Painfully Familiar

My husband and I purchased bicycles recently. We have wanted them for some time, since it is one of the few physical activities we both enjoy, so we just did it. It has been a long time since either of us has ridden a bike. That first ride, the first day we got them was wonderfully familiar to me. In my younger days, I was a true biker. At age 14 I did a 600 mile bike trip in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, it was not uncommon for my me and my dad to hop on our bikes and go 10, 15 or 20 miles, and then in college I loved mountain biking with the boys. On a bike, I feel comfortable, capable and strong.

I love the whirring of the tires on the pavement, the wind in my face, the click of the gears as I shift and that the bike only moves as hard as I pedal it. On the second ride we took at a nearby park, biking became painfully familiar. We may have overestimated ourselves by choosing to take the 3 mile path that is quite hilly. As in real hills not just slight elevations that when on a bike seem like huge hills. My heart beating so forcefully in my chest that I could hear it in my ears, gulping huge gasps of air, trying to catch my breath and the burn in my legs as I struggled up the hills, those too, were very familiar.

The next evening we were back on our bikes for a flatter ride and plan to ride when time and weather permit.

Old Dog, New Tricks?

They say “you can’t teach old dogs new tricks.” I feel like an old dog who cannot seem to learn new tricks. The feeling like an old dog part has meaning on several levels since I just have not been feeling that great lately. I caught a cold (the stuffy nose and gross cough variety) that I just can’t seem to shake, my monster headaches have returned, insomnia is in again and the general stress level of my life is up. All I want to do many days is sleep like an old dog. The new tricks part refers to me and my learning to take better care of my diabetes. The minimum: testing, logging, bolusing and carb counting.

The only one I have really done better with is testing but since I haven’t picked up the trick of logging I have no good proof of this. I feel like I have been better about blousing when I eat as opposed to after, but again, it’s hard to show that when I am lacking the logging the part. I’m trying to not be so hard on myself and recognize what I have accomplished and keep trying.

I have been blessed with an anonymous-to-you-commenter (but not to me anymore) on my blog who offered their help in the baby steps and subsequently given support via e-mail. We had a great plan to check in with each other on Mondays and Fridays and set goals for ourselves. Well I am ashamed to admit that I let the ball drop on that one. The last time we e-mailed was like the 14th of March. Before I post this, I will e-mail them and see if I can salvage that support.

Other stress comes from work get busy with a couple of big events coming up: The Celebrity Art Auction and Gala and the Tour de Cure Rock-n-Ride at Blossom. Then there is the bigger stress of a serious illness in my husband’s family which entails one dog staying at our house and my husband staying at his sibling’s house with another dog. We get to see each other every day for dinner and on the weekends but the whole situation is crappy and tough. Except for having Skippy stay at our house – he is a great dog.

Another bit of stress came after I spent a few days in Toledo with my niece, Maddy, who stole my heart and came home really, really, really wanting one of my own. Because of many reasons we are looking at adoption and since there are age-limits for many types of adoptions, (not to mention, our own life plans) and my husband will turn 44 in May, the clock is ticking. It hasn’t gotten stressful yet but we are well aware that path ahead is likely to be rough.

So in a nutshell, that is what’s going on. I was horrified when my faithful reader in the office pointed out that it had been 20 days since my last post.

What Do You Think?

So since I have gotten so many warm congrtulations and people saying they are in my cheering section, I feel like I do have my very own cheering section. This has helped me immensly. Thank you all.

On a lighter note, I was thinking that perhaps my 'cheering seciton' should have uniforms. What do you think of these?

and I didn't forget the guys

Baby Steps Taken

In the past 4 days I have tested a total of 20 times! Go Me! I have tested each morning, first thing, before my coffee. This was helped by my putting my test kit on my bedside table so that even before my feet hit the floor, I test. In addition to actually doing my blood sugars I have been – are you ready for this - writing them down in a logbook I created! The readings are all over the place, but I am following everyone’s advice of baby steps and simply concentrating on doing the blood sugars and logging them. I admit I have still done a couple of S.W.A.G. boluses* and an evening of no testing but I am trying. Hopefully in a week or so I will be ready to start taking a look at the numbers and making adjustments.

Do I get a virtual gold star?

Much of my accomplishments are thanks to my OC and real-life friends. See I opened my big mouth and told pretty much everyone around me how horrific my compliance was and that I needed help changing. I couldn't just not do anything when there are so many people rooting for me, I had to keep some semblance of integrity. Maybe my motivation is not perfect, but at this point I feel that any motivation is better than none at all.

* S.W.A.G. Bolus – Scientific, Wild Assed Guess bolus. This is where you use more instinct than data to bolus an unexpected or uncalculated meal. (borrowed from other OC bloggers)