Tuesday, July 27, 2010

The Plane has Crashed

You know I had this whole thought process of what I was going to write about today all planned out; we were going to discuss monitoring devices. Then today happened and I do not say that in a good tone. The day started out wonderful I had my lowest morning blood sugar in weeks with an amazing 110 mg/dl (6.1 mmol/l) woot, normal range. Now this is the way to wake up full of energy and ready for anything. I worked through my first 4 hours of work today with a little bit of pain but my left arm pretty much numb, I am used to this so I dealt with it. Got through with work and went to my optician for my annual eye exam today.

In the eye exam they did a new test that I had never before seen, I had to look into a machine and hit a button whenever I saw three flashing lines. This test was for one eye at a time, now the hard part or maybe the weird part happened during the test. The eye that was not being used seemed to almost cross with the eye being used causing my vision to go completely black. I could see pretty much nothing except for what seemed to be the fluid in my eye, sorry no other way to explain this. This little issue happened on both eyes whichever one was being tested seemed to be overridden by the non-testing eye. After this I had a normal eye exam and a pupil dilation to check on my inner eye. I still have minimal scar tissue at the back of my eye which according to them is early signs of Retinopathy but they do not believe any action is required as it has not grown any in four years of testing.

After the eye exam and all I came home to start feeling extremely tired. I checked my blood sugar and I was at 396 mg/dl (22 mmol/l) and all I could think was what the heck???? I took a slider shot of my Humalog to try and bring the sugar level down, I do not believe this worked or maybe it did that was really the last thing I remember. I was out on the sofa after that for almost 4 hours. I woe top Misty (my cat) liking my hand and my phone ringing it was my Mother. I took my blood sugar again and was at 386 mg/dl (21.4 mmol/l).

So after this I spent 3 hours in the ER for them to do blood tests to find out if I have an infection or something. I am supposed to follow up with my doctor tomorrow afternoon. They cannot explain what is causing the spike in my blood sugar. I sit here writing this at 11:52 pm tonight and I am still at 307 mg/dl (17.05 mmol/l) while this is down, this is not a major improvement. To be painfully honest with everyone I am scared to go to sleep tonight because I am unsure what is going on. This is just one of those days that do not go your way.

I hope to talk to you all tomorrow about my new monitor that I should be getting after 11 am tomorrow. This will depend a lot on what my wonderful life partner decides to do to me tomorrow lol. Till then have a great day everyone, we are half way through the week tomorrow so enjoy it.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Concessions and Revelations

Today was an interesting day; I made it through a complete day of work without too much pain. I had to talk with my human resources representative to set up a new break schedule to accommodate my current needs with pain management. I work for a company taking technical support phone calls. Well this requires me to sit for 2 hours at a time and by the time my first break arrives I am in pain. So thanks to my new friend called Neuropathy I have had to get a medical exemption for work allowing me to take smaller breaks so that I may get up and move around.

I would love to say this is the first time my job has had to make a concession to accommodate me with my medical issues; unfortunately it is not the first and at the rate of growth I am experiencing with my new found friend I fear it will not be the last. They already allowed me to come home so that I could work from my house handling our calls. This became an issue when the ability to drive safely came into question; having 5 near accidents in one month on an interstate is never good. I was driving 43 miles one way to and from work every day so I came home. I do my job and I do it to the best of my abilities. I am not meeting goals now as I have to take longer time to work on files, and I fear this is an area that exceptions will not be made in and I fear losing my job eventually over this. My doctor, my wife, my parents and my friends all think I should apply for disability, but I do not want to give in to a disease. I am not going to allow the Neuropathy define me, I will define the Neuropathy!

I have wondered if I chose the right background for my blog page as my wife did tell me it seems to dark. After reviewing my choice I have decided it is fine. This background was the best way I could express my pain in a visual format. The dry parched land represents my life broken up by the Diabetes being attacked by Neuropathy in the form of the lightening. Leave me a message telling me what you think of the background is it to dark or does it explain things to you?

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Structure

Today has made me realize one very important thing, I like structure. Not just a day to day idea of what is going on when but structure as a whole in my life. I know I get up in the morning through the week and get ready for work after taking my morning blood sugar. When I come downstairs Meredith has pulled the shots including my slider and has my pills waiting for me; weekends I cook breakfast and she does the same thing sets up pills and shots. Today however, Meredith and the kids left on their own vacation for the week up to visit her father before summer is over and school begins. I cannot go as he does not have internet at his home, if he did I could just take my job with me. So tonight I fixed dinner for one instead of five and took my blood sugar as normal. I ate dinner and then some 4 hours later remembered I forgot my shots and pills for dinner, my routine was out of whack.

