I ran out of my sugar free coffee creamer yesterday and didn't go get more. This morning, instead of using low fat milk and Splenda® in my coffee, I decided I could use my husband's regular flavored creamer. This stuff is 5 grams of sugar per tablespoon. I probably use 2 tablespoons per cup and I had 3 cups. I'm pretty bad at sizing up a tablespoon, so it was probably closer to 7 or 8 tablespoons total. That's 30-40 grams of sugar on an empty stomach.

You can guess what happens next. Suddenly, I can hardly keep my eyes open. I take my kids down to the family room and we all park in front of the TV. Next I'm lying down. I dozed off for about 20 minutes. When I woke up I wondered what had caused this exhaustion. Maybe I had taken ill. It took a few minutes before it dawned on me.

I dragged myself upstairs and tested my blood. Sure enough it was still pretty high for me. I took my meds. I still have a regular insulin pen from the pregnancy, so I took a few units to speed my recovery. Within another half-hour, I was feeling more like myself, but drained.

What happened there? Did I decide I was immune from my diabetes for the morning? Or maybe I thought I was inexplicably cured overnight? I hadn't done my fasting test when I woke up; I'm getting lazy about that. Maybe if I tested regularly (as I'm instructed) it would be harder for me to suddenly forget my condition.

I lost an hour or more of my weekend, an hour of precious time with my kids to my own character defect. It is hard on my body, and it's not fair to me or the kids. Maybe it's gluttony, maybe it's wishful thinking. Whatever name you put on it, I have to overcome it.