things that make me happy~

i really need to write about what makes me happy, because frankly, while i'm still very excited about my pump, it's been rough. i don't like focusing on the negative things of life and i really, truly believe this is why my life always works out (and believe me, it hasn't been a hay ride.) i don't really believe in good and bad luck.

i make my own luck.

GASP!

[see random photo taking over the page.]

ahem,

so here is my gratitude list of things that make me jump for joy even while life is handing me some serious humor-sucking blood sugar lemons:

• my pump is green. i love green! (even though i have no idea what i'm doing yet!)
• i love teaching english to refugees and forging the friendships i have with them (even though we have no idea what the other is saying half the time!)
• hiking in new mexico in the fall; there's just no comparison to the colors, textures, air...(you get my point.)
• the new music i've been downloading for my workouts (rox my sox!)
• i love baking and especially love all of the seasonal food we've been eating: dark greens in our stews, pumpkin in the muffins, and green chile to warm us up! (but not too hot, garcia's cafe!)
• i have a stronger desire to play the harmonica lately (thank you, revival tour!)
• oh good gracious, matthew gave me a ring for that finger :)
• jimmy stewart films make me bubbly (and not just "it's a wonderful life.")
• straight-up, loyal friends are a gift i value (and yes, i mean what i say.)
• the good healthcare i have received so far from my cde and family doc (and my own brain's ability to process complicated issues while reading, haha.)
• getting to do more massage therapy on people actually makes me feel good. :)
• i'm getting purple streaks in my hair! (they might be blue or pink sometimes!)

what makes you feel better when you're going through a rough patch? what do you remind yourself of?

how do you make your own luck?

extra-rude endos~

my last post was all about how upsetting some of the adjustments to the pump have been for me. however, all in all it's been a great thing, this little complicated (but not really) contraption. i have to admit how surprised i was at how user friendly my ping! is.

but then i met my 'new' endo. funny that i like the mechanical device attached to my body more.

this guy was a real piece of work.

classic napoleon complex, on top of his own version of "i have this need to prove that i'm better than everyone."

the resident working under him (pity her) though is super great. she's been very understanding and really makes an effort to tell you how well she thinks you're doing.

get this: she even laughs. at real jokes.

so when this guy walked in the room, all pompous with his chest puffed out, i wanted to stand up and say, " i can see where this is going" even before he opened his mouth. a judgement, i know. but sometimes your gut is nothing but right.

i was really stressed out about the numbers i'd been having. i knew going in that i wanted my basal upped temporarily so i could actually do a real basal test.

i also know my total daily dose, how much was averaging for correction, and how i needed a lower insulin:carb ratio in the morning. but he didn't care about that. he didn't trust anything i said. he wanted to 'figure it out' himself.

so this guy grabs my pump off my pants without asking and starts fooling with it. as he heads to the bolus menu (which is a bit sensitive on the ping, no fear, if you hit too many buttons, it'll just 'bolus' zero, but still...) i start to hear myself saying nooooooooooo! in my head. he kept 'delivering' (zero insulin) but it annoyed me because i could hear the cartridge. i could feel myself sweating.

but the best part: he'd make that shhh sound and put his hand up to stop you when he didn't want you to talk. or, when he asked you a question and heard 'enough' of your response. nice.

then he asked me about carb intake. i said i'm not a carb freak, but that i also don't feel type 1's do very well with high carb bolusing anyway.

he shhh's me, his hand in my face.

"FORGET ALL OF THAT. I DON'T KNOW WHY YOU'RE DOING THAT. IF YOUR SETTINGS ARE RIGHT OR IF YOU'D BEEN BOLUSING CORRECTLY IN THE PAST ON MDI'S YOU WOULD'VE BEEN ABLE TO EAT WHATEVER YOU WANT."

ok, you can stop shouting at me now.

in the end, he regurgitated back to me what i'd tried telling him in the beginning. he stood up, satisfied with himself.

the most upsetting thing about such a visit is your lost sense of dignity and intelligence. this is my disease. i own it. i live with it. to ask me nothing about myself, to care nothing about my responses, my real concerns, my worries is simply...socially retarded if you're a doctor.

as this one wonderful endo once said to me, "it's my job to help you see the forest from the trees." he was also the one who taught me not to have more than 45 grams of carb in one meal. lifesaver.

