Magic Numbers

It appears that my magic basal number during the day is somewhere between .45 and .55 units per hour. After a shitty morning, my numbers after noon evened out really well.

I've set myself at .55 for the morning and .45 at night, with adjustments for exercise (.25 for evening cardio, .35 for morning exercise, with an option to just suspend insulin for a workout if I need to. I can go as low as .10 per hour).

I knew that the pump process was going to be two weeks of calibration and bitchiness, and I got all of that today. Starting my morning with rolling lows always fucks me up, and I was weepy and bitchy all day, which is rough to do when you have to be cool and professional and on top of shit at work. I got very little done today. I considered it an accomplishment that I finished our spinning workout without passing out (tested at a very respectable 111 after the workout), and attended all meetings and spoke coherently (I only had to test during one meeting, fearing I was spiking low. Turned out I was just really queasy and jumpy; I fear I wasn't as coherent in that meeting as I should have been either).

I should only have to do this crazy testing-every-two-hours thing for another day. After tomorrow, I should have established a reasonable baseline.

I felt so fucking horrible today, though, you know? It's funny what fucked-up sugar does. I wore a loose shirt today to help mask the pod, which I have to wear on my stomach the first couple of days just until the calibration is done, then I can wear it on my leg or upper arm, but here I am, wearing this frumpy shirt, and my skin looks horrible, and has my bottom half always been so big? Why do I look like I mushroom? Why can't I be skinny and cute and unintimidating? Why does my hair look like shit? I look horrible and frumpy and unlovable. I hate the whole world! I just want to die! No one will ever love me! I look like a frumpy Ohio housewife! I am worthless!

And then I look again and just sigh because hey, yo, I'm just crazy. Because I don't look any different than I did the day before, and I love being able to bash things really hard. It's a relief now, you know, that when I feel that way I can just be like, "Hey, I'm crazy!" and move on.

I think I'll wear something a little less frumpy tomorrow, though, which might just help how I feel. As will a less fucking crazy sugar morning.

For now, I'm absolutely fucking exhausted, and not worth much of anything about now.

This is one of those "I hate being sick!" days, but there's that other part of me, the conscious-of-the-crazy part, that thinks it's pretty cool to be alive, and pretty neat that we have such crazy gadgets to help us stay that way.

Rumor has it there's a new pod coming out next year that's 40% smaller than this one (and this one ain't huge at all), and a smaller PDM (remote control) with a cooler screen coming out next year.

Better yet? They're working on the continuous glucose monitor + omnipod thingie that will automatically take your blood sugar all day long (no more finger pricking 10 times a day!); then you can remote in the correction via the PDM. It's already pretty sweet that my meter is integrated with the remote, but to bring the whole thing together will be really great.

That's a couple years away yet, tho. In the meantime, it's manual testing and calibration.

But, you know, let's put this in perspective:

This was the first time in two years that I didn't have to jab myself with a needle at least four times.

That's gotta be a big leap forward.