'coz you had a bad day

today was a horrible, horrible day ):

i feel quite sad that i didn’t manage to maintain the excellent blood sugar control i’ve been maintaining so far. oh yeah…it is a little discouraging, i suppose.

it all started after i did my daily 20-minute jog on the cross trainer. usually i jog pretty near my lunchtime so if i have a mild hypo, i don’t really have to rescue myself with sugar. i just eat as per normal and everything balances out in the end.

but i had a doctor’s appointment today, to check up on my ankle (i’d developed a foot drop/steppage gait on my right ankle during my hospital stay and it’s been recovering). and i got so focused on getting ready to see the doc, and go grocery shopping after, and i completely FORGOT to have a snack.

the reason i needed a snack today was because i exercised earlier than usual, and because my appointment was at lunchtime. and knowing what outpatient clinics are like, waiting for eternity to see the doctor is The Thing To Do.

so anyways i tested myself while waiting for my turn at the clinic. and there it was on the metre - 3.8mmol. pretty mild. usually if i know i’d get lunch within 10 minutes, i wouldn’t bother rescuing myself. but i knew that i’d just get hungrier and my blood sugars would drop more coz i was still 2 patients away from seeing the neurologist. so i went to the hospital food court and got a tuna bun, of which i ate half. i had to delay eating lunch till after 2pm, which is extremely late. my parents and i had lunch at a cafe above our favourite supermarket, and well, i didn’t exactly eat enough carbs.

i thought it’d be fine since i’d eaten some bread at the hospital. but oh wow, before dinnertime, i was at 3.8mmol AGAIN. and to top that off, i had dinner half an hour later than usual because we’d forgotten to cook rice.

i just tested and now it’s come up to 5.7mmol, which is pretty good i guess, bearing in mind that i didn’t count my exchanges very strictly during dinner. and had some fruit afterward to boot.

sigh.

right now i just have to forget about this bad day, go to bed, and pick it all up again tomorrow morning. and though i can’t stop thinking that at the moment, i’m a real lousy diabetic, i know i’ll forget it all tomorrow morning.


Hey Daena – it sounds like you’re doing all of the right things. The absolute hardest part, I think, is not beating yourself up over things that, shall we say, don’t go quite the way you want. Secret: there is no such thing as a lousy diabetic, only lousy diabetes. University is stressful. Diabetes is stressful. Hey, LIFE is stressful. There are so many things that affect our blood sugars that we can’t control ( damn it ). As a recovering perfectionist (in some areas of my life), when things haven’t gone as I wanted, I would just give up. I’m trying to get past that now. Consider the bad day a “teaching moment.” Tomorrow, you’ll know even more!

I couldn’t have said it better. You gotta be patient with yourself: there are SO many factors influencing your values (including, being sick, for instance) that you need to give yourself room for mistakes and for things outside your control to get in the way. It’s just going to happen…

Keep it up, girl!

manny & kimberly, thanks for the encouragement! i tested this morning (note the 12 hour time difference!) and it’s been fine so far. hope it will still be okay before lunch. thank you guys! (:

Never think of yourself as a lousy diabetic… there are so many factors to take into account that even those with the best control have slip-ups. And you’re still getting used to things, anyway!

Hey, you sound like your doing really well! much better than my crazy levels! Don’t stress too much!! Tonight I’ve taken WAY too much insulin by mistake! It happens! :slight_smile: Don’t beat yourself up about it :slight_smile: