The weekends and staying on track and some other stuff.

Weekends are especially difficult for me when it comes to my diabetes. I have alarms that go off on my phone at the designated times I check my blood. Well let me tell you, when my phone starts beeping at 5:45 on the weekends, the last thing I want to do is get up and check my blood, I'd rather chuck the phone at the wall or soak it in a bowl of water. I also find myself checking my sugar levels less than I schedule myself too. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, instead of breakfast, mid morning, lunch, mid afternoon, dinner, and before bed.

I also have a harder time making myself take my long acting insulin, Lantus. My ringer for that goes off at 8 AM, and again, I am not ready to crawl out of my nice comfortable bed with my warm blankets, to stick myself.

Off topic, I bought two cook books over the past few weeks, and Chris and I are really enjoying the variety in our dinners! Tonight, we ate Steak Picante and Mexican Rice! Super yummy, and the steaks were cooked perfectly! Tomorrow, I am cooking chicken penne with creamy vodka sauce and I will actually take a photo to post!

As for our foster babies, they are doing well. Our cats are itching to play with them and really try to interact, but the newbies are scared. They are gaining some weight, and Chris keeps asking when we are taking them to my dads to live their new life. I want to keep them, even though I know we can't. If we had a house, maybe, but four cats in an apartment is just too much!

I started thinking about teaching riding lessons again. I miss working with kids, and teaching people to ride. Maybe I just miss riding period. So, my search for a horse is beginning. I want something that is broke broke broke, and isn't psycho like Bella. Zoey won't be rideable until at least September 2012 and even then, I am sending her out for 60 days of starter training. Yes. I will have someone else doing the dirty work of starting a young horse. I just don't have the time. Anyways, once Zoey comes back from training, the new horse would be Christophers and I would love if we could go to trails and ride together.

I wrote a goals list today. I have my department and the call support department at work writing down their five year personal and business goals and we will be discussing them tomorrow. I started my position as manager of call support last week, and I am really excited about working with them all.

Our apartment is clean too! Chris worked all weekend so I spent mine cleaning up! I redid our bathroom too!

Well, I suppose I've rambled enough. Happy Monday Eve.

It's been a few days...

This post is partly about my diabetes and part about what is going on in my life right now.

Sticking to the theme of this blog, taking care of myself gets a little easier every day. My fingers are beginning to hurt from 6 finger pricks a day, but until I am in control and know where my sugars will be at certain points of the day, I will continue to check it 6 or more times. Right now, I check  at 6 AM, 9 AM, 11 AM, 3 PM, 6 PM and 10 PM. I give myself a shot of Lantus at 8 AM each morning. This is my long lasting insulin, that carries my other insulin, kind of like a piggy back ride. I like the long acting, since it never "peaks" and I will never experience a low blood sugar level with this insulin. My other insulin is Novolog. I take this insulin before I eat, and in the event my sugar is higher than it should be. Calculating my doses is tricky for Novolog. I take one unit of insulin for every 25 that my sugar is over 115. So if I am at 165, I would take 2 units to bring myself back down to a normal level. I also take one unit for every 10 carbs I eat. So 70 carbs equals seven units of insulin. Both my insulins come in these nifty little pre-loaded pens. I have a short needle that screws onto the end of the pen so I can give myself the shot. I dial up how much I need and boom. It's harder to calculate the carbs in some foods, like pasta. We bought a scale so I can measure how much pasta I am cooking, so I can measure my doses accurately. I have been writing down my levels, as well as my carb intake and my insulin doses, it helps me stay focused, and will help my doctors when I go back for a check up in a few weeks.

On another note, Christopher and I are fostering two cats. They are sisters to our cat Lucy. An old co-worker got these two cats, the same day I got Lucy last May. She has kep them in a small room in her house, with very little interaction. Recently, she moved them to her garage, in hopes that one day the garage door would open and the cats would run out and never come back. I flipped my lid. There is already an overpopulation of animals, and the shelters are filled to the brim with completely adoptable animals that are being euthanized every day. This does not go over well with me, AT ALL! So, instead of letting her be irresponsible and set these two, un-spayed, un-vaccinated cats free, to reproduce at an alarming rate, I offered to take them. I picked them up Thursday morning, and dropped them at the local "No More Homeless Pets" clinic for their shots and sterilization surgeries. Both came through great. It wasn't until they came home on Friday morning, that I realized how underfed and small these poor cats were. Both weighed in at less than 6 pounds, and look like kittens. You can feel the bones if you lightly run your finger down their spines. Lucy is three times their size, and the exact same age! Chris said, "you know I see on those shows all the time, but I've never seen animal neglect in real life." I was so angry, then I realized, being angry isn't going to make this person take responsibility for her actions, and the two cats are safe and sound in a good place now. Both are eating great, and are sweet as can be. One has some hair loss, due to stress induced over grooming and I hope to get her hair growing back quickly. I want to get some weight on them, and then they will go to their new home. After a good brushing yesterday, their coats are looking much better, and I've gotten the loose hair off. Their incision site is healing well, and they are on the road to being healthy, happy kitties. They've gotten new names too, Lexus and Luna. Lexus is first, Luna is below..

