Tag Archives: low blood sugar

Christmas Shopping Highs and Lows with the boys….

10 Saturday Dec 2011

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I had one of those bad lows today, the kind I haven’t had in awhile, the kind where the objects in front of my eyes start to flash, and the worst part was that I was Christmas shopping in the middle of Toy R Us with my 3 boys. Reid and Miles were climbing in and out of the $300 battery operated cars, Will was browsing in another aisle, and I was standing there trying to stay calm, eating one glucose tab after another. I’m confident that no one noticed, and after a few minutes, I was steady on my feet and swimming my way back to the surface with the rest of the shoppers.

I was low because that morning I’d been high, and gave an extra bolus to bring myself down. Obviously the blous was too much and now, many hours later as I sit at the table writing, I am toast. Exhausted. Spent. These roller coaster days don’t happen often, but when they do, they remind me of that I am not invincable. That Christmas shopping alone with my kids on a Saturday in December may not be the best idea. That most of the time after I’ve been high, I am low, and that if I am going to be low the best place to be is home.

But they also make me feel small and ashamed and not like a very good mother. The logical part of my brain knows that mistakes happen and I shouldn’t beat myself up but still, when I am  standing in the middle of Toy R Us with the lights flashing, the emotional part of my brain feels like a failure.

I’m thankful that these days don’t happen very often, and I’m thankful for glucose tabs. Here’s to shopping online.

“Hi, My Name is Amy and I am a High Maintenance Eater”

21 Monday Nov 2011

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I have been a high maintenance eater for as long as I can remember. I think my parents would say I was fairly high maintenance even before I was diagnosed with diabetes at 14 years old. I have never liked to try new foods and mostly stick to what I like. Routine makes my life easier as a women with type 1 diabetes, which is all fine and good 90% of the time. I cook dinner for my family almost every night and eat almost all of my meals at home and that way, I eat what I like and my blood sugars stay relatively stable.

It’s the holidays that screw me up.

From Thanksgiving to New Year’s Eve there will be dinner’s out and parties and various celebrations, and for all these years that I’ve lived with diabetes, I always end up with high and low blood sugars during the holidays. I can eat the exact same meal at my mom’s that I would prepare at my own house and somehow, after dinner I’d be low. It has made me careful when it comes to what I put on my plate, and a side effect of being “careful” is feeling high maintenance when I don’t eat half the food that is presented at Thanksgiving dinner. “You don’t like mashed potatoes?” someone will ask and I will want to scream. Of course I like mashed potatoes, I love mashed potatoes but I can’t eat them. Someone else will say, “Aren’t you going to have some of the pumpkin pie?” Or “You’ve got to have a bite of this stuffing!”Most of my family understands my eating habits and it’s only when there are new guests at the table that questions are asked. (And of course the holidays are only a few days out of the year, I can have some pie and bolus extra to cover the delicious desert if I want to, but most of the time it’s not worth the trouble.)

With a few days left until the big dinner, I’ve decided to take a new approach. From here on out I’m going to think about the way I eat not as HM, but as taking care of myself. It’s a lot easier than it was years ago as there are a range of vegans, paleo, and low carbers out there reading nutrition labels who help me feel less alone in the quest for the foods I want to eat. So, with the swarms of (picky) specialized eaters out there, I’m going to embrace my HM self and hold my head high when I explain that no, I’m not eating any mashed potatoes. Pass me the brussel sprouts instead.

1 in 20 diabetics will die from hypoglycemia (according to JDRF)

08 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by in diabetes, diabetes blogs and websites

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Scare tactics from JDRF have the blog-o-sphere community all fired up. Amy Tenderich takes a balanced view on DiabetesMine. She says,

“JDRF stands behind the statistic, citing multiple studies, while some observers balk that “this ‘fact’ appears to be based almost entirely on one author’s (Dr. Cryer’s) interpretation of a variety of studies done by others.”

Here’s what I think:

I too have mixed feelings about the ad and mostly, what it reminds me of are the scary, negative stereotypes that used to get center stage when I was first diagnosed in 1985. We have worked too hard to dispel the myths of diabetes such as: the 7th leading cause of death, blindness, amputations etc…negative myths and images of diabetes that used to keep me awake in the middle of the night, terrified that I would never be able to have children, never grow old, and that if I did grow old, I would be very sick. I am so glad that we have worked to change stereotypes of diabetes in these last 25 years, and that we have positive role models who are changing the face of diabetes, because I am no longer afraid of growing old. And this JDRF ad feels like a giant step backward.

My latest Chronic Mama column

16 Monday Nov 2009

Posted by in diabetes, literary mama, motherhood, posted by Amy S. Mercer, pregnancy

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“Asking for Help.” see Literary Mama…

I started running the year I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. I was 14 years old and living away from home at a private school. My field hockey coach had been surprised when she saw me running on a Sunday afternoon, our day off. I’d always complained when she made us go for a run around campus, and had been caught taking the shortcut more than once. That year she gave me a “Most Unlikely Runner” gag award at the end of our season, but I could tell that she was proud. I was proud. Running was teaching me to see my body as healthy rather than sick. With my running shoes on I was strong and steady, not the girl with the chronic disease. Running began as a way to tame my blood sugars, but over the years it has become a necessary rhythm in my life. As the mother of three boys under ten, running every morning keeps me calm and steady in the middle of the motherhood storm.