Ch ch ch changes.......

Well aren't I Miss Perky Pants. I left things on a high note back in January and just really left them. Not purposefully but it just kinda happened. Life happened. More time consumingly grad school happened. The spring semester started and I lost track of it and all the sudden it's the stinking end of April. (Happy Birthday Eric!).

Cue this song........yeah the Shrek version.......

Pretty much everything is about to change!

1. I graduate with my masters in Speech-Language Pathology in less than 2.5 weeks. Yeah I know, exciting stuff. Who's more excited than me!? Well, I'll tell you, my husband is. Bless his heart, he's worked as hard as I have the past almost 2 years for this. He deserves to wear a big, ugly gown and walk across a stage as much as I do you.

2. We are moving! To Culpeper Virginia. I don't really have much to say about Culpeper yet. We shall see how that goes. We are renting a townhouse there and move in the middle of May. Ch ch ch changes......

3. AJ starts a new job in Culpeper. Yeah, he doesn't want to commute 3 hours from Culpeper to Roanoke everyday so he had to get a new job.

4. Girlfriend needs to get a job. I am very much looking forward to transitioning from student to working professional.

What else is new?

Really not much. AJ's still awesome, I still have an obsession with colors and patterns, as well as pallet wood, type 1 diabetes still sucks and I still have the tendency to talk about it in inappropriately high amounts of detail.

Same ol' same ol'.

High five. Let's keep this up.

Anniversary and Type 1 Diabetes Sucks and Cure Please

Today is my diabetes anniversary.

A year ago I was diagnosed with a chronic auto-immune disease that impacts every hour of my life. I decided today that I wasn't going to default like usual and write a light, funny and smiley post about diabetes. I do plenty of that. I decided this because sometimes I worry that I may not truly be portraying the whole picture of what it's like to be a person living with type 1 diabetes in my daily life and on this here blog. I feel like from the outside, it may look easy. That from the outside it may look easier than other diseases. You know cause for the most part, type 1 diabetes can be an invisible disease. If it wasn't for glimpses of my insulin pump and medical ID bracelet, most people wouldn't know that my body is any different than any other healthy 20 something year olds. They can't see with their eyes that my body cannot stay alive any longer on it's own without daily medical treatment. They can't see that my body is dependent on a medication to stay not only healthy but alive everyday. They can't see that a medical emergency constantly but quietly hangs over my healthy looking body.

"Well Courtney, but why does it really matter if type 1 diabetes looks easy or not to people who have functioning insulin producing beta cells?"

I say, it matters a lot. You know why? When things look easy, they have the opportunity to be put on the back burner. I don't want a cure to be put on the back burner because someone with type 1 diabetes looks healthy enough or normal enough from the outside. I don't want a cure to be put on the back burner because type 1 diabetes doesn't look "bad" or "life threatening"  enough to the American public (who most don't even know that there is more than one type of diabetes) to really crank out a real cure.

I want a cure, because this disease sucks. I want a cure because I don't want anyone I love to have to live with this disease.

So I would like to cheers my first year with diabetes with an Internet toast.... cheers to the reality of type 1 diabetes being properly recognized and to a future cure, maybe not in my lifetime but in someone else's life time.

Tonight I'm going to celebrate a hard ass year by going out with Mr. Hubbalicious and stuffing my face with some amazing desserts. and I'm going to maintain amazing blood sugar numbers while doing it.

Diabetes sucks, misewell make it cute.

Amen.

The annoying thing about type 1 diabetes isn't just that one of your vital organs doesn't work anymore, but it's also that EVERYTHING related to type 1 diabetes is lacking in attractiveness. From the shots to finger pokes to medical ID's to carrying cases to extra tubing hanging around it's all just bland and blahh and medically sterile. and since I can't do anything to change the fact that blood comes out of fingertips when I poke them rather than glitter and sparkles, I give diabetes an infusion of cuteness through mainly accessories. Let me show you my most recent contribution to increasing my own personal diabetiliciouness.

First, let me show you the standard diabetes medical supply/carrying cases that the medical world/diabetes supply companies/"the man" provides as options to people with diabetes. Here's a standard glucose meter case.

Umm, I don't know about you but that's not what I consider a good time.

"But wait Courtney! You can attach and wear that "classic" looking glucose meter case on your hip. Easy access!! We have included a loop on the back of the case to allow for you to slide it right onto your belt. It's so convenient for you." -Manufacturer in my imagination, example below.

Manufacturer, that's just mean. I would rather go outside and find a stick and then take that sick and use a butter knife to widdle down a pointy tip and then use that jagged tip to poke my finger to draw blood to check my blood sugar over and over again rather than wearing that case on my hip in public for 5 minutes. Convenient my diabetes butt.

Here's what I suggest as an alternative.

It's my new D-bag. Cosmetic cases from Target. There's two but the little one fits in the big one. See, cute.

The little plaid bag is for my glucose meter, lancet and test strips.

and the red medallion bag carries everyday type 1 diabetes stuff that needs to be with me all the time (insulin pens, extra insulin pump supplies, emergency/life saving stuff).

and diabetes just got cuter.

We chopped us down some holiday tradition.

We rode off to a localish Christmas tree farm this past Sunday to chop down some holiday tradition.

Pro: It was a sunny, beautiful 45 degree day.
Con: It was a sunny day, so sunny and bright that picture taking was hard because we glowed, our skin that is.

