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Low Blood Sugars Affect Us All

Chris Stocker

Getting a low blood sugar in the middle of the night really does affect all the people in the house.  I have had a low blood sugar a few nights in a row and it sucks when I do because I feel bad because it wakes Amanda up.  She’s a teacher and with school starting back up again, she needs to get up around 5:30 – 6:00 and when I wake up at 2-3 a.m. with a low blood sugar making noise to get candy or to go out into the kitchen to get some OJ, she always wakes up and stays awake a bit to make sure that I am feeling ok.

This low blood sugar then affects her sleep and trust me, she needs her sleep.

During wedding week when all of my family was here I had a low blood sugar at my house before we were leaving to head over to the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner.  At this time, I had my parents, grandmother and her husband, and a few others in my house.  I tested and mentioned that I was having a low blood sugar and I needed some juice.  My mother and grandmother kicked into action real quick.  Mother got the juice, grandmother made a half of sandwich.  Then for the next 30 minutes they were both asking me if I felt fine, was everything ok, did I need something else, etc.

This is yet another way that shows how much diabetes affects not just the person living with it, but those that surround them and I’d like to give a big thank you to all of those people.

A Disconnected July

Chris Stocker

What a month July was.  There were so many highs, lows, ups, downs, and whatever other phrase you want to use.  My wedding was in the middle of the month, but my family flew into town the first week of July and that’s when the vacation in my mind kicked in.  I stopped going to the gym on July 3 because of the holiday the next day and then parents flying into town.  The week after the wedding was a relaxation week and I didn’t get to the gym at all that week either.  Then, the week after that I was flying up to Pennsylvania to spend time with family and have a little reception up there as well, so still no gym.

Since I’ve been back from PA, I haven’t made it back to the gym either.  Today is going to be my first day back in over a month, so this should be a lot of fun.

Obviously, by not going to the gym for over a month I have put all the weight that I lost, back on.  During this month long vacation, I didn’t eat very well either.  In the month of July I probably cooked dinner a total of 5-6 times and ate lunch at home maybe 2-3 times a week, the rest of the days were all eating out.

Also, during this time, my insulin supply was low, so it was pretty stressful not knowing where I was going to get my next round of insulin from.  My morning blood sugars have been crazy high since I went off the pump, so I have been dealing with that during the month of July.

Everytime I would try and sit down and write a blog post or read blog posts, or talk with people on Twitter or do anything related to the DOC, I never seemed to have any time to do so.

I am happy for all of the great things that happened in the month of July, but I am also glad that it is over and now that Amanda has started working again with the school year here, I have so much more time to do a lot of the things that I have been missing out on.

Strip Safely and Meter Accuracy

Chris Stocker

I know that I’m a little late to the Strip Safely party, but I have been reading as many posts from others about their concerns with meter accuracy and the great grassroots campaign that has been created by several members of the Diabetes Community.  After a high blood sugar that occurred yesterday, I felt that today would be the best time to write about it due to the large inaccuracies from yesterday.

After sitting at the Social Security Administration for two hours in order to get Amanda’s last name changed, we were hungry and tired and decided to grab fast food.  While we were dining in, I went to the bathroom to take a shot of insulin with a syringe, and the insulin vial dropped and shattered all over the floor.  I figured that I would just eat and then go home and take insulin right away, it would only be a 15 minute difference.  Well, that was a bad idea, I can tell you that.  Two hours later my BG was 475….well that was the first test.  I tested again about two seconds later and the meter read 398.  Well, either way that’s high, but I was not very happy with the big difference.  Maybe there was something wrong with the meter, or strips, or who knows what.  But what I do know is that there is some serious inaccuracy there. Read More

Re-United with Health Insurance

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

As of September 1, 2013, I will be re-United with health insurance.  See what I did there? United Healthcare was my former health insurance company before the whole COBRA fiasco, and now United Healthcare is my insurance company again.  I am super excited to have this full insurance again.  I can’t wait to order all of my supplies and not have to worry about things not being covered and paying for everything that I need out of pocket or nagging my doctor to provide me with free samples just so I can get by.

I will be on an HMO plan until October which is when open-enrollment is, but even then, I don’t think I will switch to a PPO because it is nearly $700 per pay period, so in total around $1,500 a month for just Amanda and I.  To me, that doesn’t make any sense for the fact that Amanda works for a government organization, but it is, what it is.

