Of Randomness and Roses

• 5 Year Diaversary was a couple of days ago.  What with the fainting and what-not, I totally forgot about it.  Celebrated with a bag of mint M&M's (in honor of my newly diagnosed self who thought she'd never eat one) and a large Diet Dr. Pepper.  Got a MAJOR stomach ache.  Apparently I am not used to sitting and chowing a bag of candy, haven't done that for oh, about 5 years. 

• 5 years is a big deal.  I should have done something more, like last year.  But, meh.  My kids were super confused about the candy, though.  "You're NOT low?  You're just eating candy?  Wait, you're low, right?"  

• New CGM came today!!! Currently in its 2 hour calibration period.  I am super impatient, what with the 2 weeks without data, and the crappy consequences of such.  I haunted the door until the UPS guy came.  I even opened the door for the Jehovah's Witnesses, who taught me about death.  All I kept thinking is that they weren't UPS.  Dang.

• Note to self:  Get a new transmitter battery in 6 months.  I do not want to do this again.  Can Siri remind me?   She's pretty useless normally.  Hopefully by then I'll have a new phone anyway, and it'll have an android operating system.  Ah....android.  (On a side note, does anyone else think it's bizarre that we spend tons of money on phones that are designed to break every 2 years?  Anyone?  No?  Everybody's OK with it?  OK then.) 

Speaking of Money.....

The annual Spare A Rose Campaign is upon us.  The concept is, that for the cost of Valentine's roses (or a single rose), you can pay for a child's diabetes supplies, thereby saving a life. 

Fundraisers that begin with the phrase "For the price of (blank) you can do (blank)" always make me titchy.  "For the cost of a new pair of shoes or a dinner out"...just simply makes me want to buy a new pair of shoes and then go out to eat afterwards. I have my shoe budget, my dinner budget, and my charitable giving budget, and who are YOU to tell me where to spend my money? 

I may have a problem. But it always does rub me the wrong way.  You?  No?  You are clearly a better person than I am.  I'm glad we're friends.

No matter how it's phrased,  this is something I care about deeply.  When I got diagnosed, I asked the nurse in the hospital what people in Africa do, who don't have food, or insulin, and she just shrugged and said "They die.  Same as if they get AIDS."  Awesome.  They die.  OK then.

Death rate in Haiti for Type 1's is 80%.  EIGHTY PERCENT.  That's just criminal.

So I will go ahead and ask you to donate, but instead of telling you which budget to take it out of,  I will simply say "$5 will pay for a month's worth of supplies for a child. And that's groovy."  

(Apropos of nothing, I love white roses.  LOVE THEM.  I was proposed to with them, they were all over my wedding, and they are forever my favorite flower.  Please put them on my coffin.  But not today, because I'm not dead yet.)

I don't care where you had that $5 earmarked, if it was for roses, (maybe roses cost more where you live)  or for you to stare at lovingly because you love to stare at money (similar to my 10 year old, so no judgment).  Maybe you were saving up for a new phone, because hey, your 18 month old phone is clearly a dinosaur.  Maybe you don't budget every little dollar that comes in, and $5 isn't going to break you.  Maybe I should stop talking.

You can print out a "certificate of awesome" telling your loved one where your rose money went, so that's kind of fun.  Make him/her feel guilty about wanting flowers instead.  That's always good for relationships.  Show them that YOU are the better person.  Chocolate?  No way, baby.  LIFE.

Also, why don't my supplies cost $5 a month?  

To sum up:

Go send money.  Do it in the name of whatever you want.  Roses are a good one, though.

I wish my supplies were cheaper.

I may have issues.  

       

Party with the D

Today is Monday.  Let's talk about this weekend.

Where to start....where to start....

Let's start with my uncle, who was a fabulous man, and loved to say things like "I feel like Elizabeth Taylor's 7th husband - I know what to do, I just don't know how to make it interesting."  A man who loved people, family, and God, a man who made you feel like the most important person in the room just by talking to you.  He cared about everybody.  A LOT.

