Sand

Thursday:

Yesterday we took advantage of the fact we had no visitors, and relaxed most of the day. Then in the late afternoon, after the worst heat of the day was over, we went to the beach. The kids were very keen to try out their Christmas boogie boards (is that what they are called in other countries? like a cut-off surf board). They had fun, but it wasn't really a good day for it. There was a very strong wind, so every time they cruised in on their boards on the little waves they were pushed a long way down the beach and had to trudge back to where the safe area was marked by the flags (patrolled by life guards). And being on the beach itself was quite unpleasant, with the sand flaying skin off your bones. I still have sand in my ears despite soaking my head in the bath last night. But at least no-one got sunburned!

My husband is slightly right of middle in the blue Tshirt, with Jasmine in black behind him and Aiden over to the right with the orange/red board. It's the only photo I took between gusts of sand. I didn't deliberately put them in the side of the photo, but I could barely see what was in the frame and had to point and guess.

I did go in the water up to my waist for a little while but found it a bit cold and also full of displaced sand. I am really looking forward to our pool!

After rinsing off some of the sand in the public showers, we went out to dinner at a steak restaurant. Steak and salad was a pretty good choice for my diet but I also ate the curly fries.... and then we ordered dessert. Whoops. I had a deep-fried mars bar. Urg. I felt sick half way through but ate it anyway. My stomach looked like I had a balloon shoved up my shirt and I could barely stay awake the rest of the evening, but worse was my blood glucose level which was 12.2 mmol/L when I tested. That is into diabetic levels and possibly the highest I have ever tested. Really bad choice.

After nodding and dozing in front of the TV for a while, I went to bed and slept for nine and a half hours! For the last month or so I've usually only got around six. That was a good sleep, I guess, although I remember dreaming about being in hospital dizzy and with a fever. I was worried about my weigh-in this morning but I have already dropped back down to my lowest recent weight so that was good. I should end 2016 on a low for the year which is awesome.

 Today will be the hottest of the summer so far and I have no plans to leave the air conditioned house.

[edit: my brother-in-law Nick came over this afternoon and mentioned that he and my little niece Emma were at the same beach at the same time as us yesterday! They only dipped their toes in and played in the sand so they didn't need to be between the safety flags and were a bit further along.]

Rio

Sunday:

Has anyone outside of Australia heard of Peter Allen? You might have, he married Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland's daughter. He was an ... exuberant ... singer. One of his biggest hits goes:

When my baby, when my baby smiles at me I go to Rio,
de Janeiro, my-oh me-oh...

He sang it while shaking maracas and wriggling his fluoro-ruffled hips. The Rio Olympics always makes me think of that. Since we are over the other side of the world, as usual most of the events are during our night-time but there is repeat coverage all day. I love the Olympics.

My blood sugar levels have been high all weekend, much higher than normal for what I was eating. I don't usually test myself very often but I could feel a wrongness yesterday after breakfast (two slices of low-GI toast with cheese) so I've been checking after each meal and they are unacceptably high. Jasmine has a cold, so I assume I'm fighting off germs and that is messing my blood sugar levels around. I'm not really worried, having had a glucose tolerance test recently which showed I'm still in the pre-diabetes range but improved from the time before. It's interesting that the current "official" advice even for diabetics is to still eat plenty of carbs (like the equivalent of four slices of toast at once) and just take insulin when the carbs make your blood sugar levels shoot up! Take the poison and the antidote at the same time and you'll be fine. Except that you won't be fine for long. You have to keep taking more and more antidote until even that no longer works and you go blind and have your feet amputated. But what can you do, right? It's not like they could recommend you eat less carbs...

I have a leg of lamb roasting in the oven for dinner. Mmmm, smells delicious. But I'll go easy on the roast potato.

Phase two

Monday:

I started today with renewed enthusiasm and commitment to my blood-sugar stabilising diet. I went for a walk before breakfast. It had been raining all night and was nice and cool, if a little moist. I walked a loop that went up the hill (every direction is uphill from here, we're in a valley) and past Aiden's school, then back through some side streets where Google Maps saved me from getting lost.

I had home made Greek yoghurt with two nectarines for breakfast. Also a cup of tea: milk, no sugar. I've been going back and forth on that one; normal sugar, half normal, none. No sugar today, but I only had one cup. Just doesn't have the same appeal.

I made a chicken stir fry for lunch. These are the chopped vegetables, ready to go (for four people).

And yum!

For dinner we had tacos. I didn't have the shells, just piled up the salad, topped with beef, cheese, jalapenos and salsa. It was so good. I didn't actually eat all this. But most of it.

And I made it through the day sticking to the rules! Go me.

