Do you hide food?

I do. In the stationery drawer of my desk is where I keep my secret stash. When you first open it, it looks like any stationery drawer: envelopes, stamps, stationery, even some healthy pumpkin seeds. But buried below the facade is the real gold.

As you can see in the 2nd picture, that's where I hide my gluten free peanut butter cookie, and what's left of a 2 lb bag of peanut M&Ms dumped into a freezer bag. I even included the carb information from the bag so I can bolus correctly.

Why would one hide food? Well, in my case, it's for a couple reasons. The first being out of fear of judgement. Someone will come over and see these sugary, bad-for-you treats and and think to themselves no wonder she has diabetes or should she be eating THAT? I sometimes dig in to my goodies when I'm stressed. I don't want anyone to know that I run to bad food when I'm sad or stressed out. I feel as though while what I eat is nobody else's business, I just don't want to deal with being lectured or looked down on.

The other reason is because my secret stash makes me feel powerful. Because whenever I feel like it, I can eat it. I have control over something and the fact that no one even knows about it, makes it even more powerful and exciting.

I've never told anyone about my little secret stash. None of the friends that come to my place know about it. Do you hide food? If so, why? Or do you have something else that you hide that helps you deal with your diabetes? DO TELL.

6.0

These were my A1C results from today! I wasn't sure what to expect when I came into the doctor's office today. You never feel like you are doing as good of a job managing it as you could be. Diabetes is a beat-yourself-up disease. It's a constant source of self-scolding, negative self-talk and feeling guilty for enjoying food. Diabetes is a disease where effort rarely equals results. It's just nice to see that little pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!

Oh Happiness.

I figured since I posted yesterday's stressful events, I should follow it up with something happy. So this is my dog, Bella. She's 7.5 years old. Doesn't her little face just make you smile? She was a pirate for halloween, and the other picture was at Easter, right before she pounced on my lamb stuffed animals/Easter decorations. You can tell with the ears back that she was about to do something naughty.

Hellooooo paramedics.

Yesterday was a complete crap show.

I woke up, skipped breakfast and ran out the door to take care of a few things. (Mistake #1).

Stressed out about a recent event, I skipped lunch because I didn't feel hungry. (Mistake #2).

Fast forward to around 4pm. Still stressed and not hungry, I decided to just drink some coffee. I was talking to my sister on the phone, when I felt the wave of low blood sugar come over me and I blurted out "I don't feel good." My sister asked me what my blood sugar was and I began digging in my purse, looking for my CGM. Where is he and why isn't he beeping if I'm low? Apparently, he had tried to warn me. He had already vibrated in my purse but I didn't hear him. My CGM said 37 with double down arrows. Then it switched to saying "LOW" with double-down arrows. My bg was too low to register. Uh oh.

I grabbed some oj from the fridge and started chugging. I had a sneaking suspicion it was too late. At that moment, I had one of those low bg reactions where you start weepy crying for no reason. And then I got sweaty. Really, really sweaty. My sister was frantically asking questions, I could hear her, but I couldn't respond. I could envision my answers; I just couldn't spit out the words. Nothing would come out. I sat down on the kitchen floor. At this point, I'm panicked and know I'm in trouble. My sister knows it, too.

My sister calls for help for me.

Within a short amount of time two fire trucks, a police car and an ambulance arrived. Still somewhat alert, I'm having tubes of glucose gel squirted in my mouth. There's a blood pressure cuff on my arm. Someone's holding my hand and poking my fingers every few minutes. I was thinking in my head that I should tell them there's a 15-minute rule for carbs. I hear numbers being blurted out. "40." "42." "51." I'm starting to feel better, whew. A fireman is squatting next to me asking me if I know what day it is. A police officer is digging in my wallet looking for my driver's license.

They stay with me for probably 45 minutes. My blood sugar had reached 95 at this point. The police officer offered to make me a peanut butter sandwich. She is digging through cupboards trying to find carbs I can eat. I politely decline, but am told that they cannot leave (per policy) until they witness me eating carbs, so I grab a bag of rice chips and start chowing down.

