HbA1c 2

Well, it's been a while.

I've been that busy with work and a so called social life that I've neglected this little corner of the internet for some time. I've been attempting to write a few new posts for a long time now but I haven't managed to get any of them finished, and seeing as any mood changes directly lead to any typing done, most of them get scrapped or left until I'm in the mood. Anyway, I digress...

Any of you who may have read my very early posts will have read one about a HbA1c test result. This result is, I think, quite important to diabetics, though probably more important to some than others. My first one went relatively well considering that it was my first test at 'how I'd been managing it' since I was diagnosed only 2 months prior.

I got the letter a few weeks ago reminding me of my next appointment. I was by no means pleased at this reminder, not at all. I've been somewhat stressed over the last month or so and haven't been looking after myself as well as I should (even the running has taken a hit) and with Christmas, and all the care free binging that it brings, having been and gone, a second test and result wasn't exactly something to look forward to.


But I went in anyway, attempted to play it cool (something I'm not famous for) and sat patiently (impatiently) for my consultant to get all the niceties out of the way and just give me a number, any number. I didn't have my blood sugar diary with me (having not filled it in since early January I thought it might be a little embarrassing) so my meter was checked instead. I was hoping that she wouldn't notice that there aren't any bg checks before 1pm (I don't eat breakfast and I usually feel fine) and that I probably don't monitor myself as much as I should.

Anyway she eventually gave me my result.

39

Now considering that my last result was 59, I thought that I'd either done quite well, or that I'd completely messed it up. My consultant told me that it was a great result, albeit still in the honeymoon period. The number converts to a percentage of 5.7% which is, considering my recent recklessness, pretty surprising and pleasing (to a certain degree).


My next appointment is sometime in November, so we'll see how things go from here. I'm back in the mood now for typing, so watch out for a more regular stream of posts!


Loui

A Few New Posts...

A short one this one. 

I had an idea recently of something relatively creative and, I think, quite interesting.

The idea is a blog post about each emotion, and how each emotion affects my own life. You know, love, hate, fear, angst, sadness etc.

I'm sure it's been done before but I'm going to do it anyway, sporadically of course, so not every single post but just whenever I feel like it. I thought I'd let you know in advance so that you don't think I'm going mad.

I might as well do it alphabetically, so we'll start with Affection...at some point.

Oh and Happy Easter!


Loui

Manchester International Festival

Bit of a long plug this one.

Many of you will have never heard of the Manchester International Festival, especially if you're not from the north. The festival is relatively new, running only since 2007 for a couple of weeks biennially, usually in June or July. The festival is by no means a music festival (there's too many of them around!) but a kind of arts/cultural festival with various theatre productions, operas, art installations, and one off musical performances. Part of the appeal is that most of these productions are brand new and debut at the festival with a lot of them not continuing anywhere else after the festival has ended.

Before the festival became what it is today Manchester commissioned 3 different projects to showcase that Manchester is significant culturally as a city (seeing as it is often overlooked as the 2nd city of the country to the very exciting and important city of Birmingham). Sarcasm doesn't come across well in the written word.

These commissions included performances by virtual band Gorillaz (i.e. Damon Albarn), Ennio Morricone (composer of very famous film scores such as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) and an art installation by Steve Mcqueen (artist, not the actor) in response the invasion of Iraq.

The 2007 festival was relatively low key, featuring only a handful of commissions. Gorillaz creators Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett returned, as well as a new production of the Pianist.

2009

The 2009 festival, however, is where it really came into it's own. That year saw the debut performance of Rufus Wainwright's opera Prima Donna, a co-production by Damon Albarn and Adam Curtis named It Felt Like A Kiss, performances by Lou Reed, and a unique installation by Zaha Hadid architects, which personally took my fancy. In total there were 20 commissions over the festival period.