Mom.

At 21, I still like my mom to accompany me to doctor appointments, and I'd rather talk to her than most other people. I've always been very close to my mom. Growing up, I remember how she would wake me up, since I usually slept in her bed, she would check my blood, while I was often still half asleep, give me my insulin, and bring me breakfast in bed. For the first few years of my diabetic life, she came to my school at lunch time to test my sugar. I also remember all the times she drove me half way across town to friends homes, the mall, the barn, was at every cheerleading or dance competition, and never missed a horse show. I am very fortunate to have a mom like her. Although, there were times I wasn't particularly fond of her, or her rules. In high school, she would frequently bring me lunch, so I didn't have to eat nasty school food, countless times she picked me up early when I claimed to be ill, but probably wasn't. She supported me and helped me. I've always been comfortable telling her everything, even when what I was saying made her pretty uncomfortable.

She was the best support I could have ever had to help me cope with my diabetes.

I have the best friend and parent anyone could ask for, all in one person.

Today was the first day of the beginning of complete control. I made tracking chart sheets to write down my sugar levels, carb intake, insulin doses, etc for 6 different points throughout each day. I woke up higher than I should be, but throughout the rest of the day remained in a good range. I also found some recipes through Diabetic Living that I am going to attempt at some point or another. The low point of today was discovering that my favorite drink from Starbucks has more carbohydrates in it than I should have in an entire meal. So, I will be on the hunt for a new favorite drink, with less carbs!

Christopher and I took a trip to Target solely to get a food scale, and ended up with all the ingredients to make a delicious low carb dinner along with some other healthy goodies and alot of organic food. Dinner consisted of sauteed bell peppers, mushrooms, zucchini, squash, snow peas and chicken tossed with whole grain pasta with an olive oil dressing. It was filling and tasted amazing.

As far as injections go, today I had to take four total and I was very pleased with my post meal sugar levels. Not much pain, but still unpleasant. It makes me laugh when people say they are scared of needles or they could never have diabetes because they couldn't give themselves shots everyday. My reaction is usually the same "you will if you have to, or you will die" or "it's not like I chose diabetes, like someone gave me a hat full of diseases and it just happened to be what I chose."

The night was pretty low-key. I sang my rendition of Can't Buy Me Love to our dog, but changed the words to Got Puppy Love, since that's what I thought the song said when I was little.

I am working on my goals list. My first goal is to get my A1C in the target range. Meaning, my average for three months of blood sugar levels should be about a 7, I have no idea how this particular average is calculated, I do know it isn't like finding a normal average. Losing weight and exercising are on the list somewhere, along with being healthy enough to have a baby.

I want the weather to cool off soon. I am having serious horse back riding withdrawals. I'd like to be able to buy a new horse, and I have one in my sights, but not until I meet the more important goals I have set for myself. Christopher and I are also slowly planning the wedding ceremony and reception we didn't have.

Life is busy.

Number One.

My name is Haley. I am 21 and I have had Type One Juvenile Diabetes for 15 years. Feels kind of like an AA meeting.

I am writing this blog to keep track of my ventures as I re-learn to kick diabetes' ass and get back in control of myself. I have not been the best at controlling this disease. What normal person really wants to take shots multiple times daily? I didn't and still don't, however I have to, or the truth of the matter is, I will not live a very long life.

So, today is day one. I haven't blogged before, so I am sure until I get the hang of it, most of my posts will be rambling. I will ramble about what life is like having diabetes, being married and having a very supportive spouse, as well as family and friends.cooking for two while staying inside my dietary limits, exercising, carb counting, and controlling my sugars. I am also using this blog as motivation for anyone who may decide to follow it. Especially, if you have a child or family member with diabetes.

Fun, right?

You will get an inside look into what it's like for me to Live Normal with Diabetes.