Can't Get Out of My View?

So today I spent about 7 hours in my car. I made a point of putting in a new Dexcom sensor just after breakfast, because as awesome as testing at 70 mph hour is (shh, don't judge) it's really hard to accomplish.

Unfortunately, regardless of my fairly spotless record with Dexcom's accuracy, today did not reassure me that it works well. My Egg-shaped-friend (Eggy for those of you who are friends) beeped away ALL day. 2 of the 35 times were actually correct. The rest were waaaaaaaaaaaaay outta whack. But because I stopped trusting it, I missed the really bad one this evening.

After my 7 hour drive, my mom requested that I attend a dinner party at the neighbors. Drive, dress, dine (wheeeeeeee, not). Dinner was quite fabulous even though I didn't eat very much. I was much more enamored by all the little kids around, but I digress.

Most of the riveting conversation of the evening revolved around the children's food allergies and the struggles that they bring. I listened intently and gently prodded about difficult moments. Having diabetes changes my relationship with food, but exclusionary diets are extremely painstaking to maintain especially when those food cause life threatening reactions. Everyone was sympathetic, but only the two moms of kids with allergies REALLY got it.

Later, the conversation turned to fashion. Particularly, my custom "culturally" appropriate pants with pockets. Most Pakistani pants are baggy and don't include pockets. My mom had to pay the tailor extra for each one, but I was rather happy to have somewhere to put Eggy and my cell phone. That was when the conversation turned to "You're diabetic? Explain ALL of it." Usually, I over explain it but I did my best to squeeze in the vital information before dessert was served. Then, I casually walked over and explained how carb-counting worked. Fairly normal for me to SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guess) the carbs in a homemade dessert. I looked and sounded very convincing. I felt convincing. UNTIL, an hour later when I was tucking myself into bed.

PJs? Check. Brushed Teeth? Check. Blood sugar? I kept putting it off. I kept reading things on my phone and started getting this strange sensation of tunnel focus (just off the tip of my nose). I heard Eggster buzzing away but ignored him because of his track record. The feeling of tunnel focus was starting to make me uneasy so I pulled out my Mini and tested to find a fabulous (not) reading of 33 mg/dl. Eggy says nothing but Low (dun dun dunnnn). And then it all started to make sense. I ran downstairs for a tall glass of orange juice. Waited 15 minutes. 45 mg/dl. Not quite right. More orange juice followed by some rice cause (surprise!) I was STARVING.

In the end, the story has a happy ending. I leveled out nicely to a 110 mg/dl after it was all said and done. The scary feeling was the knowing something was wrong but my lack of ability to do anything about it. It's been happening more and more with my lows and I don't know how to snap out of it. My focus was fixed but not on what I needed to survive but some little lighted screen in the palm of my hand. Gotta fix that. Gotta listen. There are always signs. Little breadcrumbs. Gotta follow them to keep my life with D on track for survival.

Climbing to Better Days

So this weekend was amazing. Partly because my parents were out of town (thus, I managed to find my ever absent social life) and partly because my friends make my world go around. I spent Friday night into Saturday night in Boston and then manage to catch appetizers and a movie with one of my favs from CT further up into northern MA.

BUT all of that ridiculousness along with very little sleep and father's day meant that I slept for about 10 hours over two evenings. I also haven't worked out since Friday afternoon or eaten quite as healthy as I originally planned. Not a lot of vegetables or fruit those two days...

Boston on Saturday was pretty awesome because I forgot that there was the Stanley Cup Parade. The city was a madhouse even though we went in just after the parade had ended. My buddy J and I grabbed some mexican food mear the downtown crossing stop (fajitas are fairly healthy) and then walked to Mass General (about a mile). We wandered around the hospital and checked out the Ether dome, which is where Ether and modern anesthesia were really "discovered". We walked another 1.5 miles in the 90-degree weather to the Back Bay T-stop and rode back to his place to soak in some AC while watching an episode of project runway.

My bro wanted to hang out for a little bit (needed some sisterly advice), which required a little navigating of Cambridge with a dropping BG and driving with glucose tabs. After that we grabbed a cheeseburger sub from this cool place called Pizza Vazza. I decided the sisterly thing to do was leave the fries for him to chow on later.

Back in the car to drive an hour North towards NH, I finally arrive sans BG issues to my next destination. My friend S and I grab our tickets to see The Art of Getting By. Since we had an hour to kill, we chilled at some place called Joe's and noshed on some yummy ahi tuna chips that were delicious and low carb. The movie was not quite were we expected, but I loved when Freddy Highmore said he was allergic to his own hormones. I totally feel that as a diabetic.

The super fun part was when I realized my pump ran out of insulin in the middle of the movie. There were extra supplies in the car but I wast exactly down with doing a site change at midnight in the dark of my car. I injected some insulin the old fashioned way but I was worried when it just oozed out of my skin. Two shots later, I ended up with way too much insulin on board. It worked out in the end with lots of glucose tabs but it wasn't fun by any means.