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Thursday, July 27, 2006

On Blogging (One)

I have read that I must blog each day to maintain readership. Since I doubt I have any/many readers, that amuses me. However, it is good discipline, and perhaps will help me get some internal benefits from my blogging.
I am really enjoying investigating the blogosphere. Now I know what a meme is. I also found "blog seeds", which I will continue to explore. For today:
25 Things You Never Wanted to Know
1 - Bell Peppers make me belch
2 - Cucumbers make me belch, but pickles don't.
3 - I love both cucumbers and pickles
4 - I bought the biggest cucumber I have ever seen at the farmer's market last week.
5 - My mother taught me that ladies only use black ink
6 - I only use black ink, or colors for special occasions
7 - I hate blue ball point pens
8 - I am 60 lbs or more overweight
9 - I was diagnosed with diabetes 11 months ago
10 - One would think that #9 would cause me to do something about #8, but I just talk and write about it a lot.
11 - I am terrified of getting Lasix eye surgery
12 - I have worn glasses since I was in 6th or 7th grade
13 - I think my 2 yr old son needs glasses
14 - My husband has worn glasses since he was a toddler, I think
15 - I am so un-artistic, I am almost an anti-artist
16 - I admire artists' ability to create beauty
17 - My best work friend's last day was today.
18 - I love to take photographs
19 - I really wear a size 9 shoe, but I don't admit it and continue to say I wear an 8 1/2 like I did before my son was born.
20 - I am an ENFP most days.
21 - I love personality tests.
22 - I didn't start gardening until my late 20's and I love it
23 - I have a hard time sticking to any self-improvement path for long.
24 - I have red hair
25 - I have a LOT of freckles.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Rolled right on off that roll

Hahaha. I did ok over the weekend, but what is it about the weekend that feels like a holiday, like you have to celebrate with food?
And how can I "forget" my nightly shot of Lantus? I even forgot that I forgot until I tested this am and my bg was 106. I know for a lot of diabetics that would be just fine, but I'm supposed to be under 90 for fbg. This is part of the trying to avoid another miscarriage plan. So I took my Lantus at 6 am today, which will mess me up a little all day long.
I made a faux pas at work, dealing with that all day. My best work friend's last day is tomorrow, dealing with that too. Yes, I spent 10 minutes on the floor of the server room crying my eyes out. That leaves me feeling icky. I decided to skip the departmental lunch and that turned into a big deal, it would have been easier just to go.
All in all, not a great day.
Here is a picture of my son and his new Thomas The Tank Engine bed. He loves it. Except when it's actually time to lay down and take a nap or go to sleep. Then it's "No, not that bed!". Oh well, he will adjust.

Funny toddler story - we went to a birthday party of a 2 year old in his daycare. It was basically mayhem - 15 toddlers, 25 or so parents at Gymboree with a slightly overwhelmed teacher. After 2 hours, James came over to me and stuck his hand out and said "keys". "What?" I said. "Keys, PLEASE", he says. "What do you need the keys for?". "GO HOME", said my precious little guy! Yep, he was going to take the car and leave me there and just go home. I think he'd had enough. I was very proud that he did that rather than have a screaming fit meltdown as some of the party-goers were doing.
2 hours and I can hang out with him and get away from this drama and trauma I call a job.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

On a Roll - Day Three

Here I am, early afternoon on my 3rd day back on track and it’s going GREAT!

I am working from home today. Anyway, I used to work from home one day a week, but then it stopped last year due to some personnel turnover and big projects. I asked last week and got the ok, so Wednesdays I get to sleep an extra 90 mins and be home at 4:01! The downside is that I am 10 steps away from the kitchen and there’s no one to judge my snacking.
But I have my tracker book out and I have written down the everything I’ve eaten so far, so I will just stick to doing it! I also don’t have chocolate or bad snacks in the house, except for some animal crackers that I don’t care for anyway, and hubby’s freezer pops which don’t appeal because my sugar shoots straight up from them.
I did 20 mins Yoga Mon and Tues. Mon the dog “helped”, last night DS “helped”. Tonight I’m going to try the stability ball while DS watches Thomas or Zoboomafoo, that might work better. But I will keep trying to squeeze in the 15 min McD’s yoga session before bed, it really does help my stress/insomnia/panic. And it’s so short, it’s easy to fit in. By the time you get out the mat, load the DVD, get through the warnings and ads, it’s more like 25 mins. Just like the 30 min dvd is really like 45. When I went to a gym, a 1 hour work out was almost 3 hours with packing and drive time, so I guess working out at home is an improvement.
I can't help but wonder if yoga won't help me sugar as well? Hard to say with only 2 days especially since I also quit eating after 8 pm. My fasting levels have been awesome.
Has anyone else noticed that injecting into a stretch mark tends to be less painful? I say tends because about 33% of the time I start to inject and OWIE! It hurts. When I use a stretch mark, it's only about 10% of the time I get the owie-factor. I know they indicate a tear in a skin or muscle layer or something like that, wonder if it's ok to use them?
I signed up for Glucerna's 13 week program for diabetics, but let it slide and now I'm 5 weeks into it, but really just starting. I've contacted them to see if they can reset my account and try again. I don't plan on buying a lot of their products, but it looked like a good plan overall.
Lastly, I've been reading lots of blogs about CGM, and it sounds fascinating to me to have a constant input on blood sugars and which way they're going. Since I'm Type 2 and no complications, there's no way I could get one approved. Does anyone know if it's possible to rent one for a few weeks? I bet that's not available yet, but as soon as it is, I want to rent one! Just to get a better understanding of how my body reacts to food and exercise.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

