It may have taken longer than I intended but last night at midnight I finally completed my 24 hours basal test (which took many more hours than that). Determined to finish the last leg of my test, which was to fast from around 3pm and check my sugars every hour from 7pm until midnight, I made sure to have a hearty (but not carb crazy!) lunch and kept myself busy throughout the evening.
My blood sugar of 180 at 7pm started the test. Although not perfect, at least it wasn’t as bad as my previous fasting day when I let my sugar stay in the 200’s for hours on end! I was not going to let that happen again.
I busied myself with cleaning so as not to think about food. My DVD collection was a mess with movies all over the place so I tackled that area first. As I can never find anything I decided to pedantically organize my DVDs by theme, most of which are documentaries or British tv series. I got rid of several movies I will never watch again (goodbye Aviator and Seabiscuit! - any film over 100 minutes will not be watched by me twice. I have the attention span of a gold fish). I then grouped all my British shows together (nothing beats AbFab and the Young Ones!), and mused over watching one of my favorite Comic Strip films - Four Men in a Car - which actually features a diabetic character, played by Jennifer Saunders (AbFab’s Edina) who passes out from diabetes, though it is never made clear what caused it, as before she passes out she has blurry vision and looks for her insulin bottle (which another character broke accidently), but as she lies unconscious they try to revive her by shoving a banana down her throat. Utterly confusing but nevertheless - it’s the Comic Strip and they make me laugh! As I dug deeper through my pile I came across a bunch of workout and yoga DVDs. I knew I had them, just wasn’t sure where exactly. My Yoga for Diabetes DVD - watched only once - stared at me with contempt. I may have to watch it again (and not while eating popcorn). I segregated my music DVDs and put them in their honorary place - where I can actually see them. Now granted in real life these artists would not play together (barring another Live Aid) but on my shelf they live in peace: Pet Shop Boys Live and Depeche Mode 101 along side Skid Row: making of Thickskin and Rush’s Backstage Secrets, right next to Pink Floyd’s Pulse and Europe: the videos (don’t judge! When I was ten I was in love with Joey Tempest - he had the whitest teeth I’ve ever seen on that Final Countdown video!)
Before I knew it my 8pm alarm went off prompting me to check my sugar again. It was 153. Nice! Down by 27. Not sure if I would’ve been happy with that had I started with a sugar of 90, but in this case it worked well.
I moved on to dusting my shelves and cleaning my photo frames, pausing to laugh at a picture of me and my mom dressed as 19th century aristocrats. We look good in sepia! The photo was taken in Windsor, England outside the Castle. You know one of those photo places where you dress up in some themed costume and pose against a kitschy background. That’s what we did -holding up our tour bus in the process while we waited for the photo to be printed. Our tour guide didn’t mind though - he was a very polite elderly English gentleman who chuckled at me on the way to Windsor from London when I asked if we would see the Queen that day. He said in all his years (and there have been many) of tour guiding he has never bumped into her Majesty. Amused as he was his demeanor quickly changed when we got off the bus in Windsor only to be told we’d have to wait before we can see the Castle as the Queen was about to leave. This was during the week of the Golden Jubilee so there was an impromptu parade in the Queen’s honor, which we all enjoyed watching while our tour guide sheepishly brought us cups of tea from a nearby cafe so we would not lose our place along the parade route. Finally the cheers got louder and soon a black car emerged from around the corner. It was Queen Elizabeth and her hubby Prince Phillip (or Liz and Phil as I call them - though never ever to their face) slowly rolling down the street doing the famous royal wave. As soon as the lovely blue hat zipped by we were finally escorted to the Castle, which was amazing as castles tend to be.
The 9pm alarm brought me back from England in a hurry. I checked my sugar to reveal a 173. Hmmmm… Up by 20. Interesting. Perhaps some insulin was still working between 7 and 8pm, which would account for the drop, but why did it go back up again? I would have to wait to finish my test before speculating any further.
I went back to cleaning my photo frames. My favorite picture of all hangs right above bed. It represents one of the happiest moments of my life - aside from happy times with my loved ones. It’s a photo of me getting a kiss from a dolphin at Discovery Cove in Florida. This was over a decade ago, and I have since educated myself about animals in captivity, and on occasion involved myself in animal activism so I don’t support parks such as those, as I don’t believe dolphins in particular need to be in captivity for humans to study them. However, I must admit that those few minutes spent one on one with that awesome creature that day at Discover Cove were absolute heaven (not sure how the dolphin felt though). The park’s official photographer captured the moment for me as the dolphin performed one of its trained tricks and “kissed” me on my lips. It may have meant nothing to him - but I was beaming! It was the sweetest thing ever. It made me happy. It was also before I was on the insulin pump so I didn’t need to worry about spending all day in the water (something I would need to do now if I ever went back there, though I’d rather be inconvenienced for a while then not be able to tweak my basal rates or have to take injections again). I don’t remember how my sugar fared that day bu I don’t think I really cared. It’s moments like these that make you forget about all the troubles in your life, even if only for a few minutes.