He passed away last week, succumbing to Parkinson's and Multiple Myeloma,  and so this weekend my husband and I headed to the yonder freaky regions of Los Angeles to attend his memorial service.  It was rough, but a lot of family was there, and it was good to see everybody.

And diabetes didn't let me forget that it was part of my life, even though, seriously?  This weekend would be the perfect weekend for it to take the back burner, thank you very much.

To catch up, transmitter died.  It has now been 10 days without a CGM.  This has been a party.

(In some good news, the insurance is paying for it, and once they found that out, the distributor emailed me to see if I wanted one.  To SEE if I WANTED ONE, and if so, what color?  To which the answers are yes, and black.)

And this weekend, we headed out Thursday to make the 8 hour drive to Los Angeles.  Thursday morning, without the benefit of knowing when at night I went high, (*fell asleep in the 140s)  I woke up in the 350s.  Like I say, party.  So I corrected and ran some errands, and by the time I got home, I was in the 50s.  It was SO AWESOME.

A CGM would have prevented this, waking me up and all.  I often go high at night, but not every night, so I can't really program my pump accordingly.

But it is what it is.  We took off that afternoon, and without incident, arrived that night at my sister's.  Fell asleep in the 160s, with a correction bolus "on board."

Friday morning, again, I awoke in the 330s, or the 380s, depending on which fingerstick you believe.  Either way, WAY TOO HIGH.  Bolused at 9:30.

So I correct, eat a high protein breakfast, with some potatoes thrown in because they are delicious, and we went to the family graveside service.  In the car, approx 2.5 hours after my bolus, around noon, I check again. 257.  So, this is good, I am dropping.

You think you see where this is going, don't you?  And yet...not quite.

The service was on  a small hill in the cemetery, not far from the car. There were a few chairs set up, and many people were standing in order to allow the older generation to sit.

I stood.  For about 2 minutes.

The dizzies were getting me, and so I sat.  It is now 1:00, and I feel terrible, so I check my sugars.  148.   Huh.. I'm way down from this morning, but not in any kind of danger at all, not like the day before.  The dizzies go away.  I enjoy the service, as much as one can.

Afterwards, I try to go talk to an uncle I haven't seen in a while, but I simply could not make it back to the car.  Standing up was not good.  Walking was not good.  I'm leaning hard on my husband's arm, swaying and wishing the dizziness would go away so I could, you know, stand upright and walk to the car. Seeing would be good, too, but all these dots are in the way. I eat a Starburst, (which my husband had to open for me) even though I know I'm not hypo, just in case. Midway down the hill, (keep in mind this is a small hill) I have to lie down, because this just isn't happening.  I lie there, clammy hands, sweating, SUPER dizzy, and they check my sugars again.  128. At this point my family has formed a small circle around me.

It was kind of embarrassing actually.  We were all there to celebrate Howard's life, and here I am lying on the ground.

 A cousin who is training to be an EMT kept asking if I was OK.  (He did ask me later if I had any insulin tabs, and I told him those don't exist, he was probably thinking of glucose tabs. It's OK, he's still in classes). I have an uncle who is a doctor and he was helping me out.  He said it was probably just that my blood pressure had dropped, and I needed to lie there until it equalized. I keep trying to get up, but no, the nice grass is better.  My speech got slurred, (apparently) and my sisters swear there "was a moment" where my eyes rolled up and I looked out of control of my body.  But a short one, they swear.

It was NOT a party.  

Eventually I made it back to the car and to lunch.  Sugars were 118 pre meal.  All that terrible-ness, and I never got below 100.

Did I faint?  Did I seize?  Was it diabetic shock from dropping too fast? Dehydration from the long car ride and the high sugars?  Was it even diabetes related at all?

Who the hell knows?

You?  Do you know?  Because if you do, that would be great.

Every night since then, I have set my alarm for 2 am to check my sugars.  And yes, every night I have been just over 200, but with a nice little bolus, I wake up just fine.

I can't wait for my new CGM to arrive.  It will hopefully make for fewer embarrassing moments and less flailing.  Less flailing would be good.

Shenanigans!