On a Roll! 2 whole days!

It's a miracle - 2 days in a row of eating right, sleeping almost enough and exercising a bit. Sugars are marvelous as a result and I dropped a pound! I see blogger is about to go down for some work, so I'll try to come back later.

Monday, July 17, 2006

Knowledge without action is useless

I don't remember the attribution for my title, I read it over the weekend and it resonated.
I know a zillion tidbits of info on eating well and exercising and controlling my type 2 diabetes, but when I do not put any of that information to work, I have wasted the time spent researching, reading and learning. Thus this is my mantra for the time being, to motivate me to take ACTION.
I made a conscious effort to not snack last night and was rewarded with a fasting bg of 89 today. This week's effort will be focused on not eating at all after 8 pm and not having caffeine after 4 pm. To put all this information into action, I am going to focus on one or two new/changed behaviors a week. This is to make sure I don't get overwhelmed. I can't be the only one who has woken up Monday morning with a "new life" plan of a zillion things to do and totally washed out on it by Tuesday night.
Anyway, this is one small step I can take. Since my evening choices are generally sweets, I will eliminate a couple hundred calories a day with this, as well as dropping some points off the fasting sugars.
My next A1C test is 8/1, so it's probably too late to affect that one.
I believe my thyroid hormone replacement is kicking in, I certainly seem to have more energy. Not doing anything for my appetite, but not sure I'd know, since I mostly do emotional eating and rarely experience true physical hunger. That's on next week's agenda.
The weekend was very tiring. A marital tiff kept me from sleeping Saturday night, I got about 2 hours, which is not enough to keep up with a 2 year old all day. I did get 6 loads of laundry mostly done (1 load left to fold).
My dear boy had a birthday party to attend Saturday and that was fun, though 15 pre-schoolers running around for 2 hours was headache-provoking for not only me, but for my 2 year old as well! It's the first time he has said he wanted medicine that he could tell me a good reason - he rubbed his forehead and said "hurts here". Usually when he says "need medicine" and I ask what for he will respond with "need medicine" and I feel I can safely ignore his request, relegating it to the level of requesting a band-aid (Sesame Street or Backyardigan ONLY) for an injury free area. He knows about medicine from taking Claritin all spring for allergies.
A quick trip to the library and groceries at Sam's and the local store rounded out the rest of the weekend. I have started a price book in hopes of saving some $$, so shopping takes a bit longer than normal. I would expect after 3 or 4 trips, it will go much faster because I will have all our standard purchases listed. I am tired of buying things at Sam's or Costco and later realizing that it was actually much more expensive than a sale or Wally World. This way I will know which is the better deal.
On the gardening front, my tomato plants finally have some baby green fruits on them, more than 2 months after planting. I'm not sure I will ever adjust to trying to garden at 7350 feet elevation in the horrible soil of Colorado.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Bitterness is an awful breakfast

I awoke late again this morning. Checked my email while slugging down my first cup of coffee and I had a birth announcement. It's not pretty, but it made me angry, jealous and a tad upset. That sounds just awful.
The father is the man I dated prior to my husband. Among other problems, he did not want to ever have kids. I wasted a year of fertility on him is how I look at it now.
When I was pregnant the first time in 2002, his new girlfriend got pregnant. I miscarried in Oct '02, they had a baby boy in I think March '03. My son was born in Sept '03. Since then, I have had 3 miscarriages and they have had 3 babies, including twin girls this week.
I hate feeling like this but it's hard to stop it. I intellectually know that if we had had a child together, I wouldn't have had my wonderful son James (though wouldn't his soul have come to me anyway? Depends upon your beliefs I guess). I also know we would have made a poor match long term.
I accept responsibility for frittering away so many of my good fertile years with partying and focusing on my career. All those years of using birth control and trying to avoid pregnancy, I had the belief that as soon as I stopped bc I would turn up pregnant - it doesn't work that way past 35.
But I'm still hurt and angry and touchy this am. It does not help that I started my period today too, so I'm not pregnant again this cycle and I'm PMS'ing. Emotionally, every cycle these days feels like another miscarriage.
I think I'm going to have to accept that dear son will be an only OR cough up the bucks to get to a fertility specialist.
I feel like a good cry, but I have to find someplace private to do so.
Last night was Mommy Movie Night and The Lake House was good although difficult to bend your mind around the time warping. Da Kane has been making lots of cutting remarks about my going, but he will have to accept it, as I have decided I need a few hours for myself a couple times a month. A movie or dinner or even a trip to the library - I deserve it!
I must put all this behind me for the day and get some work done. It's tough.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Where's my Motivation?