So does structure equal routine no not always. In my particular case structure is the support system I have here in my house with my wife and kids. I get to face an entire week with no support no structure, are we taking bets on just how good my blood sugar will be this week? The stillness in the house is actually nerve wracking lol which is making me a bit stressed. Stress hmm now that does absolutely nothing to our blood sugar does it. Then I have all of those fathers worst case nightmares happen of what if one of the kids gets hurt while they are up there? How can I get there to be at their side where I belong?

So today instead of saying anything really about me (other than above lol) I want to speak with everyone about those others in your lives, your structure or support system. It does not matter if you are married to a diabetic or are the parent of a diabetic, today is about those who help to take care of us, the diabetics. I know you read this and go take care of me? I can take care of my own self I do not need someone else to take care of my disease! But, in all truth we need others in our lives to help us stay on track and not fall off the health train as it leaves the station each and every day. See we as diabetics make the decision to stay on the train or to step off as the disease is our curse or burden, but it is our support that is there to clean us up when we do step off.

Now please do not misunderstand, there are days in our lives where we simply want to “stick 2 fingers up to this vile disease called Diabetes!!!!” This quote was taken from the site of a new friend named Bec, you can read her blog at http://insulinsinvolved.blogspot.com/ . I fully agree there are days I hate this curse and pray to God that he just takes it away and let me live a normal life. It is these days the ones where we have had it that we cannot forget our support system. I am not saying they will stop us from doing it, if they are smart they will allow us our venting day. However they will be there for us when we have to pick ourselves up off the ground. As parents they stood by us as we rebelled against our diagnosis, as our loved ones they are there to put the pieces back together.

I say all of this to come to one great point, to all you diabetics out there reading this take a look at your support and tell them Thank You, tell them you Love them for all they do for you. There will be times in our lives where no structure is available and we really will feel alone, do not let those times be when you remember the support you normally have. Thank them daily while we may be the ones living with the disease they are the ones who are living with us; even if not literally lol.

Tomorrow is a new day and I am still unsure as to what I am going to write about yet. Check back in tomorrow night and see what the topic will be.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Today's fun ride of sugar levels

Today was a long day; I do not know any better way to say it. This morning started out fairly well my blood sugar was 154mg/dl (8.5 mmol/l), I felt great even though this is still higher than my morning “goal” of 115 mg/dl (6.38 mmol/l). We took a trip over to our local farmers market to look at fresh fruits and vegetables, sat in the Explorer for about 20 minutes as the rain came down so hard we could not see. Once it was over we walked the market and found not a lot to be honest today but did find a nice bunch of Blueberries. From the market we headed for the pharmacy to pick up all my medications as it was time to renew all of the scripts.

Did anyone notice anything above that I left out? No, well that is only due to the fact you are still learning about me. You read yesterday about my daily medication regimen and well today is no different; however, I did not eat breakfast this morning with my pills and shots. So this dumb oaf of a diabetic who knows better starts to bottom out while we are driving around. Meredith got us home in time for me to get some sugar into my system. So by now I am running a 74 mg/dl (4.1 mmol/l) and I felt like my world was spinning way out of control. Ok I have food and I have work to do.

It is 17:00 and I am well on my way into making Zucchini Bread and dinner for tonight. Upon sitting down for dinner I found that my blood sugar was now 365 mg/dl (20.27 mmol/l). Talk about a major jump in monitoring; what was really weird is that where would you should feel some sort of issue, but I felt nothing out of the normal for this.

It is 19:30 and I have once again dropped, the current blood sugar is 94 mg/dl (5.2 mmol/l) and I am not feeling good. My body is shaking and I am starting to get confused on easy subjects. We had friends over this evening and I am having a mini blood sugar fit in front of them, I felt like a freaking idiot. Hey look at the guy who can’t keep his sugar level in check.

Now my day is over and I am heading to bed as soon as I post this message tonight. My mind has a massive headache from the amusement park trip my blood sugar did today. If there is anything positive to come from this day it is that I was pretty much pain free for the day. Tomorrow will be a new day in this life, I hope that you all will follow me through the day.

