Monday, January 29, 2007
New design
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Swimming
From I was 6 years old, I have been swimming once a week. Just for fun and exercise, never competition-minded (except for the personal competition you would have with yourself :-)). I continued this routine until I moved to
Those of you having read my blog from the beginning – or at least the recent post of January 16 – will probably, with some quick mental calculation, have realized that the D was introduced during the years that I have been practicing swimming. Besides the swims at the university, we would always go swimming on Saturday afternoons, usually shortly after lunch. Only once did this routine cause me a severe low afterwards. I could have slightly lower sugars (2.5-3.5 [45-63]), but never really posing any problems, except for that single one some 13 years ago.
The last couple of years I haven’t gone swimming. There is really no good excuse for that, just plain laziness in working it into my lab-routine. I took it up again in the fall, though. This time, being on the pump in stead of injections, I thought a lot about how to tackle this workout. The time in the swimming facilities specifically allotted for employees at the university is Fridays
My initial approach was similar to the one I used for soccer practice in the spring, where I would also disconnect my pump during the activity. I worked a lot with the timing of the snack and the amount of insulin to cover it before going swimming. However, only once have I succeeded in avoiding a low afterwards, despite the fact that I, of course, copied my approach from this successful day to the following Fridays. I have a goal of 30 laps (40 m each), or 24 laps (50 m each) when the pool is not split in two, within approximately 35 minutes. I have only fulfilled my goal a couple of times so far, because usually I will begin feeling this special fatigue and missing coordination in my motion, clearly telling me that I am low, at about 24-26 short or 20-22 long laps. I leave the pool, shower and get dressed, and usually get a reading of 2.5-3.5 (45-63). That I can handle without a problem. Sometimes I don’t even bother to chew more than a couple of glucose tabs (which is about half the amount that I will actually need to correct this if only treating with glucose tabs), while walking back to the lab (approximately 600 m) to get my lunch.
Since being on the pump I have had a fare greater share of readings below 2.0 (36) than I ever had with MDI. I believe the lowest reading after swimming have been 1.8 (32) or so. Until last week, that is.
Last Friday the pool was divided into two, and thus my goal was 30 laps. I had reduced my basal to 60 % a couple of hours before, and at
This scary post-swimming low was one of the things that I discussed with my favourite nurse, Alice, at my appointment with her this past Thursday. She suggested that I simply turned off the pump/set the temp basal to 0 % an hour or more before going swimming, as she believed that not only the swimming, but also my morning bike ride getting to work, is affecting my BG during this 30 min swimming work out. Also, to prevent those significant drops in BG that I still tend to see in the late afternoons around my bike ride going back home from work, she encouraged me to try to turn the pump of approximately 1 hour before my anticipated departure from work.
I set out to try this the following day. At
Why does it have to be so difficult to figure this out? Anybody have some experience with swimming and pumping that they would like to share with me? I would like to make it work, and even if I don’t, I am not the type to give up because that would that I let the D rule my decisions in this matter. Only I don’t want to risk going completely sugar cold because of my stubbornness, so inputs are more than welcome to help change this pattern of lows caused by swimming :-)
Monday, January 22, 2007
When D affects......
This afternoon I read Scott’s latest post about the negative feelings that D can impose upon us. While I was planning to post about the below-mentioned anyway, Scott’s post somehow inspired me to add a D-twist to my current report.
