Monday, May 10, 2010

A day in the life . . . with diabetes

Welcome to Diabetes Blog Week! First post. First day. I'm going to be honest and say that most of these posts are being pre-written and set to post on the day they are supposed to. My excuse...I'm getting ready to go on vacation. I'll be busy getting ready and then Friday morning I'm off to New York City! My favorite city in the world. The lovely (and newly engaged) Allison has arranged a meet-up also. Some of you I'll be meeting for the first time. Others I will be seeing again. Either way, I am looking forward to a long weekend full of fun, friends, and theatre.

Now, onto my first post....


A Day in the Life.... well, I thought long and hard about how I was going to do this one. If it would be a real day, or just a "typical" day. I decided to go with "typical".


6:00 am - My alarm clock goes off. I am usually sleeping so hard that I hit the snooze button and don't even realize it.


6:09 am - Same thing.


6:19 am - I roll over and realize what time it is. I reach down and check my CGMS. If it seems okay, I usually get up and go to the bathroom and then come crawl back in bed before grabbing my meter (that's laying on the corner of my mattress on the other side of my bed) and testing.


7:00 am - I roll out of bed and check my e-mail, brush my teeth and get my clothes together to get ready.


7:55 am - Grab breakfast of some sort (usually yogurt and fruit, or a mini bagel), a diet Pepsi, and some water and rush out the door to work.


8:05 am - Test and bolus for breakfast, consumed while getting my day started at work (i.e., turning on the computer, checking the phone, printing my schedule, etc). By the time I test, my blood sugar has risen, even though I've not eaten anything. My doc, CDE and I believe it's an emotional response to work (a.k.a. STRESS!).


10:30ish am - I've usually had at least one "high" alarm on my CGMS and have checked my CGMS at least 5 times. I have this morning spike I am still trying to work on. It happens if I eat or don't eat. It goes back to that emotional response thing. Sometimes I test and do a manual bolus to help bring the blood sugars back down. It depends on how high it is and how much active insulin I have on board.


12:00 noon - Lunch time. I go home for lunch. I live really close to work. Most of the time I'm under 140 by lunch. About half the time, I'm between 70 and 100. Lunch usually consists of left overs from dinner the night before, or something quick and easy, like a sandwich.


Between 1:00 and 4:00 pm - I usually keep an eye on my CGMS, checking every hour or so and adjusting as necessary. Depending on the upward or downward slope, I usually end up checking my blood sugar at least once during this time.


Around 5:00 pm - I get home from work and test. Play around on the internet for a while.


Around 7:00 pm - I have dinner. If I have left-overs, I eat those. If I start cooking, I may eat around 7:30 or so. I test and bolus.


Around 9:00 pm - I test again. Adjusting, in case I made a mistake in carb counts for dinner.


Between 10:30 and 11:30 pm - I start getting ready for bed. Grab a juice box if there's not one already on my bedside table (Middle of the night lows suck....). Test before I go to sleep. As long as I'm in range, no problems. If CGMS looks like I'm trending downward more than I'd like, I lower my basal w/ a temp rate for an hour or so.


That is pretty much my normal day with diabetes. Any day, of course, can be riddled with highs and lows that aren't "normal". Sometimes I'll have a high or a low in the night that requires me to wake up and adjust or get a juice box. Every day is different. Some are better than others. Some, not so much.

6 comments:

George said...

Our "Normal" is so not normal when you look at all these posts. What we accept and have to live with is tough. And we are tough cookies (carb free cookies)doing this stuff day in and day out!

Karen said...

I know when I was working, the stress factor really threw my blood sugar all out of whack!! It will be interesting to see what your morning numbers are like in NYC - no work stress, I'm guessing lots more walking, but then again, different foods (if you are like me, vacations breakfasts are splurges). Yup, who can ever predict what diabetes will decide to do???

meanderings said...

I'm always so happy to read about others who aren't perfect about carb counting.
Have a great trip!

Chris said...

Ok, I'm glad that you said you check your e-mail before brushing your teeth because my girlfriend thinks that it's weird that the first thing I do when I wake up is check my e-mail.

Cara said...

Chris - it's all in how you look at it. And I'm an e-mail/internet junkie. LOL

Unknown said...

So glad that you got to hit NY and visit some of the OC folks around there - I know you look forward to that, and enjoy it! I can't wait to read more about it.

And boy, am I familiar with those morning rises.