Thursday.
Day 14.
Finishes normally, around 8.30 go upstairs for a read in bed as i have a good book and the kids want to watch something crap on the telly. Eyes won't stay open and i fall asleep. Wife comes up at 10 and i wake with a start, in a cold sweat and anxious. Sleep has gone away, and after 5 minutes of grumpiness i waddle downstairs to leave the family to sleep. The dogs are glad to be out of the kitchen 5 minutes after being put to bed, and together we snuggle up in the lounge with a dying fire to watch the start of the Ashes test.
Somewhere after about 10 overs, with England in a dream position that makes me wonder if i am still asleep, I need the toilet. And every hour on the hour for the next 6 or 7 I make that trip. I dont think the tofu was cooked right through, and i will not describe to you the effect. i drink litres of water but still feel parched, and know that solid food is a way off.
So around 7 the family rise and find me curled in a ball on the sofa muttering incoherently about run outs and catches. They dont care. They all need to be off and out, although the coating of snow means they go out and come back quite quickly. Eldest gets to work, younger stays off school.
The stomach starts to settle, and having decided I am too ill to have my injection or tablets, i stupidly decide i am now well enough to have some toast. i test my blood, and its 13.7. Not that much higher than normal reading, so toast it is. And a small bowl of muesli, because i am so hungry, and what harm can it do, its no added sugar and wholemeal...
It's about 11 and i think i should check my blood again. I am grouchy and have a headache and still trying to read the signs. The needle clicks, the strip draws up the blood, and the egg timer changes to numbers.
26.5
That is very high. That is frighteningly high. Should i go to hospital? I don't know. I dont have insulin, so the only option is metformin. The wife demands a recount. So i try a finger on the other hand. 22.7. Ok, so maybe i'm not dying. But i remember being told that fingers on different hands can be wildly different, so i try the original finger again. 26.7.
It's going up. I am dying. Ok, metformin. Supposed to have 4 of these a day, they haven't made much difference over the last 6 years, so lets inject the byetta and then have all 4 now. And some gliclazide. I need to get the numbers down. But i cant take these things on an empty stomach. So the injection goes in, the tablets get down, and i pace around the snowy garden for 20 minutes. Time for some oatcakes, somehow i come up with the logic that the insulin needs to be released by eating stuff, and then the drugs can do their work....
I am panicing and nervous, and leave it 2 hours before checking again. I am tearful and stressed, I am not in control and i am frightened.
11.7
It worked.
So now its about 4 o'clock and having felt so much better when it was down at 3pm i think i should check again. 5.0.
Er, that's too low. Is it officially a hypo? Am i dying again? Is it a metformin overdose? OMG, i killed myself with my drugs.
Eat! Eat! But something that is low Gi, low Gl but will get my sugars slowly up again. I cant remember now what i had, but an hour later it was back at 11.
And i felt better. I know i felt more in control and better because we had to go out driving and i let the wife take the keys. Normally my chauvinism manifests in chaufferism, but tonight i know its not wise.
So what did i learn? Illness makes your sugars go up. Don't panic and make stupid huge corrections - everything needs to be in moderation.
And the most important lesson i think was that i saw the drugs work. i saw the reading of 26, i took the drugs, ate a little good food, and it collapsed down to 5.
For the first time I actually saw that the drugs can work. And hope is not something i have had much of recently.
An awful day, but a day i saw hope.
Monday 6 December 2010
Byetta
After a hard summer of anxiety and concern, I came round to believing that insulin was the answer. My last Hba1c had been 10.6 which was down from the first one of 16 about 5 years ago, but it wasn't ever going to get down low enough. The needles had scared me, and i had put it off too long. So i strode into the surgery, hands outstretched.
"Give me the insulin."
"No."
I wasn't expecting that.
"No, you are right, i have come to understand that. Let's do it. Give me the insulin."
"We have been thinking..."