Things have been crazy, diabetes wise, this week, and it's not even my blood sugars that are doing it

It's the robot parts.  All the robot parts have conspired against me.  My pancreas is mad that something else is doing its job, even though it can't be bothered, really.  So it's kicking and screaming.  I'm sure you know someone like that?  Won't work, but bitter if someone else tries to?  I think it's an insecurity issue, and all my pancreas needs is a little therapy.

First of all, late Tuesday night, technically 2:52 Wednesday morning, my Dexcom decided to alert.

Not high. Not low.  No, the transmitter battery is dying.  I need a new battery.

Blatantly stolen from the Dexcom website

 It decides that ALMOST 3 a.m. is the perfect time to tell me this.

So Wednesday a.m. I dig through my email, because I know I've saved one from the distributor that sends me all things pump and Dex related, and ah, yes, there it is.  The one that tells me if I ever see this alert, to RUN FOR MY LIFE, because the DEX WILL KILL ME.

Or...to call them stat, because I have a week left before this thing dies completely.

So I call them.  They refer me to equipment specialists.  They tell me if nobody contacts me in the next couple of days, to call them back. I sit and wait.  (This company has always been very nice to me, but it does business like it's 1999 or something, which is when I worked in customer service.  You can't check on the status of anything online, you must call them for everything.  I actually think it's probably HIPAA related, and that everything medical related is consistently 10-15 years behind the times.)

And for the next 3 nights, the SAME ALERT  pops up, at exactly the SAME TIME.

"HEY!  HEIDI!  IT'S 2:52 A.M.!  DID YOU KNOW YOU NEED A NEW TRANSMITTER?"

It's not annoying at all.  I mean, diabetes doesn't keep me awake enough, I need a new alarm that orders me to call people at 3 a.m.

Friday I call them back.  They say it's "pending benefits" which means they are trying to get my insurance to pay for it. "But don't worry.  You have until Wednesday before you'll need a new one.  We'll get this out to you in time".

 Let me save you some time and just say "they ain't gonna pay" because it is January and my deductible isn't met yet.  But I have a sneaking suspicion this'll do the job, and come February 1st, that deductible is nicely met.  Which means I will have to dish out a pretty penny for this transmitter.  A VERY pretty penny.

From Doodle Du Jour

Have I mentioned the pump part yet?  No?  Well, here it is in a nutshell.  Whenever I go really high, and rage bolusing isn't working, I pull the infusion set and replace it.  And I was recently on a very happy making vacation, (which is a completely different blog post altogether, prepping for and navigating that) and it was on a lovely boat, and there was a lot of food, and a lot of shot in the dark boluses, and well, more than a few infusion sets got pulled when they were perfectly fine.

Traveling light is a thing of the past.

Which leads to..I ran out of infusion sets before my auto refill showed up.  (It was shipped on Wednesday, though, and seriously, should be here!) And I haven't been pumping long enough to hoard stuff.  (It'll happen, though, no worries).  And this last one I had been wearing for a week and today it finally said "ENOUGH!"  and pulled out.  It was getting super itchy anyway.

And today, being Saturday, is the day the transmitter decided its lifespan was over, and the only reading I could get from Dexcom was "out of range".  When the receiver is in my pocket.  For hours.

A week, my donkey.

So there I am, no Dex, no pump really, and so I do the only thing there is TO DO.

I call another Type 1.  Well, technically his mom, who is my friend, and I beg a couple of infusion sets off of her.

She comes through like a champ, and even though I couldn't successfully break into her house to get them, she drove over an hour out of her way to get them to me, because SHE ROCKS.

She gets them to me as I am driving to a soccer game, and I give no thought to what random soccer moms think of me stabbing my stomach with this weird thing, I am GETTING THAT PUMP CONNECTED.

(This post has a lot of caps.  My apologies)

I set the basal at 50% for a couple of hours, because I took a few units of Levemir to cover those hours of no basal, and I didn't want to go low, especially without the added security of the Dex arrows to watch.

I get connected, sit down, take a deep breath, a long drag of Diet Dr. Pepper, and pull out my monitor to test my sugars, with the plan of testing every half hour or so, just to see where I'm headed with the different things going on today.

