I wasn't at all pleased with how switching to a 1:30pm Lantus injection was working for me. It was just too stressful to make sure I took it exactly then and too bothersome to compete with a post-breakfast high and a lack-of-Lantus high. So I switched.

I split the dose for 1:30pm and roughly 11:30pm (I say roughly because the last two days I've been scrambling around the mall or at Christmas tree lots getting my mom's house ready for Friday's party). I started with a 20 unit and a 15 unit split (originally was on 36 units). I haven't had a chance to sit down with the logbook (see said scrambling), but I have felt some differences.

First of all is my morning numbers. Those morning lows are back. This morning, a nice and early 55 woke me up...along with my mother on the phone and the cat in my ear. And this is after a 64 yesterday morning which made me lower the 15 units to 12 units.

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I have no idea why it didn't hit me until yesterday afternoon. I know what stress does to my blood sugars: it lowers them. They get pesky and no amount of carbs will bring them up. So as I was contemplating this weekends' low annoyances, it hit me. Stress.

Last week, my stress level definitely went up. The first round of tests started for the semester. I had group meetings and papers due. Plus I've been dealing with the medical stress that comes with changing treatments and making important decisions. All that added up to leave me with averages like 84 and 69 (over six hours of riding in the 60's).

So Saturday morning, I dropped the Lantus back to my original dose (14 units in the morning and 15 units in the evening). I'm still having a few lows (more than the week of highs), but I'm also seeing a mix of highs in there. Sadly, those highs are my own doing.

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I went to my 3-month endo appointment today. (My dad also went for his check up.) Usually, I do fine with my endo, although I've never been thrilled with him. He's mainly there to tell me the blood results and fill prescriptions. Usually, I'm okay with that.

But today was a completely different story.

First, they didn't call me into the office until AFTER my dad was already done with his appointment (apparently, I was forgotten). Then they gave me hassle about doing the A1c. When it was finally done, they informed me that the machine broke in the middle of the test (now I have to wait 3 weeks to get the results from a blood draw.)

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My latest A1c was 7.3. I'm feeling very neutral about it. It's neither high nor low to me. My goal is still 6.5, so the disappointment of being so far off from that is bothering me. But overall, I know that 7.3 is still down from where it was before (7.6) and in a moderately good range for me.

I know that getting below 7 is one of the hardest things to do, if not the hardest, so I can't be too hard on myself. It's very frustrating though that it is so hard to get there. Why can't this be a little easier? Or why can't I be a little better at getting things right? I know that I don't do everything right (I'm human!), but I also know that my slip-ups are exactly why my A1c is 7.3.

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I'm officially off Symlin. I was on the fence for a while, but I'm definitely done with it. I have a brand-new Symlin pen with pen needle attached sitting in my purse waiting to be used. It's essentially wasted now. I'm OK with that. I don't like to waste money or stuff (I'm such a pack rat), so this is really a big step for me. You'll remember when I did pretty much the same thing toward the end of my Byetta run.

The two main reasons are this: I'm tired of the tummy trouble and I eat even when I'm not hungry. The last roughly month of not taking Symlin have been mostly tummy-trouble-free. And it's been a nice change of pace, frankly, to not be constantly wiped out from having diarrhea. Going shopping -- going anywhere, really -- was also taking a chance on having to find a bathroom in an emergency. With three kids in tow. And did I mention it's not fun to rush to a PUBLIC bathroom? (READ MORE)

This morning was the first in the roughly two weeks that we've been in our new house that I actually had time to sit down at the kitchen table to eat a bowl of oatmeal instead of quickly slapping some cream cheese on a bagel and scarfing it down in the car during my one-hour commute. Let me tell you, bolusing while driving is not easy.

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