Sweet and Sour- The Type 1 Diabetes Rollercoaster

Dear Dad, You're a wal, but you're my wal :) Whilst you may fit almost every category in the stereotypical Australian image and make a great example in demonstrating Australian culture in my society and culture classes, there's a lot more to you than surf, bbq's and NRL (although with that Manly obsession I've got to wonder sometimes!). You're smart, smarter than you give yourself credit for. You've taught me a lot, not just things like maths and driving but also how to communicate with other people and learn to take initiative. You're funny, always making me laugh when I need it most. Plus you give great hugs- but I think that's a pre-requisite of being a dad. For my diabetes, you're amazing. You wake me every night (even if you fall asleep you come in later on) to check my blood sugar. You get up out of bed at 3am to come and wake me up to check again if I need it, even in the middle of winter in the freezing cold. You do my set changes...

(Forgive me, I'm sick so this might be disjointed. Normal posts will continue when I'm well again!) Lately, I've had some serious problems with my blood sugar being a little high. I got a massive shock a few months ago when my HbA1c came back higher than its ever been, despite my reasonable good levels. I've tried for months to bring them down and finally with the help of my diabetes educator have made some progress. But I found out why my A1c has gone up, and it isn't entirely my fault like I previously thought. My blood sugar meter and its test strips are inaccurate. There are standards not just in America but here in Australia as well that state the accuracy of these test strips must be in a 20% range, meaning it can either be 20% higher or lower than the actual blood level and released on the market. My blood meter was sent to me in the mail from an established company that also manufactures my insulin pump. This meter was sent to all eligible type 1 diab...

This post was supposed to be a rant to end all rants, however, I'm too tired for that and will write it on Sunday. For now, this is what diabetes is like on a bad day. I'm sick, I'm tired, my diabetes educator won't get back to me and my blood sugars are wreaking havoc. For the past few weeks as you can see in one of my last posts  I've had some diabetes drama. High blood sugars all the time kind of drama. Yesterday really was a diabetes rollercoaster, my levels starting moderately high in the morning, crashing down in the afternoon and going all the way up to 21 by night (guess who got up at 3am again). I've talked about how lows feel before, but high blood sugars are terrible. - You're tired - You're thirsty - You feel really sick - Energy? What is energy? - Pins and needles - Dizziness - You blog about how crappy high blood sugars are to distract yourself from the crappy high blood sugars - As shown above, you lose all logical thought I...

My first blog request from my favourite Type 5 asking for diabetes puns, jokes and pickup lines. These are terrible and have been found from stalking the internet, only two are my own because I'm not clever enough to think them up... or perhaps my sense of humour is a little more sane 1) The diabetics got on very well, you could say they glucose 2) Can you check your blood sugar? Because I would love to know your number 3) You're just my type 4) You're like my needles, ultra-fine 5) A spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down..... unless you're diabetic 6) You're so sweet I need a dose of insulin 7) Did it hurt your pump... you know, when you fell from heaven? my own creation and the title of my major work 8) Sweet sensationalism 9) What does one meter say to another? HI-LO One I frequently say 10) Dude, I'm so high right now

I present you the disaster that was last night/early this morning and prompted me to return home and sleep for a solid hour 6pm: Dinner was a bit of disaster, so we had to go and get McDonalds. I calculated approximately 80 grams of carbs for my meal, taking a huge amount of insulin to cover it. 7pm: Blood sugar- 9.5. This was a little low considering the amount of carbs I'd just had. Due to my fear of the dreaded hypo, I decided that I should have a juice box- 30 grams of carbohydrate. However I'm really clever and completely forgot the delayed effect McDonalds has on blood sugar, shooting it sky high a few hours after eating. Now I had anoher 30 grams on board, with no insulin to cover it. 9pm: Feeling pretty sick, but pass it off as being tired from the past few weeks of exams. 10pm: Blood sugar- 24.5 (normal range is 4-7). At this point I was pretty concerned, checking for Ketones (acidic substances that the body produces when there is no source of glucose, meaning...

Dear Diabetes, I think we need to sort out a few things, because you really haven't been behaving yourself lately. I've made you a comprehensive list of my concerns and would like a reply and action to be taken as soon as possible. 1) Stop with the high blood sugar levels in exams. Just stop it. It's not nice, I don't like it. Whoever gave you the idea that blood sugars of 15-17 were ok during exams is an idiot, because it's just not. You've been here for going on four years, you know better. 2) Now onto the fake low blood sugars. No diabetes, I'm not low when my blood sugar is 7, stop over reacting. Not being able to treat symptoms of a low is terrible... because I'm not actually low. Seriously, I'd love to eat stacks of jellybeans and chocolate, really, but you're going to have to deal with having more insulin when I do. 3) Ok, I understand that you and pizza don't get along, really at 25 grams a slice I don't blame you. But PLE...

If you manage to follow this, well done. My list of scary yet exciting things that I have to think about: - Moving on to a new hospital setting. At 18 you change from the Children's Hospital to the regular no more holding your hand through diabetes adult version. - I have to learn how to adjust the settings on my pump, because no one will help me once I change hospital (there's a lot of math and it freaks me out) - New uni choices. This one is massive! In the past few weeks I've decided on a new back up university, which is a 2 hour drive away from where I currently live. This will mean spending at least four days a week at my grandparents place and taking the hour drive from there to uni every day. This has my head spinning as whilst I'm excited about it, it could wreak havoc on the blood sugar levels from all the stress and the driving and the new place with the new people that I don't know and maybe they won't share my Harry Potter obsession and even...