Sweets at the cinema
We were at the cinema on Saturday night…we went to see the Proposal. Lovely film.
Normally, I don’t feel the need to eat anything when I’m out, but Jonny took a notion for popcorn. And, to be fair, we like different types of popcorn anyway. He likes the hideous salty stuff, I prefer the (oh-so-good-for-me) sweet stuff.
So he was queuing to buy his popcorn, and I threw a bit of a strop. Like I say, normally, I can ignore all the food and it doesn’t bother me, but all I could see was popcorn, crisps, sweets, ice cream.
Jonny was all ‘I won’t get any if you don’t want me to…’ and I was just being hideous and grumpy, and got a bottle of water.
Like I say, normally I’m very controlled. Sometimes however, frustration just rears its ugly head and I want to be able to do, and eat what I like, without the hassle, and consequences diabetes adds to the equation.
“I’m going to blog about this…” I said.
“You do that.”
I even ate a bit of his horrible salty popcorn. In very bad grace I might add!
Getting too excited
Up until now I have been using disposable insulin pens. I’m too newly diagnosed to have any experience of syringes and the like, and have only ever seen a pump once in ‘real life’!
So disposable pens were my thing. Recently, I ‘upgraded’ to the Novopen 4 – which uses cartridges. And very excited I am too. I have 2 pens in my possession at the minute, silver, and a rather lovely blue, in a little blue case. Jonny and I gathered round it the other night, with much excitement, figuring out how to fit the cartridge, exclaiming over how shiny it is,the weight of it, the sound it makes etc. etc. It was like test driving a new car!
I think it’s called too excited. It was the same when I changed my meter from the Accucheck Aviva to the Nano. It’s so pretty – black, small, it lights up. And again, I’m getting too excited by diabetes technology!
Nice as it all is, wouldn’t it be nicer to not need to know about any of it?!
Polar Opposites
My mum can feed any amount of people that come to her house, at a moments warning. She just always seems to have a house full of food. Maybe it’s a generation thing, maybe it’s a ‘mother’ thing, but I can’t do it! We never seem to have enough food to feed even the 2 of us! (Could be something to do with the fact that we never buy any!!)
As a result, my fridge is not the kind of fridge that you can go to, to browse, to decide what you might like to eat. If we’re lucky, it has milk. That’s often the height of it. If we buy food and fill the fridge, it gets eaten. If people arrive unannounced, I panic!
However, no matter what else is or isn’t in my fridge, there are always 2 staple items. Lucozade and insulin! 2 completely different treatments, both equally important to my health! And always guaranteed a spot in my otherwise empty fridge!
Prepared to do battle
So last Saturday was the U2 concert, in Dublin. And it was great. It really was. Not least because they were supported by the Kaiser Chiefs!
Anyway, I had a dilemma. I don’t know about anywhere else, but in this country, when going to a concert, they go mad over the lids of bottles. You can take a plastic bottle into the concert, but not the lid. It gets taken away and subsequently destroyed. Because a lid is clearly a very dangerous weapon.
So…my problem. I know about glucose tablets. And if I’m really desperate, I will eat them. Or if I’m going on a plane, I’ll take them, due to the whole ‘no liquid’ thing. But other than that, my hypo treatment of choice, is lucozade. It’s a wonderful thing. 380ml bottles full of glucose – original flavour, orange, lemon, a scary purple one I can’t bring myself to try, and my current favourite, apple. There are half empty bottles of lucozade all over the place in my house, and always, always one in my bag.
So, what to do? Fight or not fight? Take the path of least resistance and go with the glucose tablets? Or take the lucozade and face the consequences of the plastic lid?
I chose to try…prepared to argue my point (I might need it, it’s practically medication, I won’t open it unless I have to therefore the lid is safe…).
We arrived, we go past the inital ‘security’ check (checking for alcohol). We had our tickets checked. And…we were in.
And no one asked if we had any plastic bottles, or lids, and I didn’t have to fight with anyone!
I was almost disappointed!!!
It’s the weekend!
Tomorrow, we’re taking another road trip to Dublin…this time to see U2 in Croke Park! I have never seen U2 before in concert, and I’m quite excited! Just trying not to think about swine flu, when we’re going to be surrounded by 80,000 people (or however many it holds) and just enjoy it! Maybe I should get a mask?!
busy busy busy
I haven’t posted in a few days – as we had a few days away. We were at New Horizon, a big Christian conference in Coleraine University. It was a wonderful few days, great teaching, worship, and seeing people we haven’t seen for a while. It was nice to get away!
Diabetes wise, the time away went smoothly enough. It’s always hard when you’re out of a routine – and we were camping! But apart from a few sneaky lows, things were ok. I had our 9 year old nephew keeping a very close eye on me… ‘are you sure you should be eating that’, ‘are you ok, do you need to check’ etc. Very cute!
So it’s back to work and now 3 weeks to the wedding! It’s all systems go!
(I also had my DAFNE review last Friday and they said I’m doing really well. My next appointment isn’t until December, so they made me an extra appointment for September to get my hba1c drawn, so I can see how things are going!)
Force feeding
When people hear I have diabetes, the reaction tends to be “Oh that must be terrible, not being able to eat whatever you like.”
I don’t find that at all. The opposite in fact. What I hate most about diabetes is being forced to eat, when I don’t want to.
I’m not talking about lows. At that point, I’ll eat anything. And not even taste it.
What I have a problem with is at night time. When I test before going to bed and am greeted with a result that is too low to go to sleep! And then I have to eat. I have never been a ‘snacking’ kind of person – and was never in the habit of eating before sleeping. So I try to avoid it if at all possible.
I just don’t like the whole process, when I’m tired at night time…testing, injecting…and then maybe eating too (after throwing a tantrum and crying usually).
Sometimes, however, it works out. Before bed, my numbers are right, and I can go to sleep.
And then I smile!
