Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Oh hallelujah!

I was left to walk across a field in Nebraska alone because my brother talked my parents into driving away as a prank. Thank goodness it was only a few hundred feet. :) 
      Where to begin? Should I start with the fact that I successfully made it through my first week of work? Nope, you probably won't care? Should I begin with how awful it is to pack for a two week vacation and not having enough shorts or test strips to cover it all? Nope, that's a whole other story. Should I start with the start of my two week college road trip? Yup, let's start there. 
     I don't know where to begin (did I cover that already?) Well, two Thursdays ago (6/14) I was boarding a plane for Omaha. I know, what could possibly be in Omaha that I would need to visit for two weeks. Well, Omaha was just the start. My family and I were embarking on a two week road trip where we would hit Concordia Seward, Martin Luther College, Concordia St. Paul, Wisconsin Lutheran College, and Concordia Meckwan. All while visiting family, friends, and tourist attractions along the way. There are four people including me who went on this trip. A plane only seats three in a row. So I volunteered to be the odd man out and sit alone a few rows back from the rest of my family. I got comfortable in my seat next to the window and began reading my book waiting for the plane to taxi out of Vegas so I could listen to my Ipod. A few minutes later two older ladies came and sat in the empty seats next to me. I, trying to be polite say hello and held their coats while they buckled in. Why in the world they would need coats in 100 degree Vegas weather beats me, but I held them. About ten minutes later we were prepping for take off, and just to be on the safe side I decided it would be a great time to test. I pulled out my meter and tried to test discreetly, as I have had experiences with testing on a plane before, when randomly the lady sitting in the middle seat leaned over and got a little to close to my ear and whispered "it's okay I do it too." I looked at her awkwardly as she was still in my personal bubble. "I'm sorry?" I answered back. "I test my blood sugar too. Mine isn't anything fancy like yours, but I test myself too!" She sounded excited so I asked the dumbest question I could have possibly came up with "Do you have diabetes?" I should have known that there was a 98% chance she would have said yes, but her answer surprised me. "No." When she said this I was slightly confused why else would she possibly test her blood sugar?? "I have sever hypoglycemia." She said matter-o-factly. Oh hallelujah! We shared stories and I told her about my blog and that was that. I noticed her peaking over at my meter when I tested again about an hour later, and I also noticed the sour look on her face when it flashed back at 52, and then again an hour later with a 60. She knew what it was like. She was on the inside of the same circle I'm stuck in the middle of! We exchanged emails and decided to stay in touch. I told her to have safe travels and that was that. Done.
     This is only day one of traveling. I hope to bring you more enlightenment on what went down soon. :) Hope you all have had a great June!!

Keep your head up and be ready for any conversation,
Ellie <3

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Party At My Place

   
     Today is my first day of work. Not volunteering, not helping my grandma and getting payed. Working. Being on a pay-roll, having to show up on time, you know the drill. My hours are great, I work from one in the afternoon until six at night. This way I have plenty of time in the mornings to hang out with my brother and do summery type things and then I have time at night to still make it to my new Kettlebells class at 7:15. It works for me. But what this also means is an earlier lunch, limited snack times for me, and a much later dinner. There is also not an onsite nurse that I can consult with if I ever become very low or just feel "off". Granted, I am working at a preschool so the kids will have a snack time that I will be able to sneak in some extra carbs, but I will be working in the play area/ gym. Which means stress overload and playing with kids. Which also means I will need twice as many fast acting carbs and a few more grams of protein to cover it all. Now I just feel like I'm already running in circles. So needless to say.. I'm nervous.
     It also really doesn't help that last night around 2:00 AM my blood sugar decided it was going to be a great time to go deep sea scuba diving and never come back up. So just like I do in the day time with a bg of 40 I did at night. Except, I was still half asleep. Right in the middle of a partying type dream. My best friends were all wasted and I was the only one sober (good for me!). Until I found the bottle of apple juice. So I was up for an hour and half doing juice box shots, rocking out to my ipod (quietly, normal people aren't up this hour) and pricking my finger every half hour or so. Yup. That was my night. Now I feel hung over and very slow to want to face the challenges of a new job this afternoon.
I. Will. Make. It.

Keep your head up and your mind open,
Ellie <3

Monday, June 4, 2012

We Have Orders!!

   
      We only have three more days left in school. For some reason our sucky school system decided to keep us in school for an extra two weeks compared to every other school system in the United States of America, and maybe even including Canada. All I know is we're so close to the end. What also sucks though, is that I was just starting to get a routine down. The doctor ordered I start testing my blood sugar around six times a day, just to see if we can find a pattern, we can't, but still we have orders, which means Mrs. M the school nurse can officially put me into the system! Which is both good and bad. The good thing is this piece of information is aromatically sent straight to my teachers. They can no longer say I'm 'abusing' the health office. Cons to this, is that I have to do all my tests in the health office. Once at 8:00am, 12:00pm, and if I decided it's needed once at 1:00pm before I get on the bus. Before when I was only going up to make sure I was treating a low with enough carbs I would come get a snack and go. Now, even if I'm the slightest bit low I have to stay and wait, so I'm missing more class time. And if I forget to go up, they hunt me down and I have to go up and test. But, we've been catching waay more lows this way. Now we're catching them in the 60's and high 50's instead of 40's and 30's. That's a trade off I'm willing to make. But, this all started a week ago, and now it's the end of the year. Next year I'm just going to have to start from the ground up again which isn't exactly my favorite thing ever. Either way, I have three more half days left until Summer and I. Am. Ready.

Keep your head up and your sunscreen close,
Ellie <3