Ch..ch...changes! Must try harder!!

*hangs head in shame*

Apologies for the lack of blogging, things have been abit hectic, a little depressing, and i seem to have lots of changes coming my way...not all good!

Well the diabetes status hasnt been too great as of late, altho iv had a sticking cold i have managed to get my arse into gear and had my first blood test for ages and made a follow up app with my new doc!

....Not great :( i was faced with high bloods, high cholesterol and high blood pressure, needless to say i was in tears and cant belive i had let myself down so much! so am trying to re invent myself as a better, healthier person and see if i can get much improved feedback later in the year!

Next bad news....my amazing flatmate of four years has been away a month or so and has recently made contact telling me she has no choice but to give in her months notice (i am not angry with her, she had no choice to make the decision)  :( not only will i miss her terribly but now i am faced with a month to either find a new flatmate...or another place to live!  with all the stress i am already under at work and other parts of life, this was a little hard to deal with. luckily my landlords are lovely and after a nice chat with a few glasses (bottles) of wine they assured me everything will be ok and they dont want me to go! They said i was an exempliery tenant :) and if i cant find someone, they will help me to advertise! So now my driving lessons/holiday plans are on hold until i can sort it out before the month is up!

anyways this is just a quickie update ...more coming soon promise!!

My creative side :)

Wow iv just realised how badly i have been neglecting my blog.....so here is a little treat in the form of a poem which is my first one....(insert applause here :p) its about how i think most of us feel on a day to day basis, anyway hope you like it :)

I wonder what life would be without diabetes,
a life free of worry from this dreadful disease.
No weighing of food and counting of carbs,
no more painful jabs with needles full of insulatard.

Imagine not having to squeeze blood on that strip,
and instead eating pik n mix till you feel sick.
Munching big bags of crisps or a whole apple pie,
then not feeling ill coz your blood sugars high.

No more hassle from the diabetes police,
are you allowed that? should you eat that? Yes! just leave me in peace!
Trying not to think of complications as i rest my head,
the energy drinks not seen at the side of my bed.

And as for the doctors dont get me started,
you go for a check up and leave broken hearted.
Oh i wish for one day i could be D free,
To live everyday life being much more happy

But i do my best everyday to live life as full as can be...
because i control this disease, it does not control me.

iBGStar review!

I was really pleased to be one of the first lucky individuals in the uk, to test a brand new blood glucose meter! The iBGStar is the first meter that connects to your iphone or ipod touch. I had heard about it from the forum and so sent an email to the company, got a reply almost straight away telling me they were going to ship one out to me! I was sworn to secrecy and had to sign a confidentiality agreement, turned out it was pretty good timing too seeing as i had just recieved my new iphone 4s :) So it finally got released and on the market yesterday so i am now free to write my review!

First impressions

To be honest i was like a little kid on christmas day when i got the parcel, ripped it open and saw the big shiny box :) The first thing i did was disguard the instructions and went straight for the meter! I was really shocked by how small it was, this thing is tiny which i immediatly thought...Ooh this will be good when i go out for the night as it wont take up so much space in my bag lol. Had a look at the finger pricker...felt a little plasticy and flimsy but i was going to test it regaurdless. It came with two pots of test strips, lancets, and of course all the instrucion booklets and handy case to put it all in.

The meter

The meter itself is a tiny 56mm by 24mm which fits perfectly on the bottom of my iphone. Its really sleek, shiny and has smooth curvy edges, its just beautiful really i cant think of anything that could improve the design. What i like about it is that it works just as well without the iphone so no need to panic if your out and about and run out of battery. When it is on the display is really clear and easy to read, it also comes with a little cap to cover the docking connection if you choose just to use it normally, but i think it works better and you get more out of it when you use it with the app. The meter stores 300 readings which is less than the meter i was using but i think it stores your reading for longer when used with the app. The meter had a rechargable battery and also turns itself off 3 minutes after it was last used which is handy.

