Due to an insurance screw-up, we were only able to get 200 test strips last month and Olivia blew thru them in about 2 weeks. She'd had a good 10 days of rollercoaster blood sugars and was testing sometimes 15 - 20 times a day. She also has a tendency to re-check her blood sugar within 2 or 3 minutes after coming up low. Besides being unproductive, it uses up test strips at a furious rate.

A while back, someone was generous enough to send us a Precision Extra meter and 200 test strips. It was an incredible gesture of generosity and one I am still thankful for today.

During the day, the Precision is fine. It uses a lot more blood than her usual One Touch Ultra Smart, thus earning it the nickname "Vampire," but it works well and, with all those extra test strips, was a godsend when we ran out of One Touch strips. (READ MORE)

Today was another one of those weird diabetes days. As you may have read in an earlier post, I recently began using a Novolog Pen. This is quite a transition for me since I have had diabetes for 14 years and I have only used two different methods to control it. Well today, I learned a lesson with the pen. I forgot to do an "air shot" test. This is where you dial up a dose and then inject it into the air to make sure that insulin will actually come out. Instead of doing the air shot, I just dialed up the dose that I needed for breakfast and then injected myself and left for the day. After three hours had passed I was ready for another snack so I tested my sugar to see where I was at.

The meter read 340.
(READ MORE)

The baby woke up at 4:45 this am, feverish and hungry. She had four shots at her 4-month well-baby check yesterday so this was to be expected. I dosed her with baby analgesic and fed her and by then, it was past time for me to be up and about.

Last night I didn't do any of my morning prep work. Usually I try to shower, pack my food, maybe set up the coffee maker and make sure my meds are all set up in my weekly pill box. (I have TWO seven-compartment weekly pill boxes - just like an eighty-year-old). Maybe pick out my clothes. You know, all that stuff that you can do ahead of time to make the morning less stressful. I didn't do any so I could watch Kitchen Nightmares with my husband. (READ MORE)