In the afternoon we went out to buy a guitar. This has been a bit of a saga for me. Tim gave me a guitar around five years ago for Christmas and I practiced daily for quite a while, then not quite so contentiously, then I hurt my shoulder again and didn't play at all. Then Tim started playing it and after a while far overshot my ability. I was really jealous and I struggled with that. He's been practicing on and off for several years now, and although I could have started again when my shoulder improved, I didn't. I felt so far behind. It was sometimes physically painful for me to listen to him play, and not because he was bad!

Then just recently Tim found an app that helped teach guitar, with feedback, a bit like the game "Guitar Hero" but with a real guitar. The kids got interested and both started learning, although the guitar was a bit big for them. Aiden had to lie it flat on his lap. I wanted to join in but was too jealous. Isn't that silly. Well, I did play a little in secret when they were out. And of course I'd forgotten everything. So much calendar regret. And a bit of resentment that my guitar had been taken over by everyone else. But because I am very short and rather plump, I found the full size guitar difficult to hold comfortably, so I made the suggestion that we buy a 3/4 size guitar so that I could start playing again. Tim then suggested we get it for Jasmine for her birthday! Oh boy. I felt so selfish and such a horrible mother, but I didn't want that. I didn't want to be borrowing someone else's guitar, not even my daughter's. So I kind of insisted we get a "family" one. We went out and chose one. Turns out Jas likes the full size one better anyway, so Aiden and I will use the little one. It is so much more comfortable for me to hold.

Came home and I played one song with the app then it kicked me out, saying free time for the day was up and I had to wait 12 hours before I could use the app again unless I paid for premium! Time to give up?

I always wanted to be able to accompany myself when I sing. I may not be able to play a musical instrument, but I have a nice singing voice.

Minions

Thursday:

We managed to get out of the house today. We started with a short walk around the edge of the local lake. I was told my new iPhone6 would take much better pictures than my 4S but so far I have struggled. Presumably my fault as a photographer. But sometimes it just won't respond to me pressing the button and I stand there jabbing at it while it takes forever to actually take a photo, which doesn't improve my aim, steadiness, or patience.

I don't think I've ever seen a white swan, even in a zoo. Funny to think that in parts of the world white swans are normal and black swans unusual!

I tried to take some photos of our new curtains this evening, but the light was bad and didn't show the colours truly (and also there was too much mess in the foreground!) so I'll have to try again in full daylight.

After our walk we went to the library for a while and borrowed lots of books. I found an old "Choose Your Own Adventure" for Aiden which he thinks is fun but frustrating finding the way through the maze of choices to the happy ending.

We had lunch at the shops -- crepes -- and then took a treat (Burger Rings for me) into the movies where we saw Minions. It was a fun movie, but I think the combination of high carb lunch then highly processed carb snack sent me into a bit of a carb coma. Even though I was enjoying the movie, I fell asleep. When I got home I tested my blood sugars, and even though it was three and a half hours after I'd started lunch (two hours is usually considered the peak) and the level was unacceptably high. I don't take this lightly, although I obviously wasn't thinking about it at the time. It is not a "treat" to make myself sick! Two of the books I borrowed from the library are about blood sugars and avoiding diabetes etc, I'll be using them to get my head back in the right space. I know what I need to do, but reading about it again helps keep me mindful. Until I get into some kind of habit, I need to remind myself again and again. Mostly natural foods! Not too many carbs at once! As soon as I got home I had some homemade chicken soup, I was craving protein!

Aside from this, it was a nice day out and I felt like we'd finally done some holiday things.

Report card:
Diet: Poor.
Exercise: Good.
Water: Ok.
Sleep: Poor. I'm still not completely over my unwellness and it seems to get worse at night, including nausea and stomach pains. I haven't been using my CPAP consistently; either only for a few hours or not at all, because of the various symptoms.
Mental health: Good.

Early feels so early

Wednesday:

I started off the day really well, getting up in time to do my walk even though I didn't want to. I also had a super-healthy lunch: a big salad with a few slices of lean lamb and a drizzle of balsamic dressing. But the rest of my day was very sedentary, I spent the whole day working hard getting ready for Uni next week. Going over my unit outlines, reading things I needed to read before my first tutorials, watching an online video. I have to be up to speed in Mathematics to do my Chemistry subject. I was very good at Maths at school - but that was 25 years ago! 1988. My goodness. I did an online diagnostic test, which was essentially "what do you remember from high school 25 years ago?" And the answer turned out to be "about half of it". Now I have six weeks to go through a series of online Maths tutorials and then get 80% in the real test. Phew.

Total steps today just over 7000. Most of that was my walk this morning then to and from the school twice.