lately, i've been doing a lot of reading and ruminating on how to speak my mind and heart, stand up for myself with certain kinds of people, and to truly get away from the competitive and possessive nature of many relationships. yesterday, i felt like a failure because he caught me so off guard that i could barely open my mouth. that's a problem with me in general. when and if i finally tell how i truly feel, people either completely ignore me or just attack, never trusting that what i'm saying might uh, actually be how i feel. genius.

while i work on these things, i can at least say this as rule number one:

no one will ever grab my pump off my body like that again.

yes, i cry a lot~

only in front of my boyfriend and best friend, though. :)

this transition to the pump is overwhelming me. i am doing basal testing but ever since a couple of days ago, i've had mostly high BGs. we're talking even a 370. painful. my control was so tight before on mdi's. of course, i experienced more hypoglycemia due to stacking, so maybe i need to stop whining for a while until this all gets worked out.

i just wish i knew what to do. all i can do is get the basal rates down for now, i know. i need to stay focused on that, because surely it isn't the bolus i did for salad. but i worry that the whole 'the site can affect the absorption' thing people talk about is at fault here. god, i hope not. i only have so much subq fat. i'm a really small gal, so it's not like i can use the little bit of fat in my lower abdomen every.three.days. i have to go upwards a bit and i'm also using the bit by my hips (commonly known as love handles, of which i have none, LOL.) is the absorption really that different?

and man, am i hungry! this testing-requiring-fasting stuff is really hard when you hear your tummy growling. i can rarely go four hours without eating. boo.

i'm seeing my endo tomorrow, maybe we can just up the basal rate immediately due to these clearly out of control highs. i can barely stand it. sigh. the perfectionist in me.

on a positive note, matthew pointed out to me how well i adapt to things. it's only been a year and a half, and despite the (literal) blood, sweat and tears, i always keep on. i'm not afraid of change, that's for sure. at this point in my life especially, nothing shocks me anymore, LOL. much still surprises me; disappointment mixed with a whole lot of joy.

i also have two beautiful classical songs i downloaded that have harps and accordians and pianos and violins. they hint of sadness and hope intertwined as perfectly as i feel right now.

think i'll just keep it on repeat.

on babies and tangerines~

so i had my preconception counseling appointment with the great and wonderful dr. larry leeman at university of new mexico's family medicine clinic. this guy is great. just scroll to the bottom of that link when you open it to find his impressive "about me" section.

if/when i get pregnant, i wouldn't be delivering at the wonderful midwifery practice. maybe someday they'll have step-down options for some type 1's. but the most important thing to me--that he be a compassionate, understanding, easygoing doc (and a little crunchy)--was all there today. he was really engaging and willing to work with me on so many levels. he was understanding of my anxiety of controlling my own disease, only to fear handing it over to a bunch of people i've never met. he was super excited to take me on as a future patient and just kept asking when are you guys getting pregnant?!

it's amazing to me, that statement.

so often, all we hear as type 1 women are the fear-mongering, overt, threatening gestures meant to warn (or ward off) our desires to get pregnant. it's not too often that people get this bright smile on their face and say, "good on you for being type 1 and trying to get pregnant!" ya right.

now i don't want to be too hard on people. all day, my docs have told me time and time again, how they deal with diabetics who refuse to do anything to even get a teeny tiny bit more in control. so it's understandable that it's hard for them to just adjust their attitude immediately upon meeting someone who really and truly owns their disease; treats it like a bad-neighbor-turned-best-barbq-buddy.

so i'm super excited. we've some time to go before we really start trying, but it takes a while to get everything in order, as anyone who's type 1 and had a bebe will tell you! he thinks (if all goes well with my disease) that we should be able to deliver naturally and he might let me go to 40 weeks. sigh. you know, it all depends on....waiting. in the moment. every moment.

which brings me to my final point: being in the moment. as thich nhat hanh said, "present moment, wonderful moment" with his meditation on the tangerine.

sounds cheesy, but it's basically this story of a person who gives this other person a sweet little tangerine as a gift. and it makes the person who receives it truly stop and think about the small, beautiful little gifts that life offers us, that we offer each other. gifts we so often ignore; gifts we so often scoff at because they seem insignificant.

melting down~

so i had a melt down the first day i tried to change my site.

haha, go ahead and laugh.

it wasn't the insertion site, it was the fact that i couldn't draw up the insulin without matthew's help because the blue plunger thing on the cartridge is that hard to move without pulling it out. and the bubbles that resulted! oi!