One Setup

2011

This festival I personally visited a couple of times. One thing I haven't mentioned is that during all of these productions Manchester, or certain areas of it, is teeming with life. There are various bands on in bars, pubs, clubs as well as parades and exhibitions. If you're in Manchester but aren't visiting anything in particular there's still a certain mardi gras spirit about the place. This festival saw the return (yet again) of Damon Albarn (right) with his new opera Dr. Dee, performances by Bjorn, Snoop Dogg (yes really), Victoria Wood, Sinead O'Connor and even Willem  Dafoe (yes even Hollywood comes to Manchester!) among others. 

2013

This year's lineup includes Kenneth Branagh (right) portraying Macbeth in a broken down church (sounds good, no?), a unique production by Massive Attack, a reappearance by Willem Dafoe, the xx, and Goldfrapp and more to be announced. If you're interested then visit the official website for a full lineup of events. I urge you all to have a pop over and take a look!

http://www.mif.co.uk/




Loui



P.S. I would have written a full review of Dr. Dee but it'd be a post in itself!

Social Media...

A bit different this one.

I never used to be a fan of social media. I used to think it was for people who had very little else to do with their time and/or didn't really have a life. Don't get me wrong, it used to have it's uses even when I disliked it. The quick sharing of work between groups at uni, the faster and cheaper alternative than phoning or texting anyone to organize a meet up etc.

But then I got a job.

I value my time off a lot more than I've ever done. Weekends seem to come and go quicker than weeknights, free time (after chores like eating and cleaning) are out of the way there's little time to do anything worthwhile. It's not as bad now as the nights are lighter and there seems to be more time in the evening to actually do things but during winter it seems that there isn't much more to do than sit in and watch films, TV or mess around on the old laptop. Yes I know there's the 'live today like it's your last' and 'make the most of the time you've got' crap but that's easier said than done, as I'm sure we all know. Since I've had a job I've found it more difficult to catch up with friends, family etc due to the lack of free time, so social media actually comes in handy. Anyway I digress.

To the point. 

I was determined for this blog to be about a lot more things than diabetes, but seeing as I've had a serious lack of creativity of late and social media was in my mind, I may as well give it a mention.

I am still very new to Diabetes. Although I've had it for a few months it's not long in the grand scheme of things considering that it's a life sentence. Without social media I'd be pretty stuck in all honesty. The nurses and consultants are good (most of the time) and they help me with certain things but none of them actually have the experience of diabetes. The amount of people on social media (mainly twitter in fact) who are helpful and happy to give advice is actually quite shocking, especially to someone who, if I'm honest, has a tendency to ignore what other people think and has a wayward opinion on things. It's great that there's people out there, whether around my age or above/below, that are willing to help others in a similar situation.

I've learnt far more practical things from people on social media than I think I ever will from white coats. There's discussions, arguments, blogs, docs, all sorts really and it's all for a common cause. If only there was as much awareness and help for other conditions as there is for Diabetes.


Loui

You Can't Rely On Anything!

I made a huge mistake one night, at least I think I did.

I'm used to having hypo's. They're not that frequent anymore but when they do happen it doesn't bother me as much as it used to when I was first diagnosed about 4 months or so ago. This, however, was before I woke up in the night with quite a severe one.

My blood sugar reading before bed was 8.8, which is actually quite high for me at that time on a weeknight. I had my normal Lantus (long acting insulin) dose of 16 and went to bed without supper (which I never eat). The only other thing worth mentioning was that I'd started a new pen, with the previous one running empty the night before. So, just an average night, nothing different, nothing out of the ordinary...

I woke up feeling extremely restless and, after around 10 mins, I decided to get out of bed and see what the problem was. Soon after sitting up I knew that I was having a hypo. All of the symptoms were there; the hand shakes, fingers tingling, an almost light-headed feeling (it's quite hard to describe) and above all, mild panic.

I toppled out of bed to reach my blood monitor, making quite a thud as I scrambled across my room. I gave myself the quickest blood sugar test possible.