For all of those that helped me along the way, thank you.  I don’t think that I can ever pay any of you back for how much it really meant to me, the best that I can do is now try and help others who are in need of help.

Thank you all once again.

Insulin Pump vs MDI

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

insulin-pump-syringesIt’s been at least a month since I put the pump away in the closet and have been using insulin pens / syringes.  It’s almost time for me to make the decision of which method I want to continue with and obviously, it’s not an easy one.  Living with the pump for about 9 years, it had become just a part of me and it didn’t bother me that I had wires hanging out or that I constantly had something connected to me.  The primary frustration was the fact that over the past couple of months infusion sets were falling off too easily and I was constantly inserting a new one. Read More

You Down with PPO or HMO

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

First, I want to apologize to everyone for creating an earworm for the rest of the day and having you sing Naughty by Nature…not cuz I hate ya…anyway.

Since I am a newly married man, which it is still weird saying my wife instead of girlfriend or fiance, I am finally able to be put on her insurance.  I won’t officially be added for about a month because of the time it takes to get the marriage license, change her name, and then be added to the insurance.  Then, even after I am added to the insurance, I still don’t know how long it will take until I can actually use the insurance.  That’s the big question.

However, before that big question comes about, theres an even more important question, which plan do I choose?

When I was a single guy and had my own insurance, there was no question, I was going with the PPO plan.  Now, with having a spouse on the plan, it more than triples the monthly cost of the insurance premium (approx. $680/mo).  If I went with the HMO plan it is only approx. $225/mo.

So, obviously, this is where I need your help.  I was told in the past when I had to choose my first insurance plan with diabetes to never go with the HMO option. “If you have diabetes, you should always have a PPO”  I don’t know if that is the right advice or just some BS by that particular medical professional, who maybe wouldn’t be covered under the HMO plan.

Have you had any terrible nightmares with HMO plans with diabetes?  Is it really the worst insurance option for someone with diabetes?  HMO is still better than no insurance at all right?

Please let me know your thoughts and please share so I can make the most educated decision.  A difference of $4,000 a year is definitely a big deal.

 

I Do

Chris Stocker 7 Comments

Last Saturday Amanda and I finally got married. If you haven’t seen me tweeting or writing much over the past couple of weeks, this has been why.  There is so much planning to go into a wedding, but then the last 24-48 hours it seems that nothing is done.  It’s almost like an A1C, you put all this effort and management into it for 3 months and then it happens and it seems like you haven’t done anything to improve it.

My sugar was a bit high throughout the day from stress and nerves, but it didn’t go over 250.  I had some Skittles in my tux pocket just in case that low blood sugar decided to pop up.

In the end, diabetes did not get in the way of one single thing on this special day.

dance i-do

Powering Through the Extraordinary and Diabetes

Chris Stocker

In my final post about Powering Through the Extraordinary, I wanted to talk about powering through growing pains of moving from a small freelance business to gaining more clients and larger clients that require more time which means less time for diabetes management.

In my last post, I talked about the late hours and long stretches of working without any breaks or testing my sugar, but I wanted to dive deeper into that.  With taking on larger projects that may require more strict deadlines, pulling all nighters may not be out of the question.  However, those all nighters are typically bad news for my blood sugar.  It tends to tank throughout the night and then be high during that next day.

Making sure that the work is complete and blood sugar levels are can sometimes be a tough situation.  Planning ahead has made this a lot easier for myself.Knowing that I am going to need a late night, I will check my blood sugar a bit more often to make sure that it’s not all over the place from the stress of trying to beat a deadline.  Not meeting that deadline also means not getting paid which can lead to not getting the supplies I need for proper diabetes management.

By planning ahead, I can make sure that I eat at a certain time and give myself a break at a certain time and be prepared for eating a snack if I feel that my sugar is too low to push through the next task.  There were times where I would keep working until my blood sugar was too low and my work needed to be re-done.  Those days are no longer here.

This was my final post about powering through difficulties that come up from being an entrepreneur with type 1 diabetes. I want to thank Duracell and Accu-Chek for allowing me the opportunity to be a part of this.

**Disclosure: By agreeing to participate in this program Duracell will provide me with batteries and Accu-Chek will provide me with test strips for a month. In return, I will post several times in the month of June about powering through several stressful moments.