For now I bid you all good night.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Daily routine

Today has been the best day I have had in the last three months. I have had no major pains anywhere in my body and I have felt free to go outside and face the world. Even took the family for a little car trip around to see the country side and enjoy the day together. I am not saying I was pain free by any means of the word lol only that I had no major pain and was able to function all day.

I thought today I would share with everyone something that others may feel is personal information, but I think if I am going to commit my journey to everyone on here they need to know the whole journey. So today we are going to discuss medications, not just what type I take but the dosage clear down to the sliding scale insulin.

So here we go I am going to break this down by time of day also.

06:30
1 Metformin 500 MG – for the diabetes
1 Lisinopril 40MG – for high Blood Pressure due to the Diabetes in my system
1 Lasix 40 MG – for the water retention due to the Diabetes in my system
1 HCTZ 25 MG – also for High Blood Pressure due to Diabetes in my system
2 Neurontin 300 MG – This is for my Neuropathy
95 units Humulin - Insulin
30 units Lantus – Insulin
Humalog – Insulin Slider Scale based on blood Glucose level at that time. (Will include slider scale at bottom of post.)

08:45
2 Ranitidine 150 MG – Antacid tablets

17:00
1 Metformin 500 MG – for the diabetes
2 Neurontin 300 MG – This is for my Neuropathy
95 units Lantus - Insulin
15 units Humulin – Insulin
Humalog – Insulin Slider Scale based on blood Glucose level at that time. (Will include slider scale at bottom of post.)

As needed meds through the day for the pain of Neuropathy
1 Darvocet 100-650 Pink TB – Pain relief (rofl does nothing)
1 Flexeril 10 MG – Muscle relaxer (it relaxes the muscles called my eye lids and I sleep for hours after taking it).

Sliding Scale Insulin:
200 and below = Nothing
201-250 = 24 units
251-300 = 28 units
301-350 = 32 units
351-400 = 36 units
400 and above = Call Doctor (and say a prayer)
For those who read my information and are not in the United States below you will find a conversion chart for converting mmol/l (millimoles/liter) to the US measurement of mg/dl (milligrams/deciliter).

mmol/l mg/dl mmol/l mg/dl
1 18 11 198
2 36 12 216
2.5 45 13 234
3 54 14 252
3.5 63 15 270
4 72 16 288
4.5 81 17 306
5 90 18 324
5.5 99 19 342
6 108 20 360
7 126 21 378
8 144 22 396
9 162 23 414
10 180 24 432

I hope this is useful information for everyone. Please tune in tomorrow as I discuss, well guess you will have to check in and find out wont you?

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Introduction

Where and how do you start these things the world calls blogs? Well for me I guess it will start out with who I am and why I am here. My name is John Anno I am 33 years old and I live In Galesburg, Illinois. I am happily married to Meredith my wife of 10 years this year; we have three children and live a pretty normal life.

I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes when I was a teenager and have lived my life with the diagnosis without ever looking back. Did the diagnosis really mean anything to me at all? No not really wow great I have a family disease rack it up for the record books. Oh, the intelligence of youth lol you always hear hind Sight is 20/20 well yes in this case it definitely is. Diabetes to me was not a disease or a burden it was something to forget about and get on with my life; this however is a bad mistake to make. I sit at my computer writing this new page in my life three months after being diagnosed with Diabetic Neuropathy.

Talk about a wakeup call in your life, “Hey you know all those pains you have been having? They are because you did not take care of a major medical condition and now you are going to pay for it.” You hear all these warnings about diabetes and you also live your life by a needle stick but does it really sink in how serious the disease is? Just how do you reach a teenager? If I could make a suggestion I would explain to them their condition is life threatening and their choices will affect them for the rest of their lives and that the choices may end their life even sooner. If someone had grabbed my attention maybe I would be better off now, instead I live with constant pain in my arms and legs while the rest of the world looks at me like I am insane because by all appearances I am a normal human being. You do not have pain it is all in your mind. The pain segregates me away from everyone else the best way I can explain this is I am lonely even with my family here at home as they do not understand the pain.

Well I hope I have not scared anyone away already on the first post. I am not sure if this will be a daily or a weekly blog as of yet. For the first few days I will post daily so that I can learn to develop this new section of my life. I have been doing a lot of research on Diabetic Neuropathy and Diabetes in general and would be happy to share with you any information I see. Some of my posts may be about articles I have read on new research being done to find a cure for us. Who knows maybe I will just ramble for paragraphs on end making no sense at all, guess you will have to keep reading to find out won’t you.