Real People Sick

Diabetes not only means that I get to poke my fingers in public, it means that I get to experience a whole slew of extra bonuses.

High blood sugars can mean that I get random and unexpected headaches.  And nausea.  Fatigue, irritability, excessive thirst and, should the high happen in the middle of the night, bizarre dreams about dragons.

Low blood sugars can mean that I get to sweat through my clothes or my tongue might go numb. I might feel dizzy, shaky, confused, cold, or ravenous.  The world my tilt by 10-15 degrees or I may be unable to go 10 seconds between huge yawns.

Probably about 80% of the not so good feelings I feel are the direct result of diabetes.

But sometimes even us diabetics get real people sick.

You know like we get colds and flus and stuff.

They were not caused by diabetes - they were caused by germs that somehow broke through my hand washing, healthy living barriers and decided to have some fun.

I think I'm getting real people sick.

My first clue was that I had ridiculously high blood sugars on Saturday and Sunday.  There was no getting them down below 15.0 no matter what I tried.

Sunday and Monday night I didn't sleep well - second clue.  I'll often have one bad night but then the next night will be blissful as I catch up on what I missed.  Two bad nights in a row are never good.

Monday morning I woke up with a sore throat.  Gawdammit.  It's training weeks - I don't have time for this.  I went swimming anyway because I thought I could jump start my immune system by swimming for an hour.  I felt better afterwards and was encouraged.

Tuesday I woke up with a worse sore throat.  Doubledammit.  I drank lots of water, dutifully ate my oranges and soldiered on.  Ran for 30 minutes after work.  I felt tired but did the same distance in the same amount of time so figured I wasn't too bad.

Wednesday morning, the sore throat was even worse.  I drank a ton of water and headed to the pool.  I was a little slower than usual and ended up doing six fewer lengths than I normally do but the fact that I did as much as did was encouraging.

At this point I'm not really sure what's going on.  I feel like I'm fighting a boxing match with a cold virus.  It takes partial hold over night and then I hop out of bed, drown it in water and surprise it into submission with vigorous activity.  We go back and forth throughout the day and then I go to sleep and let my guard down again.

We'll see over the next few days who is ultimately gonna win but, in the meantime, I think it's fun to announce that I'm feeling real person sick.

Not a regular occurrence in my world.