And behold!  I am out of test strips.  Pull out my purse, and of course! The extras in my purse are for the old mini, not the new Verio I've been using now, in anticipation of switching to the Sync.  I am now officially stuck for the next 3 hours with no way to test my sugars, no dexcom to rely on, and a wonky basal schedule.  Perfect.

Shenanigans.

P.S.  I was 180 mg/dl when I got home.  Not too shabby for the day I've had, really.

P.P.S.  This is really why we need a biological cure.  Devices are not foolproof.  Also, it's exhausting, being tied to stuff that your life depends on 24/7.  EXHAUSTING.

Picard tells you what....random thoughts.

1.  I recently switched meters, from the OneTouch Mini to the OneTouch Verio IQ  They sent me one with my T Slim, and it has a *light* (brilliant! ha ha) and so at my next doc appt, I asked him to switch strips, seeing as how my prescription was expiring anyway.

The light is great.  However, it seems to vary greatly from fingerstick to fingerstick, and it's far more "off "  with Dex than the other meter. Like this morning, Dex says 76.  Fingerstick says 151.  Hmm. So I do it again, and this time it's 127.  Being off by a factor of more than 20 points is not unusual, and it drives me nuts.  Sometimes it says 240, than 218 the second time.  I pull out my old meter, and it's 189.  I'm supposed to make life or death decisions based on this?

Meter accuracy.  Drives me beyond crazy.

2. Last a1c was 7%.  This is not happy making, but I will not beat myself up over it.  It was just weird because I expected around 6.5%.  And when things are not what I expect, GRRRRRRR.  I know 7% is "fine" and all, but it's the highest I've seen, and my last one was 6.4, and yada yada yada.

3. When I see a 300 now, I don't freak out.  I should freak out, right?  I still treat it, I'm not that crazy. It's kind of scary that I'm more comfortable with terrible numbers.  It's also comforting, because you're going to get bad numbers, and freaking out is exhausting.  Still..  300 is BAD.  I see it more now with the pump mostly due to kinked cannulas.  Or ginger cookies.  WHY can't I avoid ginger cookies, and WHAT is the correct bolus?

It's bizarro, the mental gymnastics this disease causes.

4.  Speaking of Dex, I am seeing a lot of ??? and Sensor Fails, almost like I'm wearing the 7 again.  It's barely over a year old, do you think that has anything to do with it?  I am approved for a new transmitter, (yearly benefit) but it's the new year and I haven't started working on that deductible yet, and...expensive.  But if it's not working as well, I may as well get that deductible met now and get a transmitter that works.

4. Speaking of Dex again. Glucovation.  I want in.  Guys left Dexcom, started their own company to make an over the counter, cheaper, anyone can use it CGM?  That sends data to your phone? With no calibration time?  No fingersticks?  And MORE accurate?  No prescription necessary? I WANT IN.  Do they need somebody in podunk az to test it for them?  Can I work from here for them?  WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP  MAKE THIS HAPPEN SOONER?

Man, I wish I had tons of money to invest.  This is going to be big. I can feel it in my pancreas.

5.  And finally, I saw this one when I was making the other memes, and I love it, so I will end with it. (Not diabetes related).

World Diabetes Day. A Poem.

(I totally stole this idea from Kerri.  Her poem's awesome.)

Have you drunk enough water?
Have you had enough food?
These are questions I'm asking,
Though I'm not in the mood.

No, I'm not in the mood
to count carbs like crazy.
But I know when I don't,
Everything will get hazy.

When the numbers are wacky,
I don't seem to know why.
I've done nothing different,
So why am I high?

Exercise is a must,
Though I know when I do it,
A low is a-comin,
I'll just have to get through it.

Leaving the house
Is a whole new ordeal.
Do I have all the supplies,
That I'll need to stay real?

Do I have all the needles,
the insulin too?
The pump set infusion,
And glucagon new?

The doctors they tell me
That everything's fine,
But come back tomorrow,
Because it's a fine line.

Machines are all running,
They pump and they check.
They keep things all humming,
So I'm not a wreck.

