A Miracle!

This past week has been chaotic at best.  The week started with prep for a Wild Game Feast.  I shopped, looked at recipes, and cooked for 3.5 days. The dinner was Wednesday night and we had about 50 people there.  Everyone left very sated from all the wonderful elk, deer, trout, pheasant, and side dishes! 

The day of the dinner I couldn't keep my BG up.  It got a little confusing when I couldn’t tell the difference between Bravo alerting for BG and wanting more meat scraps! 

Thursday we had a board meeting and all day my BG went up and It down…more of a typical roller coaster day.

Yesterday was a miracle!  Why????  My BG stayed in between 80 and 180 ALL DAY and I got to eat!  About 10 days ago I received a loaner DexCom Seven from Cottonwood Endocrinology.  Dex is a continuous blood glucose monitor. I test on average of 10 to 15 times a day with my meter.  Dex tests every 5 minutes.  I saw a lot of things that I was missing or ideas were confirmed by the data I was receiving.  Dex is an amazing little creature.  It has some pitfalls but the feedback I have been getting is incredible!

This is the 2nd time I have been on a CBGM (continuous blood glucose monitor) in the last 2 months.  The first time I couldn’t see the results. Dex has a little screen that gives data immediately. My diabetic educator told me when you are on one …IT IS TIME TO TEST THEORIES AND TRY NEW THINGS.  I did and yesterday I think we stumbled on something that works.

I have NASTY spikes after eating.  It doesn’t matter if I eat 15 carbs or 60 carbs my BG spikes to 200 or better.  There have been days I could think about food and it would spike.  It seems I have zero 1st phase insulin and limited 2nd phase insulin.  My insulin has never matched my food, so I would get wild swing.  I have tried everything under the sun! Low carb, not eating, dual waves, supplements, drugs, and the list goes on.  Yesterday I discovered I feature on my Animas Ping pump that I think may be part of the miracle I have been looking for.  It is the temporary basal feature.  Basal insulin is the insulin in our bodies that constantly there.  It kind of just ekes out to keep BG levels semi steady.  Basal rates are different for everyone. 

Yesterday I decided to try this feature out.  As I got ready to eat lunch I turned my basal rates up by 30 percent for 3 hours then I bolused for the carbs I was going to eat.  At 2 hours I was at 125, at 3 I was at 120.  Then I turned the basal down 30% for 2.5 hours.  At 6 hours after eating I was at 100 and at 8 hours after eating I was at 100.   It was STEADY!!!!!  I ate again and the same thing happened.  I awoke this am to a BG reading of 100!!!

I know to those of you who don’t have diabetes I am speaking a foreign language, but trust me when I say THIS IS A MIRACLE for me.  The last time my BG was this steady was when I was in the the hospital for 2 weeks not eating at all!  Before that I am betting it has been close to 10 years!  I don’t remember the last time I woke up with a BG that low. 

Thank you Lord!!!!!!!!!!!  THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!!

 

P.S.  Lord, if it isn’t asking to much can I have another miracle with these lows I have been having?????  Don’t want to be greedy, but it sure would be nice to have some more of my life back that I have gave up!

Radar’s Alert

 

Monday was a rough day!  It started off harmless enough.  I went and did a therapy dog visit at Aspen Ridge Rehab Hospital. Then I went and ate lunch with a friend.

Then my blood glucose decided to go awry. For 6 hours I was all over the map. Up and down…it was like roller coaster ride that I couldn’t get off of.  To be honest, I don’t remember much of the evening.  Lows are like wading in mud up to your waist.  You try to push on through to get to the other side but sometimes it is easier to just sit and sink!  I know that both Bravo and Radar had a busy evening.  If I am home Radar generally alerts first.  I think that it is because he is most often laying on my lap or on the arm of chair, while Bravo is on floor at feet or laying on the couch. (Yes my dogs are allowed on the furniture….so if you don't like dog hair it probably isn't a good idea to come to my house.) 

Because Radar is sort of new to all this, I am still learning his patterns of alerting and still building a trust with him.  For those of you that know Radar, you know that he has a nickname that he lives up to. For those of you that don’t know Radar…lets just say when he is good, he is absolutely wonderful but when he is bad………HE IS HORRID!  Radar does nothing in moderation!

Anyhow I am sitting in my chair thinking about taking a nap…the phone rings and it is Kim, my diabetic educator.  I remember talking to her at first then my memory gets real fuzzy.  The rest of this is from her. “You was telling Radar to stop it and go lay down. When I ask you what he was doing, you replied he is smacking me in the head with his paw.  I ask what Bravo was doing you said laying on couch looking at me.  You kept getting after Radar telling him to leave you alone. I ask if you had checked your sugar, you told me it was 128 about a half hour ago. I told you to check again. You kept growling at Radar to stop it.  When ask again what Radar was doing you told me he was standing on your shoulder licking your ear, pawing your head and that Bravo had his head in your lap and was staring at you.  I finally got you to check and you had dropped to 39.”

Radar is tenacious!  When he decides he is really going after something NOTHING will stop him.  It is like the more you tell him no, the more he says “Well, WATCH THIS”!

I got Radar with no real specific purpose in mind.  He was going to be my ‘truck dog”.  I wanted a little dog but I needed one that could hang with my big dogs.  Nothing fazes him, except he doesn’t like my brother stomping his feet at him.  Radar retrieves birds, jumps off the dock (SOMETIMES when water isn’t to cold), plays at agility, does stupid pet tricks, and will do about anything I ask him to do…but he does everything with a big dog attitude.  I tell people that he is a 18 pound, 15 inch tall Chesapeake Bay retriever. He is really a Parson Russell Terrier.  What a funny little dog!  When I first got him, he snuggled right into me.  Then we went to go get a harness for him and he tried to eat me in the middle of Petco.  Radar has always been at the extremes.  He does nothing halfway.

No matter how he handles things I am just glad he is as tenacious as he is about alerting.  A friend once told me “A stubborn person needs a stubborn dog!”  Hmmmm, I guess I deserved that remark!