After they left, I sat on the couch and just replayed the event over in my head. Did that really happen? I've read about these situations in my diabetes magazines, but I never thought it would happen to me. I am too meticulous, too careful, too type A to ever let something like this happen. I manage my diabetes to a "T," I've got my own flow charts and trending sheets and spreadsheets and addendums to those spreadsheets. I check my bg throughout the day like a maniac. But I got over confident. I forgot one thing- that no matter what situation the day brings, Rules For Diabetes Always Comes First. Like the rule of eating. And managing stress levels. And keeping your CGM in your pocket so you can actually hear it alarming. Diabetes doesn't turn itself off when you have something more important to deal with. It doesn't step down when you need a break from it. It's like the bully at school that's there day after day, just waiting for you around the corner.

After I ruminated about the situation, I took a deep breath, got up from the couch and started a luke warm bubble bath. I grabbed my Us Weekly celebrity smut magazine. I didn't beat myself up for making a mistake that day (...or two...or three). I just said to myself "tomorrow is a new day."

I'm a permanent student of diabetes, and there's a lot to learn.

Double Trouble.

It can be quite challenging to have both type 1 diabetes and celiac disease. Anybody who has type 1 knows the challenges of balancing blood sugar all day, every day. I have to follow two diets while trying to balance blood sugar. Being diagnosed with celiac disease put an end to my ability to be vegetarian, because I need a good protein source, and all vegetarian meat (Gardenburgers, Boca burgers, seitan, etc.) has gluten in it. And while beans, lentils, quinoa and various grains do have protein, they are still a carbohydrate, which increases my blood sugar. I know different things work for different diabetics, but for me, to keep my blood sugar stable, I need to eat a protein, a healthy carb and a healthy fat at every meal, no exceptions. A typical breakfast for me is an avocado and a banana blended up in my Magic Bullet (almost whipped into a pudding texture) and a turkey burger. Another breakfast is a sweet potato with coconut milk on top and a turkey burger. Sometimes I'll do eggs instead of the meat. My blood sugar barely rises above 95 when I eat this combination of food.



But the truth is, I miss the food I used to be able to eat. I miss bread (REAL french bread), Starbucks lattes, and fast food. I miss going out to eat without giving it a second thought or being able to go over to other peoples' houses for dinner without worrying about cross contamination (I usually bring my own food to eat). I miss how I used to eat: 1. see food I like, 2. eat it.



I get sick of being different.



I have become a more conscientious eater, because I really have to THINK about what's going into my mouth. Is it gluten free? What is the carb count per serving? Am I eating one serving, or two? What's the fiber count- is it high enough to subtract it from the carb count?

I'm still learning to overcome the social stigma of having celiac disease. It's hard to tell your friends "I can't try a bite of that, sorry" or "I can't come with you guys to that new, fun restaurant because they don't have a gluten free menu."

If there is anyone out there reading that has both type 1 and celiac, I'd love to hear from you. I could use some survival tips.

Quit Crying Wolf and I Hate Adhesives.

I'm breaking up with my CGM. He's been a bad, bad boy. (His name is Sam). Sam woke me up not once, not twice, but SIX TIMES last night with reported lows. Problem is, Sam was wrong on 5 out of the 6. He'd say I was in the 60s, my bg meter said I was 89. After the 6th time, I was so exhausted and mad that I ate 4 glucose tabs just to make sure he shut up for the remainder of the late night/early morning. I actually fell asleep WHILE I was checking my bg on my meter, I got as far as getting the test strip in the meter, but never actually checked my blood. I woke up again when Sam alerted me to the 6th "low."

My BG probably jumped to the high 100s from eating 16 carbs I didn't need, but, guess what? I was too tired by that point to care.

I've noticed he's been crying wolf a lot lately at night, so I lowered my low alarm to 60 instead of 70. It's reduced the number of times he wakes me. And the thing is, is that at nighttime, when he alarms, even if you know or highly suspect he's wrong, you still feel like you have to check, because what if this one time he's actually telling the truth! It stays in your mind until you finally break out the bg meter and check.

And slightly different subject, now. I am SO sick of adhesives. Between my CGM and my Omnipod, I have temporary adhesive marks all over the place on my abdomen and lower back. Even when it's not in one spot anymore, you can still see the adhesive marks for weeks. It's ugly and I'm afraid of permanent scarring, since I can never get it entirely healed up before I have to put it on that spot again. What can I do? Is there some magical cream I don't know about that will help heal up those spots in a couple of days? I sure would like to know!

Mall of America Walk!

Two weeks ago I completed my first Walk to Cure Diabetes. It was at the Mall of America. It was comforting and inspiring to be walking with thousands of others, all for the same cause.