Earthquake and Endocrinology

We just had an earthquake.  A 4.2 north of Spanish Springs.  My building rocked.  Riley seemed unfazed, but Solo hid.  She just came creeping out of the bedroom towards the slider to look out, body low.  Well, that was exciting.

I wanted to document my visit to the endocrinologist today to process what he said and better remember it, so sorry if this is boring.

So first, I have to go buy a cute new notebook to track my blood sugar, because what I'm doing is working and I just need to fine tune it, which means writing everything down, which I hate doing.  My incentive is both his praise that I'm doing great and knowing a lot of my success hinges on me studying my own blood sugar readings.  Maybe a cute notebook will help.

During the nurse's visit, we checked my height, which hasn't been done in... I don't know.  Lena's right, I'm not 5'7", I'm 5'7 3/4".  The nurse gave me 5'8".  Mystery solved.

Endocrinology says:

Continue checking at bedtime, eat a snack if below 170.

It takes up to one year for your system to be completely rid of Depo Provera.  Great.  And he's not a fan of Depo for diabetics anyway, so I suspect if I hadn't already decided to stop, he'd have convinced me to.

I need to adjust the long-acting insulin by two units at a time, waiting 3-4 days to see the results before adjusting it again.  Dosage should be adjusted if fasting blood sugar is below 80 or above 140.

If my blood sugar is good before a meal, it should be 80-160 1.5 hours after I eat.  If not, the carb counting is wrong.

If I correct my blood sugar before a meal, it should be 80-160 1.5 hours after I eat.  If not, the correction rate is wrong.  The doctor thinks my actual correction rate should be 1:25-30.

By the way, Jenny, this means testing 1.5 hours after you eat.  Be prepared to set more alarms and make yourself insane with all the record keeping you are going to have to do.

My injection sites are developing some thick tissue.  He said you should not use the same spot more than once a month in order to let it heal.  Thickening tissue will make the insulin's effectiveness sporadic, and if I move the injection sites around more, I will likely need less insulin, because it will work better.  I have to start basically right below my bra strap, where I can pinch some skin and move over an inch at a time across my midsection, then down about an inch and work my way across again, avoiding the belly button.  I'll also go back to jabbing my legs on the tops of my thighs.  Can't wait to start that again.  :(

Glucose tabs are better than juice not because the tabs are already glucose instead of fructose.  They are better because the tabs are chewed and absorbed in the mouth heading directly into the blood stream, while juice and other options are swallowed and sent to the stomach, which doesn't work when blood sugar is low.

I often wake up high the morning after my middle of the night crashes.  I'm not having too many glucose tabs- 3 or 4 is perfect.  It's the supporting snack with protein that's too much.  Cut that piece of peanut butter toast in half.

My thyroid test results are normal for the average mixed population, but it's too low for a female my age.  I don't exactly get this, because my last result was 4.75 and they'd like me at 2.5-3, so how do I qualify as too low?  But whatever, he told me today that I have hypothyroidism, not hyper.

Signs to watch for regarding the thyroid are palpitations, feeling jittery, and on the other side, malaise.  I always read that the medication for hypo leads to problems with hyper, and vice versa, so I cannot keep them straight.  The main thing I want to do here is utilize my readers and ask you to give me a nudge if I start complaining about something that sounds thyroid related, since I am notoriously oblivious about these things.

The sky was mostly clear yesterday, but today we're back to smoke, so I am going to feed the animals and go look for a new notebook.  Then Riley and I will do a short walk and maybe wander through Home Depot.  Oh, and I finished The Dust Bowl.  Turns out we're working on creating the same problem, only now we're also using up the underground water.  We'll turn the Great Plains into the Sahara yet!  Love you, Ken Burns, but Prohibition was less depressing than this.

Last of all- while on the 4th floor today, I stopped to meet and chat with the schedulers that I know well by name, but never met.  They are appreciative of my notes because I collect as much scheduling information as I can and get permission for them to schedule within those parameters and send out the card rather than playing phone tag.  Yesterday I went into work to help catch up from Friday's insanity.  I finished my own notes, then started on my coworkers' and found things like this:

Last name of veteran
Last four of veteran's SSN
"Pulmonary"

What the fuck does that mean?  What a waste!  Now I have to call them back to see what they wanted and still have to forward it on to that department.  Why don't these people understand that not only are they making the vet play some very unnecessary phone tag, they are also not helping their colleagues or even themselves?  This just means more phone calls for you, too!  I was SO annoyed.  So today was nice when I got to meet these folks in another department and they expressed appreciation for what I do and what I have gotten some of my coworkers to do.  "Those notes are my favorites," said my favorite and most helpful scheduler up there.  Aww.  That makes me feel nice.  It also makes me think harder about how I can inspire more of my coworkers to do this very simple action instead of just get mad at them, which is my first reaction.  That's probably a better plan than shaking an example at them, shouting, "WHY WON'T YOU DO THIS!?!?!?!!?"