This was confusing. This was upsetting. This was not what I was expecting. 6 months of worrying - after 6 years my blood levels had never been below 10 and i had never experienced anything remotely resembling a hypo. And now i was resigned to injecting myself with this mysterious, frightening, life changing, no returning drug that was going to send me hurtling towards hypos. It was serious. I was serious. I was ready to take control.
"..that you would be ideal for Byetta."
"For who?"
"Byetta. It's a fairly new drug which we think you should try for 6 months before insulin."
"But... What?...Do you know what i have put myself through mentally to be ready to accept the insulin? To finally, finally get the importance of taking control, taking back ownership of my body..."
"We think you should try it."
And so it continued. Two nurses, a heap of medical training and experience behind them, were telling me I should try it. I was the ideal candidate. Basically, I was fat, forty and not taking it seriously. And then they abused my scientific mind.
"You will lose weight."
"Really?"
"Yes. You won't need to do any exercise or change your diet. You will just lose weight."
"Really?" This seemed to go against everything I had ever known. How?
"It makes you nauseous. It gives you diarrhoea and vomiting, and you simply dont want to eat."
That is not a line that is going to win any plaudits in the advertising industry. But the idea of a drug that makes you thin with no effort from you. That can't be true?
So we argued back and forth, and in the end the idea that it was a 6 month trial and then we could start insulin, made me think why not try it. The pen wouldn't arrive for a couple of days, so I went home to look on the web. Some of the forums were very blunt. It did make you ill. 90% of users said they felt appalling for a month, and then settled into a life of feeling just rubbish. But they all lost weight. Some only a few pounds, some claimed fantastical figures of 60 pounds. It did seem the fatter you started, the more you lost. I tip the scales about 17 and a half stone (112 kgs in Euros) so I could probably lose a couple of stone (12 kgs) without worrying about the onset of winter. So I have to try this stuff...
Day One
Unwrapping the plastic lid from the needle and screwing it on to the pen creates all the feelings of apprehension and fear that I was expecting, just on a much larger scale. You screw the little plastic tool onto the end of the pen, pull the cover off and slide off the needle case. And there it sits, 8mms of cold thin steel that you have to push into your stomach. You twist the end of the pen to prime it, pinch up a layer of blubber (anywhere around your belly button she said, and let's be honest that is a sizable target for me) and start to move the pen closer.
You expect the pain. You expect the coldness. You expect the sharp feeling shooting up your nerves and colliding in your brain. But there is nothing. It slides in effortlessly and without any feeling at all. The top of the pen pushes against your stomach and you realise you are pushing too hard. You relax a little. Press the end. Hold it. Still nothing. No feeling. Pull it out. Slowly, expecting the blood to pour out, the muscle to spasm, the nerves to wake up... but nothing. Didnt feel anything.
And then the brain switches to the drug. It's inside you. Is it working yet? Is that nausea? Am i going to hypo right now? No, nothing is happening. Maybe it takes more than 10 seconds. I sit down. The dog jumps onto the sofa, I leap up, worried that it might catch the wound and my guts will spill out. I check. No, everything is holding together.
Am i over-reacting? Probably, but then it was less than a minute ago when i stabbed myself for the first time. The wife needs to go out to pick up one of the boys. "Don't leave me."
"I have to pick him up..."
"Ok..." What if i die? How will i get to hospital? Who will call the ambulance? What's for dinner?
In hindsight, yes it was a lot easier than i expected. And maybe i was just a little over sensitive and over anxious. The actual injection was painless. And what about the drug? What was it doing?
No nausea. No vomiting. Dinner was taken, I deliberately ate small - not my style and went to bed hungry, but expecting to be woken up in the night with the cold, icy hand of death throwing me to the bathroom.
I slept well.
"Give me the insulin."
"No."
I wasn't expecting that.
"No, you are right, i have come to understand that. Let's do it. Give me the insulin."
"We have been thinking..."
This was confusing. This was upsetting. This was not what I was expecting. 6 months of worrying - after 6 years my blood levels had never been below 10 and i had never experienced anything remotely resembling a hypo. And now i was resigned to injecting myself with this mysterious, frightening, life changing, no returning drug that was going to send me hurtling towards hypos. It was serious. I was serious. I was ready to take control.
