What Were You Doing Last Night?

This is a question that I used to ask quite often back in college when I would see a friend in the hallway or cafeteria who had clearly had a long night. He or she was usually in complete disarray with a major case of bedhead and their favorite sweatsuit ensemble on. That's how I remember them, anyway.

I now would like to pose this question to my nighttime blood sugars. Lately, there is no rhyme or reason to them which leads me to believe that I will not be getting a full night's sleep anytime soon. I'll be waking up at my favorite hours, either midnight or 3 a.m. depending on when I go to sleep, to test my sugar.

My favorite night so far, was when I went to bed at 10 p.m. (long day) with a blood sugar of 119 mg/dl and woke up at midnight with a blood sugar of 423 mg/dl. I didn't know I was capable of such profanity until that night.

I did some research the next day and was embarrassed to learn a new "old" diabetes fact. By "old" I mean a fact that most people with diabetes probably already know. With every "old" diabetes fact that I learn, I feel a little stupid. I always wonder why it is not common knowledge to me after having diabetes for 15 years.

I learned that if you eat a fatty meal before bed (not a good idea to begin with - this I already knew) that your sugars can significantly spike during the night. Good to know. My meal that night was definitely not in any diabetes cookbooks.

Over the next few nights, my sugars ran in the 200's. Not good, but being a bit paranoid about lows at night, I was okay with them as long as they weren't spiking.

Then there was last night. My blood sugar before bed was 274 mg/dl. Ugh. Being that I had just bolused not an hour ago for a high blood sugar, I left it alone and set my alarm for midnight...which didn't go off. Thanks, unreliable cell phone alarm. I woke up at 4 a.m. with a blood sugar of 154 mg/dl. Then at 7:30 a.m. my blood sugar was 116 mg/dl.

I think we all know what this means - nighttime testing, followed by a call to my endo, followed by pump adjustments. If my Continuous Glucose Monitoring System would get here, my nights would probably be more peaceful. (I've been told that my insurance approved the CGMS but that it is on back order. More on whether or not this is true in a later post.)

For now, I wish my blood sugars could just answer my simple question: what were you doing last night?

No More Fooling Around

I've been a bad blogger. I have a couple of posts here and there but nothing that I have been making the time to keep up with. Today, I vowed to change that...again. But, I feel as though I will keep my promise this time. No more fooling around - from this day forward, I will be a true blogger.

Let me start by quickly explaining the blog name "Is That a Beeper?" I have to first thank Kerri at SUM for making me remember this story due to her recent post. Unbeknownst to them, her and Nicole have recently fueled me to start being serious about posts (and diabetes, of course).

I've worn an insulin pump since high school. As far as my diabetes management goes, the choice to get a pump was the best move I've ever made and I'm a huge advocate for the pump. However, wearing the pump was the first time I remember truly feeling like people could now "see" my diabetes.

Until I got the pump, I was open about my diabetes with friends and teachers, but new acquaintances rarely knew I had diabetes until I got to know them better. As so many pumpers have learned, sometimes revealing your pump on the outside of your clothes is not the best fashion statement. Especially in high school, when your desire to "fit in" is strong.

As a teenager who, let's just say, developed fairly early, my favorite place to hide my pump was in my bra. It was very well hidden and comfortable for the most part. I felt safe with my pump in my favorite hiding spot...until I had to work on a high school project with my good friend Drew (who I later dated in college and is now my fiance, but that's a story for another post).

Cardboard and construction paper were strewn about the basement floor. Markers of every color were at our disposal. It was your typical high school project. As I was on the floor resting on my elbows to try to get a better angle to do some serious drawing and coloring for this project, Drew sat across from me and suddenly asked, "Is that a beeper in your bra?"

I was, for a split second, mortified. To my surprise, instead of fumbling over my words to try to explain my insulin pump, I simply answered, "Why are you looking down my shirt?" Before he got a chance to answer, I realized what a stupid question this was considering he was male and we were teenagers. "It's an insulin pump," I said.

"Oh. Cool. What does it do?"

The embarrassment subsided a few seconds into my explanation.

The "is that a beeper in your bra" debacle will always stand out in my head. I've since learned that a short moment of embarrassment is a small price to pay for good diabetes management.

Speaking of good diabetes management - being a better blogger is not the ONLY thing I need to work on these days. In order to keep my promise to myself, I'll be posting again soon on that issue.