My Perfect Week

What a difference two weeks can make. I remember writing about how I felt I wasn’t doing enough for my diabetes. I can remember feeling down in the dumps and consumed by less than ideal blood sugar levels and hypos. I can remember feeling trapped in a vicious cycle.

And today, I finally feel as though I’m beginning to get my diabetes mojo back.

I can remember an episode of How I Met Your Mother where Barney was trying to achieve the ‘Perfect Week.’ Seven days, seven hook ups and zero rejections. The lengths he took to achieve that Perfect Week probably won’t fit the PG rating of this blog.

If there were such a thing as a Perfect Week in diabetes land, this week would well and truly be mine. I have scored during 6 of the last 7 nights. I’ve woken up to blood sugar levels of 7.6, 5.4, 6.2, 5.9, 4.4, 11.8 and 4.5 during the past week. I have actually enjoyed a whole week of sleeping soundly between the hours of 10pm and 6am. And, miraculously, I’ve gone a whole week without being woken up in the middle of the night by a hypo either.

Morning is the most nail biting time of my day. Waking up, pricking my finger and anxiously awaiting the result. The result of where my blood sugar levels have been hovering for the past eight hours. The result of how well I’ve been managing my diabetes. And the result that will more than likely set the tone for my day ahead.

On six of the past seven mornings, I’ve finally been able to smile. I can’t help but raise my arm in victory and quietly exclaim to myself “yeah!” Waking up to those numbers is a massive achievement. In a life where diabetes follows me in every waking moment, seeing those numbers in the morning is the best damn feeling in the world. It sets me up in a perfect frame of mind to go about my day. To go about my day bursting with positivity and enthusiasm. To go about my day feeling proud and filled with self appreciation. Perhaps even a day deserving of a bolus worthy reward…

In yesterday’s letter to my friend Mr. Hypo, I wrote about patience being the key to locking away those night time hypos. Over the past few months, I’ve well and truly been doing more harm than good to myself. I’ve become obsessive compulsive over my blood sugar levels. I’d be checking them shortly after dinner, and then trying to correct them to where I think they should be. Only to end up hypo a few hours later when I’m in bed. Only to land myself in a pit of misery, frustration and self loathing.

Patience has worked wonders on me. I now make myself wait at least two hours after dinner before testing. I give real thought to how much rapid acting insulin is still active in my system before correcting at bedtime. And I make sure that any must have sugar or junk food is consumed earlier in the day so that it won’t mess with my levels while I’m sleeping.

No, it’s certainly not easy and I am sure that this doesn’t mean I’m through with night time hypos for good. But I’m damned if I’ll go down without a fight.

Because right now, I haven’t felt this good about myself in a long time.

4 Comments

  1. You’re on injections if I remember correctly? Coming from a fellow injector, congrats on some good overnights/mornings. On shots that is extremely difficult to do, for me at least, compared to when I used the pump and could fine tune more easily. Glad to hear you’ve gotten into a groove. Now I need to follow your advice here!

  2. […] First up was my hba1c result. It was a few points higher than last time, but I felt satisfied that it had gone up rather than down. I shared that I’d been having lots of hypos prior to my holiday. I’d become obsessive compulsive in checking my blood sugar levels, and was trying to correct them shortly after eating dinner. The holiday did a perfect job of taking my mind away from obsessive testing, and my blood sugar levels had stabilised nicely in these past few weeks I’ve been back. I’ve just had My Perfect Week! […]

  3. […] I feel as though all of my diabetes efforts over these past few months have been like putting on band aids. Taking holidays over Christmas, reminding myself of pending clinic appointments, and even pulling out my shiny new Insulinx meter that I’d saved for the New Year. Like all band aids, my diabetes efforts have gone wayside. The motivation just hasn’t been there lately. If I’m being honest with myself, the last really good stretch that I can remember was back in August when I wrote this. […]

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