 It came back at 1.8.

I have no idea how far away this is from a seizure or a full pass out but it didn't feel so far away. I know many T1 Diabetics will have had readings below that (I think) but it scared the s**t out of me!
I had a tablet, some Lucozade and whatever snacks I could find in my room, after around 5 mins I felt fine again like nothing had happened.

At my next regular checkup at the hospital I asked what could have caused the very sudden drop in blood glucose. I explained everything that happened and what I'd eaten throughout the day and what I'd been doing leading up to going to bed. At first they suggested that I might have injected myself with the wrong pen, which, if true, would've been quite comical. That wasn't the case as my other pen (the fast acting insulin) wasn't even in the same room for the very purpose of not accidentally injecting the wrong one.

They then suggested that the pen that I used may have been faulty. I'd heard that pen's have been know on occasion to be faulty, but only that they don't inject enough insulin, so more of a mechanical fault than a chemical fault. They also suggested that I may have injected myself straight into muscle rather then fat, which even if true wouldn't really have caused such a dramatic decrease.

So, no questions answered and no apparent reason for almost passing out, which is worrying. That particular pen found itself hurtling towards an open coal fire the next night. There was no way, faulty or not, that I was going to risk it again with that one. Imagine if my bg before injecting had been my normal 6 or 7, I may have had a seizure before waking up, causing all sorts of problems, especially in the morning when I wouldn't have turned up for work!

The lesson learnt here is that you cannot take things for granted, especially the things that you rely on to keep your health!


Loui

A Bit of Much Needed Exercise...

Now I'm not really one to go on about exercise and how fit and healthy I am. This is mainly because I'm not really fit, I'm certainly not healthy, and I don't agree with the government that everyone should exercise for a certain amount of time every week. People who seem to love making sure that you know how fit they are really get my irish up. Anyway before I go off on a tangent...

I used to go running fairly regularly, usually around 2 or 3 times a week depending on how busy I was. Then the excuses became more frequent and I'd only end up out maybe once every fortnight. Then I became ill and any form of exercise dropped way down the priority list. After a month or so of mild recuperation Christmas came, followed by work and before I knew it February was here and I hadn't been out for about 4 months.

One main reason other than the above was that I'd been slightly afraid of what would happen if I went out and hadn't managed my sugar levels properly. I've had hypo's just carrying things around with very little exertion so a run of a few miles seemed far more daunting than it should be. The main risk being that where I live there aren't many people around so If I did have a severe hypo (and also ran out of energy supplements) then I wouldn't have enough energy to walk the distance home and, very worst case scenario, pass out and wouldn't likely be found for some time.

This, of course, was me over-thinking the whole situation as usual. I decided to look at some diabetic forums online to see if I could find a starting point and any advice. Turns out, as I guessed, that everyone does it in their own way and that it's more trial and error than anything else. Who'd have thought?

In the end I went out with a small rucksack, took my phone with me, plus my blood monitor (so I could check it half way through) and a bottle of Lucozade. I was still quite worried as I didn't want a hypo so far from anyone and I wasn't sure how much energy my body actually uses when running.

                                The running ground...

The run went well but needless to say I was shattered when I got home, more than I thought I would be. Then the expected, somewhat overdue, hypo hit me. It wasn't a particularly bad one (my bg was 2.9) but the fact that I was physically exhausted certainly didn't help matters. It took me the rest of the day to recover. I was coughing, occasionally shaking (not actually sure why) and my chest felt like it was going to explode.

Why bother? You might ask. Why would bother going for a run if I knew I'd come back feeling quite ill?

Well it's pretty simple. It feels great to be out in the open air, actually feeling your body working (feel the burn!). There's also the feeling of being completely alone with your thoughts, giving you time to sort things out in your head, all whilst you're very slowly becoming slightly healthier. Well, hopefully anyway.

Loui

This Must Be the Place...

By now you've probably realised that I don't do short posts, or particularly optimistic ones, but you're in for a treat today!

