Rss Feed
    Showing posts with label heat. Show all posts
    Showing posts with label heat. Show all posts

  1. The Good Glucotab Guide

    Sunday, 21 July 2013

    If there's one thing I've found that you can't get around, it's the inevitable fact that you will, however hard you try to avoid it, go hypo in a public place. We all do - I mean, come on, it's not like you can spend your life hidden away under a rock or in a cave. If you ever leave your home, you will go hypo publicly.  What can vary greatly, of course, is the drama which unfolds, or the reception that you get from wherever you are. 

    I've noticed that reactions from people you don't know when you're hypo can be absolutely fascinating. Probably moreso in hindsight, when my head is back on straight again. Some people and places are fabulous. I've never encountered anyone responding in a truly hideous manner, (although one or two that were a bit baffling - La Tasca, I'm looking at you...) but I know other people have. 

    What I'm starting to think is that there should be some way of rating different places. A sort of Good Star Guide for PWD reception, if you will. The Michelin Star equivalent. Hmm...that place got a four-and-a-half Glucotab rating, I must try and go there next Friday... You get the general idea, I'm sure.

    I started thinking about this because of something that happened to me this week that got me thinking.  It's been really, really hot here in the UK over the last week or so, which was more surprising because of it coming off the back of what felt like an unbelievably long winter. It's been floating around the upper 20's (which I believe is somewhere in the region of 80+ degrees Farenheit) - which I know isn't necessarily that high for some of my US-based friends, who I've seen talking about temperatures of 100 degrees Farenheit - around 40 celsius (thank you internet! I'd never know what any non UK based measurement was if it wasn't for you!) , but for me, and the UK in general, this is hot. Personally, I'm not really built for anything above the low 20's without feeling like I'm melting. I think sometimes that I must have a busted internal radiator. When I'm cold, I'm cold, and when I'm hot, I am HOT. I swear I have been a walking advertisement for Magicool recently. Yes, I know it's basically just water in can, but that stuff makes me pass for someone you can stand the company of, so I don't care. But the point is that as well as being a grumpy sod when I'm hot, I've found, like so many others out there, that the heat messes with my sugars. Thankfully we seem to be cooling off somewhat now, but I've spent the past week or so walking around feeling constantly hypo, and often actually being hypo. Which is what led to me nearly passing out from a hypo in Paperchase earlier this week. 

     I'd gone down in my lunch hour to go and buy my dad a birthday card, so nothing too strenuous, nothing too outlandish. Thankfully one of my lovely work friends had also come with me, looking for birthday presents. I started feeling a bit wobbly halfway there, but had chalked it up as it just being too darned hot. But I tested just before going into the shop, and came up as 3.4 (61 for US money) - great. So I popped into the shop next to it and grabbed a drink, because I really couldn't face any more glucotabs after the amount I'd downed lately. 

     So I wander around the shop some more, until I realise that my head is in a complete haze. I feel like I've stuck my face into a smoke machine. My friend is talking to me, and I know that what she's saying should be something that I can understand, but I have absolutely no idea what that is, because it doesn't sound like english. I'm very, very hot, and I can feel things starting to get a bit strange. 

     Luckily my friend insisted that I sit down. Which was a good move, because I think I was about to pass out - despite already having treated the hypo, I'd dropped down further to 2.3 (41) in about five minutes. So not ideal. Glucotabs it is then. 

     I ended up sitting against the wall by the door of the shop for about twenty to twenty five minutes. The staff were lovely, and didn't seem in the least bit concerned that I was blocking up their nice display of cards. They brought me water in a funky mug, and were very insistent that I let them know if there's anything else they can do for me. Excellent marks, Paperchase. They even offered me a chair, which was lovely, but I was happy enough on the floor - can't fall any further than you already are that way!

     So I would say that Paperchase would score very highly in the Good Glucotab Guide. Thinking about it now, good marks would also go to my Sainsburys Local, where a lovely cashier helped me when I was hypo by offering me sweet tea and opening up what I'd just bought to deal with my hypo, because my hands were shaking too much. HMV would also score highly, when I was VERY low and realised I was out of all glucotabs, as one of their cashiers gave me a Mars bar from the counter and made me eat it, not caring that I was holding up the queue (I did pay for it later, for the record!). Turns out he was a Type 1 himself, and used the same meter as me. I do love moments like that. They make you feel less alone. 

    So there are your opening pages of the Good Glucotab Guide - I might have to keep adding to this one...

    Oh, and I did find a card for my dad. Right above my head for where I was sitting.

     

     

     

    Posted by Becky at 21:32 | Labels: , , | 5 comments |

  2. I had been looking forward to the summer. Now, please don't get me wrong, I haven't been having a dreadful time, but I have been having a rather busy time. Which is why I've been away since...whoa, April. Yikes.

    I've not been entirely silent though. I've recently written a guest post for DiabetesMine, and had the rather lovely experience of chatting with Chris for an episode of Just Talking. In the real world, I've been to a couple of D meet-ups - a lovely London based one with my wonderful friend, Shelley, and more recently I popped my head in (not really for long enough, sadly) to one on my doorstep. I also got invited to do a Q&A for a group of new start pumpers at my hospital (a post on that in the near future, I promise).

