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..