something else

Day 2 of the four nights at home using the closed loop system, without closing the loop. I'm pretty tired tonight, although I slept well last night. The system doesn't interrupt my sleep any more than usual. I normally wake sometime between 2 and 5 to do a finger prick, so the mandatory one at 3am isn't anything out of the normal. The biggest hassles so far are the 48 hour urine collection and the dumb cognition testing. Being T1 is sometimes a funny game between myself, and my medical team. I try to be honest and admit my mistakes and own up to bad behaviour, but sometimes I just don't say anything and try to get away with it. The clinical trial is so intense it makes this really hard. My DNE makes a couple of calls a day to me and we chat using txt messages in the evening. Once I link up the new software to my pump, and she logs in online to monitor it, the truth is out there. When my BGL's hit 19 tonight I had to admit to having scoffed some of the chic chip bi...

Field of very big Telescopes Where in heavens name are we? I got home from the SPSP (the SouthPacific Star Party) in Wiruna NSW at 19:30 last night. My sister & I drove up, leaving Melbourne on Thursday morning and staying in a little cabin park in Wagga Wagga that evening then continuing along the Olympic Highway on Friday to arrive at the campsite at 3 in the afternoon. We were both very tired, but managed to get a fabulous hour with a fellow who let us look through his telescope at Saturn, the Tarantula nebula, some globular clusters, the Jewel box, and then pointed out how the dark spaces in the Milky Way form the Emu, which was observed and pictured in rock art by the Aborigines thousands of years ago. Seeing Saturn through the telescope made my gut jump.  I haven't been writing much about the 'Closed Loop' project for a while, as really, nothing has been happening apart from trying to fine tune my levels. I've spent 4 or 5 days intensely monitor...

7am. I'm awake properly now. Against all probability, I actually slept quite deeply in between the hourly blood tests and the discomfort of the cannula in my arm. I can't wait to get it taken out at 8, though. I've been hoping that when the sun rises it will reflect in the windows of all the buildings in the magnificent view from where I lie. Already I've captured a photo of the pre-dawn glow from the office window where my DNE and Doctors have been spending the night. There's blood in the crease of my elbow, under the cannula. I must have had a bleed during one of the blood collections. I feel surprisingly alert. I basically flatlined all night, once we got it stable at 6 mmol. I had to eat about 30gms cho extra after my meal, as the lightweight hi GI meal just didn't stick to my ribs at all! The DNE comes in and begins telling me once again about the procedures I will have to undertake each morning. I think I'm going to need to create a visua...

OK here we are, the first Big Night Out. I’m in at St. Vinnies, my DNE has been fussing around making sure my bed is nicely made up. I tried to help by tucking in a corner and got into trouble for doing it wrong. I said, it’s OK I’ve lived with it like that my whole adult life and it hasn’t affected me. I’ve had a bit of fun posting on facebook. Initially I was told I’d be in a 4 bed ward & have it all to myself, so I called for EOI’s about what to do with the other 3 beds and got some marvellous answers. I think the two best were the request to make blanket forts and post the photo’s on FB, and the one to set up an obstacle course to trip up the nurses coming in to do the hourly blood tests. As it turns out, the room was originally a 4 bed ward, but has more recently been converted to a discharge ward, with lounge chairs for people awaiting discharge. One bed has been left in for the duration of the research project, and there are 4 large, lush armchairs and TV’s. It’s a bit...

I'm in bed after a big day gardening at my younger sisters' country property with all my siblings. Then I came home to dress and go out to a 50th birthday party where I ended up dancing like a 20 year old, but I didn't last much past 9.30 pm! Now I find myself in one of those Type 1 situations tonight where I bolussed for quite a lot of carbs at the party, then didn't eat as much as I thought I would and now I'm in bed, very tired and wanting to go to sleep, but not game to, until I see which way my bgl is tracking, and I either eat or turn down the basal so that I'll get through the night ok.  I was scheduled to do a sensor change today and thought I'd leave it until I came home from gardening at my sister's, as I expected to be home about 4 pm, but as it turned out I didn't get home until 6.30 pm. I knew I had to recharge the sensor transmitter before putting a new sensor in, so I put the transmitter on the charger whilst I went out to the p...

I wanted to update my thoughts about being part of the Closed Loop research this morning, but I’m afraid my concentration and happy state of mind is being thrown for a loop by various internet subscription systems which are NOT behaving in the seamless manner you would expect and by my internet connection running slow and causing me to see red!  It’s incredible how things can just derail your emotional equilibrium very quickly. I’m also sick today with a herpes attack and I think it’s just an accumulation of the various stresses about finance, doing the research project, trying to find work, trying to get my business up and running and having emails from someone who saw my ad on airbnb and decided to ask at 11:30 pm if it would be ok to book in for 3 nights starting today(!) Fortunately after getting up out of bed, and conducting an online conversation over the recalcitrant internet connection mentioned earlier, the person decided that they would stay in central Melbourne instead ...