Strips and finger pricker

The less said about the finger pricker the better....i personally always stick to my multiclix every time with all my meters just because i like the convienience of not having to change the lancet over all the time, so maybe i am a little bit biased on this point, i just dont like the plasticy, tacky feel of the newer finger prickers, however saying that i was impressed by the size of this one, being very small and discreet, but i will always stick to my multiclix so im afraid to say after trying the new one once, it stayed where is was.

The test strips i noticed are in the pot the other way around to most others, i actualy like the fact when you reach in the pot your not grabbing the end that will have the blood sample on it when you put it in the meter, so your less likely to 'contaminate it' as such (although all good diabetics know to wash thier hands first before... :p ) The strips also only require a measly 0.5 microlitre sample and takes 6 seconds to process.

The App

The app is free and available to download from the app store. Once you have the iBGStar plugged in you can test your sugar which comes up on the screen, you can also input how many carbs you are about to eat and how many units of insulin you are going to give yourself. It also allows you to input hypo and hyper warnings at mmols of your choice, along with offering a notes section where you can choose options such as: too much/little insulin, exercise, unwell, and my favourite one, 'ate fatty food' as well as entering your own suggestions. Your readings are saved and you are able to view averages on different graphs and things like how many tests you have done, how many lows, highs you have averaged, i do like this feature however i prefer to use the meter by itself most of the time, in the event of a hypo i dont think i would be able to get my phone, unlock it with the password, load up the app, plug in the meter and test before it was too late!

Conclusion

Well after using it for a few weeks i really do like it! I like the design, i like the fact it is discreet and i think the thing i like the most is the size. I am going to get the test strips on prescription and i can see myself using this meter for a long time to come :)

Overall i give it a 4/5

Oh and i suppose finding out its on the market for £48 and knowing i got mine for free is an extra bonus lol .....you can purchase yours here :)

Got the job...and one of those days!

You know its going to be one of those days when you wake up late for work! As i got up out of bed, i spilled a glass of water everywhere and then stepped on some of my make-up....by this point i didnt even want to think about what my blood sugars were, sure enough 15mmols Grrrr!!

Took a correction, no breakfast and off to work, day didnt get any better as we were short staffed and it was complete chaos!! My phone decided to die on me even though it had been charging all night and i somehow managed to swallow a fly outside.. Thank god it was a half day i went straight to bed when i got home and stayed there until dinner time lol oh and the freeview decided to break too, what a horrible morning!

Anyway on to the good news.........I got the job!!

Apparently out of the 4 candidates they interviewed, i was the only one to be invited back and i did really well in the interviews! I start of the 12th december, just after my christmas do weekend with the pre-school, so i have decided it has to be a good one, as it was also be my leaving do!! It will be really sad to go and im going to miss everyone so much :(

So i am looking forward to the chistmas do so much, we go away for the weekend to a lovely 4 star hotel, dress up, have a 3 course meal followed by a disco! We did it last year and it was awesome! Also looking forward to hopefully going to london in december for the circle D meet :) Oh and getting my new phone upgrade in a couple of weeks yay! :D

promising changes?

First off, HAPPY WORLD DIABETES DAY FOR YESTERDAY! :D

I may be starting to believe all this about things happening for a reason!

Over the past few weeks iv had alot of things go wrong with a new job lined up to take over my 2nd job! long story short, they totally messed me about, and having already handed in (and worked) my notice of my previous employment, it left me without a 2nd job! So for the past two weeks i have been working part time which as anyone knows does not pay anywhere near enough to live on!

So i thought that i needed to make some changes, and although i LOVE my job at the pre-school i needed to find a proper full time job with decent pay! So although it pained me to do, i joined a recruitment agency and sent of my CV to a private nursery nurse job local to me.....and got a call back the next morning!

