic ones, I can do 25, and still increasing.

I'm certainly not buff, but I'm realizing that my arms have more muscle mass in them than most other areas of my body.  Because a lot of the infusions sites hit muscle, a lot of them resulted in 'pooling' where it takes a few hours before the insulin is absorbed and works.  I only had one out of the 5 sites that did not have pooling, and that site was problematic for completely other reasons: adhesion!

The site that had no pooling and had really good absorption didn't even last 2 days.  It dislodged overnight and I woke up with ketones.  That site was on the back of my arm, close to the armpit.  I don't have problems with adhesives, so I'm thinking that this problem was because my antiperspirant was interfering - each time I applied, it would hit the plastic nub on the site.  Or, it could be due to sweat, which is also quite likely.

In general, comfort was ok.  The tubing has a way of creeping upwards, which can feel a little tickly when you have a bunch of tubing conglomerating at your armpit.  Because the tubing is so long, I have to wear an undershirt at night to keep it in place, otherwise arms and legs and other appendages might get caught in it .

In general, the arm went well.

I put in a new site last night in my right upper back.  I imagine I'll be able to get at least 6 sites out of my back, so here goes another few weeks or a month.