Instructions Not Included

Oh, it's so easy to think that you've hit your stride. That you're in the swing of things. You get into a routine, and certain things just become habit.

After those things become habit, the,...n you start branching out and experimenting a bit. So it's always more than slightly annoying when you realise that something you thought you'd totally got to grips with knocks you on your arse.

I'd got to grips with splitting doses, or so I thought, at any rate. Tonight though, I found myself so preoccupied with trying to work out the right amount of NR to cover my meal (which required a split dose), that I just injected it all at once, feeling proud that I'd worked out the amount correctly.

It took me a few seconds before I my heart sink, and I shouted out something a bit rude. Still not all second nature then, it appears!

Something about weekends, and not wearing my watch throws my internal clock all off. Which means sometimes I end up eating later than I plan to, because I just plain old lose track of the time. 

I found myself having some strange old thoughts earlier. I was sat in my bedroom doing a sudoku puzzle, and I had a shining moment of well...weirdness, I suppose. I realised that I had done something that I believed no-one had ever done before. I had worked out the genders of all the numbers! Genius! So 9 was female, 8 was male, 7 female, 6 male, but it doesn't just carry on in sequence... Looking at the clock. Oh, it's 21:00. That's later than I thought, and thinking about it, isn't thinking about what gender all the numbers in sudoku are just a bit strange if you stop and consider it a bit more?

Probably a good idea to get something to eat, all things considered.

We had cake in the office again today. I was 'good', and did not partake. However, I decided that in honour of the fact it is no longer absolutely freezing, I wanted ice cream. I have just finished it, and it was very good. 

Before diabetes, my diet wasn't exactly a shining example of excellent nutrition. It wasn't awful, don't get me wrong. But I probably would have had the cake, and also had the ice cream, and not given it a second thought. Now, on the other hand, I didn't have the cake, because it was a (pretty great looking) home made cake, and I wasn't confident that I could come up with a decent carb estimate. And I weighed the ice cream. My scales are pretty good friends now. They're out all the time on my kitchen table, and if I'm at home, I weigh most things. Cereal, pasta (ice cream). Not rice for some reason - I've never worked out why I don't weight that. I'm strange? That seems like the most realistic reason. 

I hear a lot of people saying 'insulin makes you gain weight'. I don't understand this, myself.  It could be because I've re-evaluated my diet, portion size control and exercise, but I've continued to lose weight. I may be naive about it, but I don't see why there's any reason that you would put on weight, if there aren't extra factors involved.  I know that insulin helps you turn unused carbohydrates to fat, but so does insulin in everyone non-diabetic, surely? I don't think that you can accuse diabetes for that? If you were eating and not burning off the same amount of carbs, it would make you put on weight regardless of whether or not you have diabetes.

Now I don't want anyone to think that I'm having a go at people who struggle with their weight. That would be unbelievably hypocritical of me, as someone who has a lot of issues with her size, and has battled with issues with food. I just find this thing confusing, and haven't really seen any scientific proof that insulin makes you gain weight, rather than it being what you're putting in your mouth. I would be both happy and extremely interested to read any studies anyone could point me to, though!

I definitely think about food differently now, though. I'm starting to build up a mental guide to how much carb is in many items. A glass of juice, a slice of bread, half a tin of baked beans, my usual portion of pasta. I'm nowhere near fluent in the 'language' of carb values yet. I used to sleep with my radio on when I was younger. This meant that I acquired a rather sponge-like ability to soak up music and lyrics. I'm rather encyclopaedic, which you'll know if you've ever met me in real life. Maybe I need to make a song out of all of this?

It's ended up turning in to one of those days, it really, really has. We've got a show in the theatre tonight, which means working late. However, half our staff are away, which means we're understaffed. On a normal evening when we have the public in the building, we have three members off staff on. Tonight, we had two - myself and Andrew. 

So, I'm busy doing box office (shocking), and we're about five minutes off opening the house. I'm feeling a bit wibbly, and I'm pretty sure a hypo is headed my way, but unfortunately, box office is busy, and my meter is in the other room. OK, I think, I can wait a couple of minutes to check. 