i think that week just devolved for me, though. after my lovely little post below about my first day being great, i went on that night to get rear-ended by somebody at a red light. ya, red, i said! the next day my landlady suddenly had this burst of do-it-all-today energy, and i realized i had no test strips for my new meter.

hrmph. not a big deal, i know, but it kinda bummed me out i couldn't start using my one-touch til next week.

they say "when it rains, it pours" and that person wasn't kidding, eh? but a car accident? seriously, was that a necessary addition?

it's funny how the sky is certainly clearer after a good storm, though.

here's to hope and change.

ze pump is IN~

this is my picture of me with my little green pump on the very first day.

sorry, i couldn't resist. ;)

and uh ya, the tegaderm is huge!

the cde is ordering some tiny tegaderms for me. she laughed and said, "clearly, we need a smaller tegaderm. you're so tiny!"

but it's all very exciting!

i only had a weeeeee bit of trouble getting the sticky-tape-hand-maneuver-hold-the-cannula-down-while-removing-the-needle part down, but i think it was just because i had two cde's and the pump trainer watching me (!) it was just like when i was a medic doing iv's...honestly, only smaller and kinder and not vein-oriented. and i liked the "tender" insertion set they ordered. it's just like the 'silhouette'.

so i went straight home to have some lunch and you wanna hear something funny? i actually had a moment where i started reaching for a needle and felt something along the lines of...anger? like, sigh, more injections. it was all very subconscious and momentary...so momentary. but the moment was certainly there! (so i guess i've been even more ready for this than i thought.)

then i grinned and reached for my pump.

to be sure i'll have days where i say this thing has got to go but it's so great to think that sometime in the near future i'll understand it, and we can start trying for a bebe next year!! [cross your fingers!]

it's been so frustrating the last couple of months, especially. my diet's pretty low-glycemic, so keeping-up-with-my-lentils had become a tortoise-and-the-hare kind of race. when's it coming? should i take more? should i have taken less? how much do i have left? am i going higher or lower?!

today my post-prandial was about 165. just yesterday i would've sat there pondering if i needed more insulin to fix it. today, i could look at my insulin-on-board still and know that another.whole.unit was still on its way.

the best part?

my a1c came back this morning at an even 6%.

i know i've got a learning curve ahead of that requires a lot of patience, but still:

it can only get better from here. ;)

natural, sugar free pancakes~

so the other day we went to our local (no kidding, it really is locally-owned: yipeeeeee!) grocery store. i'm always willing to at least skim the nutritional information of [often so-called] sugar free products until i find my usual long list of disappointing ingredients to include but not limited to: maltitol, sucralose, soy protein, etc. more on my issues with these things later. but for now, the good news.

matthew (my partner) found this pancake mix. it's from "maple grove farms" and at first, i was like, yaaaaaaaaaa right! but like i said, i always obligingly look.

not bad at all: wheat gluten, corn starch, unbleached wheat flour, whey protein, leavening, salt, and 'natural flavor' (whatever the hell that means, right?)

so it comes out to about 2 small/medium pancakes a person with only about 8 carbs per pancake (you read that right). it says 'only 6 net carbs' because of the fiber subtraction, but we figured we made the pancakes a bit bigger. also, we like them very thin, so you may want to take that into account if you like thick 'cakes. by the way, no they do not taste like cardboard. matthew, my ever-honest-type 3-diabetic so kindly stated, "ya know, they taste just like whole-wheat pancakes!"

next time we're having the organic apple sausage from applegate farms, and voila! our breakfast will be gourmet stupendous!

but what about syrup, you ask?

well, first i must say i am appalled at the amount of carbohydrate in syrup; yes, even organic, all natural: 56 grams per 1/4 cup [scream!] pancakes are like, the out of the out breakfast option for me. adding even an 1/8 of a cup to already carb-coma-inducing pancakes sounds like pancreatic hell and i just can't justify putting peabody through that mess. think of your children, people! ;)

so we found a different option:

enter maple butter.

i found this stuff at the same grocer, it's from "shady maple farms". the best part is it's organic! and it's only about $3! it'll last forever too, because you barely need any. just be sure to put it on right when the pancake comes off the griddle or else it doesn't spread and melt as yummily.

mmmm, this stuff is amazing! for a big fat tablespoon, you get the same taste for 16 grams of carb. ok, i know it's not runny and fun like syrup, but the taste is swonderful and let me tell you, when you add up all the carbs you're eating: about 48 (2 pancakes, 1 Tbsp butter) instead of say, 100+, trust me: your pancreas will thank you.