Living with Diabetes

Author: kathleen

  • Working without my dog

    I had to leave Dulce at home last week.  I took her with me Monday morning when I was volunteering, but the construction in the building was causing us both some wicked PSD (we had a truck drive into our house a year ago).

    Besides, I was drawing a paycheck on Thursday and Friday and we haven’t had approval yet.   I’m told it’s official and we’re one signature away.

    We have done some dry runs.  They have all gone well.

    She is polite and well mannered when we walk the hall, even when I have a full load.  She ignores everyone. 

    When we go into other people’s classrooms she looks for discarded food and hangs out quietly while I help them.

    In our own place, she is happy with her office, and hangs out well there.

    It looks good.

    But man I miss her when I don’t take her with me, and yes it encourages me to take her more for short errands.

  • Why do I need a Diabetes Alert Dog?

    I’ve gotten several questions about this lately – from my mother to a Type 1 diabetic. 

    Yes, I am a Type 2 diabetic but have tendencies towards Type 1.  Whether I have both Type 1 and Type 2 or whether my pancreasis  doesn’t function at all any more (Will Dubois writes about this in books), I am insulin dependent and have been for over 8 years.  Maybe as long as 10 years.

    I was diagnosed almost 10 years ago.  I went to the doctor before school started and he scheduled a fasting glucose test for as soon as possible which ended up being a staff development day in September (I did the staff development in the summer).  I remember going to the lab in the morning, drinking glucose and getting madder and madder every minute.  Between two of the blood draws I went to Aubrey Hawkin’s memorial site (an Irving police office and gentleman who was a good friend of mine and who got gunned down on Christmas Eve).  That accounted for some of the mad.

    The lab only gathered the samples, the results were read later and sent to my doctor’s office during the weekend.

    As the weekend progressed, I got madder and madder.

    When I had passed 5 people on Monday morning and just wanted to slap them, I knew something horrible was wrong and called my doctor’s office as they were trying to call me.  They told me to drop everything and come in NOW.  I called and asked for a sub for the day.

    My blood sugar was out of site, they gave me metforum and instructions to attend a diabetes class.  I did the next couple of days.  My blood sugar wouldn’t go down, and so we almost immediately went to insulin.

    That was then.

    For the past two years, I’ve been so afraid of going low, I’ve been running too high.  I have been forgetting to check my blood sugar and in all ways possible been a bad diabetic.  I’ve been lucky and haven’t had any complications, except for hypo-and hyper- glycemic unawareness.

    This is where the dog comes in.

    She is aware.

    Yeah, it’s a pain to drag her around and keep her with me 24 / 7 but with her around I can keep good control again and I’m slowly starting to feel better.

    It’s nice.

    It’s a drag to explain it all to total strangers.  It will be interesting to have her on campus.  But in the long run it will be better.

  • Found a good orthopedist

    Seriously.

    One that has all the tools, lets you pick which one you want, and the timing you want.

    I’m getting more and more impressed with the new primary care doctor.  She sent me to a oby/gen I like.  I am getting Mirena tomorrow. 

    I liked the orthopedist.  The xrays look bad, but he didn’t rush me on surgery, nor did he rush me on another series of injections.  I said I would probably be back in November, but that Celebrex would do me in the meantime.  That mobic was okay, but wasn’t doing the full job.  His PA is working on the mobic approval.

    Getting there.

  • Training Post #1

    In some respects this is a fail.  First time with the Swivl and it was too high, microphone having trouble with audio.

     

     

  • Training Session–Prepping

    So the first part of a training session is making sure that your blood sugar is in range.  I’m at 185 and did a correction to pull it down to 110, so I should be good.

    Next I prepared a sample of high blood sugar.  I took a gauze pad from the freezer, tore it in half since she’s a beagle and put it in a small salt shaker.

    Here are the two I am going to use today.

    WP_000118

    I am going to let the sample thaw a bit, while I gather camera and swirl and get rid of the extra dogs.

  • Most interesting day with the dog yet

    Had to go to two medical offices.

    The first was at Forest Park Medical Plaza to get my lap band looked at.  We decided on a 1/2 cc fill.  Several of the staff visited with Dulce but more of the visitors did.  By the way, the band looks really good and I’ve lost 10 pounds since I was there last. 