Then the fire alarm goes off. Oh yes, you heard me right. ANOTHER fire alarm with me in the building. Thrills! So, good, responsible little steward that I am, I make sure everyone is out of the building. It's not going to be fire, I know that - it's going to be the haze machine combined with the fans in the theatre kicking up dust. For some reason, that sometimes sets off the alarm, as has been previously observed by the times our Stage Manager, Rob, has set the alarm off with his sander. But we get everyone out, and I'm running up and down the stairs (we have quite a few), to check all the levels. Everybody out, everything is safe, everybody in. 

Wait a few minutes, serve lots more drinks. OK, I feel REALLY low now. I drink some juice off the bar, but I'm shaking on the insides, I'm sweating, and I can feel waves of heat rushing up and down me. Lovely. A couple of minutes later, I see a window of opportunity, and I run off and grab my meter, and try to check. 

Shunk, goes the lancet. 

No blood. Try another finger.

Shunk goes the lancet.

No blood this time either. Grrr!

Flick my arm to try and get some blood to my fingers.

Medical ID bracelet flies off my wrist, and is now a bunch of beads cluttering the floor between the box office and halfway through the main office. Well, that's just peachy, isn't it? I start picking them up, and try again to test.

Shunk goes the lancet.

4,3,2,1, numberwang says......3.2mmol/l (57.6mg/dl) AFTER juice?! Aw man. I'm seriously sweaty and swaying by now. I go back over to the bar.

So being as I'm supposed to stay downstairs as Duty Manager, whilst Andrew goes upstairs (ironically, mostly in case of a fire-related emergency, ha ha ha(!) ), I decide to possibly over treat this, so that he knows I'm not going to drop whilst I'm working alone downstairs, and can't get to anyone. 

Pour another glass of apple juice and down it. Then pour another glass (they're very small). I pause to look at it. There's mould floating in it. Well, isn't that just LOVELY? And isn't it good we hadn't had anyone buy any? I couldn't have noticed this before I'd drunk two glasses of it though, could I?

I drink a bit of orange juice instead, and grab a bar of chocolate off the bar as well, thinking that my bar tab is rocketing up by this point. Everyone goes up, and I sit down at my desk.

I post a cry for help on Twitter, Facebook, and Diabetes Support, saying I was on my own, and could anyone who had my mobile number check on me in ten minutes or so?

And bless their hearts, did people come through for me? Sam, Siobhan and Tom all texted me within a matter of minutes, asking if I was ok, did I have stuff to treat with, etc.

I was climbing slowly. 4.9, 5.2, all the way up to 6.8mmol/l (122mg/dl). Still felt like utter rubbish though, and my WORD was I hungry by now?

Interval comes, and we do a roaring trade on the bar. But I want to go home. Show has just finished, and now I'm at 10.7mmol/l (192.6 mg/dl), and I'm still having to think much harder than normal to type this correctly. 

Is it home and bed time yet? How was your day?

I know I can't speak for everyone over here, but I have found the last few days in the UK to be extremely stressful. So it was a real treat to go down to the river today to help celebrate my friend Anna's birthday.

I don't know if I'm the only person this has ever happened to, but I never really learned to ride a bicycle as a child. Shocking, I know.I kind of taught myself, but when I outgrew the bike I had at that point, I never got another. But shortly before I was diagnosed, I bought myself a second hand bike, and was determined to learn how to ride it. Andrew has been teaching me - something I'm sure he regrets doing. I'm not a fast or patient learner, it turns out! It also seems that the old adage isn't true - you do forget the basics, as falling off a bunch of times, and nearly riding into walls, trees, the river and people has shown me. 

Well, I haven't been 'riding' in about a year, since about this time last year I was pretty distracted with diagnosis, and Stage Managing Shrew in the summer. Then winter came, and it was long. I wasn't overly inspired to go out and continue learning in that sort of weather. So being as I was so rubbish generally, I was surprised that, when I suggested we cycled down to Anna's party, I was actually not too bad! Until I tried to gracefully duck under some bunting when we got there, drove into the back wheel of Andrew's bike, and came right off. Graceful, no?

