Successful SWAGing

Found

As part of Uncle Pepere's birthday celebration, I took the day off of work last Friday.  Last year I used 4.5 out of my 5 sick days, but I never took a day.  Needless to say, on Thursday, I was a happy girl.  So happy in fact, that I forgot to either make myself a sandwich or stop at Panera for one.  So as I got on my way, I realized I'd be stopping at McDonald's for my dinner.  I am not a fan of McDonald's, in fact, I gave it up in high school and only started eating it again last year because of the convenience.  Anyways, I pulled up to the drive through and saw the sign that the Shamrock Shakes are back.  I like these, and I've only ever had one.  And I don't plan on being back at McDonald's any time soon.  But now, how on Earth do I bolus for this?!  Especially if you're feeling low, and have a 3.5 hour drive in front of you?  I bolused for 90 grams of carbs, with the correction for 30 happening right away, and the other 60 over the course of the next half hour.  I finished the shake about 40 minutes later, so I thought at least my timing was right.  When I bolused, I had a BG of 126 mg/dL.  When I got to the next rest stop in Maine about an hour and a half later, I was 101 mg/dL.  I was freaking ecstatic!  I am never a successful SWAGer, and mostly because I haven't paid enough attention over the last eight years to know whether I'm successful or not.  But I didn't want to jinx it, so I didn't say a thing online.  Getting off the highway I was 129 mg/dL and when I reached my family at Sunday River I was at 151 mg/dL.  I had successfully SWAGed!!

*For those of you who don't know what a SWAG is: Scientific Wild Ass Guess

Diabetes Success

When my week started like this, and ended the same way, it was time to write down, print & fax my numbers over to Joslin.  That was on a Friday, and I wasn't able to talk to my nurse until Wednesday or Thursday.  She had me change my overnight basal, my sensitivity factor and some advice.  She suggested that I seem to be extra sensitive to insulin when my blood sugar is super high.  Over 400 is how I'm interpreting super high for right now.  So she suggested that if I get that high again, to not take a full bolus. So on Friday when I was 485, I plugged it into my pump and before I sent it on it's way, I decreased it by 10 percent.  I was a little skeptical about this, but, it worked!  When I got home from work, I felt low and was hanging out between 65-75, so I had two juice boxes.  But that is the lowest I ever went!  There were no BGs in the thirties.  There was no bottoming out.  There was no scary low.  It just was a baby low, and my BG even leveled out enough to go out for a beer.  Friday's correction was a diabetes success!

At Least She Agrees With Me

I went back to Joslin last week to see the Diabetes Educator.  I was scheduled to go back so that we could look at my overnight basal testing.  Well, I was only able to do one night of it because I was either low or high to start all the other nights, or unable to start it early because of work.  So when I walk in she asks me how I've been.  My response: I'm all over the place.  So she downloads and prints my meter info, and comes back and says "Holy shit.  I guess you're all over the place."  We talk about my ketone morning and the subsequent low later in the day, and figure out that from the information I was using, the 25 unit correction was correct, but that people forgot to remember that once you have a working pump, you're getting a basal too.  I filled out paperwork about what my basals are, and how much I'm bolusing for food and high BG's, and  my overnights have been changed, plus my lunch and dinner boluses and my active insulin, and so far I haven't noticed any differences, but it's also been over new years, and skiing, and vacation days and my first day back to work.  So this week I need to get "back in the habit" of paying attention to my diabetes.