The Thicker Envelope

I don't normally take both of the kids to the supermarket with me. If you knew Lord Fussington and Lady Runsalot, you'd understand. But on Friday afternoon, I loaded them into the car for my weekly trip.

And on the way out, I stopped to check the mail.

Three envelopes. Addressed to myself, Sweetie, and Dibbs.

One envelope was thicker.

Like many of us who attended the Friends for Life conference, I took advantage of screening opportunities. I had a retinal screening for myself. I had the kids screened for type 1 diabetes markers:

Both kids tested negative this year. I found out a couple weeks ago. Whew.

And I had myself and both kids screened for the antibodies for Celiac disease, as well as for the genetic HLA markers for Celiac.

The screening day was an awful day - our worst at the conference. My daughter was cranky, tired, constipated, and in an overwhelming environment with lots of people. She had an epic tantrum with my husband in the lobby (in front of many people) while I attempted to fill out all of our screening paperwork with Dr. Fasano. I had to sit at a laptop and fill out the same multi-page questionnaire with hundreds of questions...THREE times. Once for each of us. My husband returned her to me and they were both spent. Worked up. Done for the day. That's the state we were all in as we dragged the kids in for the blood draw.

I went first. Easy peasy. But it took 3 or 4 technicians to hold Sweetie as they did the draw. She's super strong. She cried. She tried to get away. Having them do my son was even worse. He'd never ever been restrained before. I held his head as they pierced the crook of his pristine chubby arm. I held him still with every ounce of my strength, wrapped both arms and legs around his head and body...and I flipped out inside when they stuck the second arm to try to get enough blood.

When it was over, each kid got a stuffed frog and settled into the double stroller as we made our way back to our hotel room. They were immediately fine. Fully recovered.

I was shell-shocked.

I didn't say a word. Didn't want to talk to Hubster. My arms were stuck straight in front of me pushing the stroller, unbending, still feeling the muscles flexed as though I still held my son against me so he couldn't move. I got back to the room and just lost it.

I don't ever want to hold my own child down like that again.

But the kids? They were fine.

Dr. Fasano passed us in the hallway later that week and I stopped him. I apologized for my kids' behavior and for my nerves that day. Thanked him for the research he does on Celiac disease.

Nearly two months later, that thicker envelope happens to be for Sweetie.

Easy on the Eyes

At the Friends for Life conference this year, Dr. Ben Szirth and a team of eye care specialists from the Institute of Ophthalmology and Visual Science from the New Jersey Medical School provided free retinal screenings for people with type 1 diabetes for the seventh year in a row. But this was my first time being screened at the conference.

I saw quite a few different people who all looked at my eyes at various stations and with various impressive pieces of equipment. It felt a bit like speed dating, going from chair to chair and talking congenially with pleasant strangers.

The first technician performed some basic eye chart style vision checks, having me stand at a distance and read the eye chart covering one eye, then the other. Pretty standard.

The second technician took some pictures of my retinas for the doctor to review. He showed me the photos and explained what he was photographing.

My third station included an autorefractor that I've seen at my usual checkups - you're asked to focus on an image of a hot air balloon while the machine measures your specific vision correction needs.

My next stop was to measure my eye pressure. I believe it's actually called a tonometer, but I have always thought of it in my head as "the air puffer thingy." I've often seen my eye pressure in the borderline high range (normal is 12-22 mm Hg). I'm usually 18, 19, 20. I don't know that I've ever seen above 21. The day of this retinal screening? I was clocking in 24s, 25s. WTH? We measured it again. Same. Hmm. Not pleased.

It had been a rough night. I'd had a pod malfunction that had sent my overnight blood sugar into the 400s. I had taken a correction injection around 3am and decided to deal with changing out the pod the next morning. By breakfast, I was down into the high 200s, and by my retinal screening at 10:20am, I was still floating in the 200s well above my target range.

I was then directed to the machine that measures the thickness of your retina. I've been going to the ophthalmologist for 17 years and I had never encountered this piece of equipment before.

Dr. Ben stood nearby to review the results and explained to me that this was a $50,000 piece of equipment that many of his contemporaries told him was unnecessary to bring to a screening like this...but I am so glad we had it.

289.

My right eye has always been my well-behaved eye. My right eye has always had clearer vision, fewer hemorrhages, lower pressure. But my retinal thickness on the left measured normal (between 250 and 280) and it was my right eye that was cause for concern. 289. Let's check that again. 287. Damn.

So what does that thickness mean? That's what this machine was able to tell us. He studied the image, focusing on the big black bulge in the middle.

A Little Less Caffeination

I was not a coffee drinker. Not for the longest time. I remember trying Starbucks when I was about 18 and it was the new thing in town. I would occasionally get something sugary and frothy at 7-11 when I had early mornings in college. But just brewing a pot? That wasn't something I ever thought I'd do.

In late 2006, a friend brought me some quality ground coffee from a trip to Seattle. I didn't even own a pot. I wanted to be able to tell him that I tried it, so I went to Target and bought the smallest $12 4-cup coffee maker I could find. I didn't care for the coffee, but now I had a coffee pot...and when you give a mouse a cookie...

Fast-forward to now, 7 years later. I drink a lot of coffee. I take insulin to cover it some of the time because my continuous glucose monitor has proven to me time and again that an 8 oz cup gives me a 30-40 mg/dL bump in blood sugar. I'm better about accounting for it in my dosing in the morning than I am later in the day.

When I tell people I drink too much coffee, they always commiserate and tell me they do, too. Then I tell them I drink at least 6 cups a day and they go "whoa, okay, I don't drink that much."

I don't need it. I drink it because I like it...because I'm bored...because my blood sugar might be high and I'm sleepy...because my kids wear me out...because it's easier to brew a lot than a little...because it's there...because it's tastier than water. But I drink too much.

Between the Splenda, the sugarfree Coffee Mate, and the caffiene,
I usually need to count a cup of homebrew as about 10g of carb.