Pieter Musterd on Flickr
Today hasn't been a good day....an all around quite annoying kind of day. It just started off bad with a dream about an old friend that set me in a very sad, nostalgic kind of mood. And as the day progressed, my health became more and more of a burden to me.
Over the last three weeks, my other health conditions took a turn for the worst. The new pills that I was trying completely threw off my body and set me back at least a month. So these last few weeks I've really been struggling. I was having terrible mood swings that would set me off in tears at literally nothing. My face started breaking out worse than ever. I was getting headaches every day. My whole body was just screaming at me.
And today, it all boiled over. It made me really want to change it all. So I went to the grocery store and stocked up on fruits and protein and brown rice. I washed and chopped and packaged everything I bought so it was easy to grab. I made 2 cups of brown rice. My fridge looks like I'm a grocery store. And I ate my best meal in a long time: spinach salad, rotisserie chicken, and brown rice followed with a grape and strawberry dessert.
But I guess my body didn't like that idea.
Because after dinner, I was 160 (perfection!). And I decided to go for a jog. I was expecting to get a 30 minute jog (about 2 miles at my slow pace). On Monday, I started my jog at 162 and dropped to a nice 102 afterwards, followed by a not so unpleasant 72 a few hours later. Today, it was a completely different story.
I reached the 1 mile mark on the treadmill, hoping to pound out the next mile in record time. I took a short break to check my phone then hopped back on the treadmill. I got to 1.25 miles and started feeling funny. I was totally exhausted. But I just wanted to push through...after all, I'm incredibly out of shape right now. So I kept jogging. But by 1.45 miles, I knew it was more than exhaustion and being out of shape. My legs started to shake. So I cooled down the next 0.05 miles and immediately grabbed the orange juice.
As I downed the glass, I checked my blood sugar to confirm the low. I assumed I'd be in the mid forties. Instead, a disgusting 32 stared back at me. The room started to spin. My stomach turned. Everything was upside down and inside out. 32 is not a pretty number.
I unlocked my door and texted a friend to tell them what was going on. Then I drank half a bottle of Coke as I sat at my dining room table watching the ceiling twist and turn. Soon enough, the world stopped spinning and the pieces started to come together. I checked again. 62 and a twinge of nausea.
One of the things that I hate most about diabetes is the true lack of patterns. You can't trust it at all! It never does the same thing twice because these numbers are so dependent on so many variables. The food I ate or the reduced exercise on Monday...or maybe just diabetes' fickle way of teaching me a lesson...it all adds up to an unpleasant break in my evening. And I'm just tired of not being able to count on what I do. Will it work this time? next time? a month from now?
I just want diabetes to play a fair game. I want it to give me the same attention that I give it. After all, I'm spending half my life fighting with these numbers, why can't it give me a little break sometimes? Why can't diabetes be the one watching the world spin?
