Warning. I whine a lot.

I think I might have had like one beta cell doing its thing, and now its dead.

I have no basis to think this, except that the rebound highs from lows are spiking over 300, when they NEVER got anywhere near that high before.  And I mean they got that high after I corrected.  Like last night, I went low after dinner - not a terrible one, but still no fun - and I knew I ate too much.  I corrected when my blood sugar hit 135, to counteract the high I knew was likely.  It went up to the 380s.  THREE EIGHTIES.  Fortunately, it responded well to the second correction bolus, and I wasn't up all night battling highs, like I often am.  I guess I should have corrected at 200 when the CGM buzzed, but I figured I had some insulin on board....whoops. But you know, it's hard to know.  I had to ask myself if I wanted to correct or wait, because what if I corrected then, only to go low again?  Even with a cgm, knowing what to do is rough.

Anyone else have a body that says "I don't care if you injected insulin, it's nighttime and I am doing nothing about it?"

I am battling the swing of highs and lows like I've never had to before. For someone who's seen 300 once since diagnosis, (except when I get served real Dr. Pepper instead of diet) seeing it pop up so much this week is very disheartening. Swinging does not feel good, in case you were wondering.  And if I'm not swinging, then I am not coming down post meal like I should.  I get up to about 160-180 after I eat, and just stay there.

I have switched out every bottle of insulin for new ones.  I have adjusted my Levemir to a slightly higher dose. Which for some bizarre reason, that made me feel like a failure, like if I need more basal insulin I am doing something wrong - stupid liver. I still have the dawn phenom and what I like to call "the dusk phenomenon" going on to a degree that is not good.  (I go high in the morning and at night - I don't know what that's about, but I hate it.)  I am pounding the water.  I don't really like water, but I am drinking lots of it trying to keep hydrated, knowing that's crucial for control.

I haven't exercised much this week, my exercise buddy is out of town, and doing it myself is no fun at all.  So that's different, but still.  I have NEVER see sugars this high, and that includes diagnosis.

My next appointment with my endo isn't until June, when I will get prescribed a pump.  I am thinking I should call him and try to get in earlier, but seriously, I know that if I do, I'll show up with 2 weeks worth of perfect sugars because diabetes KNOWS when I call the doctor, and it behaves accordingly. And what's he going to do, really?  Tell me to try more insulin.  Be nice.  Charge me money.

So I am at a loss at the whys and what to dos.  You'd think after 4 years I would know, but I have learned that you  NEVER know, even if it's been 40 years.

I swear a couple of beta cells are dead now, when they weren't before.  I feel like holding a funeral for them.

The D at night.

Dex woke me up last night saying I was high.  Which is not unusual, and what I want to know is, does anyone else go high sometime between midnight and two a.m. fairly consistently?  What is UP with that?

Anyway..I woke up.  I took care of it.  I went back to sleep.

Or so I thought.

Because when I woke up later to pee, I glanced at Dex just to make sure it was all good, and a 352 was staring me in the face.  What the chicken?

And as I thought about it, I was pretty sure I didn't actually dose when it woke me up.  I just went back to sleep, and dreamed about dosing.

Nice.

Back in high school, I used to hit snooze and then dream I was showering, getting dressed, all that jazz, and I was all ready for school, only to have the alarm go off again to show me I was still asleep and going to be late. I hated it, because in my brain I had already gone through the motions of doing my stupid hair, and now I had to do it again?  Blerg...I swear there was one day I "got ready" 4 times, but only the last one counted.  This was just like that.

Maybe Dex needs two high alarms, just like it has two low ones.  Yes, that's what the Dexcom needs....MORE BEEPING.

Diabetes Stole My Day

I would like today back.  I had things to do.  But, alas, it was not to be.

It wasn't so unusual.  After the kids were at school and the hubs was at work, I got the house cleaned up.  I had an unusually high morning sugar (229!) but wasn't too concerned about it because it hadn't been high for very long (thank you CGM), and I am not a stranger to the dawn phenom, although, like everything else, it cannot be counted on to show up every morning.  Just when it wants to.  I corrected, bolused, and ate the same breakfast with the same dosage I eat probably 80% of the time.