At dinner time I went to cook the yummy steaks I had bought only a few days ago. Monday - two days ago! And they were ... euw. Turning green. Had to throw them away. I can't find the receipt either, must be buried under yuckness in the bin. I kept the labels from the trays and I'll see what the supermarket says - four T-bone steaks is a lot of meat and a lot of money! The kids needed something before their karate class so I gave them the other half of the lamb fillet (a tiny bit each) and salad. Then later ordered pizza for me and Tim. Which the kids ate a lot of. I was moderate - two slices of pizza and two pieces of garlic bread. But it still took my daily calorie total a little over my limit. And it must have sent my blood glucose sky high - I just tested it more than three hours later and it's still over 8.4 mmol/L.

Every day I will keep trying to do better.

F*ck

later Wednesday:

I just got a blood glucose reading of 10.8 mmol/L. Do you know when they call it diabetes? 11.0. Ok, that is 11.0 in carefully controlled circumstances exactly two hours after 75g of carbs with you sitting calmly the whole time after eight hours of fasting after three days of carb loading. But still, this is a horribly high number, the highest I've ever had. I am feeling really scared right now but that is a good thing. I need to keep this level of urgency, this determination.

I had a healthy lunch of chicken and salad. But I'm supposed to have carbs with each meal, so then I had some rice crackers that I bought before last Wednesday when I was told they were high GI. I wasn't ever going to buy more, but a shame to waste the yummy ones I already had, right? I had the amount of carbs allowed for the meal. Less than an hour later I started to feel a bit odd. It's hard to describe, but I've come to recognise a certain feeling as meaning my blood gluscose is high. I tested myself, and it was 10.8 mmol/L. Way above the "normal person's" high of 8 (which is what I aim for), above the "acceptable for a diabetic" 10.

I went to pick up the kids, feeling scared and trembly and very self-critical for my stupidity. When I tested myself again my blood glucose was down to 9.4. I'm not sure exactly what time I ate the rice crackers but this is probably around the 2 hour point.

I am absolutely determined that this lesson is now learned. It is not just the amount of carbs, but the type that matters. No high-GI foods.

The snack cuboard has gradually filled again since I last cleared it. Mostly stuff for the kid's school lunchbox, semi-junk like muesli bars and fruit sticks. But quite a few blocks of chocolate; my own purchases and left-overs. Chocolate biscuits (mine). The rice crackers (now gone, I gave the rest to the kids). A few random lollies left from Aiden's birthday. Marshmallows for hot chocolate. Chocolates that Tim gave me. It's embarrassing how much is in there.

D&D was moved to tonight and I will put out everything in that cupboard that isn't for the kids (I'm not really tempted by their stuff) and keep one block of quality dark chocolate for myself. Anything not consumed will be thrown away. I can't have it in the house. I already ate some of the Doritos I  bought for D&D when I found out it was postponed, I threw the rest away this morning because I didn't think an open packet would make it through the day.

I need to keep this level of panic. 11.0 might be a bit arbitrary for diagnosing diabetes, but at some point around that there is no going back. Prediabetes is reversable but diabetes isn't.

Another half an hour has passed and my blood glucose is 7.6 mmol/L, within normal limits. That's what high-GI means; a quick high then a quick drop.

later: I tested my blood glucose again after another half hour and it was down to 6, the bottom of the range (4-6 when fasting, like before breakfast, 6-8 two hours after meals). I should have had a snack. I didn't. I was just glad it was down. An hour and a half after that I was preparing dinner and I started to feel very odd, much like I did last week at gymnastics. I was trembling and it felt like my heart was racing. I felt very hungry, but dinner was only 15 mins away so that wasn't unusual. Then I started sweating heavily.

I went and checked my blood yet again. 3.9 mmol/L. I also, a bit later, checked the diabetes website. The definition of hypglycemic attack was under 4.0 and the early warning signs were:
*weakness, trembling or shaking
*feeling dizzy, light-headed
*sweating
*hunger
*tachycardia (racing heartbeat)
Four out of five. I was having a hypo. Presumably I did last week when I felt like this.

I had a chocolate biscuit and soon afterwards I had dinner. When I checked the website I found that chocolate is actually not so great because the fat in it makes it too slow-acting. Pure sugar, like soft drink or jelly beans, are better.

I am not a diabetic. I shouldn't be having hypos. Or peaks of 10.8 mmol/L. I am clearly getting worse.

