Another disturbed night. Susan’s CGM started doing its song
and dance act at about 2am. She ate a ginger cookie, but 30 minutes later she’s
eating fruit pastilles ‘cos her blood glucose readings are lower than she’d
like. Usually a biscuit does the job, but last night it wasn’t enough. I think
she gets very frustrated with how unpredictable diabetes is.
A long lie! When Susan did her blood test it was 11.7! She
says managing her diabetes is rather like walking a tightrope, with lots of
wobbles and falling off.
A quiet day at home, I decided, was a good opportunity to
have a serious conversation with Susan about food:
‘How on earth do you eat?’ I asked her. ‘The same way as
everyone else – put it in my mouth and chew, but it doesn’t take very long to
come out the other end! And I have to take lots of Creon when I eat and drink
and you know how delicious a mouthful of Creon is!’
I’d managed to have a sneaky look at Susan’s food diary. She
has to keep one, at the moment, for the dietitian. It’s just as well I don’t
live with Susan all the time; my sylph like figure couldn’t take it - she’s
always eating…
Breakfast: bacon, egg, tomato and free from toast
Elevenses: egg mayo, tomato
Lunch: small baked potato swimming in butter with cheese
Threeses: salmon mayo, tomato
Fiveses: more salmon mayo!
Dinner: steak, coleslaw, tomato, small baked potato
Nineses: corned beef and tomato
Pre bed snack: large chunk of brie (and when I say large I
mean LARGE!)
Then she takes a midnight feast (usually ginger cookies) to
bed in case she has a hypo in the night!
Phew!!
And she tells me she struggles to keep her weight up and her
cholesterol is low! If I ate this much every day I’d need to get my wings turbo
charged.
It’s apparently all to do with her not having a tum and not
absorbing all the goodies from her food. Being the most knowledgeable fairy on
the planet, where diabetes is concerned (modesty is one of my strengths), I can
see why she has problems keeping her blood sugar down to reasonable levels. She
has to do so much maths – her brain must hurt!
What about her five a day I can hear you thinking… Mr Pearce
(her hero, in case you haven’t noticed) told her not to waste her time eating
things that don’t have many calories. I haven’t seen a piece of fruit pass her lips.
Also, most fruit causes… you’ve guessed … gas!
Susan said she’d got a little surprise for me and that we
were going out for a few minutes. We walked round the corner to …
#TheDinosaurMuseum #Dorchester ! I started to tremble, but Susan said she was going
to help me get over my fear of dinosaurs. The nice lady in the museum could see
that I was not my evil twin and let me get up close and personal with
Triceratops in a trice.
He was friendly and let me have a ride. Then the really
scary one… wasn’t scary at all. Tyrannosaurus Rex said he didn’t eat people who
know lots about diabetes. Thank goodness I’ve learned a lot!
What big teeth he has. All the better to eat people who are
ignorant about diabetes with!
I still don’t think that dinosaurs rate highly on the pink
and fluffy scale (like I do), but I’m not scared of them anymore.
Gas Warning:
Levels low (Thank goodness)
Susan did ask me to show you that she does eat healthily
sometimes…
Roast chicken and roast veg – yummy. She’s not a bad cook,
but I’ve a horrible feeling those mushrooms and onions are going to put me on
gas alert later.
She buys wheat free bread mix and makes her own, because she
thinks the ones you can buy are mostly rather nasty. It’s not too bad when
eaten fresh, but it has lots of carbohydrates in it – so a loaf lasts a long
time!
When Susan started following her wheat free (and everything
else free, from what I can see – I’m rhyming again) diet she tells me she was
having three or four hypos in a day. Luckily it was just after she got her CGM
so it helped her stay safe. If she hadn’t had it, I think she would at the very
least have ended up in hospital, but I think she might have died because her
body doesn’t give her any warning of hypos and usually she lives on her own so
there’s no one to help her. I’ve made sure I know where the phone is so I can
call for help if I need to. It’s a really nice feeling that I can help make
sure Susan is safe. Unfortunately I can’t live here all the time as I’ve got to
visit other diabetics, plus I’m looking forward to a salad and a sandwich.
Never did I think I would say that!
I’ve had strong words with Susan about this being woken up
in the middle of the night thing. I need my beauty sleep.
(“She certainly does!” I hear Susan say. That was a bit
below the belt!)
Susan asked me why it happens and I felt really stupid when
I couldn’t tell her why. She thinks that her insulin is hanging around in her
system longer than she was told it does by the experts. She decided to ask her
friends on the forum. They’ve been helpful as usual and she says she wants me
to do some sums to help her, but I’ve just got to go and check on something out
in the kitchen. Exit Diabetes Fairy stage left, in a rush. “Typical!” says
Susan. Maths was never my strong point.
I reappeared magically, after Susan had finished her sums,
and then helped her change her ratio on her meter.
Hopefully, this will mean I get we get an undisturbed
night tonight, and then we’ll wake up feeling really bright.
Gas Level: amazingly
low – perhaps the enormous pink pills are beginning to work! DFx
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