Funny thing just occurred to me. This summer I have traveled to Europe, and Africa. I have been to two sleep away camps, and have hardly seen my family and friends all summer. Yet, my hardest adventure yet, is one I am currently exploring. Field hockey preseason.
I started preseason yesterday. I had been to the store the day before and had purchased all of my equipment. It's been at least a year since I last participated in a "team" sport, where each player depends on all the others to win the game. But I've had my fair share of local soccer teams and what not, so I figured I can do this. What I was expecting was a friendly coach who goes easy on the freshman. I mean, we are coming into a new school, where the student body has nearly doubled, and the classes are harder, and the homework increases and what not. I figured she would be all lovey dovey, since in soccer "career" all the coaches were like that. I expected that the freshman would be separated right away and taught how to actually use a field hockey stick and not make a fool of ourselves. That is not what happened. The coach is just like all the coaches you might see on tv. A coach who takes the game seriously, as well as the fitness of her players, which was clear within the first five minutes of the first practice. She stated right off, that there would be consequences if anyone were to forget any piece of equipment, at a game, and at practice. She also said that the sharing of uniforms would not be tolerated if yours were to be lost, and she especially mentioned that there should be minimal help and/or involvement of the parental units. She claims that we are grown up now, and therefor should not be treated like middle schoolers, in other words, babies. I caught myself before I let out a giant gulp and let my mouth hang open like in a cartoon. "This woman is high school." I thought to myself. I need to up my game. So of course that meant within the first hour of the two and a half hour practice, I was sitting on the bench, waiting for my blood sugar to figure out it's messed up problems. I was not waiting for my blood sugar to rise however, I was waiting for it to drop. One thing that I learned while being at both of the diabetes sleep away camps I attended this summer, was that if your blood sugar was above 250, and you feel like you're going to puke, that probably means you ketones, or acid in your blood. So I was somewhere around 390, and was feeling like I had just been hit in the stomach with a baseball that had been traveling at full speed. So I decided to sit out. I told my coach I only needed about 20 minutes, I couldn't be looking like the weak link on the first day, during first practice.
So I waited 20 minutes, and rechecked my blood sugar. Great news, I was 380. Well, in my head I was thinking of shouting some pretty nasty things, but decided against it. Don't want to be known as the weak link, and the potty mouth. So I continued to sit. I sat, and I drank some water. Then I drank some more. And some more, until the next time I lifted the water bottle to my lips, it was empty. So I tested again. 365. Ok, I could deal with that. It was coming down, slowly but surely. Just to ensure that my blood sugar was indeed coming down I took some more insulin so that in total I had taken about 15 units. Then I sat for another ten minutes. I started to feel worse. So I checked again. 345. Well by that time I was, shall we say, pissed off. So I waited ten more minutes and rechecked. 370. Now I was at the point, where there was about ten minutes left in practice and I was in no shape to play. So I sat there on the bench, and tried not to throw up all over everyone's things.
That night, I went back to practice, this time with my blood sugars within range. I ran a mile in 8minutes 9 seconds, and was feeling pretty good. Until, of course I got home and went to babysit. Now my blood sugars were dropping like a rock. So I took the only treatment I had with me, a packet of Gu. Gu, is literally goo. There is no other way to describe it. So now I had this weird taste in my mouth, and I still felt low. 20 minutes later I checked and I was 190. What the frenchtoast, in the absence of a better word.
Now it's a new day. My legs currently will not move due to muscle soarness of the highest level, and my eyes really will not stay open due to exhaustion. And yet I was able to pull myself of bed and somehow get through a good hour and a half of field hockey practice. Notice I didn't say 2 hours because again my wonderful pancreas decided to not work this morning just as it has every morning for the past seven years.
Did I have these problems in Europe? No. Did I have them in Africa? No. Did I have them at either of the two sleep away camps? Nope. Am I having them while being at home and going to school every morning to play field hockey at 7am? Why, yes, as a matter fact, I am having diabetic problems in that last scenario.
So my newest project in the diabetes department, is not to learn to live with it, or to connect with it on some psychological level, and not even to try and wrack my brain for the carbs to a frozen yogurt, my computer would gladly help me with that one. No. My newest project is to make my numbers perfect from 7:30 to 9:30 am, and from 4:00 to 6:00pm. Can you guess what I have then?
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