It has only been a couple months since I took an unintended break from Metformin. I had taken about a week off because I couldn't seem to get to the pharmacy to pick up the prescription, and when I finally did start taking Metformin again it upset my stomach something fierce. So I decided to take a longer break. Actually, I figured I could just give it up completely because spending that much time in the bathroom and feeling as rotten as I did wasn't worth it.

At first my sugars seemed to be doing fine. But lately I'm not doing so good in the blood sugar management department. Particularly with fastings. Whoo boy have they been high. I figured it was a pattern of eating slow-absorbing carbs in the evening. I have been going to bed with acceptable readings and waking with atrocious readings. I didn't think about Metformin until this morning. (READ MORE)

At 1 a.m. I woke up to go potty. It was weirdly dark and I was really in a stupor. It was almost like I was drunk. I can chalk part of that up to it being 1 a.m. and part of it to one of the meds I take for bipolar having a “sedating effect.” In other words, I sleep reeeeeeaaaallllyy well now.

I drank lots of water. And then went back to bed. It wasn’t until I woke up at 3 a.m. to go potty again and drink tons more water that I figured I was high. My One Touch Ultra Smart showed “HIGH GLUCOSE.” I had no clue what that meant, but I knew it was super duper ultra high, so I bolused for a blood sugar of 500 mg/dL. Then I tested again. Got the same “HIGH GLUCOSE” reading.

The light woke The Mr. He asked if I was OK and then we talked a little about why we thought I might be high. He thought it was weirdly dark, too. (Usually there is light from the computer, but he had turned it off before bed.) (READ MORE)

When I see 499 on the blood glucose meter, I wonder if it's possible that the small plastic device has a heart. Maybe it's trying to soften the blow - afraid to show me a number like 500.

"At least 200 of that is from him being excited to play hockey."

This is what Susanne says when I call her with the news of the 499 from the ice rink. She might be right. It was week 1 of ice hockey and Charlie's level of excitement was bursting at the seams.

300 would have been an acceptable number being that he had just had breakfast.

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 Like a fever, it just breaks. It finally did for us, today. Thank God. Five days of runaway high blood sugars. Now that the dust has settled, it appears as if we've just emerged from a growth spurt. Gives "growing pains" a whole new meaning.

If daily life with diabetes is a battle, then this occasional week of hell is a bloody battle along the lines of Braveheart. It's a drunk and belligerent Mel Gibson in blue-painted face slinging swords and anti-Semitic remarks at us for a full week.

The fact that we have weeks like this from time to time does not make it any easier. It's not even that Charlie's blood sugars were super high. It's that they stayed in the 230 to 310 range for so long. Full days where we couldn't get his blood sugar below 200 no matter how many basal adjustments and site changes. Happy New Year, diabetes!

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A few blogs ago, I wrote about feeling like a bad dad when high blood sugar forced me to deny Charlie the ice cream I had promised.

I wanted to address the following question from a reader.

My question to you is (and you'll have to forgive me since I'm fairly new at this) couldn't you just have given your son an option of getting an injection if he wanted ice cream? We have a supplemental dose for such instances.

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She calls me on the phone at work. With a lack of privacy, there’s not much I can say.

“I just hate this disease so much, you know???”

“mmhmm.”

“I wish it was a physical thing that I could just rip out of him.”

“mmhmm.” (READ MORE)