That besides, since this was picnic food, I decided to take a different approach than normal. As you generally want to graze, rather than pick all your food out at once in this sort of environment (or at least, I know I do), I thought I would try eating first, injecting later. I did go a bit carb crazy, I have to admit. Bread with brie, some cookies, some pringles, mini scones. Very naughty, and I was expecting at least a double figure score. But scores came in at 7.5mmol/l. Huh...that was weird. I tested a few more times, and when I got home, and I didn't go above 8.9mmol/l (160 mg/dl) My only conclusion is that I must have burned off a lot more energy cycling than I'd anticipated.

Anyway, it was warm and sunny for the most part, and everyone seemed to have fun. We saluted all the boats going down the river, to see how many we could get to do the same. My personal favourite was the person who sang back at us. That was great fun. Inspired by others doing the same, I also decided to attempt something else that I'd not tried before - climbing trees. 

I was not good at this either. I've mentioned before that I'm not really ladylike. But all the same, the lack of grace with which this was accomplished was quite extraordinary. Andrew ended up climbing the same tree in advance, whilst our friend Ivan helped me by letting me get up on his shoulders. Like I say, graceful. Getting down was easier, but as Andrew pointed out, gravity does work in your favour that way.

We also raced paper boats up the river. I managed to pick the only one with a giant tear in it. So I dubbed it the Titanic. How surprising that it should then go on to win the race.

We cycled back home, which felt a much bigger effort than getting there had. But rounding off this rather lovely, relaxed day is drinking some hot chocolate and watching Elf on DVD. Scores have all been good today. Sometimes you just need a day off.

Wow, I went quiet there for a while. Sorry about that. I would say that I've had no excuse, but that wouldn't be the entire truth. I've had a fair bit to deal with over this last week. 

So last Sunday, I was all set to write about all the fun I'd been having riding around on the back of Andrew's motorbike. I've no licence of my own to speak of, but have been enjoying riding pillion as of late. 

We rode out to Rievaux Abbey, which is absolutely gorgeous, and a really lovely ride.

I was borrowing Andrew's trousers. These are made for a slim man with no hips. I am not a slim man with no hips. Rather I am a woman with a fair amount of curves. However, I do not normally look as big as I do in this picture. Unless you are naturally extremely slim, biking gear has the tendency to make you look like the Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters. So wearing trousers that were a real struggle to get in did not make for the most comfortable of rides. I got fairly horrendous cramp down my legs about forty minutes in. I was also finding it increasingly hard to concentrate. 

Now, the observant amongst you might have noticed several items that feature in the above photograph. Points if you noticed what I'm holding in my right hand. More points, however, if you noticed the slightly harder to spot open meter case on the tank. Yes, it would appear that riding pillion burns a lot of carbs, as what I am holding in my hand (and was halfway through consuming by that point) is a fun-size Mars Bar. So I spent some of Sunday afternoon going hypo in a field!

After we got home, we set to work on a joint of beef that we'd been planning to roast. A few things ended up happening (which it turns out weren't entirely user error), and later that evening, we ended up with a kitchen fire. Complete with two fire engines. Thankfully, Andrew had managed to put the fire out before I'd even got off the phone with 999, but there was a LOT of smoke damage to the kitchen. Which meant we were up till gone 3am cleaning, and spent the next two nights doing much of the same.

You can't see quite how soot-covered the walls were in this picture of Andrew cleaning the ceiling, because my camera wouldn't pick it up. But have a look at that bowl of water. That was barely a couple of minutes out of the tap. That might give you a bit more of an idea of how much damage we were dealing with.  And by the way, the motorbike helmet is to stop whatever cleaning product was dripping down as we were trying to clean the ceiling.

Having no oven, and for several days, nothing other than the microwave and the kettle to cook with meant getting slightly inventive with food. Oven was out of action for quite a few days, and though it was fixed, it's now out of action again because the rubber seal has now come apart. It's getting rather annoying.

