A few tidbits

It's late, but I have a few things to share. We went for our follow up ultrasound today since the one on Wednesday didn't work out as the heart person wasn't there. Our little boy is 1 pound 1 ounce and looking totally normal in every way. I also learned that Shaquille O'Neil was only 7lb. 8oz. at birth. We got to look at his liver and heart and took a few more pictures for posterity. I'll post the good ones soon.

I paid $0.99 for Peggle on the iPhone last night and it was by far the best purchase I've made in a while now. I was all Cranky Pants about my dress being a disaster and within 15 minutes I was giggling with glee. Money well spent. Rich, of course, is now lying beside me in bed playing the game and blowing my high score out of the water because that's how he is. I'm trying to not let that bother me.

Speaking of purchases, I learned today that Microsoft is no longer going to sell Money (like Quicken but the MS version). I hate Quicken so I'm going to have to do some soul searching about why I log our money and what parts of it are important to me. I'm thinking Google Docs may help, but we'll see.

With the increased daylight, I've been getting a lot more OV license plate photos lately. I find it ironic (maybe just interesting ... damn you, Alanis Morrissette) that we drove 3.5 hours down to Cary, NC tonight only to pull into the parking lot of the hotel next to an OV license plate I've not seen before. We are everywhere!

And speaking of 3.5 hours in the car, that is not fun when you're pregnant. I could not get comfortable and my legs kept feeling like they were swelling up or falling asleep. Short of the diabetes issues, my swollen calves may be my first actual pregnancy inconvenience. I'm sure there are plenty more to come. It's also amazing how quickly one can go from "everything's great, it's the miracle of life" to "oh my God, I look like a fat cow, don't even look at me" just from one little dent in a calf after resting it on the dashboard. Good times.

The good news, though, is my blood sugars have done better today. I'm trying out an infusion site on my thigh and it's going solidly okay there. I can probably get used to it and I haven't ripped it out accidentally so that's a plus. Amazingly, the ultrasound tech was the one that explained around 23 weeks the placenta starts to grow a lot more and send your blood sugars into a tizzy. Wouldn't it be nice if my diabetes educators had told me that?

I finally picked a topic for the next LOL project but I probably won't get around to writing about that until Sunday night or Monday so stay tuned! I think it's gonna be a good one.

I could use a diabetes vacation right about now

This is a sample of what my last two days have been like.

First, some explanation of the picture. Remember my blood sugars are supposed to stay under 150 at all times. I highlight my morning fasting blood sugars in blue so the dietitian can scan through them over three weeks (she complained about that a month ago that my chart was too confusing for her to read). I also label my breakfast, lunch and dinner meals to help break up each day and I made a pink header for each day to help separate those in each week. I do a new worksheet for each week, starting on Monday. I log my blood sugar, a description of the food, estimated carb content, how much insulin I took and any notes. I also added that protein column this week as a bit of a "screw you" after my last appointment. Oh and while I'm not a military time kind of person at all, it's much easier for logging data quickly.

What is so infuriating is that the dietitians want to have some reason (generally something I did wrong) that causes any blood sugar out of range. It's how they feel helpful. But if you press them too much with "alright, I give up. You tell me why my blood sugars were so high all day!" what usually happens then is they give some lame excuse of "well, sometimes there just isn't an explanation." Well, that's just fucking great.

I can't wear my infusion sites on my stomach anymore because the skin is tight and sensitive but everywhere else I've tried so far hurts and happens to be some place I run into all the time so I'm afraid I'm going to rip them out. I got a huge bruise on my arm from my last CGM sensor so much so that it hurt to sleep on that side. My blood sugar is 211 right now, despite taking twice the insulin I should have at lunch (I bolused for it and then punted on half the meal because it was gross).

The other day I was casually trying to explain something about one of the many devices I wear attached to me or some complicated routine I go through to manage all this and someone remarked, "I just couldn't do all that. If that were me, I'd just die." Really? You'd let something like diabetes sucker-punch you like that? You'd just give up? You'd just find someone else to make you a baby or tell you what to eat or do your math for you? God I hope not.

Matt used to talk about the hassles of his colostomy then laugh and say, "it sure beats being dead, though!" It's hard and it's unfair and it's a giant pain in the ass, but it's just another one of those things that isn't going to get better by ignoring it. I was hoping writing all this down would make me feel better, but I'm still pissed off.

I'll change my infusion site and tubing in case it's gone bad (wish me luck finding a new spot that doesn't hurt). I'll close my office door and have a good cry about it. I'll drink more water and check my blood again in an hour. And I'll just keep going. They don't make vacations from stuff like this.

Media player for your parents

My parents emailed me the other day with a link to a song they'd found on Google. It was the lyrics page for a song but had the YouTube video embedded on the page as well. They then asked: "We can play this on our computer right now and I would like to be able to save it to a flash drive but I don’t know how."

Sigh. I then had to explain what streaming audio is and how even though they're listening to the song right now there isn't an MP3 of it hiding on their hard drive somewhere. We didn't even get into copyright law. The last thing I need to do is introduce my parents to BitTorrent or Pirate Bay.

So it amused me to see Maggie Mason's Father's Day gift ideas this evening. In particular, the sanDisk slotRadio seemed right up my parents' alley. You can purchase it bundled with a media disk of 1000 songs that can be copied anywhere seemingly DRM-free. And since my parents are still using a dial-up internet connection (don't even get me started about that), it saves them from waiting for 1000 songs to download from the ether, regardless of price. It also comes with an FM tuner for those folks who want to tune into the gym's TV stations while working the treadmill. Try that with your Nano.