Had the inititial interview last week which was really daunting as its been 3 years since i had a formal interview and there were so many questions and scenarios....anyway they seemed really happy and asked me to come back the following week (today!) to do an activity with the children, so thats where i have just come back from and it went really well, got some really good feedback and now i have to wait until tomoro to find out if i am in!! Its a really good position and alot more money :D

So im thinking maybe its a good thing that i was messed around with that job, as it has lead me to take a good look at my life and change it for the better, and maybe if i sort out one aspect of my life, others may follow. speaking of which i have also joined the gym (I say joined, i got a docs referral)..... :)

Although i still dont believe i got diabetes for any reason...that one im still working out :p

Fingers and toes crossed everyone!

Flu jab ...for or against?

Well after having no problems with the flu jab last year i went in for my routine appointment, not expecting to have it there and then but nether the less, the good doctor insisted and all was fine and i forgot about it all.........until a week later!!!

Wow i have never felt so frustrated, angry, upset and ill!! I really couldnt work it out, i was doing everything right, dosing my insulin as normal and eating what i usually eat at the same time etc.. and i was getting readings like 12, 11, sometimes even in the 14's wheras normally they would be in the 5's! I remember at one point i went from 5mmols up to 14 after half a sandwich :o! I did control tests, changed my insulin cartridges and i was still getting the same results! I got so angry and frustrated, blamed myself and just thought well tomoro will be better...but it wasnt and this carried on for 9 days!! I was on half term thank god, as i really dont think i could have worked a week on those levels, i felt so ill and run down, stayed in all weekend and most of the week unable to do anything and scared to eat anything! The highest level (that i knew of that is) was 21 at one point and that did really scare me...i checked for ketones luckily none!

And then it occured to me about the flu jab i had the previous week, could this be the reason? Well i was fine last year? So I posted on the forum, asked friends and co workers and got replies with a range of opinions and answers and found out it had happened to a few diabetics i knew as well, including my friends son, who had experienced the exact same thing as me after his flu jab...Well i felt a bit better knowing that i could actually explain these high readings so just carried on upping my insulin to about 3 times what i would use normally waiting for them to come back down

...and sure enough they did :) It took 9 days but i am finally feeling alot better and back within the normal range :) It actually felt so good to have my first hypo in ages lol

So i dont know what i will be doing next year....is it really worth going through all this again?! i know we should get the flu jab as there is a risk of pneumonia and further complications but i guess i will just have to think about that next year!

long time...no blog!!!

Ummm apologies for the ridiculous lack of blogging...i dont actually think i have an excuse for it!!

Well here is a few updates from me and the D :)

As some of you may know i didnt have the best bank holiday weekend just gone, something happened that lead me to be a bit of a wreck for a few days, cancelled all my diabetic appointments and clinics and just forgot about diabetes really...thankfully my friends helped me get back on my feet and my things are ok now ok...sort of! dont want to go into it too much...

Anyway on to the good! Since iv been on here i have had some progress on my dental situation (thanks to a lifesaving loan from my dad :) )....Although having a near heart attack when he gave me a dental plan coming to nearly £900 (i need to discuss this with him again)I have had my root canals done!!! WOW i can honestly say it was not nice! The actual work itself didn't hurt and a managed to drown out some of the drill noises with music.... but i had 5....yes 5 injections!!! felt them go in...all the way down and i ended up crying in the chair coz it was so painful he did them both at the same time so had basically the whole of the bottom of my mouth numbed for about 5 hours after and felt like my face was massive lol! even my ear was numb, luckily no hypos and no hypers either and the dentist was really nice (even if i couldnt understand some of what he was saying to me...) :)

So i have had the root canal work done (the worst bit) and now have to go back in this wednesday to have them filled which i am hoping will be a little less painful :S

So not in pain any more which i am liking alot! I just have to get the back one extracted tho and then thats it for now (i have other work need doing too apparently but just want to get these out of the way first)

Numbers have been actually pretty good past week mainly in the 5-7 region which i am very pleased and also lost some weight which has lifted my spirits somewhat

So a few ups and downs but now i am thinking positive that i can keep this all up coz i like feeling happy, makes me realise how much i love my friends and family and that im so lucky in other ways oh a small payrise at work also and re booked all my appointments and clinics too.

Until next time....soon i promise :)

x