Laughter is the best medicine?

If that's true, then this just about cured me.

Easily the funniest thing I've ever seen on YouTube.

Oh, and George? Although you have a Snuggie, nothing they said applies to you! Your Ninja-ness transcends the Snuggie.

Bionic at the Airport . . .

I'm not all the crazy about flying, so the fact that I made it all the way to California last week was quite an accomplishment.  I guess it's not the actual act of flying that makes me the most nervous.  It's more the stress of the things leading up to flying.  Getting all of my supplies packed and ready.  Getting to the airport on time.  Getting through security.

Oh yes, getting through security.  That's extremely stressful when you are "part bionic".  The sharp pointy stuff in the carry on.  (This time I'm referring to diabetes supplies, as well as knitting needles.)  All that "hardware" attached to my body.  It always makes me nervous.  The security personnel have an important and tough job and I want to make things as easy as possible for them, as well as for myself.

Luckily, I was whisked right through without a problem (although Pea was stopped both times, imagine that!).  Here's what worked for me.

I packed all of my diabetes supplies in one big Zip-Loc bag.  Infusion sets, wipes, sensors, lancets, test strips, insulin, inserters . . . you name it, it was in there.  My insulin had my prescription printed on the box.  I removed this bag from my carry-on and placed it in a bin to go through the scanner.

Then, I turned my CGM off but left the transmitter and sensor taped on.  I removed my pump and put it in my purse for the ride through the scanner.  The whole process took only a few minutes, so my pump was off for less time than it takes me to shower.   There was no impact on my blood sugars, and no alarms from the metal detector.

Once through security, I gathered my things, connected my pump and turned the CGM back on.  Easy as pie.  I know some people prefer to keep their pump on while going through security, and I've heard they may or may not set off the metal detectors.  As with most things regarding diabetes, you have to decide what works best for you.

Now if we could just do something about those bumpy airplane landings . . .

Sweet, Sweet San Diego . . .

So as it turns out, Pea got sent to San Diego for work last week.  I decided to tag along, and we managed to fit some play time in too.

San Diego is the sweetest city I've ever seen.  The weather is sweet.  The beach is sweet.

It was about 80 degrees and I got a bit sunburned, and I loved it.  I can now say I've touched the Pacific Ocean as well as the Atlantic.  And wwwaaaayyy out there?  It wasn't Long Island, like when I look out at home.  It was Mexico.  Wow.

The Trolley Tour was sweet.  We saw Old Town, where we ate the best Mexican food ever.

Yup, Mexican two days in a row. Poor Dual Wave feature really got a work out.

We saw the sweet Gas Lamp district, where we had many an awesome breakfast at Richard Walkers and found those incredible cupcakes from my last post.  And we hopped around sweet Seaport Village to see the sights and browse the shops.

 

We found a sweet spot in Balboa Park to enjoy some southern California scenery.

But by far, the sweetest thing about San Diego was the fact that I was going to be meeting up with the D-OC's own Ninjabetic, George!!!  Even sweeter was that he had a little surprise for me.  He brought Scott with him!!  OH. MY. GOODNESS.  Could my smile have been any bigger?

It was a bit surreal and I was a wee bit confused when George said he brought a friend.  I knew it was Scott the minute I saw him, but I knew Scott doesn't live in California and it took my brain a minute or so to work the whole thing out.  I would have loved to have seen the look on my face.  (Guys, did I look like I didn't know what the heck was going on?)

We had a wonderful dinner at Denny's where we ate, talked, laughed and cried.  Not to worry, we only cried because we were laughing so hard.  We had the best waitress ever.  Scott had some fun by convincing her that we travel around the country eating at as many Denny's as we could find.  She was an incredibly good sport though.  Of course, she won George over when she brought him a whole carafe of Diet Coke.  See it in the front of the picture?  (It's empty, of course!) 

And yes, that's my infamous sunburn. In February. A SUNBURN IN FEBRUARY!! YEE HAA!

Our meet-up was over far too soon, but we had  to be up at 3am catch an early flight out.  And now, we are home, sadly, where it is barely above freezing and there are no Ninjabetics or Surprise Scotts.  But for them, the adventure continues.  Pop on over and hear about it here.