But the seemingly endless cycle of work, home, food, cleaning, bed (and repeat!) was starting to get to me. So I'm glad the cleaning has more or less finished.

In numbers news, I seem to have temporarily banished the highs, so I'm back to handling the lows again. Most of them are explainable - my mental clock seems to be out by about an hour, so I keep losing track of time. But there are some that seem to be coming out of no-where. It's the stealth-hypo effect. I know I'm not the only one dealing with these ninja episodes as well. Maybe there's something in the water?

Or perhaps it's not the water, but rather the air? I know all this volcanic ash is causing a huge variety of types of mayhem. I hope no-one out there has been too badly affected by the chaos.

All I know is that it gives you one beautiful sunset.

That there is my lovely friend Jenny. Mentioned before as 'my lovely friend Jenny' of our joint birthday party. And the thing she's pointing at, whilst I stand photographing her (recorded as a blurry reflection in this image) is my restaurant review of Sanctuary. Turns out they really rather liked the things I had to say. So much so that they returned my e-mail, and asked if they could put it up in the window. My reply? Of course they could! But strolling down in that general direction on my lunch today, I wanted to see it for myself. Not that I didn't believe them, but more of a point of 'wow, they really liked it that much?!'. Photo stands as proof in point - it looks like they did!

Hopefully I'll be back there again tomorrow, with a small group from Diabetes Support, including Tom from Diabetes Dramas et al, as we have a York Forum Meet. 

Bloods have been better today. Two hypos, but they don't seem to have thrown me too much, which is the way I like them. This is an improvement!

Anyone from the Yorkshire area reading this by the way? I'm possibly looking into setting up a North Yorkshire branch of Circle D. Just wondering if anyone interested is out there.

We have another company using our theatre space at the moment. As a thank you, they brought in chocolates. And left them on my desk. It's like they were watching me. So I drew eyes on them. Shame that I chose to do it in a permanent marker that soaked through the paper and on to my desk. That meant getting out the meths. 

On reflection, I'm not sure it was worth it. 

Today has been a bit rubbish. A post lunch 9mmol/l was followed with my attempting to overcome a 3.7 by force of will alone. Seemed to work, as came in at 4-5mmol/l, which is fine. But I spent the follow two to three hours in a horrid state. I was unbelievably hot, and I felt like my skin was crawling. I couldn't concentrate on anything, and all I actually wanted to do was hide under my desk and cry. I was angry at everything, and I didn't want to answer the phone or the door. 

So because we had a show in with an early start, I had to eat dinner early as well. But as soon as I'd injected my NovoRapid, I realised a potentially huge problem with being over building capacity. This had to be solved, and had to be done in ten minutes, as that's when NR tends to kick in on me. Now, obviously I could have solved this issue by drinking some juice, sorting out the problem and then bolusing again for my meal. But I wasn't exactly thinking straight. 

After eating, my two hour post test comes in at 12.6 mmol/l. Fantastic. Sort that out with a two mile walk home. But due to early dinner, I'm now hungry again. What a fantastic day.

I was going to vlog today. I still plan to vlog, but not today. Now I am tired.

I felt like a bit of a moron this morning. I'd forgotten to sort out food for breakfast, so scrounged what I had, including some Innocent Smoothie. I thought I had it sussed. I knew what the carbs were, I remembered where 250mls was on the glass, and all was well and jolly. 

Then I did my two-hour post breakfast test. First test - 17! Then two at around 14mmol/l (259 mg/dl), which made me realise what I'd done wrong.

Yes, I had poured 250ml of liquid. But the figures I knew for smoothie were for 100ml. When I'd been measuring 250ml it had been for an experiment with carb counting for fruit juice. 

So yes, I felt stupid. Really stupid. It was a proper head-meets-desk moment. If I'd thought about it for 30 seconds longer, I could have probably averted that. But what was even worse was that I felt rubbish for the rest of the day. I felt like I was recovering from a really bad hypo all day.

So well done me.