Less than an hour after dinner I am back up to 8.2, a fraction too high but ok as long as it doesn't go higher. I am not getting this right. But I shouldn't have to be so careful. Very scary.

photo of blood glucose monitors by Bernard Farrell

Lying labels and weekend away

Sunday:

When I was shopping on Friday I picked up some Rice Stick Noodles to have with a stir-fry that night. I knew that both rice and pasta were high carb, but the packet said that 100g of noodles when prepared as directed (ie cooked in boiling water) was only 9.8g of carbohydrate -- easy to fit into my new plan of aiming for around 30g of carbs each meal. There were some fairly starchy vegetables in the stir-fry (carrot, baby corn, snow peas) and I had one square of chocolate for dessert; in all I estimated about 25g of carbs.

Two hours later my blood sugar was at an unacceptable 8.3 mmol/L.

I looked up Rice Stick Noodles on my app. It estimated 43g of carbohydrate for 100g! 43 is a little bit more than 9.8 -- not really within a reasonable error margin! So I think the packet lied, or was in error. It's imported from Thailand, so I'm not sure if Australian authorities are responsible or not. I am seriously considering contacting someone to complain/inform. It wasn't really a problem for me, but imagine the results if someone with real diabetes, maybe reliant on medication, trusted that label!

In a way it's good it happened, I learned a couple of things. Firstly, if something looks to good to be true, it probably is! I should have realised that that label was way off, considering it was pure high GI carbohydrate. Secondly, I know that around 58g of carbohydrate -- 4 serves -- is too much for me. This is important to know as at least one website suggested I have up to 55g of carbs with a meal. Further experimentation will show what I can have and remain below the magic number of 7.8 mmol/L. The rest of the time I have kept it under 7.0. Finally it shows me, if I needed further confirmation, that I definitely prediabetic; my body can't cope with large doses of carbohydrate. A "normal" person's blood sugars wouldn't have gone that high after a little handful of noodles.

I continued to carefully regulate my carbohydrate intake over the weekend, even though we were away from home. I had a banana on the road trip, modified McDonald's for lunch with nuggets and a salad and half a small fries, one micro-mini cupcake at afternoon tea and two biscuits at the second afternoon tea at another house, and only half a cup of rice at the Thai restaurant for dinner -- the rest meat and vegetables with nothing starchy or fried. My blood sugars were great all day.

I didn't take my testing kit with me today as it would have been too much to carry walking around the city, so I'm not as sure about today. I had bacon & eggs for breakfast with some toast, a cup of milk for afternoon tea, and two mini fajitas for dinner. All good levels of carbs. But then there was lunch ... I had chicken and spinach and a little bit of potato, good there. A fruity cocktail, not too bad. Then a big chocolate-filled eclair. Probably pretty bad, especially since it was at the same time as the other things. At least I did a bit of walking around the city and up & down the picturesque paths in the Chinese Gardens at Darling Harbour. In fact, I was walking while I was eating my eclair -- that cancels out, right?

We had a lovely weekend away. I got to see my cousins' babies; Kimberley had little girl Harper (10 weeks) and her brother Jamie (and his wife, of course) had twin boys Ryder and Jesse (about 4 months). I hadn't seen them yet. Then we saw my brother-in-law Nick and his wife, they are newly pregnant. A very baby day! Then dinner with my father-in-law, night at a lovely hotel with ocean views, and the next day wandering around the city. It snowed here in Canberra on Friday, but only 3 1/2 hours drive away in coastal Sydney it was warm and sunny. I ended up carrying around my coat, the kids' jumpers, and Tim's long-sleeve shirt (he kept his T-shirt on!). Tim had his hands full with the eleven books we bought at our favourite fantasy & sci-fi bookstore Galaxy that we hardly ever get to now that we don't live Sydney. The kids had the fun of riding in a train (we don't have trains in Canberra) and they slept most of the drive home in the car so they got to skip all the boring bit. All in all, a really nice weekend for everyone.

To Gecko or not to Gecko?

Thursday:

I felt a bit sluggish on the rower today, I assume due to my slight cold (feeling a lot better today already), but I still beat my previous best distance. 4.24 km in 30 mins today.

The kids are starting to get a bit resistant to going to Gecko fitness, although they loved it at first. We get home from school then have afternoon tea and change and go straight out again, three days a week. They don't get much time just to play. Or do their chores or homework. They already do gymnastics and violin lessons. Also, there are a couple of very disruptive little girls in the Gecko class who fight with each other and chew gum & eat lollies the whole time (while exercising!) and don't do as they are told. My kids find that a bit hard to deal with. I was going to cancel today but the gym gave me a number to call and now I am reconsidering. It has its downsides, but it is good exercise. And it gets me to the gym even when I don't want to go. I will think about it some more.

