I think of myself as a typically optimistic person, especially when it comes to my diabetes, because really my life with diabetes is better when I’m able to cast it in a positive light. Even so, that doesn’t mean that I don’t spend a few days in the trough of a wave every once in awhile.

Today was one of those days. I didn’t sleep much over the weekend, so this morning I got up early and fed the dogs and then decided I would try to sleep a little bit longer, considering it was Sunday and all and I didn’t have to go to work or anything. About the time I got comfortable, some masochist with a lawnmower decided that 8:00am was a fine time to mow the grass next door. Seriously, how do you get up so early on a Sunday and think, “I’ll go mow the grass this morning.” Read the paper and have a cup of coffee for Pete’s sake. Have a whole pot if it tickles you. Just don’t go outside and crank up the mower and wake up the neighborhood! </rant>

I like to make a big breakfast at least one morning on the weekend. I’m doing good to get dressed and get to work on the weekdays, so Sunday mornings are my time to pause and enjoy the thrills of a pot (or two) of coffee, eggs, sausage or bacon, and Meet the Press with A-Flizzle. If you ordered that meal at Denny’s, it would be a Grand Slam Nerdy, and could you leave a carafe of coffee on the table please?

I found a little bit of Bisquick left in the fridge, which is weird because most people put that in the pantry, but I decided to use it up and make a couple of pancakes. I limited myself to just one pancake, the one that came out looking like it had been put in somebody’s pocket instead of in the skillet, because I didn’t want my blood sugar to go through the roof or anything crazy. And it didn’t. It just hovered around the stinkin’ penthouse suite all day long, making me real frustrated because it wouldn’t come back down to the lobby where all the normal BG’s hang out.

That was the only starch that I had on the day, and I hovered around 200 mg/dl all day long. Being used to running a BG of around 100 lately, I felt that 200 in full effect. I even resorted to rage bolusing, just throwing a max amount of insulin at it to try and get it to budge. We went to see Hunger Games with some friends, and I barely touched the popcorn. Then we went to dinner afterward, and I couldn’t even eat because I was so nauseous and thirsty from the stubborn high BG. Finally, after I got home and gave up, I started to sink back down to normal again.

I ended up having to take over 100 units of insulin today to combat diabetes. That really, REALLY frustrates me, considering how a normal day for me (with carbs) is closer to 60 or 70. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have eaten that pancake, but there was no way of knowing that it would have been so stubborn all day long. The beauty of the conundrum is that it might not have even been the pancake. It could have been that my insulin lost its potency, or that I’m fighting off a virus of some kind, or that I was wearing green today instead of blue and my diabetes was offended. In other words, who knows?

Some of you may be reading this and thinking, “Wow, he’s got the diabetes real bad.” You may be thinking, “He really isn’t taking care of himself having to dose that much to get his blood sugars to cooperate.” You might even be thinking, “I would have been pissed too if that guy had woken me up with that damn lawnmower!” Or you might just be thinking, “Yup, been there, done that.” I’m convinced that some days diabetes has a mind of its own and does whatever it damn well pleases, regardless of what we try to do to “control” it.

Fighting back the tears, I was telling A-Flizzle about how frustrated it makes me when I feel like I have no control over what my body and diabetes has decided it wants to do. I hate feeling like I’m just strapped in and along for the ride, wherever it may take me. That is why I have the CGM, why I check my blood sugar on average 6-8 times a day, and why I try and count everything that goes in my mouth so that when I do make a mistake, hopefully it isn’t a complete disaster.

This situation is a good reminder to myself that we can do seemingly everything right in our lives with diabetes, from correct carb counting, insulin dosing, BG checking, and everything else, and yet we can still have those days where all of the pieces just refuse to fit together.

Tomorrow is a new day, with a new inset, and a fresh reservoir of insulin in my pump. So bring it beetus! I’ll be your Huckleberry.