Focusing on My Fears

When I was one week old, I had a blood clot in my left leg and had to have my leg amputated above the knee.  Nobody really knows why the blood clot happened.  There’s no connection between the blood clot and my type 1 diabetes.

Having one leg and wearing a prosthetic leg is all I’ve known my entire life.  When I was younger, I had trouble accepting it, with all the rude comments and stares.  I never really felt NORMAL.  Then I was diagnosed with diabetes at age 14.  Suddenly my focus went away from being an amputee to controlling diabetes.  I accepted diabetes much easier than being an amputee.  Maybe it’s because I know how important it is to control diabetes.  If I don’t learn to manage it, it will kill me.  But being an amputee isn’t like that.  It’s just there.

So why am I blogging about this?  Well, my focus lately has been back to being an amputee.  In two weeks, I am having reconstructive surgery.  I haven’t had any other surgeries since the amputation, and this surgery is to help reshape the scar tissue.  I’m very scared and worried about a lot of things (I naturally tend to look at the bad side of things and dream up the worst possible scenarios).

First, I’m worried about having surgery and being put out with diabetes.  What if my blood sugar drops too low during the surgery?  Or if the opposite happens and it goes too high?  I had to be put out once before to have my wisdom teeth taken out, and I had these same concerns.  Obviously, all went well but this surgery will probably take longer.

What about the after effects of surgery on my diabetes?  I’m not going to be able to wear a prosthetic for a while and will be on crutches or in a wheelchair, so how is this decreased amount of movement going to affect my blood sugar?  Will I be able to still give my own shots?  I won’t be able to give shots in my left thigh because it will likely be bandaged for a while.  When I give shots in my arm, I prop my left arm up on my right knee.  Am I going to be able to do that?  Maybe I will have to learn to give shots in my abdomen…ugh!

Then I just have concerns about the surgery itself.  What if the surgery doesn’t go how it’s planned, and I won’t be able to wear a prosthetic again?  How would I be able to continue in nursing school or ever become a nurse? I know, I’m playing the what if game, and I just need to let it go, have the surgery, and take life from there.  Put trust in the doctors and know that I’m in good hands.   I will definitely post an update after the surgery and discuss how it affected my blood sugar.

On a kind of ironic side note, April is National Limb Loss Awareness Month!

Easter Splurges

Holidays can be a tricky time for a diabetic.  There is always lots of food and candy.  Easter is a good example of this: chocolate bunnies, robin eggs, and Peeps.  Sugar, sugar, and more sugar!  And there’s really no way to avoid pigging out at dinner, especially when Mom spent so much time fixing such a delicious meal!  Holidays are definitely a day to splurge!

Even though I splurge, I do try to avoid eating a lot of sugary items.  Today I did eat a blueberry muffin that wasn’t sugar free, and I had a couple bites of the chocolate strawberry creme egg that my mom had.  Just a bite or two of sugary desserts and candy is usually enough for me.  I basically stick to my sugar free candy.

Sugar free candy! Even the Easter bunny knows I’m diabetic 😉

Dinner time is a different story.  I ate so much!  There’s mashed potatoes, ham, macaroni and cheese, rolls, green beans.  So much food!  I ate close to 100 carbs at dinner, which is more than I normally eat.  I usually eat 40-65 carbs at dinner.

Even though it was a holiday and I ate differently than normal, my blood sugars have been great today!  I was in the 140’s before breakfast and lunch and was low, at 66 mg/dL before dinner.  That was even after eating the muffin!  Hopefully my blood sugar stays level the rest of the night and my large dinner doesn’t spike my blood sugar!

Happy Easter!  Hope everyone had a great holiday!

 

A Day in Chicago!

Saturday was my trip to Chicago with my college’s Honors Program.  We left early in the morning and got back very late that night. I have always found traveling difficult.  There’s so much to plan and so much to remember to take with you.  Because of diabetes, I find traveling even more difficult now. I have to make sure I have enough supplies (test strips, insulin, pen needles, alcohol swabs, etc.) to last the entire trip. I also have to be sure not to forget any important supplies. And then I have to decide what type of bag I’m going to use to carry all my supplies and snacks.

Even for this one day trip, I had to do all this planning. I made sure to have about double the amount of supplies I thought I would need.  It’s always better to have way too much than not enough!  Luckily, I didn’t have to move everything to a new bag, as all my supplies fit in the bag made for diabetes supplies that I always carry around.

We did so much walking around Chicago!  Once the bus dropped us off at the Art Institute, we were on our feet the rest of the day.  After some time in the Art Institute, we went to Millennium Park, walked several blocks to take a boat tour of the Chicago River (the boat ride was a nice 90 minute break from walking), and then shopped along Michigan Avenue.  With all this walking, I was worried that my blood sugar would drop, but the whole day my blood sugar stayed around 120 mg/dL.

My friend and I after the boat ride!

Another difficult part of traveling is eating, especially for me, a picky eater.  For lunch, we ate at Pizano’s, a pizza and pasta restaurant.  A lot of times, particularly at restaurants I’ve never been to before, I order cheese sticks.  It’s something I know I will like, and I am pretty good at estimating the carbs of them. However, right before I ordered I noticed they had lobster ravioli, so I ordered that at the last minute.  I was so proud of myself because I was going to try something new.  I searched online and found the average carbs to be about 42.  Turns out that they were out of alfredo sauce, so I ended up getting cheese sticks anyway!

For dinner, we wanted something quick and easy, so we went to the food court at the Shops at North Bridge.  I had no clue what I was going to eat.  There was Mediterranean, Panda Express, Jimmy John’s, and a hamburger restaurant.  Nothing I would eat.  There was a Potbelly Sandwich Shop, and they had mikshakes and smoothies.  I splurged and had a strawberry smoothie.  It was 104 carbs for a 16 ounce serving (their website is awesome and lists nutrition info for everything!), and it was packed full of sugar.  But I had to eat something, and with all the walking I had done, I figured my blood sugar wouldn’t spike too much.  I can’t remember the last time I had a smoothie, besides the natural ones I make at home with real fruit.  The smoothie was absolutely delicious! I didn’t drink the whole thing, though because my stomach started to hurt.

I did get confused because Chicago is a different time zone than where I live, so I had trouble trying to decide when to take my long-acting insulin.  Plus, I would have had to have taken the shot in the dark on the bus while we were stopped for a restroom and snack break.  Because of all that, I ended up taking that shot about 2 hours late.  Other than that, the trip went great, and I had so much fun!

Syringe Free!

For the past few years, I have been using what is known as an insulin pen to administer my short-acting insulin shots (the shots I give at meals and to correct high blood sugars).  I have still been using a vial and syringe to administer my one long-acting shot, which I give at night usually at home.  I will now be using an insulin pen for my long-acting insulin too!

No more syringes.  No more being careful not to drop the vial of insulin on the ground.  No more trying to get rid of all those pesky air bubbles!  I no longer will have to use syringes out in public during the occasional night that I’m out late or worse, wait a few hours after the usual time to give it so that I can do it at home.

This makes me very excited!  Especially since I have an upcoming trip to Chicago!  I really didn’t want to be using regular syringes on this trip or have to draw up the dose in a syringe on a bus.

My insulin pen for long-acting insulin

Using an insulin pen is very easy.  The cap (the far left portion that looks like an actual pen cap) comes off and a small needle, called a pen tip, is screwed on.  The dose is “dialed up” using the gray twisty portion on the far right, near where the window of numbers is shown.  Then the dose is administered by pushing down on the purple end.  So much simpler than using a vial and syringe!