Category: Current Status

There are two major decisions I’ve mentioned on this blog that I’ve decided to delay.

The first is getting a puppy — I’ve decided to wait a year. Shopping for one, picking out a litter, etc was really fun though, and really helped me get through a rough patch. I need to remember that and try that as a stress reducer in the future.

The second is Dexcom. I’m going to wait until August 1 when the flexible spending account starts up again. Hopefully by then there might be another player in the market place, and the price will be even better.

Finally got Medco to ship Protonix again. This round was aggravating. They had approved the Protonix for a year, but then that approval got lost, so the doctor had to go through that again. They faxed him twice for prescriptions, and he finally got it in.

This is just nuts!

Not sure what I did, but had a “break through” today. My insulin usage is under 40 with very little effort and under 140 after each meal. Of course, that helps — no corrections.

Right now my average TDD is about 42. I know I will lose weight if I can get it in the 30s without driving up my over all blood sugar. That just makes me ravenous all day.

Trying to get back in the habit of blogging.

My best job

The one I have now. I love teaching. I am certified to teach computer science, mathematics, and technology applications. By far, I like computer science the most, but it is hard to get enough students to teach it all day, thus the other certifications.

That can be a curse, or a blessing. This year it started out as a curse as I was teaching math only all day. Next year I’ll teach 4 sections of CS and Webmaster the other classes periods.

Frankly, Webmastering doesn’t turn me on. First, the kids don’t know what it is about when they take it. They think it is going to be a class where they can sit and play on the internet. Nope, we need to write webpages. I also don’t like teaching it because I am not good at drawing. So between fighting with students who don’t want to do anything and trying to get people to draw who don’t like it, it’s not fun. Besides, I don’t think I am accomplishing as much.

When I teach computer science, I have two groups of students — a small subset that are really good at computer programming and usually had no idea they were when they started. And then a group of students who will just learn how it all works and will be able to better cope with it in the future.

When I teach math, I get the struggling kids since I’m guaranteed not to have taught them before. I can really make a difference to them, as I can reach them a bit differently with the computers.

My worst job

Programming for Zales. In fact, that was my last full time programming gig. I wanted a job that was low stress, come in and do it 8 hours a day, and be done with it. It started out that way, but within a short time it wasn’t that way. I left after 3 months, and haven’t gone back to professional programming.

By the way, teaching isn’t exactly a low stress job either — but the stress doesn’t last very long.

We’ve got 2 weeks and a day to go. We’re hitting all our milestones.

Today was the first day of senior finals (rolling eyes — I have never figured out why we let them out two weeks earlies, but then there you go, it’s been going on for fourteen years.) I’ve got two more classes with seniors tomorrow and one more on Thursday.

Got my schedule for next year. I’ll be getting my old schedule back.

My insulin usage has gone to just over 40 units, but I’m still not losing weight.

And best yet, it was warm enough to swim in the pool today.

I’m hooked. Okay, I’ll admit I’m a TLC junkie anyway, but being both a diabetic AND a teacher, Jamie’s School Lunch Project was guaranteed to grap me. I’m DVRing it right now.

Here’s the deal. Jamie Oliver, a chef, decides to tackle the British health issues at a “source”. School lunches. I’ll be upfront, I don’t think our lunches are as bad as the ones they were showing. My favorite of the school lunch items is our salads. We have various versions of Chef Salad — Southwest, with chicken, corn and beans in it, Tuna salad and Chicken Salad. They are super and cost 1.25. The key is shaking them in the box with dressing. Kids taught me that several years ago.

We have lots of versions of TexMex food, burritos, tacos, etc. Those are some of our biggest sellers.

However, our lunches are high fat, high carb and high salt. They could be better.

Any back to Jaime. He actually DID get Great Britian to put more money into their school lunches and they are doing a better job.

FYI: I am a victim of school lunch myself. For years, the only way I would eat rice is if it had brown sugar and cinnimon on it. Not the healthiest way to eat it.

I am still exhausted, which makes blogging harder.

However my TDD (Total Daily Dosage is still dropping). I’m just about at 43 units right now, which is great, since I had hit 65 units a day a few months ago.

I have figured out that pain is what is the biggest factor in keeping me from sleeping, so I’m doing Bextra — I have a few months of it left. I tried doing without an anti=flammatory for a week, and I think I was the most exhausted then.

I am still doing the treadmill 6 days a week, and weights 5 days a week which is definately helping the TDD.

We’ve got 2 weeks, 3 days and finals to go! Yes, I’m counting. And we get rid of the seniors next week.

It’s been a major effort, but my TDD is slowly going down. If you’ve been reading for a while, you’ll know I have had some major stress in my life, plus I injured my knee slowing down my workouts. My TDD got back up to over 60 units a day, 80 a few times, even doing Symlin.

Well, I’ve been making a effort to follow my iShape workouts every day and I’ve done very well with that. At first, the workouts were just smoothing out my blood sugars, but finally I started having to eat after working out to avoid a lot. In fact, I’m still having to do that, even though I lower my basal to 50% for exercise.

I have also been making better choices. Choosing lower carb snacks when I absolutely positively have to eat. My favorite meal is one of the packaged Ceasar salad, add a bit more salad dressing and either chicken or tuna. The bulk helps the most.

Anyway, I’m celebrating as I’ve gotten my average TDD to 45 units a day, my bolus ratios and correction ratios are also decreasing — yeah, it all works that way. I think I’ve stopped gaining weight and I’m hoping to start losing again.

We’ve had record setting temperatures in Dallas this week and I actually made it in the pool and swam some laps.

Since I had just finished 35 minutes on the treadmill, I disconnected.

Sorry for the light blogging. I’m still exhausted from the time change.

The weeks of stress and limited exercise took their toll. I’m up about 5 pounds.

The good news is that I’ve finally gotten to where I can exercise following my iShape plan, and have finally started reducing, rather than increasing my insulin usage, so maybe they will go away.

I am having real problem with the repeaters attitudes, and they are really getting to me. I’m sick to death of their lack of respect. I actually left after 2nd period yesterday — but desperately wanted the whole day off, but went in because we had an important faculty meeting.

Hopefully today will go better. Today is operant conditioning day, which means I’m taking Marcie with me.