This morning was the first time I think ever that I had a little bit of hypoglycemia unawareness.  I tested my blood sugar because I felt thirsty and it ready 65.  So I tested again because that couldn’t be right, 57.  Ok, third time is a charm I think to myself, 68.  Well I don’t feel shaky or sweating or weird at all, so I ate a few glucose tabs and that was the end of the that.  My sugar hasn’t gone above 130 all day long.  Which is good, but I don’t like the fact that I couldn’t detect that low I was  having.  Guess I really need to put that CGM back on!

So tomorrow is the doctor’s appointment.  As of today I am 14 pounds lighter then I was about 45 days ago on my last visit.  Hopefully that stays true to the next time I have an appointment and I will be down to the 220 range.  I’m still not going to stop there, not until I reach 200-205, then I will stop trying to lose weight and maintain that weight, maybe put a little more back on, but hopefully in the muscle format and not fat format.

In the middle of all this dieting, it is apparent that I must test my sugars a lot more often because my eating habits are not as much, so I am using less insulin.  Also, the more active I am becoming the more sensitive to insulin I become which will hopefully bring down my basal rates.  Then that means I can at least try out these other pumps that don’t hold 300 units of insulin, or else I’d be changing sets every day and a half, not something I want to do.

Well I hope you all have a great day.

I had a very interesting experience yesterday while playing tennis and it involves diabetes, blood sugars, and a raccoon.  We were having a great workout and a great match.  My girlfriend, roommate, their mother and I.  It was my girlfriend and I against them.  We won the first set 6-5 and then were beating us pretty bad in the second set.  When all of a sudden we see a raccoon come walking along the outside of the fence of the courts.  No big deal, at least we thought at first.

It then started to scratch and claw and try to get itself through the fence and into the courts, where we were.  So we tried to scare it off, but still nothing.  Then it became aggressive and looking at us in a weird way that started to freak me out.  So now we are playing tennis with one eye on this raccoon.  Finally it went away…..for a little.

We were playing aggressive again and then all of a sudden this thing comes back out and starts joining us again and trying to get onto the court.  By this time I am ready to just quit and leave because I felt for sure this thing had rabies and was just looking for a nice little meal from my leg.  Now, here comes the fun part.  Not only am I playing tennis, trying to prevent an attack from a rabid raccoon, but now my blood sugar is going low, very low.  So I run over to test, I’m at 59, so I chug some Gatorade and wait a little and go back out to finish the game, which ultimately we won.

Burned a lot of calories in that match last night.  Well I hope you all have a great day!

What a long, long, long day it was today.  I went back to the gym last night, so now today my body is killing me.  I ate healthy yesterday also.  Unfortunately, I did not eat as healthy as I wanted to, but it still wasn’t bad.  Breakfast yesterday I had a banana nut muffin and class of orange juice.  For lunch I had a chicken salad with a few tortilla chips.  Then when I went home before I went to the gym I had a hard boiled egg for a little bit of protein.  Then after the gym for about 35-40 minutes, I had some left overs which consisted of pasta, sausage, green peppers, onions, and salad.  So my dinner wasn’t be the best, but I hadn’t eaten too many carbs or calories throughout the day.

Today I had another muffin for breakfast and a smaller sized salad for lunch.  My sugar went low twice today so I had some Skittles and Airheads throughout the day, so that didn’t help too much.  I will eat the same snack before the gym tonight and most likely the same thing for dinner, however, probably without the pasta (my roommate probably got to it before me!)

It’s amazing how great just going to the gym makes you feel.  You may not have lost any weight, but you feel that your body at least looks thinner.  It’s just the first few days that make it hard to get into a groove and habit.

Well you all have an amazing night now.

Ahhhh…what a relaxing weekend it was.  Friday night there was a Panthers game, and we lost, which that sucked but no big deal.  Saturday morning my girlfriend and I went down to Ft. Lauderdale to spend the whole day at the beach and pool. 

We had a voucher for a free night in a hotel so we decided to just use it to get away for the night and relax from the hectic schedules we have been living.  I brought about 4-5 infusion sets with me just in case.  I started to sweat so much at the beach on Saturday that I could feel my infusion set falling out.  I tested and I was about 110 and I knew I wouldn’t be more than an hour or so longer at the beach without going to the room, so I decided to just take the site out. 

Well we decided to go to the pool after that and relax and read a little bit, but my blood sugar did not go crazy at all.  Once I finally went back to the room and tested again it was 185.  So I put another site in and it was off to Hooters to watch the Michigan St. game.