    With the first year of my MA under my belt, with no scheduled classes for the summer term, I had anticipated having time to breathe a bit, get my thoughts in order. Has it turned out like that? Well, no, not really. Sure, I'm done with the MA until October, but other things have stepped up to fill the void. 

    I don't consider myself to be immensely highly strung, or very high maintenance. But in truth, I'm not exactly the most laid back person in the world. I stress. A lot. I get anxious, which doesn't help me in any way, shape or form. Stress and I have a bit of a vicious cycle. I stress, which pushes my levels up. Which means I don't sleep well, which makes me tired and edgy. Which makes me stress more. Which starts the circle all over again. Oh and don't forget to throw in the small fact that my IBS symptoms are mostly stress induced. And round we go, again and again.

    So I've been quiet on the whole social media front. I've barely been on twitter, which is normally my haunt of choice. I've not been blogging. But, oh my D-friends, I have missed you. I really, really have. But I had to try and keep a hold on my sanity, whilst struggling with this horrid cycle, working my normal 9-5, and then turning my mind over to the equivalent of a 5-9, which is getting a new company off the ground, and getting creatively and practically ready to go to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. 

    So there you go. I've been battling the heat, the ongoing nagging in the back of my mind that I should be trying harder to lose weight after 'chubbygate', the stress, and, if I'm honest, feeling very alone and isolated. But I'm still here. I'm trying - and I've missed you all.

    Posted by Becky at 23:45 | Labels: , , , , , , | 6 comments | Location: York, UK

  3. Out Of Order!

    Monday, 24 May 2010

    What is going on at the moment? Can anyone tell me? All of a sudden, it's like someone has flipped some sort of switch, and things are either not working or breaking. I've also noticed this strange vibe going around, both online and offline. I blame the heat. It does make people act differently - I know it does for me.

    But to add to the broken medical alert bracelet, and the missing Frio Wallet, (which I have STILL not found) I now have the broken lancing device! The Microlet 2 lancer that came with my Contour USB decided to break today. Either that, or I'm just much stronger than I think I am when I'm hypo.  And whilst I am genuinely quite strong, I don't think that's the case. Thankfully I have several other lancing devices, so it's not a problem. Otherwise it would have meant resorting to just sticking myself with the lancet. My mum does that, and I seriously couldn't bring myself to test that way. I'm squirming now just thinking about it!

    So that means, I have missing, broken and binned items. Man, you think I would have had enough with just the broken pancreas, wouldn't you?

    Posted by Becky at 19:51 | Labels: , , , | 2 comments |

  4. It's an inanimate object. It can't have grown legs and walked away. It has to be there somewhere!

    So, I can't find my Frio Wallet, by the way. As the temperature has been over the mid 20's for the past couple of days, I want to put my insulin in the pouch to keep it cooler.

    But can I find it anywhere? Of course not. Andrew and I have turned my bedroom upside down, but the damn thing is nowhere to be seen. 

    So, if you happen to come across one Frio Wallet, doesn't answer to the name of anything (being as it doesn't talk...), do point me in the right direction? I don't really want to have to buy another one.

    Posted by Becky at 22:51 | Labels: , , | 0 comments |

  5. Oh Thigh There!

    Friday, 21 May 2010

    The 'kitteh' (yes, I am fluent in lol-speak, but it is so against my nature to spell poorly on purpose!) says 'hai!'. I however, want to talk about thighs. More specifically....erm, my thighs. Which is a bit of a weird start to a post. 

    I inject in my stomach pretty much exclusively. When I started injecting, I didn't want to, because I found it strange, and I wanted to inject in my arms. Now, as I say, it needs a very good reason for me to not inject in my stomach. 

    It's warm at the moment, and that's lovely. It does mean that I want to wear skirts and dresses more though. I'm not a big one for skirts and dresses. I love my jeans, which lend themselves to injecting in the stomach. Skirts aren't too hard to overcome. Dresses on the other hand? Now those I find awkward. I was rather thrilled when I was at my work's Christmas party, whilst wearing a rather lovely dress, that (the still wonderful and amazing) Jenny told me I didn't need to leave the table to inject before dinner, as I was puzzling out how to inject without either shooting into my arms, or leaving to lift up my dress. She helped me be subtle with some shielding from napkins and the tablecloth. Problem sorted. 

    I'm wearing a dress today, and I was trying to work out how to inject in my stomach. The conclusion I came to was that I couldn't. There was no way I was going to go into a toilet to inject, and I couldn't lift my dress in the office. I can't seem to juggle things right to inject into my arms. So that really left my thighs. Dress is just above the knee, so it's a perfectly acceptable and decent thing to do.