Blood Sugars Be Damned . . .

some times you just NEED a good cupcake.

More on where and when these cupcakes were found in a future post.  Happy Wednesday!

Maybe . . .

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about diabetes is the Maybes.  There are big Maybes, like Maybe my future will be filled with complications.  And then there are little, annoying Maybes.

My most common little Maybe has to do with blood sugar.  Today, my sugars are crap.  And I feel like crap too.  My nose is stuffed up.  My blood sugars are stuck in the high 100s to low 200s.  I feel so darn tired and cold.

Maybe I'm sick.  Sickness explains feeling icky and having high blood sugars.  It also explains the stuffy nose.

Maybe it's the stress.  Stress explains the high blood sugars, which in turn explains the feeling icky.  It doesn't explain the sniffles, but sticking my face repeatedly into K.C.'s fur may have something to do with the stuffy nose and itchy eyes.  (Freak Girl Alert!!  But I can't help it, she's just so snuggly I have to hug and nuzzle her!)

Maybe it's not sickness or stress.  Maybe I just haven't been sleeping well.  Okay, no maybe there.  I DEFINITELY haven't been sleeping well since the mugging.  Lack of sleep = high blood sugars = feeling icky.

What do you do when the Maybes have you stumped?  I've decided for today's Maybe, I'll simply do what I can.  Keep correcting the sugars.  Try to get some rest.  And don't let the Maybes drive me crazy.

Meme Monday - Letter Meme

Before I get going on my meme, I want to thank everyone for your comments and thoughts and concerns on my last post.  I'd like to try to answer each comment personally, but I haven't been able to work up the energy for it yet.  Please know your kind words mean the world to me and Pea.  We are still shaken, scared and upset, but we are starting to sleep a bit better each night.

On to the meme.  Today I'm sharing the Letter Meme that I got from Walden.  She gave me the letter D - so here are ten things I like that start with D, in no particular order.

1. Diabetes bloggers - they are one cool group
   
2. Donuts - yummy
   
3. DPNs (double-pointed knitting needles) - I really prefer these to circulars
   
4. Daytime television - my guilty pleasure is watching a couple of soap operas
   
5. Dancing ballroom - Pea and I have been taking ballroom lessons for about 5 years, which makes me feel like we should dance a lot better then we do
   
6. Diamonds (specifically 812 & 912) - what woman doesn't like diamonds (okay, besides my mom)
   
7. Dove chocolates - by far my favorite "grocery store chocolate"
8. Decaf coffee in the afternoon - I love coffee just for the taste, so a nice soothing cup of decaf is a great warm treat that won't keep me up all night
9. Derek and the Dominos - Layla is one of the all-time greatest love songs, but then again Clapton is God
   
10. Daisies, of the Gerbera variety - they are so colorful and pretty

Would you like to do the Letter Meme too?  Just e-mail me, and I'll send you a letter.  I promise I won't use a difficult one like Q or X.

Four hours . . .

That's my estimation of how much sleep I got last night, so my apologies if I am not quite coherent.

Yesterday actually started as a good day for me and Pea. He had a big meeting at work and needed to wear a suit. He got a lot of compliments on how nice he looked and he felt great. I just was feeling really good all day too.

A little after 5:30, he called me as usual to let me know he was catching the train home. We live a mile from the train station, so it works out good. A shuttle runs from work to the train, and then he walks the mile down Main Street and is home about an hour after he leaves work.

But last night, things went really wrong. As I was making dinner, he called from his cell and asked if I could drive around the corner and pick him up. Everything after that is a bit of a blur. As he was walking home, on Main Street in the early evening, three teenagers knocked him down from behind. They punched him several times in the face and reached into his pocket to steal his wallet. He tried to yell for help, but there were no other pedestrians around and no cars stopped or even called 911. I have a really hard time believing there were no cars on Main Street at that time of day, so I'm sure someone must have seen this happening and chose to ignore it.