Ah the things we do at work. It's been a strange (and fun) few days, really. And it's in stark comparison to this time last year. I'm pretty sure that over the next month or so, I'll come back to this theme again. It's heading up to my first D-Birthday, which will be 1st May. But the journey to my D-Birthday, in my mind, begins with my actual birthday. Which, for the record, is today. 

Last year, I remember feeling distinctly unwell around the time of my birthday. I looked back on pictures of last year's joint party, and the day after, and for some of them I look OK. But the morning after, when I'd taken off the make-up, I looked grey. And no, I wasn't hungover. I'm not a big drinker. I wonder a lot about that time. I'd been feeling ill, and now I think, was that the start of it all? Or was that what started it? And I guess really there's no way to ever know for sure. 

What I do remember was having no real energy to party. I went home relatively early, and nearly fell asleep when we moved from the restaurant to a club. I felt sick, and wanted to sleep. So, I went home and slept. 

On the day of my actual birthday, I went home to my parents' place in the afternoon. When I came home after the weekend, I remember saying on the phone to my Mum that I was unbelievably thirsty, and couldn't work out why. I believe in the end we put it down to a packet of crisps that we hadn't tried before. 

What a difference a year makes, as I say. When we went out on Wednesday, I carb counted out pretty much perfectly, which was very satisfying. Then we went to try and find somewhere to get a drink. At 23:00, I found myself sat on the steps of the Hilton, doing my Lantus, as a police van drove past, finding the scene hilarious. Today, I went and had sushi for lunch, and had my chin painted by the graphic designer who works upstairs from us for photographs for a children's theatre festival.

Rather different, as I say.

If you read yesterday's post, you'll have seen that I was all dressed up with somewhere to go. I was off out for a joint birthday party with my lovely friend, Jenny. Both our birthdays are this week, so it has made sense, for the past few years, that we split the difference and do a joint thing between the two days. 

So off we went to Sanctuary. Now, this really is one of my favourite restaurants in York. It has been for a while now, since I went there for another friend's birthday a couple of years ago. It's a very quirky little place. And when I say little, it's because well, it is. You can't fit a huge number of people in there. But whilst in a lot of other places this might seem like a bad thing, here it seems like nothing of the sort. Full of candles, beautiful flowers and soft lights, it reminds me of being in someone's home. Which I think the building may have been at some point in the past. It wasn't really practical last night, but I know in the summer, there's a lovely garden out the back as well, where you can sit and eat. 

The whole place feels very welcoming, as are the staff. I'd rung up in advance to arrange the whole thing, and they were nothing but accommodating throughout. We changed the numbers? Not a problem. I remembered two of our party were dairy-free? Didn't even faze them. Another dessert is added to the menu (since we were ordering in advance), and all the dairy-free options are marked on the menu. And whilst we're on the subject of the menu, I can't praise the food highly enough. And that is rather important when we're talking about a restaurant, naturally!

They'd put together a party menu for us, with two courses for just under £15.00, and three courses for just under £19.00. Hey, this was a birthday celebration (and I LOVE their food), so I decided to suck it up and ordered three. Tempura battered tiger prawns with sweet chilli jam. Supreme of chicken, wrapped in Parma ham on a thyme risotto. And a chocolate brownie with handmade praline and pecan ice cream. Oh yes, it was WONDERFUL.

But what was the best part of the evening for me? Well, I'm having some rather botched attempts at trying to carb count at the moment. I'd decided to split my injection, and do a second one before I had my dessert. I had my ever faithful Collins Gem Carb Counter with me, but of course, I didn't know the weight of the brownie. So I went up and asked. I told them that I knew it was a bit of a weird request, but did they know how much it weighed? Apparently yes, it was a bit of a weird question, but as soon as I'd explained that I was a type 1 diabetic, and I was trying to work out how much insulin to take to cover it, a light clearly came on. It wasn't a problem, they could go and weigh it for me. Was there a certain weight that I wanted? Was there anything else I'd like to know about the recipe?

