Don't sweat it: adventures in type 1 diabetes, weight loss, fitness and bladder control

My goals are to have good blood sugar control over time, lose another 10-15 pounds, and have Michelle Obama arms. But nothing is simple, you know? I was on target Friday for a reasonable set of meals. Unfortunately, I went low twice on the plane while we were stuck on the tarmac and the only snack I had handy was pretzel M&Ms. They're delicious, but that was 360 calories more than I had planned to have while just sitting on my ass in a plane. So I started dinner with 196 calories left for the day. That was unrealistic. I ate reasonably and at 10pm my blood sugar was 160. I was fine with that and figured the pump would alarm if my sugar started to climb. My pump did its duty faithfully from about 1am until 7am when I woke up, but it was under the 50 pounds of covers provided by the Marriott so I never heard it. I woke up with a sugar of 331 and a low pump battery. So. Angry. I love that my Minimed sensor is built into the pump but I hate that it doesn't have sufficient range that I can put my pump outside the covers and still have it work. I could really be tempted to get a separate sensor just for that one reason.

I grumpily put on my workout clothes and wasn't sure how much insulin to take as a correction. I was about to get on a treadmill, but my sugar was really high. Rich was heading to breakfast and I wasn't sure if I should eat yet and how much. I also hated that all this had put me in a foul mood first thing in the morning and my teeth felt all fuzzy and my head hurt and dammit, why didn't my sensor work better? I opted for oatmeal, a banana and a bagel with Rich and then planned on running all that off.

I ran for 45 minutes. I didn't turn off my pump like I normally do, but I also hadn't taken any insulin for my breakfast which would have been probably 6-7 units. About 30 minutes in, I decided to take 3 units and see how that would fare. After running my sugar was 153 but I had two down arrows on my pump telling me it was going to possibly tank. I suspended the pump for 30 minutes or so to see what it would do, since I still intended to do some sit-ups, push ups, and other stuff in our tiny hotel room. By 11am I was at 147 and fine with that.

We walked 1.25 miles down Michigan Avenue to lunch and my sugar was 114 when we sat down. I had salad and a small steak sandwich. I only took 3 units for the bread, anticipating another 1.25 mile walk back to the hotel. My sensor has not quite recovered from this morning so it keeps thinking my sugar is around 150 (so it keeps alarming to warn me) but it's really more like 120.

That's all the logistics from my day so far, but I wanted to talk about some of the emotional stuff. It's frustrating that blood sugar maintenance and calorie control can seem at odds with each other so often. I also would have loved to run down to the Navy Pier this morning versus watching Good Morning America on a tiny TV in the crowded Marriott fitness center, but I'm not willing to risk a low blood sugar miles from home and there were just too many factors this morning between a roller coaster of sugars and foods and travel.

I absolutely love running. I thought it would be boring but it's very zen for me. I am so slow but I just don't care. No really, however slow you are? I'm slower. I don't have to change the pace on the treadmill between my warm up walk and my run. I rock the 15 minute mile and I'm fine with that. I don't want to run with other people. I just want to listen to my playlist and do my thing.

And holy smokes would I love to not have to get off the treadmill every time I have to cough in order to avoid wetting my pants. It's a little ridiculous. I would have to jump off the treadmill to the side bars, cross one leg over the other, do a little squat, cough, and then hop back on. We'll just call it cross-training. As a few coughs snuck up on me, I failed to make it through my entire workout with my bladder control intact. I am going to make one of those Map My Run apps that rates how many of the miles I ran were with clean, dry undies. You all can click "Like" on Facebook to cheer me on through my kegels. Absolutely. Ridiculous.

But once you've wet your pants, you no longer are worried about if you look ridiculous singing along to your iPod.

Lost and found

You know how your favorite song comes on just as you're going into the tunnel? But this is a song you have rocked in many a karaoke frenzy so you have got this! You've got the first 30 seconds or so under your belt and feel like you've got the tempo down.

But when you emerge back out into the sunshine, you are half a song ahead of the radio or suddenly it's switched from Livin' on a Prayer to Devo.

That's how my blood sugar was last night. Around 2am or so, my sensor lost track of my pump somewhere in the covers (the Minimed is very persnickety about anything being between the pump and the sensor, like Overly Attached Girlfriend). So at 6:30am, it just said LOST SENSOR on the screen. No worries. I went to bed with a blood sugar of 77. How bad could it be?

250, you say? Well, we are not men indeed; we are devo-raciously thirsty and annoyed. I think I ate too much watermelon before bed to fix a low blood sugar. But I just feel better when all my gadgets are on the same page.

Stuck in the middle with you

This weekend, I had a zit on my chin that was so deep and intense and painful that I pulled a Tobias Funke in the shower. The only way I was able to get Ian to fall asleep for a nap Sunday was to put him in the van and drive around for 20 minutes, refusing to speak to him. Because he napped so late, he was still wide awake when we got home from our company Christmas party at 10:30pm. I finally got him to give in and fall asleep at 12:21am after we had all said some things we later regretted. I also got my lab results back from Friday and my HbA1C is a miserable 7.5. Even typing that makes my stomach hurt. But I haven't had much time to dwell on that number because the last few days I've been wrestling with blood sugars like 342, 288, 63, 362, 55, and one 99. It's been the "30 or 300?" game all weekend and I feel like I'm hungover. Oh, and I gained about five pounds in the last week.

We finally heard back from Dr. Hausner after I sent him a note saying I was going to call him if I didn't get an email back. For all his adorable Czech accent in person, he has a slightly less adorable sense of written English grammar so it can make reading a note from him confusing at best. We either are going to start antibody treatment soon or he just offered to refinance our home for us.

The K-Ras evaluation that we've been waiting on has still not happened. The lab refused to do the test because there were so few cells in the mucin and they can't find a commercial lab that will do the laser capture microscopy. We're not exactly sure what is happening next. We may "bite the bullet" as Hausner said and start antibody treatment without the test result but we don't know if that's bad. Then again, we don't know if it's more bad than chemotherapy is bad which is our only other option. That or we could roll initiative and see if someone has a daily power they can use. I'm not sure, his email was very confusing.

The vague email from Hausner plus finding out he still had about seven more days of Lovenox to take (that I totally would have thrown away but he's not me) have knocked the proverbial wind out of Rich's sails. He was feeling pretty good and could see definitive progress, but last night and today he's just been incredibly discouraged. We're not in the thick of things anymore. He's going to work and driving a car. But he's not comfortable being alone with Ian and he's still physically weak in a lot of ways. We're a lot better than we were four weeks ago, but we're not back to normal by any means.

This middle part is tough. We could use some cheering up. Fart jokes, cute animals, anything like that. I'll start ...