A Day In the Life!

I thought it might be interesting to chronicle what it’s like to be diabetic for one day. This is a catalog of all my diabetes related actions last Sunday. This is a pretty simple diabetes day, because I didn't exercise, and there were no unexpected events like friends calling to go out to dinner at the last minute, and I was never really in a place where it was difficult to treat myself when I needed to. If I were at work, or school or something like that, it would be a little harder to test, take shots, and eat when I wanted or needed to.

8:30 AM-Wake up, test blood sugar.

9:00 AM-Take Lantus (long-acting insulin) shot.

9:30 AM- Test, figure out what I’m going to eat for breakfast, calculate carbohydrate count of breakfast, calculate Apidra (short-acting insulin) dose for breakfast based on breakfast carbohydrate count & current blood sugar. Take insulin, wait a few minutes for it to start working, then eat breakfast.

11:15 AM- At church now. Test blood sugar to make sure I won’t go low while I’m directing the music for church.

11:30 AM-Try to not get nervous about directing the music, because when I get nervous, the adrenaline rush that comes with nervousness drives my blood sugar high.

12:30 PM-Test blood sugar. Sure enough, I’m high from the nervous adrenaline rush. Take a correction dose of Apidra insulin to bring myself back down.

2:30 PM- Home from church now. Test, figure out what I want to eat for lunch, calculate carbohydrate count in lunch, then calculate Apidra insulin dose based on carbohydrates I’m going to eat & current blood sugar level. Take insulin, eat lunch.

3:30 PM-Debate about taking a nap or not. If I take a nap, I will probably be high when I wake up, because afternoon naps tend to do that to me. Give in to the sleepies, and take a nap anyway.

5:30 PM-Wake up from nap, test blood sugar. Surprisingly, I’m not that high! Huzzah!

7:00 PM- Time for dinner. Test blood sugar, decide what to eat for dinner, calculate carbohydrate count, take Apidra insulin dosage based on carbohydrate count & current insulin dosage.

9:00 PM-Take Lantus insulin.

12:00 AM -Test before bed, make sure I’m at an appropriate blood sugar level to sleep because I don’t want to go too high or too low while I’m sleeping. Make sure I have some fast acting sugar near my bed in case I go low in the middle of the night.

As you can see, I'm constantly doing math! Which is kind of ironic, because it was always my weakest subject in school. :) Anyway, you can probably see how doing this day in and day out could get old, very quickly. A lot of diabetes management is dealing with the mundane on a day to day basis, and trying not to get burnt out. But, that's why they call it a "chronic" illness. :)

Anyway, tomorrow, I’ll wake up, and do it all over again! And again, and again!