    Was it easy? Not too difficult. Was it comfortable? Not really. I wasn't confident that it was definitely fat that I was injecting into. Trust me, my thighs are not short of fat to inject into, but knowing me, I'm bound to get it wrong. But my worry is that if I'm constantly injecting into my stomach, I'll end up with the fatty lumps that you get from injecting into the same place repeatedly.  So I guess whilst the weather is encouraging me to wear dresses, it's also encouraging me to try and get the hang of this thigh thing.

    Posted by Becky at 23:57 | Labels: , , , , | 1 comments |

  6. Emerging from under a rock

    Thursday, 24 December 2009

    Well, after my huge accomplishment of managing to complete NaBloPoMo, I suppose I rather seemed to fall off the face of the earth for December. But hey, it's been busy. Most evenings I've been tied up doing something, or I've just been shattered. So I'm afraid this rather took a back seat for a bit.


    But how are you? Seriously, if you're still reading even after I disappeared for practically a whole month, I'd like to know! 


    For my part, like I say, I've been busy. December is a bit mad for everyone, but it's been a manic few weeks. I started off with York Come Dancing. Oh yes.  I've been talking about this one for a while, but it finally came. And then promptly went. Ben and I had a slightly stressful but wonderful time doing demonstration Cha-Cha-Cha and Jive. Proof?


    There we are! (Photo credit - It's a crop of a shot by Matt Cornock / York Dancesport). Yes, my lines could be a lot better, but I was still quite pleased with the whole thing. Pretty much in retrospect, because the end of the Jive went a bit wrong for various reasons, and I was a touch gutted on the night. But that's life, huh?  More recently, I've had a bash at Viennesse Waltz, finally got a handle on the regular Waltz (if only I could remember the routine! When I can remember it, I can do it!) and Samba. I'm still rather looking forward to Paso and Foxtrot. ^_^
    You know how in the past, I've complained about my sieve brain, and lack of organisation? Well, I've managed a doozy as of late. I lost my BG diary. Yeah, not great. I knew it was somewhere inside my bedroom, but where it was I had absolutely no idea. I thought maybe it had been a week, perhaps a fortnight tops since I had last written up my scores. Well, I found it the other evening. In a bag under my bed. Great, right? Turns out I hadn't actually written in my scores since the 9/10th November. Well done me. That was a fun evening of transcribing over a month's worth of data from my meter, I can tell you. Obviously it's nobody's fault but my own. Hopefully it'll teach me not to do that again, at any rate!

    This next statement is obviously and exaggeration, but not far off one. It seems like everyone in the country has snow at the moment. At home in York, we've got it. I got back to my parents' place in Cheshire last night, and they also have it, as did everywhere I travelled through on the train. So it's cold. Particularly in York, where we didn't have a LOT of fresh snow after the initial big fall, but it's still there and not melting away. I don't know whether it's just weird timing, or if it has something to do with the temperature, but injecting has been a lot more painful than normal. Anyone else find it hurts more when it's colder?

    I'm hoping to be an extremely good girl and post a quick one tomorrow. Make up for missing most of December by posting on Christmas Day. Seems a weird trade-off, but it works for me!



    Posted by Becky at 13:46 | Labels: , , , , , , | 0 comments |

  7. Have I got shrews for you...

    Wednesday, 1 July 2009

    So I haven't been updating the past couple of days. My main reason for this has been my involvement with The Mooted Theatre Company's current production of The Taming of the Shrew, which I am the Stage Manager for. We open tomorrow night, for the record, and if you're in the North Yorkshire region, it's well worth coming to see

    Now, with my plug out of the way, let's get onto the real mess that tech & dress rehearsal days can cause. The main problem with them is that when you're busy, you're busy. Finding time to stop and eat is difficult, if not impossible. It is also hot at the moment. Very hot in fact. Which, I understand, can really mess up your BG levels. And so can walking a lot. And carrying heavy things a lot. I think you get the idea. Or at least I hope you do, because I don't think I can make it much clearer!

    So I'm walking, carrying heavy things under the sun, with not much time to drink, eat or do anything else. Which means my concentration gets pretty much shot, and even with not being on insulin at the moment, I can feel my levels are low. But since the cast seems to turn up and I have to get pre-show ready at the exact time I want to eat my evening meal, it has to wait. So then I have to wait til I get home. Which the past two nights has been gone ten or half ten. Tonight it was closer to eleven, and I had things I needed to do before I could think about food, including a shower. But when I actually got some proper food, it had gone midnight. To be fair, I'd had a Nairn's oat biscuit to tide me over, but my pre-dinner level was 6.3. So it wasn't as low as I'd thought. However, late meals mean even later post dinner tests. Which is the bit that really gets me. Since I know full well that I should be eating dinner at a more normal time, I'm trying to be a good, responsible girl and make sure I do my two-hour post meal test. But that means staying up much later than I want. So here I am, sat up typing this, and watching Heroes on DVD till 2am, when I can test and then go to bed, then get up and start this over again.

    Oh the things we do.

    xx

    Coming soon - Becky plays Numberwang, Becky has sushi, and Cake (part 2 - the revenge)

    Posted by Becky at 00:45 | Labels: , , , , , | 1 comments |