Hey YOU! Over there, in the blue shirt! Did you take my motivation? No? Well, have you seen it? Call 911, see if we can put an APB out for it.

Friday, July 07, 2006

SIX MONTHS!

Yes, it is six whole months since I puffed on a cigarette. On one hand, I can hardly believe it's already been 26 weeks, and on the other, it seems like a few years. Isn't that the way of important events? I cannot believe my son is already nearing 3, yet I can barely remember what life was like before he arrived.
It took a couple dozen tries to get here. The record before completely puff-free is 2 months. I made it 3 months twice, but was starting to cheat by that milestone. That's one trick I can share - it's the first puff that gets you, or "I'm a puff away from a pack a day". My quit gadget on Quitnet says I have NOT smoked over 3600 cigs as of today. Honestly, I have NOT smoked just one -- the first one. This is a recovery technique borrowed from Alcoholics Anonymous, but like so many other AA sayings and techniques, it's applicable to any addiction.
Many time I have just barely made it. Here are some things that helped me.

  • Coming up with my own goal. For me it was 1 week for each year smoked, which will be next week. I convinced myself that when I reached that it would get much easier. I didn't see the great improvement at 30, 60 or 90 days that others did.
  • Not expecting it to get easier after a week or a month or 100 days. Everyone is different, but for me it was a very gradual improvement though nothing has been as bad as hell week.
  • Delay & distract. IE, I will not smoke one right now, but I can if I still want one this badly in an hour or tomorrow I can have it; then get busy with something else.
  • WATER. Ice cold water has magical properties when it comes to cig cravings
  • Sunflower seeds.
  • Fireballs - the hot jawbreakers.
  • Quitnet - incredible amount of online support and quit info.
  • Hubby quitting at the same time. Da Kane has had an easier time than I, it looks like, but never judge another's recovery. All I know for sure is that not having cigs in the house made my quit much easier.
  • A complete list of every single reason I can think of to quit that I reviewed all the time the first couple months.
  • Nicoderm Patch, compliments of the state of Colorado.
  • Nicotine gum, for the really tough spots the first few weeks. I actually like the new mint coated Nicorette.
  • Several supporters at work. Personally, it worked well to tell everyone I was quitting and have them check in with me. Unfortunately, people who have never smoked pretty much think it's all over and done after a month or so.
  • Rewards! I may have spent all the $600 I've saved by not smoking so far, but it was worth it. Particularly the 30 min massages a few times a month.
  • Knowing that it's not over yet and probably never will be. And that's ok today. I smoked for 27 years, maybe after 27 years smokefree I will not have to keep my guard up, until then I must be aware.
  • Anger at Big Tobacco. It really helps to read up on their deceitful and dangerous practices. Once you fully understand that they do not care that they are killing their customers, and would like to addict more teenagesrs to kill them too eventually, you don't want to give them more money.

In other news - I had a run in with a bag of jersey sour cherries (if you don't know what they are, think giant cherry-sized jelly beans) last night that necessitated 5 cc of regular humalog in addition to my lantus. I have not told my endo that I am doing that, I don't know why I am hiding it, it's not even once a week. Not sure what I'm going to go when I run out of humalog. Fasting bg this am was 93, so I guessed right on the dosage. Just another example of how I'm playing fast and loose with the disease. As long as I keep my A1C (avg blood glucose over 2-3 months) down, I feel like I can do whatever I want. I don't think that's necessarily true.
I just don't know where to start to overcome this addictive eating! Argh! But for today, I will just try to keep it mindful and celebrate my success over smoking.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