"..that you would be ideal for Byetta."
"For who?"
"Byetta. It's a fairly new drug which we think you should try for 6 months before insulin."
"But... What?...Do you know what i have put myself through mentally to be ready to accept the insulin? To finally, finally get the importance of taking control, taking back ownership of my body..."
"We think you should try it."
And so it continued. Two nurses, a heap of medical training and experience behind them, were telling me I should try it. I was the ideal candidate. Basically, I was fat, forty and not taking it seriously. And then they abused my scientific mind.
"You will lose weight."
"Really?"
"Yes. You won't need to do any exercise or change your diet. You will just lose weight."
"Really?" This seemed to go against everything I had ever known. How?
"It makes you nauseous. It gives you diarrhoea and vomiting, and you simply dont want to eat."
That is not a line that is going to win any plaudits in the advertising industry. But the idea of a drug that makes you thin with no effort from you. That can't be true?
So we argued back and forth, and in the end the idea that it was a 6 month trial and then we could start insulin, made me think why not try it. The pen wouldn't arrive for a couple of days, so I went home to look on the web. Some of the forums were very blunt. It did make you ill. 90% of users said they felt appalling for a month, and then settled into a life of feeling just rubbish. But they all lost weight. Some only a few pounds, some claimed fantastical figures of 60 pounds. It did seem the fatter you started, the more you lost. I tip the scales about 17 and a half stone (112 kgs in Euros) so I could probably lose a couple of stone (12 kgs) without worrying about the onset of winter. So I have to try this stuff...
Day One
Unwrapping the plastic lid from the needle and screwing it on to the pen creates all the feelings of apprehension and fear that I was expecting, just on a much larger scale. You screw the little plastic tool onto the end of the pen, pull the cover off and slide off the needle case. And there it sits, 8mms of cold thin steel that you have to push into your stomach. You twist the end of the pen to prime it, pinch up a layer of blubber (anywhere around your belly button she said, and let's be honest that is a sizable target for me) and start to move the pen closer.
You expect the pain. You expect the coldness. You expect the sharp feeling shooting up your nerves and colliding in your brain. But there is nothing. It slides in effortlessly and without any feeling at all. The top of the pen pushes against your stomach and you realise you are pushing too hard. You relax a little. Press the end. Hold it. Still nothing. No feeling. Pull it out. Slowly, expecting the blood to pour out, the muscle to spasm, the nerves to wake up... but nothing. Didnt feel anything.
And then the brain switches to the drug. It's inside you. Is it working yet? Is that nausea? Am i going to hypo right now? No, nothing is happening. Maybe it takes more than 10 seconds. I sit down. The dog jumps onto the sofa, I leap up, worried that it might catch the wound and my guts will spill out. I check. No, everything is holding together.
Am i over-reacting? Probably, but then it was less than a minute ago when i stabbed myself for the first time. The wife needs to go out to pick up one of the boys. "Don't leave me."
"I have to pick him up..."
"Ok..." What if i die? How will i get to hospital? Who will call the ambulance? What's for dinner?
In hindsight, yes it was a lot easier than i expected. And maybe i was just a little over sensitive and over anxious. The actual injection was painless. And what about the drug? What was it doing?
No nausea. No vomiting. Dinner was taken, I deliberately ate small - not my style and went to bed hungry, but expecting to be woken up in the night with the cold, icy hand of death throwing me to the bathroom.
I slept well.
Hello Again
Its been a long while ...
I signed up with the NHS to do a blog on diabetes, but having made a couple of posts on there i found out that they were getting about 3 page views a day - people i had invited to read it! So if the NHS get no new readers, then I may as well use my own blog.
So forget the travelling of yesterday... now its Diabetes time :)
d
I signed up with the NHS to do a blog on diabetes, but having made a couple of posts on there i found out that they were getting about 3 page views a day - people i had invited to read it! So if the NHS get no new readers, then I may as well use my own blog.
So forget the travelling of yesterday... now its Diabetes time :)
d
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