Have you ever had that feeling of being really settled in a place? Or where you feel perfectly at ease with your surroundings and the people around you?

No neither have I.

However, the possibility of having that feeling at some point pleases me. And actually makes me feel ever so slightly optimistic about the future. I'd even go so far as to say that it makes me feel happy. There are people  out there that live a life of optimism and (seemingly) constant happiness, unable to see the cloud on the horizon. I don't envy these people, I love them. These people live life knowing that tomorrow is another day and that things can always be worse. They are grateful for what they have, no matter how much or little, and carry around with them a somewhat cheery disposition. These people are the reason this mixed up little island stays afloat!

Anyway back to my original point. At some point we must all feel as though we truly belong somewhere, some of us will already be in that place whereas some of us are waiting (or hoping) for it to appear. This might not be a physical place, it could simply just be time spent with another person. I suppose everyone is different. I don't often feel this optimistic so I thought I'd better write it down!

I'm done.


Loui

Diabetes Mellitus Type 1 Pt.1

Therapy?

Insulin therapy they call it, them folk at the hospital. How they can use the word therapy I don't know, because it certainly isn't what I would consider therapy.


I may have already mentioned this in earlier posts but the worst part of having diabetes is that it's incredibly inconvenient more than anything else. The biggest inconvenience is having to inject myself just before every proper meal that I have. The needles I use are only 5mm long and so aren't very intimidating to look at. I don't use a syringe, (I won't go into detail about the different between needles and syringes) but I use what looks like a pen, which is pre-filled with Insulin that I attach a new needle to everytime I inject. I suppose I could use the same needle more than once as there's only me that uses it and it's the same 'drug' that goes through it, but at the moment I'm trying to be a good patient and do exactly as I'm told. This will no doubt change.

I use two types of pens. One pen I use before every meal and carry with me, like my blood monitor, 24/7. It's more important to me than my phone, my house keys, even my wallet. If I were to go out without it, which I haven't yet, I would have to avoid eating or drinking most things until I got back. It is very fast acting so I can take it around 10 mins before a meal (though I usually inject when the meal is in front of me) and it'll do it's job and counteract whatever I'm about to eat.

 

 

                                          4 times a day...

 

Dosage

The pen has a dial on it so that I can adjust my dosage depending on a) the size of the meal and b) the amount of carbohydrates and sugar in the meal; this is the tricky part.

 When you buy food it will usually tell you what it contains in terms of ingredients, carbs, and protein etc. This is good for me when calculating what dosage to have because I know pretty much exactly what is in the meal. Like anything, after trial and error I have a good idea of how much to take with meals that I've had more than once. However, when eating out it's a whole different game. Even if it's a meal that I have often at home it will contain different ingredients (which 99% of menu's won't list) and different portions. This really is a guessing game that I'll get better at through time. You can understand a diabetics problem here?

I use a different pen just before I go to bed, or at around 12-1am if I'm out and still awake. This is a slow acting pen which, I have no idea how, keeps my blood relatively level throughout the day.

 If I have too high a dosage then I'll have a hypo (serious, and possible risk of passing out) or if I don't have enough then my blood will be high (not immediately serious, but if consistently high over months/years leads to complications like foot amputation or heart disease, and after a couple of days of being very high, can lead to a coma).

If you can imagine having to jab yourself with a needle before every meal, without fail, then you're on the same page. (I imagine that statement could come across as me feeling sorry for myself, but I don't, it's just the easiest way of describing how inconvenient it is.)

I inject myself in different places around the stomach at meal times, and with a different pen and type of insulin in my thighs just before bed. The injections don't generally hurt, in fact a lot of the time I don't feel them at all. However there are odd times when it is very painful and I usually pull the needle out and try again in a different area. Injecting twice rather than once is a lot more difficult for some reason and I always struggle with it. It sounds like quite an effort and something that must be hard to get used to but the truth is, like they told me in hospital, I have no choice but to get used to it. There's no way around it, I have to inject myself 4 times a day for the rest of my life in order to, without sounding overly dramatic and serious, stay alive.

