Better but not quite there yet

in

Last week, I went back to my endocrinologist for a checkup. I learned from my last trip, though, and scheduled my lab work for the week before. I wanted us to both find out about my HbA1C (hemoglobin A1C) together in case I needed a hug or a high five. It was still high (7.4), but not nearly as high as I was expecting. I actually had a nightmare the week before that it was 9 and I woke up feeling awful about the whole thing. He asked if there was anything out of the ordinary and I told him that I was feeling really stressed out lately. Work was somewhat stressful, but not like it had been in the past, so I wasn’t exactly sure what I had to bitch about … just that I was feeling pretty lame.

Let me just remind you all again that I love my endocrinologist. He is the coolest dude in the universe (medically speaking, anyways). He reminded me that being stressed is a lot like being sick as far as my body is concerned and that I probably just needed to increase my basal rate on days I thought would be hectic. I just needed to remember to turn it off before I went to bed.

I’ve been following that plan for the past week with much success. It’s nice to go an entire day with my blood sugar never going over 200 (or even 150). And I’ve only had a few low blood sugar episodes that haven’t been that horrible as I’ve caught them early. Oh, but that reminds me about one of my pet peeves …

Unless you are diabetic or hypoglycemic, don’t ever complain to me that you have low blood sugar. Tell me you’re hungry. Tell me you’re moody. Tell me you just want to go home. But don’t bullshit me with armchair diagnoses about your blood sugar levels. 99% of the time, were we to check your blood sugar during one of these episodes, it would be between 80 and 120, just like it should be. That doesn’t mean you don’t feel bad. Hunger can make you weak. Hunger can make you irritable and tired. But it doesn’t automatically affect your blood sugar. You have a pancreas and it’s on the job doing everything it needs to do to make sure you don’t have to worry about that. Live it up and treat your pancreas well; it’s a handy organ to have.

I had low blood sugar this afternoon. I had taken too much insulin for my bagel that morning and when I got home, I decided to wage war on the apple tree out front. Excess insulin combined with exercise makes for a woozy Genie. My blood sugar was 63, but I felt like it was on its way to 33. Being a bit hungry anyways, I decided to try out some cereal to fix the shakes.

I finished off the Honey Smacks. But still feeling shaky, I added Frosted Mini Wheats on top of this mix and then poured sugar on top of all that to make it sweeter. The two cereals had “honey” and “frosted” in their titles, but weren’t getting the job done in terms of making me less panicky and low. After three bowls, I started to feel normal again. Bloated and waaaay too full, but pretty normal. Next time, I think I’ll just stick to soda and juice.

Hi, I'm GenieAlisa ... and you are?

in

I think this was a meme a few months ago, but I'm always a day late and dollar short. I've been curious why people have chosen the web site names and usernames they have on the Internet. Some usernames are obvious, but some I have no freakin' clue why that person chose it. I get used to those "handles" and then it becomes like second nature. Only when someone else asks "why do you call him/her that?" do I stare blankly and have no answer. I'll go first. I picked GenieAlisa as my username ages ago because I wanted a name that didn't have my last name in it but was me and unique. I've only met two other people with the name Genie and never met another Alisa. I didn't want to use my SCA persona name because I knew I would be writing about all aspects of my lift and not just the medieval ones. And while there are not many Genie's there are tons of Isabels.

I picked inabottle.org for my domain name because it seemed to allow me a lot of flexibility in what I used it for. My mom has always explained my name to others as "Genie ... like a Genie in a bottle" and I grew to identify with it. That and there are so many great subdomains for it, like Message in a Bottle and Thyme in a Bottle (my personal favorite).

So my faithful readers ... leave me a comment and tell me a bit about yourself. Are you happy with your chosen nomen on the Internet?

new DVD shelves

in

I've been hunting for the perfect set of shelves to store our ever-expanding DVD collection. Then I found a set that mount on the wall by TopDeq and fell in love. The shelves were a little pricey but not that much more than others I'd looked at and they really outshine anything else I've seen. Check out the before and after ...

Before

We had really outgrown the old cabinet.

So we'd started making piles ...

And don't even get me started on all the cables ...

After

They were pretty easy to setup and we even spaced them around the electrical outlet.

No clutter on the floor!

What you can't see is the new UPS behind the TV that replaces the scary old surge protector. Also, it may not be visible that I alphabetized the DVDs and separated the box sets onto their own rack. I may not be a librarian, but hanging around them does rub off on me.