Sunday, January 19, 2014

Week 15: Christmas


After the blood sugar management failure of the last couple of weeks, Christmas was actually a surprising reprieve. I have been dialing back my insulin levels, ever so slowly, to combat the overnight lows. I have been able to bring my eating back to a healthy level, and have not gained any more weight. Fighting through the weakness of hunger can successfully get me through the 2-3 hour postprandial slump, and back into a reasonable amount of energy until the next meal time (or low blood sugar).

This was actually part of our plan all along. We wanted Christmas to be a time for low-stress blood sugar management. We often travel across the country with our kiddos to visit my in-laws for Christmas. It is something we usually all look forward to, especially my husband and the boys. I felt bad, but I made the request that we stay home this year, for the sake of my blood sugars. It's hard enough to manage them when you are pregnant, and hard when you are traveling, and hard during the holidays. The hat-trick of hard is all three, and we've done that twice now. And I've learned, the hard way, that my disease really does need special accommodation sometimes.

Midnight mass on Christmas morning also happens to be a great way to check your overnight basal rates (when you wake up, while you're at mass, and after mass)! (Turns out mine were too high).