There are other complications of course, which will probably follow at some point. I realise that this post is quite clinical/to the point but I'm afraid it's the only way I could get it out!

At the end of the day Diabetes is a pain in the f***ing ass!


Loui

Caravan

Something a little different here. I quick review of a song that I've recently re-discovered. I need to get it off my chest more than anything!

 

Album Filler?

I'm sure that a lot of us have listened to albums time and time again, waiting for the good 7 or 8 songs of a 14 track album to come on, with the songs in between just seemingly being there as filler songs. I'm also quite sure that one day, for one reason or another, one of those 'filler' songs will all of a sudden stand out on the album and it'll become, in your opinion, a hidden gem. A song that isn't really mainstream, will never be a single, and will, like you thought earlier, have just been listened to as part of the album and not really a song in it's own right.

These songs tend to stand out when you are in a particular mood. The sound of the song, not always the lyrics, seem to fit perfectly with the way you are feeling. I'm talking about all sorts of songs here; happy feel good songs, sad songs, reflective songs, destructive songs, euphoric songs. Whatever it is that you are feeling at the time.

I'm 99% sure that you've all had a similar feeling/song at some point.

For me this song hit me out of the blue, it really did. I often listen to albums throughout, mostly albums that I've neglected and/or forgotten that I have. I listened to 'Think Tank' by Blur completely without any stops/starts/pauses for the first time in years. It couldn't have been a more different listen to when I originally listened to it around 9 or 10 years ago.. It was Great.

There were a couple of songs that stood out to me as I listened. But I'll mention just the one for now.

 'Caravan' being one on the reflective personal hit list. The caravan in the song can refer to many things, depending on the person. In my understanding it refers to the distancing of the wagon (caravan) that we're all a part of.

 

 

 

And for those of you who prefer a more stripped down version of the song, which in some ways is a lot better, there's this one:

 

 

 

 

 

'And when it comes, you'll feel the weight of it, the weight of it...'

I mean the 'caravan' that is referred to in the song can relate to anything that we are generally part of and maybe trying to escape from, and after the initial escape, feel the comeback or 'weight' coming down. Whether it be alcohol, cigarettes or drugs.

I believe that Albarn wrote the song about Graham Coxon who,  after a long period of strained relations in the band, was finally forced to leave. The 'weight' that the song refers to could relate to a commitment by a person, and the weight of it will be the pressure of trying to keep that commitment. In the way it was written it could be clearly linked to Coxon's alcoholism and the commitment of trying to recover. And so the caravan is also a metaphor for whatever he was lost from. The band? His friends? Society in general?

It's a very subtle song and easily missed when listening to album for the first time. Like the rest of the album, the song has electric undertones and quite simple guitar work (Coxon was the guitarist before he left, leaving Albarn to fill the gap with simpler guitar melodies and more involvement of other instruments).

So to wrap it up I think that it's fair to say that this sing is a great song, albeit rarely heard of.

 

 

Loui

Suits Me Just Fine

How are we all moving on from the fact that the world didn't end last year? I was convinced! Though if you look around the town I live near you 'd think it had ended about 30 years ago.

Anyway, this is going to be an interesting year if nothing else.

I already feel a bit lost this year, which is probably why it's taken me nigh on three weeks to do anything remotely creative. Apart from work I'm not really sure what to do with myself. I'm spending far too much time on the internet just passing time away during the week. Then before you know it's sunday night again (I would mention the weekend in more depth but I simply can't remember it, other than that it's two nights spent in various pubs in which bad decisions are made more often than not) and it's back to work monday morning. Which suits me just fine.

I only realised recently that I'm a very mood orientated person (mood swings are apparently just one of quite a few side effects of diabetes). I've always been quite grumpy, but now I seem to swing between 'care free' happy to 'I don't give a shit' down. Which isn't the same thing, believe me.

