I am officially back home in PA.  I was at a conference since Sunday in New York and loved it.  It was a great conference and the pictures that I was able to take were incredible as well.  My blood sugars were great the whole entire time.  There was once when I had a level of over 300, but that is it.  Other then that, they were all below 160-ish.  I am getting ready to insert a new sensor because I want to wear it the whole time that I am home because I know I will be eating bad, really bad food.  Actually I already did, 5 minutes of being home and I made it over to the famous “Greasy Dicks” for a cheesesteak, extra hot extra pickle, and cheeseburger everything extra pickle.  I held back on the double chocolate thin milkshake though.

My blog is going to be “under construction” over the next few weeks.  There will be a new url for the blog and new look.  For those that are daily readers, the construction shouldn’t affect the content area of the blog, so no big deal.  I will post up some pictures tomorrow from the trip.

Hope you all have a great day.

Last day at the office before a 3 day conference and then home for a little vacation.  It feels great going to a conference knowing that I am not one of the vendors this time and that I can actually go to the lectures and learn and walk around and get to know more people in the field that I am in.  It also makes it a little more fun since I am going to be in New York and staying in the Hilton.  I will make sure to take lots of pictures from my hotel room.  With my luck, I will end up being on like the 2nd or 3rd floor.  I am trying to plan out what time the Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art) is open because everytime I go to New York I have to go there, it never gets old.  But it takes several hours to go through it and I don’t really have the time to do that because the conference schedule is very tight, a lot of lectures to attend.

That leaves me with a lot to do between tonight and tomorrow night.  I have a lot of laundry, cleaning, and packing to do.  I can only take 1 bag because I am flying Jet Blue and they charge after 1 bag, so I have to pack smartly.  I have to make sure that I have all of my diabetes needs packed.  If anyone has ever flown with a Medtronic CGM on, can you please leave me a little note and let me know if you went through smoothly?  I’m excited to get home and spend time with the family.  I know it will also be stressful because of the news that was just recently given to me, so I will be testing a lot more frequently.  I’m definitely not going to overeat like I usually do.  Only one night I will let loose and eat a lot, but I will control my eating habits.

Well I hope you all have a great day and weekend and I’ll be posting at home this time around.

What a crappy day.  My blood sugar hit the 500+ mark last night in the middle of the night.  Didn’t know this until I woke up to go to the bathroom about 3 times within 2 hours, a little strange so I tested and it gave me the “HI” reading.  Awesome, exactly what I need on a Sunday night.  So, when I wake up at 7:15, I test and it is now 375, ok, better than before.  Side note, my roommate has been sick over the past few days.

Now I’m at work, and I can’t get my levels below 250 for the last 3 hours now.  My stomach hurts, I feel like crap, and I think I am getting what my roommate had.  What a great start to the week.  Bad case of the Mondays I guess.  This weekend wasn’t much better either.  I think half of the weight that I lost over the past week was all put back on this weekend.  A few different get togethers so my food consumption consisted of Firehouse Subs, Chili’s Olive Garden, and Wendy’s.  Need I say more?  I didn’t sleep much Saturday night, and my back was killing me Sunday morning.

Awesome, I hope you all have as wonderful of a day that I am.

Just got back from the Endo and the visit today was a new experience.  I decided to do one of these new multiple patient visits.  It is more like a support group type visit.  First, let me start off with this.  If you are type 1, don’t ever do these sort of visits.  You need more in depth analysis of your CGM or pump readings, etc.  It took 2 hours almost.  The endo goes over each persons labs and changes and lifestyle in front of the whole group in order for you to learn from other people experiences.  It wasn’t a bad thing, it just took too long and when she got to me, she said, I’ll have to see you 1 on 1 for more in depth, so it was a little time wasted, but it was good to be there and supportive for other people and giving feedback.

Overal, I was happy with my weight and unhappy with my A1C, but all my other numbers were perfect.  My weight there was 251, but that is with jeans, wallet, phone, 3 meters, keys, insulin pump, and a logbook.  That weight is very skewed.  This morning on my scale at home I weight 233, so I’m not too upset with that weight, because I had at least 10-12 pounds of extra stuff on that scale.

