Nov 25 2008
Blood Fiend
Sometimes, I run out of strips to test my blood glucose with. This has two unexpected effects, both of which I’ve suffered after having misplaced 25 of them and finding them after a week.
The first is acting like I have a vacation from diabetes. I feel like I can have an additional cookie with my “before bed” snack. I don’t mind that I’m not sure if I had two rolls or three. I don’t think I can eat whatever I want, but I can push the line a little because I don’t have to see the result.
The second effect happens when I see the result. I’m not talking about the diabetics brand of remorse. I get obsessed. Since I’m not using the strips on the schedule I usually do, I figure I have bonus strips. I start taking my blood two or three times more often than I normally do. Part of it is wanting to know how certain foods affect me. The other part is trying to find a moment when the numbers seem normal again, expecting them to change when I haven’t really done anything to lower them like walking or dropping carb intake.
Last night, I had a salad in penance, though I know it’s not enough. I have more work to do before my blood sugar is back on track after the little week long binge of ignorance I let myself indulge in. Every time I let my numbers go up past where I’m comfortable, I’m setting myself back to step zero, the step where I have to remember I have a chronic disease and that if left unchecked will be the thing that kills me.
A week of letting it go probably won’t do me in, but letting it go for a week means that I’m more lax than when I wouldn’t let it go more than a day. Occasions become habits and habits become routine.
So back to the drawing board and in the process, trying to let some of my poor fingertips rest, the one’s now dotted with the little wounds that gotten in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, my diabetes didn’t count today because I wasn’t looking.
Never mind that’s how I got here in the first place.