I'm currently in a job that was originally only supposed to last for just over a year, to cover a year out from uni. I'm enjoying it more than I thought and considering how my last year at uni went, I'm a hell of a lot happier. I have no idea whether I want to go back to uni or whether I'd be able to stay on in my job if I chose not to go back, which is looking quite likely (I've already mentioned how I didn't quite suit uni earlier) and so a lot of things are up in the air at the moment. Which is why this year is going to be interesting. I could either carry on being happy in my job, be half assed in my next degree at uni (which would be a waste of two years might I add) or I could be out of a job and uni by October.

Very inspiring new year post I'm sure...

A Drink or Two...

It's my last day at work tomorrow for a couple of weeks, apparently due to some holiday that people keep going on about...

I can't wait! I've not taken a day off since I started this job, well, apart from when I was off ill for a week ( from dizziness to overheating and being extremely tired several times a day doesn't qualify as a holiday! ) and I'm actually looking forward to some lazy days that will probably be full of Christmas films and various alcoholic beverages.

I actually finish at a self given time around dinner ( that's 12pm to proper folk ) so that I can go home and get ready to spend the rest of the day in the great city that is Manchester. It's the first of two probably large drinking sessions with people from work.

The 'Lads'

The first, which is tomorrow, will be with all the lads from work, and by lads I actually mean almost middle aged men ( I'm the youngest male employee by at least 10yrs ). The train journey isn't a particularly long or eventful one normally. But this one is quite an odd one. I'm not catching the train alone, oh no, but with 2 out of the 3 directors of the company. This is no reason for me to be worried as they're quite hands on directors, and by that I mean that they're in and out talking to everyone on a regular basis, rather than the type of directors who are rarely seen but only ever heard of. I find that trains are generally quite quiet as it is, let alone a trainee attempting to make conversation with his highest superiors. It's just a strange situation to be in, and one that will not likely happen again. We'll then meet the rest of the 'lads' at a bar in Manchester and spend the rest of the day fuelled with drink and banter.

 

The Rest

After friday is officially declared a day of recovery, saturday brings the official office Christmas party. This not only includes us 'lads' again but also all of the girls who work for the company and is to be held in a very upmarket hall. Which, after no more than 20 seconds of thinking, works out at something daft like 12 girls to 1 guy. From that alone it's obvious that this party will be the polar opposite of the 'lads' day in Manchester, and everyone will be relatively well behaved, especially as wives and partners will be tagging along.

I'm looking forward to both days, the large difference in attitude, dress code and etiquette being a major factor...


No doubt there will be a post of findings and, knowing me, regrets soon to follow.

Loui

Nottingham State of Mind...

I hadn't intended to post anything today but seeing as I'm in a particular mood I might as well. I'm quite a melancholic person at the best of times, but today has been a strange one.

I left university a few months ago to take a year out, and seeing as I had a job lined up ( lucky I know ) I had no wish to be at uni any longer than I had to. Alot of people I know really didn't want to leave. To be honest I think my time at uni was misspent. I very quickly got tired of nightclubs and most of the bars in the city and so spent most of my free time in the local pub. This free time naturally got less and less as the years progressed and I had more work to.

Around this time last year was that time when, as a student, my funds were dwindling and I had a deadline or two in the coming week before the Christmas break. Normally near a deadline me and one of my flatmates would usually be sat in the 'living room' getting the work done at a steady pace until the sound of birds could be heard outside.

 For one reason or another one night I stayed in my room to do work ( probably because my drawing board was particularly difficult to use on my lap ) and decided that I was going to get the best part of it done that night. As it was nearing Christmas, the nights seemed to merge into one. This was made worse due to the fact that I hadn't left my room all day ( as was often the case when a deadline was being counted down in hours rather than days ). I'd often spend alot of time staring out of the window at the rooftops and streets below, mostly due to a lack of concentration.

