Finally, after 2 weeks of phone calls, insurance stuff, and waiting, my 90-day Dexcom shipment is here! I am so excited to finally have it in my possession and not worry about having to go off of my Dex again ( or at least not for the next 3 months).

See, the past 2 months have been so off for me. I had gotten used to having my Dex there to tell me when I was high or low. I had gotten to the place where I was comfortable with it’s readings enough to not manually check my bg every other hour. I had finally cut my readings down from 12-15 times.. sometimes even 20 times a day, down to 7 or 8. And, since I would enter my bg into my Dex every time I’d check it, my Dex was rarely ever off more than 10 points.

But since I had ran out of sensors for almost 2 months and the whole reorder ordeal that  I went through 2 weeks ago, I felt as if my safety net was gone. I was on the diabetes tight rope again with nothing to help catch me if I slipped and fell. I saw more 300’s and 30’s than I wished to see. I can only hope and pray my A1c isn’t going to be screwed up after trying so hard back before December’s appointment to get the result I did then.

Speaking of my endo appointment, that is going to be next Thursday, the 18th. I have one at-home A1c test left in my box at home and I plan on using it when I go to my appointment so that I can compare results when they come in. Granted, it takes a week to get the endo’s results back, but hey, at least I’ll know the ballpark figure, right?… maybe?? I hope so.

Today, I signed up with my local JDRF chapter as an individual walker for the 2010 Walk To Cure Diabetes in my area next month. I am SO excited! I’ve never done a walk before so I am getting really excited about this one. I am hoping to have my hubby go with me and maybe take some pictures and things. Who knows, I may even to a vlog post from there!

Of course, when you sign up, they ask you to set a goal amount for money you’re going to try to raise. It said most individuals aim for $100, but I’m going to try for $200. If not, that’s okay. I would like to at least raise $100 so I can get a T-shirt though. And if not, that’s okay too. The fellowship of other diabetics and families of diabetics will be worth more to me than the T-shirt. It’s such a wonderful thing to be able to meet and talk with people face to face about diabetes, get to know them outside of diabetes, and possibly form friendships. I hope I do make a few local friends, as I did last night.

Also, I have added a button on the left sidebar of my page. It has the picture like the one above. If you click it, it will take you to my JDRF Walk page where you can see how much I’ve raised and how much more is needed. And, if you’d like, you can also click the “Donate” button and it will take you to another page where you can securely make a donation for me to go towards my total goal. I understand that a lot of you have local chapters of your own to support, so I completely understand if you don’t want to. I’ve still got a month to go until the event, so wish me luck that I’ll raise enough by then.

Earlier today, my friend Jillavieve from twitter posted a notice that SC Chilis restaurants were participating in the JDRF "Give Back" night. So, after my appointment, I asked my hubby if he'd mind going since a portion of the bill would go to the JDRF. Of course, he was okay with it and off we went.

When I got there, a local group was there that gets together and walks when we have the JDRF walk. They had heard about it too and were having a big get together. I, myself, have never participated, mainly because I was too shy to do it. But since opening up to all of my DOC buddies and becoming more involved in other diabetes things, I figured I'd ask and get the info. That's when I met Bruce and Susan. They gave me lots of information about the upcoming walk in April and even invited me to walk and be a part of their group! AWESOME!!! We exchanged information and agreed to keep in touch.

While I was speaking with Bruce, a mom and her son that were sitting behind me listened and joined in on the conversation. He looked to be about 12 years old to me. Very cute, nice, and polite. I kept up the conversation after Bruce left and found out he had just been diagnosed this past September. It's been hard on them since then, but they seem to be doing a great job. Mine and his last A1c's were the same, 6.1! He is currently on shot therapy now, but they seem interested in pump therapy, so I told them about my Omnipod system. His friend at school (who has had T1 since the age of 8 months) has a "traditional" pump, and he liked it, but seemed to be interested in the Omnipod since it was "wireless/tubeless". I also showed them my CGM and told them about how it checks every 5 minutes and gives you lots of information. They asked about insurance coverage and I told them the best thing to do is try. Ask the doctor to help them sign off on it and just submit the info. It's ultimately up to the insurance company whether they'll cover it or not. I gave them my info, info about TuDiabetes, and the link to Lorraine's blog about Caleb, and left them to their dinner.