Now to the embarassing number, 7.4.  I knew it was going to be high because of my lousy eating habits, lack of exercise and stress over the last 90 days.  The last 2 weeks have been great, but that doesn’t make too much of a difference on the A1C.  I am positive that my next blood test is going to be better.  I also made a promise to wear the sensor everyday for the next 5 weeks until my next appointment.  Made some changes to my basal rates, still taking too much insulin, but that is starting to come down.  My basal rights are high, but the amount of insulin I use on bolusing has come down tremendously because of dieting.  I used to average anywhere from 20-25 units of insulin for a bolus / correction at mealtime and now I am down to about 10-15 units.

Well I hope you all had a great day.

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!

Monday Monday Monday.  This hasn’t been a bad start on a Monday however like some others are.  So the weekend was a little fun filled, but nothing special.  Golf was good yesterday.  We played best ball and we blew it on the last hole, but I couldn’t blame it on my sugar because it was a perfect 115.

I have to get my blood work done on Wednesday for my doctors appointment on Friday.  I have to get a lot of blood taken because there is a lot of tests that I have to have because it’s been a while since my last time.  This one may not be my best A1C, but I think the next one will be because I am losing weight, eating healthier, exercising and all the good things.

I will be going to the gym again tonight to do 45 minutes on the bike and then some quick upper body lifting, nothing heavy, just straight lightweight just to get some work done.  I figure that I don’t like doing push-ups, so I’ll just do a quick little bench press or so.  I love testing my sugar while I am on the bike at the gym and people look at my weird like what the heck is this kid doing!

Well, it’s lunch time folks, so I hope you all have a great day.

Now I am just starting to get irritated with these morning blood sugars.  It’s ok for it to happen once in a while, but every damn morning is killing me, literally.  I didn’t even eat past 7:30 p.m. last night and it was stil crazy high.  I was up somewhat late last night working, so that has to be what creeps it up.  When I go to sleep earlier, it is not as bad.  I guess for the next couple of nights I will just get to bed early and not do any work late into the night and see how that works.

On the bright side I have stuck to my plan and have made my own breakfast, lunch, and dinner everyday this week.  As tempting as it is, I am sticking to it.  I have gone to the gym everyday also.  Heck, I even spent about 45 minutes on the bike there last night.  I am down 2 pounds since Monday also.  I said before, it is so easy for me to lose the first 10-15 pounds because it is just all excess fat.

That just reminded me, I have to get bloodwork done either tomorrow or early next week for my appointment next Friday.  I will probably do it Tuesday of next week because tomorrow is Friday and I don’t really want to get up too early on a Friday to get blood taken out of me.  Friday’s are my day to sleep in, I don’t get up util 7:45 those days.

Well, I hope you all have a wonderful day.

A few weeks ago I thought about how cool it would be to complete a triathalon and then I thought about how I can’t run far, I can’t swim far, and I can probably ride the bike long enough.  Then it hit me.  Start training for a triathalon.  Obviously, I will be nowhere near where I need to be, but I can at least train in all 3 areas.  So yesterday I went swimming.  Today I am going to ride the bike, then tomorrow I will run and then lift a little on Thursday.  Eventually I will like to do all 3 during the same workout, but that is still some time away.

While doing all of this, I plan on trying to keep my CGM connected even though it seems to fall off everytime I start sweating a lot.  Mainly when I golf.  That reminds me, I haven’t worn my CGM in a few weeks, better put it back on since my doctor asked me to where it all the time from my last visit until my next one, oooppss.

Is everybody ready to test at 4 p.m. today.  I sure am.  I had some pasta for lunch, so I’m not so sure my number is going to be one of the lowest, but it will be fun to see where everybody’s numbers are.

Well I hope you all have a fantastic day.

Hope everybody have a great Fourth of July.  I can’t really complain about the whole weekened.  Golf Friday, relaxation and fun on Saturday, golf on Sunday.  But then back to work on Monday.  Which is also the last day to submit your story on GlucoStories to win a trip to meet Charlie Kimball.  GlucoStories is excited to have as 2 of the 5 judges the local West Palm Beach JDRF chapter and also Kerri.

On to the next thing.  At golf on Friday, I had a pretty bad low, 65.  It was extremely hot so it came out of nowhere.  It is almost impossible to hit a golf shot when your blood sugar is low.  It’s hard enough to hit a good shot when it is normal, ha!  I have 1 of the largest bags of Mike n Ike’s in my golf bag, so I was pretty good.  I ran out of Gatorade, so that was not an option. I recovered in about a hole and a half, but at least I had a good excuse for shooting an 8 on the 15th hole.

On one final note, I am setting a goal of reading 1-2 new diabetes related books a month.  So, I need all your advice on which I should read.  Please help.

Have a great day everybody!