Last week I had a very long awaited meeting with my current supervisor and a German scientist, W, who contacted my supervisor last summer with the hope of setting up collaboration with our group, and if possible acquire a talented candidate for a PhD-position that he had funds to pay for. My supervisor found the request from W attractive, and he asked me if I might be interested in this possible PhD-position. I said that I might be, but that I would like to hear more about the project before I made my decision. This was also of interest to my supervisor, and as W had mentioned that he would be willing to meet us here in
Maybe it was because of all these bumps on the road that my expectations to the meeting weren’t too high. When I was introduced to W, my first impression of him was good, though. He seemed very calm and relaxed. My supervisor had asked him to give a talk about his research, but only 6 people showed for the presentation! It was a shame, the talk was actually pretty interesting, but I think that the fact that we had already had a group meeting in the morning and this talk was scheduled at
After the talk my supervisor, W, and I continued with a meeting regarding the possible PhD-project. My supervisor went to fetch some coffee, and while he was gone, W told me that he hoped that we would be able to establish the cooperation despite the fact that he would be moving his research group to
We discussed the anticipated aim of the project, and I actually found it appealing. The funds that should pay my salary would come from the German Research Counsil, which posed some issues to be sorted out. W had funds for 2 years of salary, but he would only be allowed to bring them along when he moved to
For most people moving your address out of the country may not be that big a deal. I don’t know if it is to me either, yet I have some reservations about it. First of all Jimmi and I have not shared our current address for 2 years until October this year. Because it is a rental house, this means that if I move my address out of the country, Jimmi will not be allowed to stay in the house by himself, even though I may be here living there with him for up to 2/3 of the 3 years of my PhD-education. Second, moving my address out of the country also leads to some considerations regarding my health (D, asthma and allergies) and the cost of the needed meds and supplies. The taxes in DK are quite high (40-60 % of your salary, depending on your income, are paid as taxes), but this also means that we have rather low costs when it comes to meds and supplies. I pay for my medicine myself, but great deals of the costs are covered by grant aids. My diabetes supplies (test strips, needles and the like) are free of cost for me. The home-municipality pays for that. When it comes to insulin pumps and supplies for these, the costs are covered by the hospital treating the patient.
I had a note from W today, stating the answer about funding and registration that he had gotten from his future employer. Apparently PhD-salaries are free of tax in the
I have an appointment with my wonderful diabetes nurse on Thursday, so I will discuss these medical issues with her. It annoys me, however, that my decision about the PhD- and address registration has to be affected by the D in such a way. I am not going to let the D get in the way of this position, but I still wish that it wouldn’t have to take up so many thoughts in the decision making and arrangement of the course.
D actually also plays another part in this. Jimmi was okay with the fact that I would be staying in Hamburg and Glasgow occasionally - as long as these stays wouldn’t be too long – but he did have one mandatory condition to accept it: I should make some arrangement for other people to be able to keep an eye with me, to make sure that I got up in the morning, and be able gain access to my accommodation in case of an emergency. It is actually a fair condition to make, but I am annoyed by the fact that it should be necessary. Why does the D have to play these games with us, causing us to sometime need the assistance of our love ones to handle scary or night time lows, and causing our love ones to be worried about our well being? Why does the D has to affect us and our love ones in this way?
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
17
Today is my 17th D-anniversary - actually I believe that the week day was also Tuesday back then. Neither I nor my family has ever done anything special to commemorate this day, just noted that yet another year had passed. Each time, however, I cannot help to think back to that day when I was diagnosed as well as the years past since then.
This year, since I now have a blog, I will share some of these thoughts with you guys.
In one of my first blog posts, I described my diagnosis , so I will not go through that again. Suffice it is to say I don’t remember the 2 weeks of stay in the hospital as very joyful – except for the fun with my roomies, one of whom is still one of my best friends :-) Most of you who have had this disease as long as I, or even longer, will probably remember that those early days were not the most flexible ones regarding diabetes management and treatment plans.
My family has always been very supportive with my D, which is great. In addition, my dad has always been very protective toward both me and my sister – I would actually say overly protective much of the time. Maybe I will understand this wish to protect your children against everything, even just scratches and falls during play, when I have kids myself, but so far I can’t say that I agree with all the protection that my dad offered – and still offers - me and my sister. This protection meant that even though I had wished to try to play soccer in a club for years, I wasn’t allowed because I could get hurt (that was my dad’s typical reasoning with me, along with the fact that the strains on the muscles, tendons and skeleton that soccer would mean, would cause problems when you were still growing). The fact that I had asthma and allergies (grass pollen allergy is one of them) didn’t help either, so when diabetes came along I almost thought I would never get to play soccer in a club until I turned 18 and would be of legal age.