Now, I’m going to speak briefly about how great that game was before I talk about last night’s game.  Even though last night was a near massacre, it still feels good to have a team go to the National Championship when nobody thought that they could do it.  I had all the confidence in the world in them (that’s what happens when you watch every single one of their games), so I knew how well they could play.

After getting home from all that beach and fun on Sunday, it was time for another Panthers game, a big game in fact against the Penguins from that other sports city in Pennsylvania (I’m originally from Philly, so that’s why I mention it like that).  My blood sugar went a little low during the game, mainly because I wanted to body check the kid behind me!  It was great watching their best player, Sid the Kid (Sidney Crosby) get beat up by one of our players.  Tonight is another huge game againstthe Philadelphia Flyers, yes the team I liked when I was a little kid, but I grew out of hockey for about 10 years, that’s how I became a Panthers fan.

Well, about diabetes…. I received my script for my next A1C test, so I will have to schedule that sometime soon.

I went to the driving range this weekend, and it was the first time that my pump gave me a problem when I went.  It was pretty hot out, so I was sweating, so one time I ripped into one with my driver and my pump fell out of my pocket and pulled my infusion set right out.  But I only had a quarter of bucket of balls left, so I kept on hitting.  As soon as I got back to my car, I tested and my sugar was about 150, so I knew I was good until I got home.  Once I got home, I took a shower, replaced the infusion set, tested again and was 185, not too bad.  I ate lunch and tested 2 hours later, and I was back down to about 120-ish.  I played a round of golf one time where I disconnected everytime I walked up to the tee and to the ball, and it was just really annoying, so I just trained myself to play with the pump on.

My other blood sugar scare was later that night however.  I went to the Florida Panthers game, and when I got there I felt really thirsty so tested my sugar and I was about 375, how the hell did this happen I haven’t ate anything for like 4 hours.  I was starving and had to eat something, so I didn’t know what to do.  So I took 25 units of insulin (the max bolus on my pump) and then as soon as that one was done, I took anothe 25.  I know it’s not the best solution, but I didn’t have anymore pens, so I had to do something!  Tested after the first period, down to 250, tested after the second period, down to 110, tested after the game before we got on the Turnpike, dropping to about 75, so I ate some Skittles for the 20 minute ride home.

Later that night we went out to a local hangout, Hurricane’s in Delray, and my sugars were fine, but I started to feel a little low again, so luckily my amazing girlfriend had some Skittles handy in her purse.  Her purse fits my little meter and skittles perfectly!

Saturday was a pretty eventful blood sugar day!

Big game tonight and that means one thing.  Too many calories!  There might not be as much as normal, because I am feeling a little sick and have a big time headache.  I ate the same lunch as I have been this whole week, but I was going to try and skip lunch to make up for the calories for tonight, but there is no way I could do that, and it’s not too wise to skip a meal.  Even though I live in Florida, I will NOT be cheering for the Gators tonight, Go Sooners!

On another note, the diet is doing pretty good so far.  I’m about 6-7 pounds lighter then when I started dieting last week.  This is just excess weight that I knew would be able to burn off pretty easily, but it is keeping it off that is the hard part.  I am already starting to crave a nice big cheeseburger and especially Taco Bell.  If I go to Taco Bell, I will put that 6-7 pounds right back on in one meal.

This weekend is the first Panthers game I will be able to go to in almost 2 months.  I used to get an order of nachos and cheese when I went to the game, but not anymore.  I will bring peanuts or something of the such to snack on, definitely not hitting up those nachos.  I will probably just take a granola bar and have that as a snack.  Also since the dieting began, the blood sugars have been at amazing levels.  90 pre-meal, 130-140 post meal.  I have been having more lows lately, but Gatorade has been my cure for that.  Hope everyone is having a great start to their 2009 so far!

So I just got back from Pennsylvania from my Christmas vacation and also a doctor’s visit.  Everything went good with my educator visit except she didn’t like the levels of my morning blood sugars.  So what we decided was that we will increase my basal rate throughout the night to 2.5.  If that creates too many lows then I will decrease it then.  But I think this will definitely help fight these highs in the morning.  She also didn’t like the weight that I had put on over the past few months.  I will be starting my 2009 diet a little early and start it today.  Before I was riding the bike, but was not doing any lifting.  Now I am going to be riding the bike, plus doing lifting but with light weights just to  build definition.  While I was home, I saw some pictures from back in the day when I was in high school and playing sports.  I took it back here with me for a little bit of motivation.

