A Day in the Life

Here is what yesterday looked like between 7:30 and 19:00.

For those of you who aren't used to looking at a day's worth of blood sugar readings, this day actually wasn't too bad...other than that wee spike around noon. 

Let's walk through this so you can see what a day in my life looks like. 

When I got out of the pool after my swim, I was a little low. You can see that by the little red dots on the far left of the picture. 

I was hovering at 3.9 which isn't actually that low but I treated it anyway since I had just been swimming and I had to get in my car to drive home. 

I had two Dex 4s to help with the low, got home, bolused and had breakfast. 

After breakfast I headed to work and my blood sugar climbed the way it usually does after eating. It didn't spike too quickly or too high. 

By 10am, I was in a meeting. I glanced at Dexter every once in a while and he was slowly going down again but the drop wasn't too dramatic. I waited until I was 4.5 and, since I was still dropping, I decided to eat a Clif bar that I happened to have in my purse. 

The meeting was ending in a few minutes and I was heading into another meeting a few minutes later so I decided not to bolus for the Clif bar until the first meeting ended. I figured that would give the Clif bar a chance to kick in and give me a chance to see if the bar was enough to stop the blood sugar drop. 

I left the first meeting, stopped at the ladies room, refilled my water, walked downstairs to the other meeting room, went in, chatted with people, took my coat off, set up my stuff and got ready to start that meeting. 

I forgot to check how my blood sugar was doing and I forgot to bolus for the Clif bar. 

That would not normally have been a problem because I always put Dexter on the table beside me during meetings so he would have started vibrating as soon as my blood sugar started spiking. 

Except this time I left him in my coat pocket which was draped over the back of my chair. Which also wouldn't normally be a problem except I had just eaten a Clif bar that I didn't take insulin for. 

The gods were conspiring. 

I ran the meeting from 12pm until 1pm. I sat around chatting afterwards for a few minutes and then I gathered my stuff, put on my coat and headed to the car. Just as I sat down in the car my pocket started to vibrate. 

Arrgh!! 

As you can see from the graph, one Clif bar took me from 4.5 to 15.5. Think about that for a minute. Anyone with a functioning pancreas would have stayed steady as their body digested the 40 carbs worth of snack. Without a functioning pancreas, 40 grams of carb causes a huge spike in blood sugar that I am helpless to prevent without insulin. 

No wonder I was thirsty. 

I bolused for the high, headed back to my office, bolused for my later than usual lunch, waited 15 minutes and then ate. 

My blood sugar steadily dropped and I watched it like a hawk. When I got the sense that it might drop too low again, I ate my apple which I had not bolused for. That was enough to stop the drop and level me out for a bit. 

After work, the sun was shining so I drove home, grabbed a letter I had to mail and walked to the mailbox. I then walked for another 20 minutes just enjoying the spring evening. When I got home I was dropping a bit again so, as I started making dinner, I didn't worry too much about snacking on the ingredients. I figured the walk I just had needed about 15 carbs to keep me from dropping before dinner so a few pieces of pasta shouldn't be a problem. 

Apparently it was. 

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Every day Dexter's graph looks different. Every day it tells a story. Every day reminds me that I live on a blood sugar teeter-totter where every little movement in one direction usually leads to a movement in the other. 

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