crowdog66

I just tested my two-hour blood sugar, after a meal heavy on the pasta and the tomato sauce.

I expected a high reading.

I got an 11.4.

I am fucking ecstatic.

Finally back from my GP... *sigh* Just a little bit of running around and I'm exhausted all over again.

He's concerned about my blood glucose levels, all right, and has given me new instructions on when to test (once before breakfast, even before coffee, and once two hours after lunch). If my blood glucose reading cracks 15 at any point, I'm to double my daily Metformin dosage immediately, without passing GO or collecting $200. He'll see me again in a month to do my A1c and a fasting blood sugar. (He was surprised to hear that I was hitting 17 and 18 premenstrually with no apparent ill effects, since many people, at that blood glucose level, are prone to doing things like getting dizzy and passing out. Er... yay?)

The mental fogginess and irritability I've been experiencing could also be a result of high blood glucose levels, and he thinks they'll clear up once I get things under control.

As for the fatigue and the backaches, he suspects a kidney infection (diabetics are prone to getting them) and sent me for a urine test to confirm or refute that diagnosis. He also sent me for a back X-ray just to rule out any actual back problems. And guess what I saw in the change cubicle as I was stripping off to put on the flimsy blue gown they provide to preserve your dignity as you cross the waiting room to be X-rayed?

( I AM A DISPOSABLE X-RAY GOWN, etc. )

I mean, sure, it's admirable that they're trying to inject some whimsy and cheer into what is fundamentally a grim and utilitarian diagnostic process. But somehow the notion that I was being given a pep talk by an X-ray gown, of all things, made me feel more surreal than encouraged.

After everything was done at the clinic I picked up some groceries at the nearby IGA, had lunch at the Perkins a few doors down from the shopping mall, then ended up going back to the Salisbury House in the mall to get a Big Nip platter to take home to George. By the time I got on the bus I was fatigued, and now that I'm home I'm contemplating a nap before my dinner date with a friend this evening.

EDITED TO ADD: Oh, and if I do have a kidney infection, that might neatly explain the inexplicably high blood glucose levels, since the body responds to infection by ramping blood sugars. Wouldn't it be nice if it all worked out that way?

Another day of wildly careening blood glucose levels. And as usual, no symptoms except for a nagging background fatigue. I'm beginning to suspect that the rye bread we've been buying is responsible for some of it, in which case I'll have to find a different kind of bread to eat, or no bread at all, which would suck and suck mightily.

In other news: just sent an email to the head of Keycon programming regarding that handfasting I'll be performing at the convention. I'll need to use incense and my athame during the ceremony, and the key questions are whether hotel and convention policies are okay with that -- especially the athame, since a six-inch double-edged blade, unpeacebonded, could be a touchy subject.

Things That Have Made Me Go "Huh?" Today: the whole concept of decompression in comics. More on that later.

No exercise today. I'm taking one day off per week and Sunday is it.

Oh, and my period is probably just around the corner. Perhaps this explains the cloud of depression I've been operating under lately.

But I am making better time today on MM. Huzzah and hooray!

Back to work.

My blood sugars have been all over the place since I started monitoring again on March 28th, mostly high. Yesterday after breakfast I clocked in at 22.4, and today after breakfast it was 19.7.

This is not good. If I can't get those numbers under control through diet and exercise, it will be time to go back to my doctor and look at more medication, new medication, or possibly insulin injections.

It's very disturbing to think that I might have deteriorated that much in the course of a year. Then again, I'm not exercising as much as I was a year ago and that might have a lot to do with it.

What's even more worrying is that I have NO symptoms when my blood sugars are in the stratosphere. Well, maybe a bit of excess urination, but that's it. Diabetes would be a much easier disease to monitor and keep on top of if there were obvious and unpleasant side effects, such as people experience with food allergies. As it is, someone can be seriously diabetic for years and not be aware of it, and if you don't get sick from eating too much sugar that's one less incentive not to cheat on your diet. Especially when hot fudge sundaes are so utterly delicious.

... not that I've had one lately. I'm just saying.