The cure, it'll be here.
It's due any day.
That's what they tell me,
Yes, that's what they say.

In the meantime, I wonder
If I can have milk.
I ask the same questions
As those of my ilk.

It's a cruel game we're playing,
This sugar roulette,
With the pancreas taunting -
"You get what you get".

They just keep on pounding,
These drums in my head.
It's while I'm awake,
And while I'm in bed.

So here's to the people.
The people who pray,
The people who celebrate,
World Diabetes Day.

Me And "The Green Smoothie Girl"

Ok, first of all, you might get offended at this post.  If so, I'm sorry, and I hope we can still be friends.

Also, as it turns out, there are a lot of CAPS in this post.  Sorry, and yes, I'm yelling.

So, here goes:

The one "cure" I get the most is green smoothies.  Hands down.  I hear this a lot.  "Go on a juice fast.  Green juice only.  It solves everything."  "No, not juice. Smoothies.  Green smoothies."  "Green this....green that.."

I know processed food is bad.  I've read quite a bit about it.  I'm against food colorings, hydrogenated oils, all that terrible stuff. (Flavor blasted goldfish are not good for you.  That's all I'm saying).

They send me to different websites about various spas and such, and "The Green Smoothie Girl" comes up a lot.  Hey, I'm into whatever will help, and greens?  Who says those are bad?  Anybody? So I go to her website.

Immediately the first thing I see is a video where she chats with a "Dr." who cured himself of Type 1 eating raw.  This used to be on her main page, now you have to dig through her site to find it.

Go.  Check it out.  (It will piss you off if you are diabetic, but go anyway).  It's the second video.  The very first thing she says is how remarkably simple it is to reverse Type 2, but HERE we have a Type 1....

It's so awesome.  So miraculous. (where is the sarcasm font?)

"Prior to eating raw, my blood sugar averaged about 300, which is high..."  Um yeah.  If your blood sugar was averaging 300, you have some serious issues with control, and your medical team needs to be changed. No wonder you felt crappy.  You were not doing what the medical community was advising.

Then he eats raw food for 30 days, and voila!  He's ALL BETTER.  (Actually, he's just eating food that doesn't require insulin.  Oh, and he still needs insulin if he's sick, but STILL, he's CURED)

When I dug through her site to find the video again, I have to get angry again, as I see the first statement, in which she states "I doubt they have ever tried to heal the pancreas".

Oh, you "doubt that" do you?

Um.....THAT'S ALL THEY HAVE EVER TRIED TO DO.  IT'S WHAT THEY ARE STILL TRYING TO DO.

(Well, OK.  That comes second to keeping us alive with insulin.)

Every doctor I have ever talked to about diabetes (and yes, they have "bought into the endocrinology story") says that the research points to regeneration if the immuno attack is stopped.  They used to think it was just in honeymooning diabetics, but more and more they are realizing that many Type 1's make insulin for far longer than the initial honeymoon phase.  It probably isn't all of us, but it's more than they thought, and that is exciting, exciting, news. Healing the pancreas is PRIORITY #1.

But, no.  They've bought into the terrible medicine story, and want everybody to die a horrible, sickly death. They won't tell you that.  Only she will.

Here she is talking as if her special doctors (and only go holistic, peeps!  Only HOLISTIC) are the only ones who will tell you the secret of islet cell regeneration. Nope.  Pretty sure they're all shouting that from the rooftops.  It's just that we haven't figured out that pesky little immuno attack thing.  I took a study drug (placebo! Dammit!) that tried to regenerate those lovely islet cells. That was over 4 years ago.  Not a secret. 

There's more.  If you don't want to look, the link is a lovely little story about someone taking "no supplemental insulin" after 3 weeks of going vegan.

Except here's where the definition of "supplemental" comes in. He's still on his long acting.  He takes less of it, to be sure, but he still needs that.

(It reminded me a lot of my colonoscopy prep, actually.  I ate very very little, and took probably 10% of my basal and that was it.  What a miracle.)

All in all, it's a nice little uplifting story of  "reducing insulin usage".  Paraphrasing here - "It's so crazy!  I'm eating raw veggies and I need far less insulin?  Who knew?"

