Diabetes is INCONVENIENT.

Non-diabetic: "How did you sleep?" 

Me: "I'm a diabetic!" 

I didn't sleep at all last night because I was fighting with my highs and lows. I kept bouncing between 180 and 50 (I'm still only at 54, and it is 5:55am). I'm not even entirely sure why that happened, since I ate dinner a little later than I should have and everything! 

I had a rough time at work yesterday because my little monster kept demanding attention. I was 285 when I clocked in at 1:30, but by 2:30 I was only 70. It dropped from there and I stayed at about 60 for a while. I set a temporary basal of 1.0 unit per hour, which is .2 lower than my normal basal. When I went to break I had to eat a total of 156 carbs before it would go up. The scary part is I only bolused for 41 of those carbs, and I never went above 150. I had dropped back to 70 by the time I got home. 

What did I eat? 

1. I had an entire Cherry Coke = 70 grams
2. I had a bowl of broccoli cheese rice = 41 grams (which is what I got insulin for)
3. I had to have TWO boxes of apple juice = 30 grams
4. I had a grape juice/soda thing = 15 grams.
5. Total = 70+30+41+15=156 grams before my sugar would even move. I didn't get insulin until it started going up.

So that was all before I got home at 7 pm, and then it started again. I dropped back to 70, so I drank some more Cherry Coke because it was what I had in my hands. Then I had a fruit snack, I think. I honestly can barely remember most of yesterday. 

After I had my snack we had to leave because Mom had to bring Dad's dinner to work. My blood sugar stayed at about 118 until 9:30 pm when we had our own late dinner. I got an omelette to make sure it would stay below 180 until morning. Usually, if I eat something with more carbs than that I spike and it doesn't like to come down. That was not the case last night. 

We went to Walmart for some things before we went home. It started dropping again at about 11 pm, and by midnight I was only 50. I sat down in the benches by the restrooms and waited for Mom to checkout, I had a juice that she bought and a fruit snack. 

I went to bed when I got home, but I couldn't sleep because it felt like I was dropping. Initially, my sugar actually went up a little bit. I was at about 190 and my dexcom alerted me. I got .7 unit of insulin and rolled over to try to go back to sleep, but I never could because I still felt like I was dropping. And now I've been fighting with low blood sugars since 4:30 am, having eaten two fruit snacks and had a cup of apple juice. I've lowered my basal, too, which means I'm getting less insulin than I normally get.

I'm actually really proud of the way that I handled that, though. A lot of times I'll force myself to go back to work or sleep or home or whatever my goal was before I discovered the low. Yesterday and today, I said no and I meant it. I felt bad for making my family wait for me, but I had to make sure I went above 70 before I got up. That's my rule at work when I drop. If it isn't above 70, I can't go back to work because it drops too fast. So even though I felt bad, I followed my safety rule and waited. It went up in about 20 minutes. I can't force myself to go back to sleep when it's low, so I've learned. I don't really want to die, so I have to wait until it goes up before I can be unconscious. Today I just gave up and started my day. 

Lesson learned.

DIABETES IS INCONVENIENT.