I have a lot more things to be doing now, which means less time to make it to the gym.  However, the difference now is that I am going to make more time to go to the gym, and less excuses to not go to the gym.  That was my problem before, and then I would eat too much after the gym, but not anymore.  I am going to do a lot better this time!

So I got the blood work done this morning, now I am just awaiting the results.  I will probably get an e-mail later today, or tomorrow morning from my educator, but I will get the actual paperwork and full results when I go to see her next week.  But, there wasn’t much work done this time.  It was just A1C and microalbumin.  It was a non-fasting, but I didn’t read that until this morning, so of course I fasted for the testing.  My sugar was 210 when I woke up, so I tried to correct it before the test, so I’m curious to see how much it dropped in about 30-45 minutes, not much I’m sure.

However, right afterwards I ate breakfast because I was starving, and I took too much insulin because at about 10:30, I tested at 54.  I ate a bunch of candy quickly and even drank a half of cup of regular sode (eww disgusting, more on this later).  I tested about an hour later and I was only up to about 110.  So, my sugar must have been low and still had acting insulin for it to only correct that little for the amount of sugar that I ate!

Now, back to the regular sode thing.  I have been drinking diet soda even before I was diabetic.  It was all that my mother bought when I was in high school.  I started out drinking diet Dr. Pepper because that was the only one that I couldn’t tell a difference in, then went to diet Barq’s root beer.  I could not do diet coke or pepsi, because I could definitely tell the difference and didn’t like it.  I then started drinking diet pepsi cans, not bottle because that was gross, but cans and then I slowly started drinking diet everything.  Then when I became diabetic, it was normal for me to be drinking all diet drinks, because that’s all I did anyway.

Everyone have a great day!

Christmas time has come so fast.  I will already be going back home in just a few days.  It seems like it was just yesterday that I was flying back home from Thanksgiving.  Well tomorrow is my A1C test, so that means fasting tonight.  I will probably eat some fruit right around 10:30-ish, and then that is it.  Drink some water in the morning to make the blood work go a little easier and hope that I’m under 7%.  I think that I may be this month.  It would be a great Christmas gift, plus it will make my educator happy.

I’m also in the process of trying to get approved for CGMS through the insurance company.  From what I’ve read, I have a long road in front of me.  But I can’t do anything other than just try and wish for the best.  I don’t know if I want to wear a whole new infusion set on my body along with the one that I already have, but if it helps me control my levels better, then I guess it is worth it.  I will do a little more research about it before I obviously go on it.  Either way, I still want to upgrade to the newer version of the pump I am on, just in case I do decide to go on the CGMS, at least I will have the right pump.

You know what, I have so much shopping and things I still have to do before Friday night.  We are having an early Christmas dinner and Christmas gift exchange since I will be flying back home this weekend.  I have no idea what to get anybody, and with time running out, who knows what I will settle on.  Maybe I should make a list, that would probably help.

What a weird weekend this was.  The worst part was the tie game between the Eagles and the Bengals.  This game drove me crazy, and was also one of the ugliest I have ever seen.  I remembered the last tie that took place because my dad is a huge Pittsburg Steelers fan and we were watching the game.  Also, on Saturday, I some how ended up at the local sports bar to watch the UFC fight.  This is where my blood sugars got all crazy.  My sugar went up really high when I was eating chips and salsa, but then they just dropped like crazy and went down to about 55.

I had a lot of chips in front of me, but they disappeared pretty quickly once I saw the number 55 on the meter.  I also had a really low experience yesterday that just came out of nowhere.  I was in the middle of cleaning up my house when it happened, so I had no problem stopping what I was doing, test and then take the time to eat some Skittles to get my sugars back where they needed to be.  The only part I hated about the Skittles is that I am trying to lose weight, so when I eat them or drink some OJ, it has like 150 calories, 15 minutes in the gym just to recover from a low.

Today’s weigh in is 238.  I didn’t reach my goal, but this week’s dieting is going to be a lot more intense.  I didn’t hit the gym as much as I wanted to last week.  I played tennis 3 nights, but I wanted to go to the gym right after playing tennis, but I never made it.

One final thought, my roommate was making fun of me because of the Eagles tying and being in last place, and then I stopped for a second, and said…. hey, we’re still the World Series Champs though.  So I wanted to take a little time today to recognize and not forget the the Chase Utley led Philadelphia Phillies, World Series Champs, Philiadelphia Phillies that is.