Tonight, my plan was to go get some food and help the JDRF in the process. I didn't expect to meet such wonderful people. Diabetes is a crappy thing to deal with, but without it, I would not have met them. Tonight has been a good night.

I’ll be going back to my doctor today to find out how well I am healing. Also, to find out if I will need another round of antibiotics or a different type of antibiotics. I am hoping this will be a fast, simple appointment. As much as I love my doctor to death, the past week has not been pleasant. I have never been so ready to get well in all my life. Diabetes wreaks enough havoc on my body on it’s own, and I do not like having to baby another illness too.

Last week, I went every day after the procedure except for the weekends. Erik took great care of me over the weekend. I was even able to go back to work this morning. So, I am hoping that he’ll give the thumbs up, send me home, and not want to see me back until the end of the week.

All the meanwhile, my glucose levels have been doing some weird things. They were staying really high before, but since being on the antibiotic and pain medications, I can’t keep them up. I expected the exact opposite, to be honest. I feel like I have gained 5 pounds just from eating to stay up. Then, when I do go up, it’s hard to get it back down…. and suddenly I hit rock bottom again for no reason. (No rage boluses or anything, treating with only half of my recommended correction bolus, etc) It had gotten so frequent that I could just about time how often I would have to eat to try to prevent the low. And, if I missed it, I would get very sleepy, nauseated (does anyone else get this symptom of a low?) and irritable, making me not want to eat even more so. I have finally decided to change my basal rates down again and see how it goes.

So far, I’m doing pretty good. Highest being 170-ish and lowest being 70 (according to the 3hr Dex line). Even lunch seemed not to be so bad. We’ll see. I may need more tweeking.

Update on Monday, March 8, 2010 at 07:30PM by Sugabetic

Followup at the doctor's office went great. He said that everything is healing fine and that I won't have to come back until Thursday. YEY! Also, since it was healing as nicely as it was, I didn't need another round of antibiotics. Double YEY! :-)

Since getting my cgm sensors, I have once again realized just how "off" my basal rates are. So, I decided to go with a straight, one dosage level basal for a few days to see if I could tell a pattern. And, sure enough, there is one. I need 3, instead of 4. I need less in the am and pm than I do from 8am-6pm. Now, I'll be working on those. Also, my insulin to carb ratio is off, so that will be the next thing to tackle.

Well, the one thing I don't know how to do is handle my bg spikes when stress comes. I thought I had it figured out, but apparently not. All day today, I did very well staying within my range set on my cgm... That is until this afternoon.

See, today wasn't a good day for me. I have an infected cyst on the inside of my leg my doctor has been working with me for a week to clear up and put me on antibiotics to try to heal it, but they weren't working. Apparently, the cyst formed a wall around itself before I had a chance to get antibiotics in me, making the antibiotics not able to treat it. So, today, he had to go in and open it up surgically, drain it, and pack it. He said that the inside of it was about the size of a pecan. It didn't look that big from the outside, but apparently it went deeper into my tissue than I knew. No wonder it hurt!!

But, back to my main point, I did okay through the procedure bg wise, and figured I'd be okay. But after getting home and the pain finally fully hitting me, my bg didn't want to play nice. It spiked above 200 and kept climbing. I'll admit, I didn't like this one bit. Not just because i was high, but because I just had minor surgery, if you will, to help clear an infection, and I did not need my bg to act up now. Not to slow the healing any more than it already would be.

I don't handle stress very well. I panic and stress out, which I think adds to the rise in my bgs. Same thing happened 2 weeks ago when our clothes washer quit and we had to buy a new one. Again when I had the scare with Dexcom about my sensor reorder / insurance coverage mixup. And again this weekend when I found out we need a new roof on the house. They always say that when it rains, it pours. I believe this to be true. The only difference is, I'd rather it be the real rain since it is somewhat relaxing. Life's rain sucks. Whether the stress be physical or emotional, it always seems to do a number on my bg levels.

The point of this post is that I feel like I'm at a loss. I should know what to do, but I feel like I am having to re-learn everything about how to manage my diabetes. Nothing is how I thought it was for all these years, and it has taken getting a cgm to find this out.

So, my question to you, my friends, is what do you for bg spikes due to stress? How do you handle it?