Eventually, though, you have to think about diabetes again, and I was reminded of that with my 10pm alarm. I was surprised at my reading. My meter showed 214! What happened there? Why the big leap? My sugar went up by 40 and I had no idea why. I had two more hours of fasting, though oddly enough I didn’t mind. I wasn’t hungry at all.
With my photo frames all clean, shiny and bright I moved onto the dreaded knick-knacks, which gather way too much dust to be worth displaying. I don’t have many of them but I do have some that I don’t have the heart to get rid of. I’m particularly fond of angels (though I used to collect frog figurines - no clue why - I don’t particularly like frogs. If anyone would want a huge frog figurine collection I will be selling them next weekend at a flea market in Jersey - contact me for details. No, seriously.) I dusted my angels cleaning behind their ears (I guess angels have them too), re-organized my candles (I almost never use although I love them), and just as I was about to finish I discovered an old wooden calendar behind one of my candles. It used to belong to my grandfather. The calendar is made of four wooden blocks: one with the names of the months, one with all the days of the week, and two with numbers. The month and the week blocks fit into the bottom of the wooden stand, with the two numbered blocks on top. The numbered blocks are supposed to show today’s date (single digit days have a zero in front). The letters and numbers are mostly faded now as the calendar is older than me. It was from my grandfather’s work - the shipyard in Szczecin (Stettin), Poland. That shipyard doesn’t exist anymore so this little knick-knack bearing the shipyard’s name on it is quite a unique item. As I child, when staying at my grandparents’ house I loved changing the date on that calendar every day. My grandparents knew how much I loved it so one day they just gave it to me. I may have already been an adult but I was happy to take it. And now that my grandparents, and my childhood, are gone I treasure it even more. My diabetes-free childhood - oh how I miss you! (Despite all that communism stuff it wasn’t half-bad). Judging from the date displayed on the calendar when I found it: September 18, (though not sure which year), I may not show the calendar as much care as I should (nor do I clean that area often enough). I promptly changed it to the current date and put it back behind the candle. I wonder how soon I will “discover” it again. And then I will know the date of having last cleaned it…
At 11pm my sugar didn’t fare any better. It climbed up a bit to 216. I wasn’t happy. I had one more reading to record and I was going to wait until midnight. I was also starting to feel a bit peckish.
Having cleaned everything on my agenda I decided to spend the last hour reading a book I just borrowed from my local library. It’s called Learning to Breathe: My Year-Long Quest to Bring Calm to My Life by Prscilla Warner. I love self-discovery books, and the current trend of “my year of…” true stories, such as the Happiness Project, Living Oprah, How I lived a year on just a pound a day, etc. As I own over 1400 books (and I just got rid of about 300 of them - very brave of me), I no longer blindly buy any book - if I can I first check it out at my local library, then if I absolutely have to own it - I buy it. So far Learning to Breathe is a very good book. It tells a story of a woman who has suffered from panic attacks for years. I, myself, had suffered from anxiety and panic attacks in high school. I never really discussed that with anyone, even with friends at the time, nor did I know anyone my age who was experiencing the same symptoms as me. This book is bringing back a lot of memories and so far I’ve had multiple “me too!” moments when reading it. The author advocates meditation and chronicles her discovery of its healing powers. I haven’t meditated in a long time. I know it helps. It’s motivating me to get back to my old routine of yoga and meditation, which I have for one reason or another put aside for a while. I believe that everything happens for a reason and that timing is everything. Perhaps this is a sign for me to get myself back on track - both physically and mentally. As interesting as the book is, however, about ten minutes into reading it I found myself re-reading whole paragraphs and struggling to make sense of them. I didn’t want to miss anything valuable so I finally stopped fighting myself and let my eyes close.
I jumped out of bed at midnight as my alarm went off about two inches from my ear. I vaguely remember texting my boyfriend before nodding off, hence the phone on my pillow. It took me a few seconds to gather myself and remember to check my sugar. It read 186, which is a good thing - it came down on its own. However, there was a difference of 30mg, which may not be a good thing if my sugar was under 100 an hour ago. I managed to have some fruit, bolus and go back to bed. Evaluating my sugars and adjusting my basal rates would have to wait until I’m wide awake.
That opportunity came along this morning when I finally had a chance to evaluate all my basal tests and reflect on the patterns. I decided I needed the most coverage at night between 1am and 4am, then from 7am all the way through un til 4pm, and finally in the evening between 8pm and 11pm. I needed less insulin particularly between the hours of 4-7am, and 4-6pm. So I re-programmed my basal rates as follows:
11pm - 1am = .65 units
1am -4am = .75
4am - 7am = .6
7am - 4pm = .7
4pm -6pm = .6
6pm - 8pm = .65
8pm - 11pm = .7
My Battle with Basals is not over yet. The observation part is done, but now it’s time for action.
Whether or not these rates will work remains to be seen, but you can be sure of one thing: I will definitely let you know! Stay tuned!