Lonely, so lonely

Yep, my blog was lonely for a good long time. In fact, I abandoned it. But popular demand (ok, two people asking) has led to the rebirth of the blog. I don't promise any wildly great writing, though, ok?

So the marathon went...slowly! Don't ask. It was wet, it was cold, it was very wet and very cold. But people who do slow marathons are oh so cool. I chatted with a lot of people, including one woman from Iceland who said that Team Diabetes folk always inspire her. According to her, we're real people who run, not good runners, but just people. Who run. Yep, that's me.

Finishing the marathon - I was elated, but sadly my finishing pics don't show that. I didn't see the camera until it was too late. My favourite one was taken in my sexy garbage bag (rain gear) with dd. She missed my finish - she'd been waiting for 20 minutes for me, and she needed to pee. Sigh. After the marathon we partied hard for two hours on the streets, going around to all of the different artsy culture night street events. Then we collapsed, very, very tired.

So now I'm back. I did the Coho Run in September in a rather decent time for me, 1:22 for 14 km. I've slacked off the last couple of weeks, and I need to get those long runs in on the weekends. I'm attempting to work biking and swimming into the program, but the swimming freaks me out. I love, love, love swimming. I have to take off my pump to do it, though, and that makes me a tad neurotic. And the only time I can swim is after dd is asleep, which means that I swim while dinner time insulin is still in my system. Which means that I am going to have to drink a bleeping great lot of juice just to go for a swim, then get neurotic that I'm still going to go low. Loads of fun. Wonder why I am less than motivated.

My current thought: eggs for dinner. Every Tuesday we will eat low carb omlettes. Then I will have almost no insulin going on from dinner, and so I will have to drink less juice, and life will be happpppppeeeeee. Right? Hmmmmmm.

See, no one should have invited me back to this here blogosphere again. Ranty ranty rant.

Grin.

Good night.

Creative commuting

Ah, the snow, the ice, the dark. Winter. Luckily, I got some ice grippers for my shoes for Christmas. It would not be a good thing to run or walk along and thwack myself on the head.

I'm having to get creative to find time to run when it isn't dark, and I'm enjoying running as a form of creative commuting these days. Last week, I ran with the jogging stroller to our local shopping strip to bring some children's clothes in for consignment. On the weekend, I ran down through our suburban streets into a local forest, down a long gravel road, through a cemetery to a meeting on sustainability in our community. I thought that it was a great fit all around. Nutty running through snow person meets sustainable commuter.

And you know what? It often takes less time than the bus....

Tis the season?

Oh my. Winter running.
Arg. Winter running.

Why did I choose to live in a little part of the city that is cold and frosty and snowy far beyond anything else?

And why did I structure all of my short runs around this area?

Well, because it's beautiful, and because there are great running trails in the spring, summer and fall.

Today I finally got out for a longer run, but I have decided that I need to head lower down to run at the moment, which means that I need to run sans jogging stroller and sans kiddo. This means that I need to find a time to run instead of having it slide nicely into my commute home.

Ah well, the winter solstice is upon us. Soon the days will get longer and I will be able to see where I'm going...and what I'm going to slip on!

Methinks some cross training in the gym might be in order. I've also decided to lower my expectations for December and January. I'm aiming for maintaining rather than increasing my run distance. Tis the season for ice and snow, after all.

Now...will I be ready for that 1/2 marathon in February? Stay tuned.

Yahoo! It's...International Diabetes Day!

Well, maybe not yahoo.
But happy International Diabetes Day anyway.
Downtown, people are getting together to make giant blue human circles - the international diabetes symbol.

Me, I'm getting ready to knit my piece of the world's largest knitted sculpture - a diabetes awareness ribbon. Yep, it's finally happening. Michaels is donating a whack of grey yarn, and the word is starting to spread. I'm even getting email from people I don't know!

This should be fun. I think that when it's done - all 200 and some-odd feet of it - we'll wrap it as far as it will go around the library. Now that's a yahoo!

To celebrate diabetes day, my body and my pump alarms kept me up until 3 am last night with lowish blood sugar. Thank goodness for my sensor. I did go rather low at one point, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I tend to wake from a strange dream to discover myself shaking, but I get afraid that one day my overnight low WON'T wake me up.