EVERYBODY KNEW.

This guy doesn't need to bolus anymore!  Just basal!  Nobody will tell you this!

PEOPLE.  YES.  IF YOU EAT NOTHING BUT VEGGIES YOUR INSULIN USAGE WILL DROP. THIS IS HOW THEY TREATED DIABETICS BEFORE INSULIN.  YOU WILL NOT NEED TO BOLUS.

If you don't do the basal, you'll eventually starve to death, but that's a quibble, really.

Actually, before insulin, they did starve diabetics, because hey, no food=no insulin necessary (they didn't know about insulin yet, but this is why the starvation diet works). They did allow small amounts of veggies and meat.  But yes, veggies basically don't require a bolus.  Well, some do, but spinach and kale and what not, not so much. Your basal should cover that just fine.  This is what those "evil conspiring doctors" do know, and they will tell you this.

It's too bad, really, that she makes these leaps.  Because so much of what she says is true.  Americans eat like crap.  We eat way too much sugar, processed foods, and drink too much soda.  We don't drink enough water and we don't eat enough veggies.  And if you do her program, you probably will experience weight loss, more energy, and clearer skin.  It probably will clear up some of your other health issues, your blood pressure will drop, your cholesterol possibly, and you'll probably feel pretty good. That's basic.  The body likes real food, and it likes green food. I'm not disputing that, and I think it's a great message.

I don't know why, however, she takes that and then makes these leaps into saying that doctors won't tell you the truth, (because they don't know it) and that diabetes can be cured.  That dietitians have all bought into the misinformation that they learned in college, and are under the thumb of the lobbyists from the meat and dairy industry.  No dietitian has ever read as much as the Green Smoothie Girl.  She's read the most.  And if you disagree with her, you just haven't read the studies she has.

I've met with a few dietitians in my lifetime.  The first thing they all say?  "Nobody gets enough vegetables.  Eat all the green vegetables you want.  Then eat some more. Drink a lot of water."  They're all agreeing with her basic message. If you ask them about juicing and smoothies?  "Go for it."   Although, since being diabetic, I have received the advice to be super careful with juice and smoothies, especially if they contain fruit.  Fruit juice is highly glycemic, and should only be used to raise lows.  Do they like processed food?  NO.  Do they like soda? NO. Do they like MSG? NO.  Big fan of hydrogenated oils?  Not so much.

So, plain green smoothies I could probably do.  Except that everybody I've ever talked to that does smoothies adds fruit.  They say it's the only way they're at all palatable. So there's that. Fun.

She also thinks she can cure cancer.  I don't know anything about cancer, and hopefully I will never have to find out.  Color me skeptical.

She does backtrack a little.  She gets a lot of hate mail when she talks about diabetes reversal and apparently never has she raised the ire of readers more than when she posted that awful video, and in that other post I linked she backpedals and says that she's never told people to go off insulin or metformin without being under the care of a competent physician.  Wait, what?  She actually admits that she's not competent to give medical advice?  That goes against everything else her website says, where she basically tells you to listen to her and not the terrible medical establishment, (unless you need to once a year, which hopefully you won't) but I was glad to see that.

Still. She and I will probably disagree on what a competent physician is, but hey.  We'll probably agree about statin meds. She "just" says the body can regenerate. That's all. Which is true.  Which we all know.

You can reduce your insulin needs by going raw!

Duh, sweetie.  But you can't ignore them.

You can cure yourself of everything with green smoothies! That medical establishment just wants your money.  (I agree, they do). Buy my books!  And my oils!  Come to my lectures!

In one breath she says she isn't on the fringe, she just wants people to eat more greens, and in the next she's reversing Type 1. I guess we disagree on what the fringe is.

No you can't cure everything with green smoothies. But you can try.  It will work for some things, but please stop taking these crazy leaps from "it's good for you" to "you don't need insulin anymore".  It's very, very dangerous.

Anyway.  This is my rant. I have never met this person. I'm sure she's done a lot of good for a lot of people. Green food is good for you.

She makes me crazy.