    Then since I was near school, I just had to stop by.  Got my room keys, and visited with a couple of people.  They were setting up computers for Parent Portal so I ended up helping and volunteering to help with that on Monday.  I think I’ll even see if I can get in early enough on Monday so we can have my lab for overflow if needed.

    My room is a mess.

    Then we went for my second appointment, to my new Ob/Gyn.  I have been having trouble seeing my old one who I liked, but they kept canceling my appointments both this summer and last so I couldn’t get in to see them.  I’ve run into an interesting issue so I wanted to get it checked out and the primary care physician wasn’t up for it.  They asked about her, but was cool with it as soon as they realized what her purpose was.

    I’m not sure if she alerted or not.  I’m thinking not.  I’m on a bariatric diet which is hard on me blood sugar wise.  Full liquids.  Also weight wise.  But it will be worth it in the long run.

  • Decisions Decisions

    I’m waiting on my school district to decide if Dulce can come to school with me as a diabetes alert dog. 

    I talked with my counselor about it last night, and have made some decisions on her help.  I am going to continue working with her, training her, and using her even if they don’t let me use her at school.

    Here’s the deal.  Since I started working with her, my A1C is better.  My over all blood sugar is better.  My fasting blood sugar is better.  Under 140 today, before Dulce it was lucky to be under 180. 

    I know for the past two school years, my blood sugar control has sucked, even though I have started out each day wanting good control.  It’s not that I have said – screw this.  Though I admit there are some days I didn’t test at all as it was too much freaking trouble.  But I didn’t wake up saying, I’m not going to control my diabetes today.  It was usually – well, I missed this test, I’ll catch up later today and later never happened.

    By the way, dealing with medical professions can be exhausting.  Especially the ones that don’t have a clue about diabetes.  She had no idea that lows come with control and that you can’t prevent them.  Just like you really can’t prevent the odd highs.  Of course, I had to explain that during the meeting with the school committee but it’s less frustrating talking with lay people as you know they don’t get it.

  • My favorite justification for not having the dog in my classroom.

    You have a school nurse?

    Well, she’s downstairs, in a different part of the building.  She can’t tell if my blood sugar is low or high from there.  If I need her, we’re not having class that day.

    That’s come up in idle conversation. 

    Dog can tell if I need a piece of candy to fix the low.  Or a unit of insulin to fix the high.  I honestly think that any disruption that the dog will cause the first few days will be much less than any disruption caused by having the school nurse come up. 

    Oh, that’s happened.  We didn’t have class that day.

  • Traveling with a Service Dog #GHC12 @GHC

    In October, I’m planning to go to the Grace Hopper Celebration 2012 in Baltimore.  A few weeks ago I had one of my “oh, my god moments”, and almost cancelled.

    However, I took a deep breath and Tweeted @GHC .  Man have they been helpful.  Or it might be one she.

    I’ve let @southwestair know and they have been helpful.  I’ve emailed them, and they marked my confirmation and I’ve talked to them on the phone.  Here’s the cool part with Southwest.  They don’t charge for two bags, and I think they are including checked her cage in that.  I’m not sure, as I prefer to travel as light as possible.  Last year, I went for two days, and took two bags on carryon.  That included my purse and CPAP.  This time I’m going Tuesday night until Sunday, hoping to be included in the high school day on Saturday, or maybe go to the Open Source day.

    For this trip, I’ll need 4 days of clothing, dog food, dog stuff, diabetes stuff and 4 days of clothing, so probably 5 times as much stuff.  Some of that I can probably get in Baltimore since she is a small dog, and maybe even get a Syster or a Hopper to bring it to the Hotel for me.

    The convention center has been great too.  I should probably actually call the hotel, but I did just mark the hotel reservation.

    Though I just had heart failure when I saw the hotel room charge!  The taxes are as much as one night's stay.

  • Interesting Question for the Diabetes Community, Especially Pumpers

    My diabetes alert dog is alerting.  My meter indicated that I needed another unit of insulin to bring my blood sugar down to 100.  However, I’m the high 180’s. 

    Frankly, I’m confused.  I don’t think it is a bad thing she is alerting – my meter clearly agrees with her.

    I’m just not sure what to do about it.   I’m praising but not jack potting.

    I do want tight control.  Thoughts?