Category: Blog

Some of you may recall my mother was diagnosed with diabetes a few years ago, long after I was.

We were talking the other night, after I’d gotten the unfill, and she was really pushing my buttons about food, etc.  Well, come to find out she hasn’t tested in three weeks!  Partly because of the test strip game I posted about in the previous entry.  She is feeling overwhelmed etc….

I will admit to taking pleasure on getting on her case over her diabetes care — I told she had no right to get on my case when she wasn’t taking care of herself, and she admitted I was right.  She even knew how bad I had gotten last spring when I stopped testing, so she really knew she was wrong.

Hopefully I’ve got her testing again, and now she has some extra test strips to do it with.

Wimp!  You think you have needle phobia?  Trying watching a doctor stitch your face with no pain killer in the ER?  Or a second time, while doped up on valium.

GET OVER IT and do it. Seriously, I do. I do have to "shoot up" without watching.   If I see the needle, I don’t do well, and there are some infusions sets I just can’t do because you have to watch the needle go in.

But I can even to a intra=muscular shot — again, as long as I don’t look at the needle.

Quoted from http://thepoordiabetic.com/insulin/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thepoordiabetic1+%28The+Poor+Diabetic%29:

To insulin or not to insulin | The Poor Diabetic

I have a phobia for needles.

 

Those of you who follow me on Twitter or Facebook, or better yet, Foursquare, know that I have changed my routine and am going to the gym in the morning on the way to school.

I used to do this, but it got really hard when I became a diabetic.

I’m going because I was finally convinced that I needed to exercise on a stationary bike – I sold my treadmill and weights and joined @LAFitness.

The best way to fit it in, is to exercise in the morning. 

To accomplish that, I have to pack the night before.  I’m using a dufflebag with wheels I got for my cruise, and that’s working very well.  I tried two bags, but that just got messy.  To go, I have to have:

• clothing for school
• extra pumping supplies – so I can take some pumpless showers
• shoes for school
• hair stuff – lots of days, especially wet or humid ones, I just need a brush and shampoo but having an option is good
• consumer electronics
• towels (man I miss my old gym)
• contacts

So when I get home I have to clean out the used clothing (which I just remembered I forgot to take out of the bag).  I have been putting the towels out of the bag when I get done so they will dry and I can recycle them – they have to be washed if they have been in the bag with sweaty clothing.

It also means some extra wash, but recycling my towels helps that.

I also keep a gym bag in the car, which has also come in handy for physical therapy.

Today I managed 35 minutes but at level 1.  I am noticing a decreased use of insulin.

The new fill technician has a completely different procedure than the old one.  I got there early, and I was glad I did, as it was very time consuming.

First, she checked my port with an ultra sound machine and it was fine.

Second, they had me do a barium swallow.  We saw that my esophagus was a bit dilated and she felt that the restriction was too much.  She took .4 cc out and did another barium swallow. We both liked what we saw.

I won’t know anything more until I can eat, probably not even until next week.

Oh, the old procedure was the tech poked you with the needle and did what she thought she should do.  No barium, no ultra sound.

Kind of nice to know everything is where it should be.

Almost forgot – she also thought that the lunch period was entirely too short for me to even try to eat then.  I might be able to eat during my planning period, but can’t always count on that either.

I have a half day sub for Monday.  YEAH!  That means I can get the unfill.

After 2 years and three months of trialing, Macy is now out of Novice.  Thank dog!  We haven’t shown every show in the area in those two years.

She did okay her first trial.  At her second trial, she developed a fear of teeters.  This was to add to an already mistrust of the chute – she got caught in it once.

I gained a huge amount of weight and both she and Maggie started running out of the ring.  We took quite a few breaks from showing and I even had lap band surgery.

We also Qed in Open JWW today.  So we had a good one.  No luck in Fast, but that’s not really our game yet.

Managed to make it to the gym – tomorrow will be hard, as I probably won’t make it upstairs until after 11:30.  Have a dog class in McKinney.

Set the alarm to go off 5 minutes early.  Woke a bunch of times, still couldn’t get there until 6:30.  Am trying to slowly move my time up by 5 minutes, but I think I just going to have to bite the bullet and set the alarm clock for 5:30 and leave the house by 6:00.

Goal is to exercise for 35 minutes, but staying at 25 minutes until I can get my level up.  I’m on Level 3, the bikes go to Level 12, I think.  Level 4 is uncomfortable.

One of the reasons I was waking up was because I had to deal with the chiropractor I was using for my car accident.  Unfortunately he fired me when I wouldn’t get a lawyer. I found out last week that Farmers hasn’t been able to pay him, and neither has the other insurance company because he was changing business names and moving. 

Good news;  He was happy to take my credit card, sign the release, and send me off on my way.  I was afraid there would be a glitch in all that.  So everything is scanned, faxed, and uploaded, now waiting for checks, for reimbursement. 

Also, I didn’t know he was moving.  His office building sucks, and there really isn’t any good office space in Farmers Branch anymore.  Betting the city tears the building down.  I think there are only two tenants in there – one with him gone.

This resembles my treatment on first being diagnosed. 

Quoted from http://www.diabetesincontrol.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9772&catid=53&Itemid=8:

Intensive Glucose Lowering Therapy — Weighing the Evidence

The investigators suggest, therefore, that insulin should be considered as a first-line treatment for Type 2 diabetes

Fixed three of my four basal rates so that I get half my basal insulin about 2 hours before I exercise for 30 minutes.  I need to remember to do the same with my basal rates in the afternoons that I go to physical therapy and probably do something similar for dog classes, though so far, I haven’t.  It’s more fun to take an ice cream break at McDonald’s.

I haven’t done anythig to my workshop rate, and not sure if it is right anyway.  Have really only been using my weekday rate and need to use and tweak the others.  Will probably wait for Fit4D’s help on those anyway.

First, it looks like someone is picking up the treadmill later in the day.  I had resigned myself to keeping it, so it will be differnt.  I have it folded up and out of the way, but it’s relatively easy to move.

I’ve been to LA Fitness everyday since I got my membership. I have changed my daily routine and am working out before going to school.  Okay, it was only 5 days, but I have proved it is doable.  I do have to plan hard to make it work, but I am getting better at it.

I "re-pack" my gym back as soon as I get home from school and put it back in the truck in case I want to use the gym again.  I keep a shoe bag with workout shoes in the truck, and I keep three towels, a swim suit and gym gear in the bag.  I really the gear at physical therapy but more about that later in the post.

I have a second bag where I keep my hair stuff in, and I need to put spare diabetes supplies in there.  Wanted that today.  I put my clothing for the next day in that bag, and last thing before going to bed is pack my contacts (forgot them  on Thursday).

So it works.

Today, I got up and did an hour total or cardio — 40 minutes on the bike and at leavel 2 for 35 of it — and 20 minutes walking in the pool.  Then soaked in the hot tub and out.  Plan to do the same on Sunday and Monday.

Phyical therapy is going well.  In fact, next week is my last week of two days of therapy — and it will be nice to get some more time back.  When I do physical therapy I am lucky to be home by 6:30!  I do two weeks of one appointment a week and then a break for a while.

It’s going well. I have very little knee pain now, can run, at least long enough for agiity and standing longer.  I’ve resigned myself to working out on the stationary bike and they advised me to increase resistance before I increased time and that if I coud get in 35 minutes a day that would be great.