This PMS thing is killing me. Now that my periods are back, and irregular at that, I never know when I'm going to hit a period of PMS-y high blood sugar or plummet into a nasty low. It's a whole new roller coaster. How many years are there until they go away? Oh yeah, there's menopause to go through before that, and I hear that's a doozy too.

Ah, well.

Gold-plated security blankies

I am having a love affair with my sensors.

They're little devices that I stick into my thigh with a nice, big-gauge needle.
And I love them to bits.

They tell my pump what's going on with my blood sugar, and with a little click of a button I can see blood sugar trends and get alarms if I am going low or high.

They're not perfect, and each new one only lasts me about 6 days. The first day is a training day for the sensor, and I don't trust it that day. The next days have been rock solid so far. I used the previous sensor technology, with a giant hanging transmitter that looked an awful lot like a computer mouse. Hated it. It dragged on the sensor and my readings were terribly inaccurate. This one looks like a seashell, it's tiny, and it works so steadily.

They've seen me through 3 weeks of horrible blood sugar, three weeks of the worst blood sugar so far. I've made corrections of multiple units of insulin, trying to send myself flying downwards. It didn't work, by the way. My body was going through some weirdness. Last night, the sensor saw me through multiple slight low blood sugars that would have ended me in unconsciousness had I not woken from my pump's alarms. Evidently the weirdness is now ending, and I'm going back to my original basal rates. And the sensor can tell me this - even if it wakes me every hour to tell me, that's better than not waking at all.

Gotta love em.

The problem? They are danged expensive, and not covered by insurance. They're about $200 for the month. Little gold-plated security blankets, they are. I just shelled out for next month's quota. I just need to find some more consulting work, and I'm all set. Right. Easier said than done!

Beware the muscular bottom

Caution - far too much information below.

Ok, so I started running in May. I have always used a certain type of pump site on my -ahem -rear. It works for me. Or so it seemed.

The last 2 weeks I've had TERRIBLE blood sugar. It was totally random, and I blamed it on stress, PMS, eating at restaurants twice, Thanksgiving (I'm in Canada), everything.

I was awake for ages the last 2 nights, as my insulin requirements to keep me under 300 were more than double my usual insulin. I had visions of using hundreds of units a day, as opposed to my usual 30 or so.

This morning at 4 am I figured it out. My muscles in my bottom have gotten larger from running, and my fat layer is thinner. The Quicksets sometimes work, sometimes not. I'm going to have to switch to another type of pump site (Silhouettes) in my rear (already use them in my tummy).

I used a Silhouette all day, and everything was normal - finally!

This is my official public service announcement for any pumper starting an exercise program: beware the muscular bottom!

The synergistic effect of pizza on blood glucose levels. Or is it the phases of the moon?

So. Pizza. Not the reason that my blood sugar was crazy today by any means. No, that was because my insulin reservoir leaked and my site failed. Auuugggghhh! Luckily, I have a backup stash of my "drugs" and my "supplies" at work, so I was able to fix both things and introduce a program on a blood sugar of 12ish. Can you say fuzzy brain?

But pizza. It is the great mystery of diabetes.
Since I developed diabetes, I have limited myself to 1 slice of homemade pizza at a time. I take too much insulin for it. I check my blood sugar regularly and through the night. Sometimes I can manage it, sometimes I can't. I really, really like pizza, but I am beginning to think that it is just TOO MUCH WORK.

Yes, pizza has a lot of carbs and fat and protein, all stewing together in a little slice of goodness. Mmmmmmmm, pizza. Oh yes, and the fat and protein are converted to sugar overnight, so they slowly raise your blood sugar.

But why can I eat a slice of toast with cheese and meat, and it doesn't work the same way as pizza? I can have said toast with no problem. But not the pizza. I think that there must be some strange chemical reaction going on. The fat and protein and carbs do a little happy dance and make more fat and protein and carbs than there ever were before.

I've tried homemade pizza pockets made with low carb wraps, and they work ok. But they are not quite the same. I've tried pizza soup. Ditto.

When the good fairy comes to cure diabetes, I've got to say: I'm going out for a HUGE pizza, eating every dripping bit, and then I'm going for a run.

Hah! Eat that, pizza!