We are both a bit numb today. We are trying to understand how something like this could happen in our quiet little town. We did give a statement to the police and cancelled all of our credit cards and our bank card. We took him to the ER for a cat scan, and it came back clean.  They gave him a prescription for the pain. His nose is swollen (it had bled at the time) and he's got a bunch of red bumps and a cut on his face. I'm sure he will be very sore from being pushed down too. He was told not to go to work today, and luckily he's still sleeping.  We didn't get home from the hospital until 1:00 am, so it was a really long night.  Neither of us could eat anything, and I'm thankful that with my pump and my CGM I was able to keep my blood sugars between 100 and 120 through the ordeal.  I woke up this morning at 60.

Just thinking about this still brings tears to my eyes. But we are trying to look on the bright side and count our blessings. I shudder to think about how much worse this could have been. They could have had weapons. They could have beat him even more than they did. I can't let myself think about anything beyond that - but yes, it could have been so much worse. So today, we will start the process of putting this behind us. I'll get new bank cards. I'll take him for a new license and buy him a new wallet. I'll be dropping him off and picking him up at the train station from now on. We'll fight the urge to hide away from everything (as demonstrated by K.C. and her Kitty Kondo).

And I'll hug him a little closer from now on.

Sometimes it's not your fault . . .

In my opinion, Superbowl Sunday is just as much about the food as it is about the football. Actually, I don't even like football, so it's ALL about the food. This year, Pea got invited to watch the game with The Guys. I looked forward to an evening with K.C., some chick TV, and some junky food.

I actually wasn't that hungry so I didn't eat that much. A few chips with dip, a few chicken fingers with buffalo sauce and a small fruit tart. (Hey, the fresh fruit on the tart makes it healthy, right?)  I counted and bolused for what I had. And my blood sugar stayed pretty stable all evening.

Yesterday morning was a different story. I woke up at 185. I corrected and bolused for my coffee, but only came down to 159. After a small breakfast, I shot up to 220. Correction after correction gave me readings of 190, 225 and 159. What did I do?

I blamed myself. I convinced myself this was somehow caused by the less than healthy food I ate the night before. I told myself it was my fault.

But then, I felt a slight soreness around my infusion site. It wasn't due to be changed until today, but I decided to put in a new site in the hopes that my blood sugar woes would be over. As I yanked out the old site, I could see it wasn't quite right. The graph on my CGM confirmed that the bad blood sugars were due to a site that crapped out. You can see my steady fall back into range as soon as the new site was in.

The moral of the story? When things go wrong, don't beat yourself up about it. I could have eaten the healthiest of foods Sunday night and I still would have been fighting my blood sugar yesterday morning. Sometimes, the problems are beyond your control.

Meme Monday

Over on my knitting blog gotten tagged or volunteered for quite a few memes lately, and I'm doing one each Monday until I've completed them all.  I thought I'd share them here as well.  The first one is from Katt, and requires me to tell you six quirky things about me.

Here are the rules:
Link to the person who tagged you.
Mention the rules.
Tell six quirky yet boring, unspectacular details about yourself.
Tag six other bloggers by linking to them.
Go to each person’s blog and leave a comment that let’s them know they’ve been tagged.

Some of these you may already know, but here what I've got.

1. I hate mashed potatoes.  However, I love potatoes - just any way but mashed.
2. When I buy things in stores, I never take the front thing on the shelf.  I always reach behind for the second one.  I think it's "fresher".
3. I sometimes wash some dishes by hand because I'm afraid I'll fill up the dishwasher too fast.  I'm not really sure why I think it would be worse to run the dishwasher more than it is to wash dishes by hand.
4. I can go days on end without leaving my house (and I have).  It doesn't really bother me.
5. I'm completely paranoid about K.C.  Since we only had Charlie for four months before the Feline Renal Failure did him in, I think it's kind of scarred me.  I over analyze every little thing K.C. does, and worry about her all the time.
6. I can't stand when the food on my plate touches.  I've been known to use two, or even three, different plates to keep this from happening.

Gosh, it's hard to come up with 6 quirks!!  I'm not going to tag anyone - but if you want to do it, I'd love to read your answers!