Tuesday, April 22, 2008

A new meme that made me smile and a change in insulin intake.

The rules: Make a list of your loves. The only catch? You can’t include a single person you know on your list. No “I love the way my husband laughs” or “I love hearing my little girl call for me.” It’ll be tough, I know. But this particular little exercise is about stripping away everyone who defines you and figuring out what you (not his partner; not their mother/daughter/sister/friend) love.

1) I love music of all kinds. How it makes me feel and makes me express my emotions.
2) I love the smell of fresh cut grass.
3) I love sitting on the bank of the lake watching the water and letting time pass with no concerns.
4) I love the feeling I get when I am watching a play. There's nothing in the world like live theater.
5) I love the feeling of taking a nap on Sunday afternoon after church.
6) I love to see things I've never seen before and go places I've never been before. Travel is something I wish I could afford to do much more of.
7) I love to spend hours in a book store just wandering around looking at random books and reading the book jackets.
8) I love live music. I love to see concerts of almost any kind. This relates back to #1.


I just thought this was a fun little meme. I could go on and on about things I love. But I won't. Currently, I am dealing with major stress that I am almost positive is effecting my insulin intake. For the past 2 years that I have been pumping, I have averaged between 40 and 48 units of insulin intake per day. Some days, of course, there might be a little more or a little less, depending on what's going on around me. But in the past 30 days, I have had around 20 days of over 50 units per day. Some days there have even been over 60 units. The reason I think it is stress related is because (obviously) I am very stressed, but also because my basal rates seem to need changes except at night. This would be when I was the least stressed, since I would be asleep.
CGMS has helped me see these patterns, but I am at a loss as to what to do about it. I had an appointment yesterday with my CDE. She wanted to make some changes, but I convinced her to let me wait until June to do any of these changes since my life is going to calm down (hopefully) at the end of May. I have another appointment in mid-June with my CDE. And an appointment in May with my endo.
I have usually seen an increase in weight when my insulin intake goes up. This has not been the case this time. I have actually lost weight. Not much, but enough that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Maybe things will change after May. Maybe things will settle back down in my world and my insulin intake will go back to what it was before.
Let's hope.

5 comments:

k2 said...

We have a few things in common besides our diabetes! Live theater rocks!

Your insulin will get back on track. You and cde should work on focusing on when your numbers are high and maybe add another basal rate.
You guys will figure it out. Don't give up!
k2

Araby62 (a.k.a. Kathy) said...

Stress bad. Go away, stress! ):-P

Seriously, Cara, I hope you're feeling better soon. Oh, and ditto to you & KK on theater--I was an assistant stage manager for a few years and I loved it :-)

dae said...

I like your list! :) I've been having so much fun reading everyone's lists. Hopefully all the stress will get chased off. Boo stress.

Donna said...

Oh Cara, stess is not good. But how do we get rid of it? That's the tough part. One of these days I'm going to write about what stress has done to the muscles in my neck & shoulders. You don't want that. So I hope things settle down soon.

I loved your meme. You know I just love music, too. It's a huge part of my everyday life. I have the radio or CDs turned up loud whenever I'm in my car. It helps ease my stress & get me through nasty traffic jams on the commute to work every morning. We've gotta have our music, don't we?

I hope your stress eases up, your BGs settle down & you feel better soon. Hang in there!

Anonymous said...

blaah I hate stress! I hope you start feeling better soon, and I'm sure when you do those insulin levels will come down again!