The Song.

It'd reached that time of night when you could hear other people going out into town which I acknowledged as being around 10:30pm. I kept my head down and carried on drawing. I had my media player on shuffle, which was rare at best, and a song came on at an early hour that I'd only heard a handful of times, usually in the local, and never really thought much of it. But for some reason it caught me as I was having a bit of a gander at what was happeing outside. Which, at 3am, was absolutely nothing. The lyrics stood out and I vaguely related to them.

 

 

 

I'll Get to the Point.

 

The song is about the pride of returning to a hometown or city. But I heard it a bit different. I was hearing the lyrics as a longing for going back. This is what initially threw me, I'd never missed home before and I knew that I'd be home pretty soon. But even sooner than that was of course the deadline that, after about 3 more listens and an hour of contemplation, I didn't get done that night.

 

Ultimately, I have to be in a strange mood to listen to that song. It reminds me of my longing to get home, but then getting back home and nothing being the same as it was before. Why I was in this mood today is a mystery, maybe because I'm a year older and I've had a lot on my mind, or maybe because I've spent the day nurturing a severe hangover. Either way, I hope tomorrow is a lot simpler than today!

 

Give it a listen and see what you think.

 

 

Done

 

 

HbA1c

Before I get started this is by no means going to be a diabetes awareness Blog, but from time to time the subject will be quite prominent, and today was a good diabetic day, if ever there was one!

HbA1c is another name for Glycated Haemoglobin, which is a type if haemoglobin that is measured to find the average concentration of plasma glucose over a period of time. In this case it was 8 weeks after my first diagnosis, but it's usually done every 3 months.

I'll skip all of the scientific stuff and basically say that the measurement is used to indicate the average blood glucose levels and how well they've been managed since the last check up. Seeing as this was my first check up and the first test since I was in hospital I didn't think they were expecting much, and I had no idea what to expect at all.

After various introductions and niceties she hit me with a number.

59

Now this meant about as much to me as reality TV. I didn't know what the hell it meant. I remember thinking 'It's above 50, so is that above average or below?  Am I slowly killing myself through neglect, or am I a master of change?'

It turns out that the number is kind of converted into a simple percentage, which turned out to be 7.5%. This also meant nothing to me.

The Doctor said that it was an 'excellent' start and that I should keep it up. Being quite the pessimist I decided that she was being patronising and so didn't believe her ( even though she was quite lovely ).

She went on to say that non-diabetics would  normally have a reading between 4.9% and 5.9% and that a good diabetic would have a reading of 6.5%. That extra 1% that I have increases my chances of a hypo which, in all honesty, I've been having a few of recently.

But on the whole is was a good 8 week effort, considering the drastic diet change and the masses of injections. No doubt the Christmas food and drink will alter my levels for at least a month anyway!


Loui

12.12.12. Oh, And A New Blog...

Well here we go, my first ever blog...

I've been itching to start a blog for quite a while and never really found the time until now. And seeing as today is a 'unique' date (12.12.12) I thought it would be a good time to start.


My name is Loui, I'm just about to turn 22 and I'm from a sleepy little village up north ( no I weren't born here and I'm not inbred, though by looking at a few other folk around you could understand the questioning ) which is generally quite quiet and trouble free.

I've been told many times, usually by docs, that I should write down my thoughts in order to better get through the day, whether it be post it notes, a diary or even draft text messages ( odd suggestion I know ) so I thought that a blog might help. It does. 

I've fairly recently been diagnosed as Type 1 Diabetic, which is inconvenient to say the least and has changed my life considerably which will unfortunately only get worse as time goes on. This is probably the main event that has encouraged me to start writing things down.

This blog will most likely be a series of thoughts and ramblings about things that cross my mind, things that have amused me, my life experiences and finally, ideas about various things creative .

I look forward to more blogging in the very near future!


Loui