Hours later, after hilariously trying to fix pool stuff I do not understand in the least, I started to think about lunch. The dogs are asleep on me, which is very sweet, and the next best thing to a newborn on your chest.  I consider driving through somewhere on my way to my errands. I decided not to disturb the dogs just yet, after all, it was only 12:30, and I had eaten breakfast around 9:30.  I have gone much longer between meals, and it's not like it was a morning where I had worked out.

And then the CGM buzzed.  59.  OK.  I guess I better get up and deal with this.

And then it hit me.  One of the lows that has you crawling on the floor begging for any food that anyone will throw at you.  A low that has your CGM abandoning all pretense at numbers and just screaming the word LOW at you.  One of the lows where you know you're going to overtreat, but you don't care, because this is one of the scary ones.

I eat a couple of Starbursts.  I do not feel better. I am sweating like a crazy person (although frankly I don't know if crazy people sweat more).  I call my husband and ask him to stay on the phone with me until my sugars come up. I check the monitor.  41.

I crawl into my room. We have a stash of Halloween candy we bought off our children and I use it for this purpose.  I begin shoving Butterfingers and Twix.  I eat a Reese's.  I take off my nasty sweaty shirt and somewhere something registers that if the paramedics have to show up, I might want my shirt on, but at this point I do not care because the sweat is the worst part.

And slowly, slowly, I begin to feel better.  Things are looking up, literally.  The CGM still says "Low" but with an arrow slanting upward.  I let my husband go back to his lunch.  I get dressed.  I am upright again and walk to the kitchen and assemble my lunch, staring at the leftover Chinese food and wondering just how to bolus for this plus the candy assault I had just launched at my body. And ooh - there are some Saltines! Those look good.  Might as well eat those too. I must have done alright because my sugars never raised above 170.

(Until later when I continued to eat Saltines for no good reason except that the salt tasted good after all that sugar, and I conveniently didn't bolus for them, because really, one cracker at a time isn't that much.....THEN I began to soar).

And then you would think it was over, right?  A scary time, yes, but when all is said and done, it was really only a half an hour out of my day.  Still plenty of time to get everything done.

Except.  Except for the headache.  Except for the fatigue. The Hanglowver I believe it's called. And except for the emotional toll those suckers take on me. What if I had decided to get in the car to get lunch?  What then? Usually I'm in class on Friday mornings.  What if this had hit while I was there?  I know.  I would have been fine.  Embarrassed maybe, as I sweat and ate massive amounts of candy, but fine.  And so I chose to catch up on Tivo'd shows and instead of worry about the pool, just sit by it, and just try to remind myself that it's all good.  These aren't that common.

But what they are is hard to predict.  I had absolutely no reason to believe today would be a day that the low monster would grab me in his paws and not let go.  That today was a day where diabetes likes to channel the girl from the Labyrinth and try to convince me that  "You have no power over me."

Usually I'M Jennifer Connelly and diabetes is the creepy David Bowie dude.  But occasionally...

Just about sums it up...

Pretty much all I can hope for at this point is that all these people working on different cures spark an "arms race" of sorts to be the first to get this done.

(I still like Faustman.  She's the only one addressing the immuno issue.)

(I will take everything and anything offered, though.  Let me be clear on that.)

Everybody's Got a Cure....Links and Stuff

It seems I have been hearing a lot of the cure lately.  And so I will tell you what I've heard....

First of all, Dr. Faustman has raised over 14 million.  She has reversed Type 1 in mice, and she continues to put together her protocols for Phase 2 of her clinical study, and hopes to enroll patients sometime this year.  I will be headed out in September to give her blood.  Sweet.

Second of all, dogs seem to have gotten in on the cure action, and since they gave us insulin, it seems only fitting.

Third of all, this guy has a big announcement he can't wait to tell us about, and yet he can...

Fourth of all, cancer drugs fix everything. .

Fifth of all, a bionic pancreas is in the works.

Of all these cures, I really think that last one is the only thing that will lead to anything.  Why do I think that?  Because it's the only one that forces us to stay dependent on devices and injected insulin.  Seriously.  3 devices.  2 pumps and a CGM.  The cost and the maintenance will be a pain.  It will be so much better than what we have, but it will be expensive.

The rest of them will actually make our bodies do the work, and we can't have that, oh no, we can't have that.

So I sit, and wait, and inject, and test, and sigh.  I do hope a little.  Somewhat.

And I drink Diet Dr. Pepper.