I Didn’t Know What To Do…

It was one of those notable moments, one that I knew as soon as the self talk went through my head that I would have to blog about.

It was a perfect example of feeling lost.

I didn’t know if I should drink my Glucerna shake before basketball, or go without it.  I tried to examine and weigh the possible outcomes of each action, but it was like trying to predict the future.  An exercise in impossibility, which quickly frustrated me.

I play basketball usually three days of the week, and I have fallen into a pretty solid routine for the mornings of those days (through a lot of trial and error).  When I wake up I take my symlin bolus.  About 15-20 minutes later I eat a package of oatmeal and program an extended bolus for the 33 grams of carbohydrates for 90 minutes.  I’ll also add in (or take away) any correction bolus for my current blood sugar (which is often different than it was when I woke up just a few minutes earlier).

My basketball basal profile starts tweaking my basal insulin about an hour before I play ball, and about 20 minutes before I get on the court I’ll have a glucerna shake (17g cho, 17g pro) to keep things good during ball.

Today?  Things just didn’t work out.

My blood sugar was awesome when I ate my oatmeal – 109 mg/dl.  Based on that super blood sugar and all of the past times I’ve done this, I didn’t check again until right before walking out the door to play ball.  At that time I was very surprised to see a 204 mg/dl result on the meter!

As I was walking to my car I was trying to figure out what the heck happened?  When I got to my car, not having figured a damn thing out, I found myself very conflicted on whether I should drink my usual Glucerna shake or not!

I was confused by and a bit angry at my blood sugars not following their past behavior, and I felt very lost on what to do next!   Because I can’t predict the future (if I didn’t drink it, would I go low?  If I did drink it would I be running high?), I felt I had to pick the lesser of two evils (risk a low or risk a high).  Both options stink!

uncertain

I ended up drinking the glucerna, and I did run high during basketball (no fun).  It wasn’t the end of the world, but that’s not the point of this post.

The point of this post is that no matter how much experience you have (28+ years for me), diabetes is still able to deal you a WTF situation anytime it wants.  Let me tell you, it sucks to feel so vulnerable and unsure of what to do.

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Scott K. Johnson

Patient voice, speaker, writer, and advocate. Living life with diabetes and telling my story. All opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily represent the position of my employer.

Diagnosed in April of 1980, I recognize the incredible mental struggle of living with diabetes. Read more…