2nd Monday this week :-(

Yes, I worked Monday-monday (7/3), had a holiday yesterday (Happy b-day USA), and now I'm working Monday-wednesday (7/5). Obviously, I am not working that hard.......
Had a spell after lunch when I felt drunk. Checked my sugar - 107, pretty darned good for 30 mins after lunch. Don't know what it was, but come to think of it, I've felt it a few times this week. Is it the levothyroxine? Who friggin' knows? I am back to the 50 mcg a day dosage, cutting it in half for a couple days really helped with the feeling crazy, emotional, panic attack-prone crud I was going through. If that starts again, I am demanding to see the endo early - hahahahahahaaha. Those of you with a popular specialist know how amusing that statement is. Mine requires 3 office personnel, 4 nurses and a couple Nurse Practioners who are diabetes educators too. That's how popular he is. If 1 doctor and 2 NPs require 6 exam rooms, you know somebody's sitting around waiting. (it's not the doc)
Anyways, pulling the diet back onto the straight and narrow is harder than I even imagined. Gained 10 lbs in 1 month of being a slacker. This am, a co-worker came by and told me he had stocked up on goodies from Costco and to stop by.
I lasted about 45 mins before I was in his office getting dry roasted peanuts and jelly belly jellybeans. Not diet, nor diabetic foods, last I checked. Not a huge amount at least. Certainly not as much as I could have eaten.
How much of the nation's obesity epidemic is directly attributable to Costco, Sam's or other warehouse type stores? They do sell some healthy snacky stuff in individual sized bags but how easy is it to grab another bag when you have 48? Reminds me of the day I bought some choc chip cookie 100-cal packs and ate all 6 packs before bed. (6x100=600 or 37.5% of my daily calories)
But then I had lunch out already scheduled, and went to Applebee's. They actually have a great Weight Watchers based menu, but oh no, I had to order the spinach shrimp salad with hot bacon dressing. I told them to go light on the dressing, but the salad was drenched. At least I left a great deal of the bacon at the bottom of the bowl. And I got my daily supply of popeye green.
However, my sugars have been fine today. This tells me, and correct me if I'm wrong, that my lantus and metformin are geared towards my eating poorly. We'll see how it goes as I improve my diet.
I have so much dieting info floating in my head again that I'm confused. Between South Beach, common sense, carb counting and Diabetic Exchanges, I am lost. I think I will just log in fitday everything I eat for a few days and watch how it goes. ONLY for a few days, otherwise this vague of an approach will get dropped. More planning of foods, less reading of plans. Logging every bite always helps anyway.
Feeling better now, not so drunk and foggy. Walked upstairs and I was puffing a bit at the top. Haven't done that much since I quit smoking 179 days ago. Maybe I am retaining water?

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Return Continued

So, when last we met, I was up to why none of these medical issues have struck me as very serious and why that has changed.
I don't guess I really have a point - there has been no "AH HA" moment, no light bulb appearing above my head. I have spent my life waiting for such times, and they never come for me, I am more of a cumulative effect kinda gal.
Monday is 10 years since my Mother died. She started having her serious health issues at about my age - that's a part of it. She never really took care of her diabetes or weight issues. Didn't deal with alcohol until it caused so much pain that a little wine would put her in the hospital. (Pancreatitis).
My Dad and Step-Mom were just in town for 2 weeks. Dad will be 75 in a couple months, and his health is not the best, mostly because he has never addressed his diabetes or other health issues. He's losing vision in his left eye due to diabetic complications. He thinks nothing of waking up with a bg of 200.
Don't misunderstand me, my parents were/are very good people. But I would like to learn from their mistakes.
My mother never did quit smoking til the last trip to the hospital. My Dad quit at 42. I quit at 43, but the past 2-3 years I have spent more time not smoking than smoking, and hopefully that counts for something.
Interesting sidebar here - of my Dad and his wife, all original 4 marriage partners smoked. Dad quit at 42, Step-Mom quit at 40-something. Their spouses did not quit and both died in their early 60's. Does that tell you anything?
Ok, back to the topic at hand, to wit - me.
I have an almost 3-yr old son and I can see the day fast approaching when I cannot keep up with him. I don't want to be a spectator parent - I want to be active. Would losing 60 lbs and controlling my diabetes help? DUH.
I have been here so many times before though. All fired up about changing my eating and exercise behavior, only to see the motivation peter out rather quickly. One think I hope this blog will do is help me keep my motivation and focus going.
I thought blogging at 3fatchicks.com would help, but that turned into more of a forum, chatting and trying to elicit comments more than honest expression of my efforts and mental state.
Such as, why am I craving cigs more today than I have in a few weeks? Those that have gone before me over at quitnet say that anniversaries trigger this kind of thing, and I am only a few days away from 6 months. I can't begin to express how much I HATE craving poison. Which logically should keep me from smoking, but in actuality, it wears me down if I am not ever vigilant. I have not had a single puff since early 1/7/06, but I have blown a couple dozen prior quits because I let the desire and cravings wear me down. If da kane - my hubby, had not quit with me this time, I doubt I would have made it this long.
A big reason I am dwelling on the health issues is that I just feel like crap. I'm tired, I can't get a lot of normal chores done, I don't feel well.
Honestly, another reason is that I have to have some personal project to focus on. I will read, research, create a zillion charts and plans for a "while", then it all starts to peter out. I hate this about myself. I can be so diligent about work, or being a friend, daughter, mother - but not taking care of myself.
Is this low self-esteem? Or is that just an excuse I have trotted out regularly for 20 years?