I hope we can still be friends.

Halloween is Over. Halle-freakin-lujah.

I don't know if you know this, but I hate Halloween.  People think it's because I'm diabetic, and that certainly doesn't help, but I've pretty much always hated it.  I simply don't get it.  At all.

It's all just so weird.

Let's terrify children.  It's hilarious.

Let's put on skanky costumes.  On our children and ourselves.  It's awesome to see normally upstanding professions like nurses and cops look super sexy. Or sexy cartoon characters.  Those are fun.

Let's go to strangers houses and ask for candy.  Repeated for hours on end.  This results in mass amounts of candy, none of which is good for anybody, much less a diabetic.

Let's deal with the mood swings, tooth decay, stomachaches, and fighting that are the neverending gifts this candy provides.

Let's celebrate death by putting hanging nooses on our houses and pretending to have dead bodies hang out of our cars.  It's SO FUN!

Isn't this hilarious?  What with the decapitation and the blood?

I hate it.  I hate it all.  But I do it, because, as Sheldon would say, it's "the social convention."  I don't do all of it, of course.  My house remains giant spider free, because, really. REALLY?  Basically, I do the bare minimum. I allow my children to dress up and go trick or treating.  I hand out candy if people come over, but our neighborhood is not one really frequented, the houses are far apart, and the driveways are long. It's not great trick-or-treating fodder.

I am what is known as a Halloween grinch, and I am OK with it. (I ADORE fall, though, and wish we didn't have to mutilate pumpkins, and we could just display them without faces and eat them).

Now, let's talk about this particular Halloween, which was actually the scariest one I've had yet.

I was out with my friends walking around in cold weather, in one of those "cool" neighborhoods where people go all out and depict suicides in the windows, because - hilarious! - watching candy overflow everywhere, and I went low.  I had eaten a cookie before we left, I had a Starburst, I still had to filch some carbs from a plastic pumpkin.  I was grumpy, and I apologize to my friends, because really, when I'm in a mood like that, I shouldn't be around people. My fuse is very short when I get like that, and giant spiderwebs just aren't helping.  Also, I like to pretend I'm normal, and that diabetes isn't affecting me 24/7.  When it's obvious like that, I don't enjoy it.

Anyway, I kept eating, walking, and trying to pretend it's not the worst day of the year, and my sugars came up and I was fine.  Came home to my teenager and her friends, who were gracious enough to come over at a last minute invite, and had a warm drink, Dex didn't like me going high, but it didn't spike that much.  I was good.

Until sometime in the night, I woke up, again feeling very very low.  The Dex must have beeped and buzzed, and that's possibly what woke me, or maybe it was the low itself.  Dex said 54, with an angled arrow downward. Here was my "thought process":

I am "low."

I should do something when I'm "low".

I can't remember what that is.

I have a pump now.  I should do something with that.  Turn it off?  I am "low".  I need to do something. What do I do when I'm "low"?

I'm pretty sure I need to do something.

Ah.  Check sugars.  That's what I do.  (BTW, this is wrong. Always treat first)

My meter said 106.  I was aware enough to know that wasn't right, I felt way too crappy for that.  I figured I had something on my hands, so I got up and rinsed my fingers and checked again.  Yes. 54.  Exactly as Dex said.

The getting up, the cold water, maybe just waking up more, SOMETHING kicked my brain into gear.

HELLO!  IT'S HALLOWEEN! YOU HAVE MORE CANDY IN THE HOUSE TONIGHT THAN YOU EVER DO!!  YOU'RE LOW!!  EAT IT NOW!!!  EAT IT ALL IF YOU HAVE TO!!!!

And I did.  And I felt better.

And then I tried not to freak out that I wasn't really aware of how to treat the low.  That my brain was that affected.  It must have been because I was so tired, plus the low.  And so I talk myself out of it, because all's well that ends well.

And then I dreamed of my family dying horrible deaths, and all I was worried about was what I was going to wear to the press conference, because for some reason, it was national news.

And then I got a migraine, courtesy of diabetes.

Good bye Halloween, hello National Diabetes Month.  Welcome.