Let's start off with 2 obligatory christmas tree farm pictures.........

 

 

 

and then continue with an artsy one....

and bring it full circle with a little family picture.....

 

See, pretty sunny but pretty fun.

I had decided this year randomly that I wanted to use a big ol' galvanized bucket for a tree stand. AJ so sweetly rigged up a way to make that a reality. Rig on rig on my sweet husband.

 

See. A bucket.

 

 

These are kinda the only pictures we took this year of us decorating the tree.....

 

 

Yeah, mind blowing.

 

But we did take these......

 

 

Yayy for the holiday season!

 



A Day with Type 1 Diabetes: Insulin Pumpin

Back last March, I did my first "A Day with Type 1 Diabetes" post. At that time I was doing multiple daily injections therapy, which ended up usually being between 8-10 shots a day. Good times. Now, I'm an insulin pump therapy girl. If you've read my blog any other time before, then you know how much I love my insulin pump compared to multiple daily injections.  Let's just be dramatic for a minute and let me say that my insulin pump changed my diabetes life. Now, let's not be dramatic and say yes, my daily life with type 1 diabetes still isn't normal but my life with type 1 diabetes is now less intrusive compared to before in my very important humble opinion.

 

First, let me officially introduce you to my pump. and I'll do so by posting an awkward picture of me posing with it.

Ok cool.

 

It was a Friday..........

 

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1am - This diabetes day started early. Before bed at around 11pm on Thursday night, I checked my blood sugar and it was 46mg/dL. That's really low (normal range for typical people is 70-120mg/dL). So I ate 4 Starbursts to raise my blood sugar back up into a good safe range and went to bed. At around 1am I woke up and laid there and thought to myself "Did I wake up cause my blood sugar is low or did I wake up cause AJ was moving around?" I didn't feel like my blood sugar was low but decided to check it. It was 53 mg/dL. Low again. I said a little thank you prayer for waking up and then ate 4 more Starbursts.

 

 

9am- I know you're thinking "Courtney, you don't wake up till 9am?" I was sick this day and canceled any obligations I had the night before. Checked my blood sugar 103mg/dL. Perfect!

 

 

 

 

Then I made coffee and before I drank it I grabbed my pump and typed in how much insulin I wanted it to give me and pushed ACT. The pump then starts pumping the correct amount of insulin into my body through a little tube that is already inserted into the skin and fat of my stomach.

 

 

Noon - I'm hungry for lunch and decide that since I'm sick cough cough that I should go get Panera to help make me feel better. I look up the nutritional info of the meal I want at Panera so that I will know in advanced how much insulin to tell my pump to give me before I eat. I'm just concerned with the red circled carbohydrates number.

 

 

Before I hop in the car, I check my blood sugar again to make sure it's in a safe range to drive. 101 mg/dL = great.

 

 

Right before I eat, I type in the number of grams of carbs I'm about to eat into my pump and have it calculate the amount of insulin I should take.

 

 

2pm - I check my blood sugar about 2 hours after eating lunch to make sure my number is good. It was 112mg/dL. I like that.

 

 

6pm - I tend to get low blood sugar around this time of the day since it's around dinner time. I wasn't planning on eating dinner for another hour but check my blood sugar just to see if my body was good. For some crazy, unexplained reason (diabetes can be very unpredictable) my blood sugar is a little, little high at 123 mg/dL. This is crazy to me since I haven't eaten anything since around noon today. It may just be running higher than normal this time of the day cause I'm sick. Who knows. So I tell my pump to give me a little insulin to bring my blood sugar down a bit.

 

 



7pm - Friday's date night around here. The 3 of us head out to dinner (AJ, Court, and pump).

 

Dinner consisted of lots of insulin, I think I told my pump to give me about 8 units. I had to guess on how much insulin I needed because the restaurant we went to doesn't provide nutritional information about their meals. Pretty annoying. Oh and dinner also consisted of a really cute man.

 

8:30pm - After dinner I had to check my blood sugar to see how accurate my guessing was.

129mg/dL I'll take it! but I did tell my pump to give me about a unit more of insulin to bring my blood sugar done a little more.

8:45pm - We went and got ice cream. Ice cream is my most favorite food in the world but it is really hard on my blood sugar. So when I do eat it, I have to take lots of insulin and check my blood sugar at least once every 20-30 minutes for at least 2 hours after I finish eating it. It takes a lot of work to safely eat it but it's always worth it. So I ended up checking my blood sugar 4 more times before bed after eating ice cream.

9:15pm - We got home and AJ wanted to check his blood sugar for fun because he was curious to see what it was after eating ice cream for a typical person. His blood sugar was 112mg/dL. Why don't you and your working pancreas brag about it? I then decided to make it a competition and check to see what my blood sugar was compared to his. Mine was 103mg/dL. Win for the artificial pancreas.

 

 

9:45pm - Another blood sugar check

10:15pm -Anther blood sugar check

10:30pm - When you're married you can happily go to bed at 10:30pm on a Friday night. I check my blood sugar once more before bed and it's a low 61mg/dL. So I reluctantly shove 3 glucose tablets in my mouth. Glucose tablets taste like huge Smarties. The last thing my body wanted after eating ice cream was sugar tablets.

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There it is! What a day with type 1 diabetes can look like with an insulin pump.

 

love,

the 2 of us