I've been carefully moderating my carbohydrate intake and testing my blood glucose levels and they have been excellent all day. Whatever "impaired glucose tolerance" I have is clearly controllable with diet and exercise. And should be reversable.

Glucose tolerance test

Wednesday:

I had my glucose tolerance test for diabetes this morning. I don't see the doctor until next Wednesday, which is frustrating. I couldn't even see my usual doctor then, I would have had to wait even longer, so I'm just seeing some random doctor in the same clinic. The results might be ready on Friday, maybe I can get a look at them early. My nutritionist friend can translate them for me, she asked me to get a copy but I forgot.

By yesterday afternoon I was starting to feel a bit unwell. I don't know if it was the cold I've caught from my son, or the high levels of carbohydrates. Or both. My blood sugars were 9.8 two hours after lunch and 9.0 two hours after dinner, both pretty high. The clinic said I can still do the test while I have a cold so presumably it also wouldn't affect these figures.

I started fasting at 9.30pm. I didn't sleep well at all and felt a bit nauseated in the morning after I got up. At the clinic I gave them a wee sample then rested for a while, then they took the vial of fasting blood before I drank the horrible horrible glucose drink -- 75g of glucose in 300mL of water, that is equivalent to 15 teaspoons of sugar. I felt extremely nauseated afterwards and was quite worried about vomiting. I would have loved to lie down somewhere. I also felt very cold, and a bit weak and dizzy. But I got through it and they took blood at one hour and two hours, then I could go.

They didn't do a fingerprick test at the same time (they have in the past, when I did the test at the hospital) so I have no idea what sort of blood sugar level I had. I did think about taking my own testing kit with me, to use in the toilets if they wouldn't show me the fingerprick figures, but decided against it. I wish I had. I hate not knowing stuff.

 I went and had part of a Subway sandwich on the way back to my car but still felt quite nauseated for another hour or so. I'm a lot better now (2.30pm) but still not great; but that could be more about my cold. Runny nose and headache etc.

Now I just have to wait and see. I hate waiting.

Starting to panic just a little bit

Monday:

I have nearly finished day two of carbo loading for my glucose tolerance test on Wednesday. I am starting to get quite worried about what the result will be. I had my old testing kit from when I had gestational diabetes, so I've done a few blood tests at different times of day, both before and after I started the carb loading. At first I thought the results were ok, mostly. A bit high one hour after eating; but that is ok, right, because they generally tell you to test two hours after eating when your blood sugars have stabilised a bit. Now I'm not sure if it is ok or not.

Worse, I also now think that what I was reading as "acceptable" was actually only "acceptable for a diabetic". Not "normal". I've read a lot of web-sites (yes, yes, a very dangerous thing to do. Damn you, easily accessable internet!) and I've found all the information a bit confusing. They generally only give a fasting figure for non-diabetics (mine is ok) but don't talk much about what it should be later in the day.

I haven't been keeping very comprehensive records yet, just a few tests here and there, but for my own records here is what I have so far (btw for Americans multiply everything by 18 to get mg/dL):

Fri 10 Aug
3.50 pm (more than two hours after a high-carb lunch) -- 6.7 mmol/L
5.00 pm (one hour after 35g carbs) -- 10.2, this is very high
6.00 pm (two hours after 35g carbs) -- 5.5

Sat 11 Aug
7.30 am (fasting) -- 4.3 mmol/L, this is normal
2.00 pm (after very high-lunch, about 60g) -- 8.4
3.00 pm (two hours after lunch) -- 6.5

Mon 13 Aug
3.20 pm (more than two hours after super-high-carb lunch, about 100g) -- 7.6 mmol/L
5.30 pm (two hours after low-carb afternoon tea* and half an hour exercise) -- 4.7
8.30 pm (two hours after pasta for dinner) -- 7.4

* I ate some of my afternoon-tea carbs at lunch, so afternoon tea was just strawberries; I probably shouldn't have done it that way.

So. If normal non-diabetic blood sugar is supposed to be 4--6 mmol/L all the time, then I am stuffed. Definitely diabetic. If it is allowed to go up to 7.8 two hours after eating and never get above 10, then I only need be a tiny bit worried. Still need to take action for my health, but not an immediate problem. If it is allowed to go up to 7.8 two hours after eating and the one hour after eating mark doesn't matter at all, then I am just fine and dandy.

I've been feeling bloated and a bit headachy and a bit sick today. I though it was all the carbs, but this evening I have a bit of a sore throat, so maybe I'm just sick. Aiden has a runny nose.

At the gym today I did my first 30 min row. I didn't go fast, just steadily, and got to 4.22 km. I didn't really have any problems rowing for that long so maybe the carbo loading is good for something.