My WORD. That was so utterly refreshing, that I don't think I took a grin off my face for a good half an hour. I went and sat back down, and someone came over and told me the weight, and when I was actually served, they'd made a note which one was for me, so that I was certain to get the right facts. Finding a restaurant that is willing to accommodate your requests, and understands that you're not just being picky or awkward is wonderful!

Oh, and the Diet Coke is definitely diet. And if you ever have a problem with a drink, they'll most certainly change it. I went there once when there had been a problem with the line, and the drink had separated the fizz from the flavour, or something to that end. Swapped with an apology the moment I brought it up. That's service for you.

Oh, and the food is local. Much of it is organic. Lots of stuff is FairTrade. In a word, I love this place. I very much recommend that you go there if you're ANYWHERE nearby. Sanctuary by name, also very much sanctuary by nature. I promise you won't be disappointed!

Today's hypo treatment of choice is a glass of Innocent Peach and Raspberry Smoothie. This stuff is amazing. No evil, bendy yellow fruit in that. No really, I can't stand bananas. The taste, the texture, makes me want to throw up. So it really annoys me that every single smoothie on the market seems to contain them. 

I like to have some smoothie in the fridge. Good stuff for treating hypos with. I don't tend to drink smoothie or fruit juice at any other time. Mainly because I'm rather scared of doing so. Yes, I know that's stupid, because it's not like I can't have it. The thing is that I worry about the sharp rise that'll have on my levels, and I'm somewhat nervous about experimenting with trying to cover it. Shame, because I LOVE fruit juice and smoothies. 

So that there next to the glass of smoothie is a 'fun-size' Mars bar. Shocking, I know. I doubt you'd have figured that one out if I hadn't told you. I don't really like them a huge amount, but they seem to be perfect for evening out my levels. And it's probably a good thing. They're not exactly sensible snacking material. 

I had another hypo last night as well, which was also treated with that wonderful smoothie. I suppose I should make the best of it, really. It's only a limited edition.

This is not a nice picture of me. But I figured it would be a good start to my attempt at Diabetes 365. I haven't made an account yet, but I figure I can start with my camera phone, and move on to a DSLR eventually.

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But anyway, here's the story behind this one. I went up to B&Q today to buy a storage crate for merchandise at work. I was sure I could get there and back in an hour, in time for 12:30, to have my lunch. I was happy enough with my levels before we left, and with twelve complete hypo-free days behind me, I was fairly confident that I was going to complete day thirteen. Plus it would be ironic in a cliché-ridden way for the streak to end on day thirteen. 

However, it was there by the power-tools (see over my left shoulder) that my good run ended, in a collapsing jenga-tower-esque fashion. So there I sat in the B&Q cafe, eating my Glucotabs and sandwich, all the while wondering why on earth B&Q had a cafe in the first place. I was intrigued by a sign behind the counter, which said that outside food was not permitted, but 'exceptions would be made in cases of children with medical conditions'. 

Why just children with medical conditions?  Why would children be spending significant amounts of time in B&Q? Good to know that understand that sometimes people HAVE to eat, but do they think the children that would need to eat because of medical conditions won't grow up to adults who are going to need to as well? And that are more likely to be interested in lawnmowers/shelving/taps/drills?

Well, it's an interesting thought, and a rather surreal experience, watching men walk by with probably my body's weight in timber on a flat cart. 

A new game starts tomorrow.

It's taken me more than a week, but I've reached Day Seven. I said on Day One that I would come to the Sin that I am most guilty of soon enough. And here we are.

I've always been the jealous type. I'm not proud of it, but it's true. It probably comes from the fact that I'm fundamentally insecure about so many things. I'm used to being second best. Second choice. 

So feeling envious is familiar territory. It's nothing new to me. I try to restrain it, but it's difficult. These days I find myself thinking how to rationalise being envious of someone because a part of them isn't broken. How do you make sense of the fact that some days you find yourself resenting people because one of their organs works properly? And there is only one real answer. You can't. Because it doesn't make any sense. 

I'll be honest - I never really appreciated how great an organ my pancreas was. I suppose it's like they say, you don't know what you've got til it's gone. But now there's an awful lot I would do to get it back. 