My dad surprised me, though. He signed both me and my sister up for a soccer club in the nearest larger town. There was a soccer club in our village too, but apparently my dad chose the larger one, because he knew some of the people in that club. I was thrilled to finally be allowed to enter a team, although I was a bit annoyed by the fact that the distance to the club was so that one of our parents had to drive us for practice and games.
While my dad would usually attend all the away-games (to be sure that we got there safely!), he wouldn’t stay and watch practice. I had been diabetic for little over a year when I started playing soccer in the club, and although I had only been on injections for half a year or so, I felt fully competent in recognizing and treating lows. I also felt that I understood the principles behind the treatment and the effect of it pretty well, having educated myself through a lot of reading and noticing how my body reacted in different situations. However, I clearly remember a couple of times, where soccer and diabetes collided, and where my dad particularly didn’t show much of the understanding that otherwise characterized my family.
At the time I had a meter that required half a liter (or so it felt like ;-)) of blood, after one minute drying off the blood from the strip before inserting it to the meter, and then wait another 60 sec. to get a result based on the colorimetric changes of test area on the strip. In the hospital I was introduced to a lancing devise (much like this one posted by Art-Sweet to Diabetes made visible) that didn’t hide the lancet nor bothered to just poke half way through your finger. Needless to say I wasn’t happy about this, and despite the fact that I got another lancing devise with my meter, I just could not get myself to use it. Pressing the lancing button, I would simultaneously move the finger that was targeted to take the prick. Because of this, my parents assisted with my testing, drawing the blood from my earlobe in stead. Testing was not done that regularly back then, so I didn’t test before, during, or immediately after soccer, as I do today.
In the first season of soccer I remember feeling low during practice. I had glucose tabs with me and treated accordingly, quickly joining the others again. When my dad came to pick me up afterwards, he asked how practice had been, and I told him that I had a reaction that I needed to treat. I remember him turning his head to look at me, asking: “Are you sure that you were low, that it was not just the excitement of playing?” I was stunned and angry that he would even doubt it. I didn’t say anything, just nodded, thinking to myself that well, it is my body, and I know how a low feels like, and then hoped that the test at home afterwards would not give a high reading. Thinking back though, I actually believe that my dad’s reaction to this episode was due him being worries, and maybe even blaming himself for not having been around to make sure that I was okay.
The other example is from one of those rare away-games, where we didn’t have parent to drive us. Because we were going to suburban
When I got home it was just before dinner, and my dad thought we should just do a test to see how the day had passed off. I was suspecting a high, but my dad didn’t think that was likely if I hadn’t eaten anything I wasn’t supposed to (read: besides my packed lunch and snack). After all, I had played a full match of soccer, and “exercise lowers your BG”. I was high. I cannot remember how high, but I think somewhere around 12.8-15.8 (230-284). My dad was blaming me for not having taken proper care of myself, while I tried to defend myself with the fact that I was not the one, who said that the afternoon shoot should be skipped.
I guess what I am trying to illustrate with these short stories is two things: 1) While family and friends can be very understanding and supportive, they just don’t always get it; 2) Although we still need to see the promised cure, diabetes management has become so much easier during the years. Although I haven’t been in this game as long as some of my fellow-bloggers, I still feel how research and development have increased our ability to live a normal life with the flexibility and control needed. Just comparing the first insulin pen I was handed (I did do injections with syringes while in the hospital, but that was just until my pen arrived. Use of syringes for insulin in DK is almost not heard of, the different pen devises are used extensively) with the ones that I have now is amazing. And of course, the fact that a BG test gives you the result within 5 sec today compared to 120 sec 17 years ago is hard to dodge!
Lets just hope that the next 17 years will show just as much progress – hopefully letting us get rid of all our pens, syringes, pumps, BG-meters and other paraphernalia all together :-)