Watching people eating without worrying about how many grams of carb is in what they're putting in their mouth. Having pasta in the middle of the day, or eating garlic bread with it? Carb on carb? A total no-no. And then from time to time finding yourself jealous of other diabetics who have proper carb-to-insulin ratios, rather than the botched attempt of trying to guess things that you have. Of people on pumps who can bolus easily, even though it makes no sense to be envious of them because you don't even WANT a pump. 

The days that you're sick and tired of your fingers hurting, and injecting. Of thinking about every mouthful of food, and what it might do to you. Of not just being able to put off lunch for a half hour, because it might send you hypo. And if it turns out to be a bad one, it could ruin your afternoon. 

It's a bit like a fungus that grows inside of you. It doesn't feel good, and it doesn't actually help a thing. But it's hard to get rid of. It's like a monster, a shadow that just doesn't want to leave.

Random person eating a packet of my favourite crisps? I'm jealous of you, because I want those crisps. And I want your pancreas. There are moments when I almost hate you. And that makes me sad, because I don't hate. I can dislike, and I do. Strongly. But you, random person with the working pancreas? I could never say to you what I feel. Because you'd think I was crazy. But the thing is, I'm not. At least in my eyes. 

I'm not crazy. I'm just missing something I used to have that made me able to do all the things you still do.

Rather than go 'Happy New Year, world!' and be all bouncy and jolly, in love with the world afresh, I entered 2010 a bit anxious, and with the attitude of 'bugger off, I don't want to know'. 

So, anxious and a bit depressed would probably best sum up my attitude to the start of 2010. I've never been a big fan of January. There's all this pressure to get yourself sorted, and make resolutions. I tell myself every year that I'll do things, then don't end up doing it and get even more angry with myself. 

So, I made a resolution several years ago, not to make any more New Year's Resolutions. And I've been doing really well at keeping that one.

Well, I've bitten all my nails off again due to being anxious. I was getting worked up. I was getting a lot of double figure scores, and I couldn't get them to stop easily. So I rang up Becky, my DSN, thinking she'd tell me I needed to up my NovoRapid. But instead, I was instructed to start again on Lantus. 

Ah. 

Now, I'd been very keen to start on Lantus again. Mainly for reasons of personal craziness. It was like I didn't feel as though I was a proper T1, what with my tiny 2u boluses, and no basal. So getting the basal back would be, as someone put it to me, 'like getting my diabetic stripes'.  But when I got told to put it back in again, all of a sudden it was a bit like a promotion I didn't want. 

I was nervous. 

I'd had some pretty rotten hypos on Lantus last time, and I've not been proved too far wrong. I've taken it down by a unit, but I've only had one hypo-free day since starting it up again. I'm not enjoying it thus far. The only good thing, I suppose, is that if DSN-Becky wants to keep the Lantus in, I might be able to calculate my insulin-sensitivity more accurately, and do some PROPER carb counting. 

So moving on to some good things. I mentioned that I might have some new readers due to my request for people to follow this on LiveJournal's holiday_wishes community. Well, one of the other things I wished for was for some sugar-free caramel syrup to put in hot chocolate. I didn't actually think I would have anyone send me any. So imagine my surprise when this turns up before Christmas:

They ended up tasting rather like shortbread. Half sugar, half Splenda. Next time, a little more allspice. I'm willing to share the recipe should anyone want it. But they were good. Proof in point?

 

I took them to work with me, and only ended up with  a couple left, one being the one I snagged for myself there, with my sneaky cup of low-sugar hot chocolate. And yes, that is a Christmas mug. I bought it for £1.00 in the sales after Christmas 2008. I figured no-one else would have a Christmas mug at work, so I'd know it was mine, and could keep tabs on who was stealing it! Not that that seems to stop people.

Coming soon by the way - Sam from Talking Blood Glucose is going to be doing a guest blog here at some point in the near future. Yey! That should be worth sticking around to read. 

 


And one of the best things about post Christmas/New Year period? Slowly working your way through the sea of amazing new Christmas socks. Awesome ^_^