Choices

10:07 AM and 10:15 AM.

Note the time of both of those above.

The first is the most recent time I checked my blood sugar, a nice 51 mg/dl. The second is the time I started writing this not so coherent post about choices.

While my blood sugar slowly rises to a normal range, the latest of many choices in my morning due to Type I Diabetes, I chose the thrill of a Kit-Kat extra crispy wafer as the raising of my blood sugar of choice as opposed to something quicker like juice, mainly because I don't have any juice with me right now and the thought of drinking a soda out of the vending machine nearly made me puke.

With that being said, I've got to make better choices about what it is that I reach for when I go low. For many years I've always reached for candy, and more specifically milk chocolate, when trying to treat a low. But I know the consequences of that milk chocolaty goodness on the other side leaves me reaching for the syringe and Novolog to correct the ensuing high that will surely follow.

Apple juice, in small amounts, is always the best answer for me when trying to treat a low.

Again, the best answer is apple juice. So why is it so difficult to always have a small bottle laying around the house, office or gym? I mean seriously, I'm 44 years old, I actually have a college degree, a wife, two kids, a cat and a job. But asking me whether or not I have an apple juice with me IF things were to spiral downward in a hurry and I turn into Raymond Babbit in "Rain Man".

"Yeah, I'm an excellent (driver) Diabetic" "10 minutes to (Wapner) recovery".

Anyway, slowly but surely, I need to make certain I'm making better choices with how I treat my low Blood Sugar readings.

Week in Review 5-3-11 through 6--5-11

Holy cow, what a riding week!!

More miles than ever this week thanks to a number of circumstances. We were down one kid the entire week as Ryan was at New Life Camp from Sunday through Friday. We had Memorial Day on Monday and Kendra took Tuesday off so I was able to ride not once, but twice in one day which was awesome!!

All in all, the most miles yet in the nearly two months that I've had Goose!! Results of the week:

• Monday 5-30: 10.56 miles in 48:37

• Tuesday 5-31: 10.46 miles in 48:33
• 10.62 miles in 50:00

• Wednesday 6-1: 10.81 miles in 49:09

• Thursday 6-2: Rest day

• Friday 6-3: 7.21 miles in 31:13

• Saturday 6-4: 16.28 miles in 78:22

• Sunday 6-5: 8.04 miles in a very casual 46:39

Totals for the week 73.98 miles in slightly more than 6 hours!!!!!!!

Throw in an hour of 3 on 3 half court basketball Sunday night and it was an active week to say the least.

All of which leads me to the physical condition I'm in right now. Sick!!

As a Type 1 Diabetic, I can't stand getting sick. It ruins so many things with everyday life that I just feel like everything I've done trying to get healthy is lost in the few days in which I'm recovering from whatever illness has decided to crawl into my body. Did I push myself to hard last week workout wise? Potentially. Did I shake one too many hands at Dylan's pre-school graduation on Thursday night that and didn't properly wash off all of the germs from a variety of five year olds? Possibly.

Who knows why I'm sick right now, but all I can tell you is right now I'm pissed and there's nothing worse than a debilitating head cold in early June!!

Week in Review 5-23-11 through 5-29-11 and May Totals

Well the beginning of this last full week of May got off to a less than stellar start with an epic fail on my part. After riding for seven straight days and playing basketball this past Sunday night for two hours, my body gave out on Monday after work and I was left with a low blood sugar after dinner that was not correctable in time to ride.

Then there was the issue with the police situation in our neighborhood on Wednesday night. I'm still not sure why they were swarming, and I use that term literally, around our neighborhood. But they were actively pursuing either someone or a group of individuals because there were more than 10 vehicles of both the city of Raleigh and State Police traveling at high rates of speeds on our rather pedestrian streets. Needless to say, I got a little spooked not only dodging these guys but calling Kendra to let her know what was going on and having her tell me there's an officer sitting in front of our house. By the time I got back to the house he was gone and probably continuing to look for the bad guys. But by then I was done, both mentally and physically, having done only half of my intended route for the evening. The moral of the story is I may never know what was going on that evening, but my internal radar has been elevated for future incidents as we move into the fun summer months as far as mischief and crime go.

One other thing that interrupts workouts, especially bike workouts, is family travel. We left for both Hickory and Charlotte on Thursday and got back into Raleigh on Saturday. The good news is that I was able to get in a workout Thursday morning before work and Saturday afternoon after we got back in town earlier than anticipated. So I only missed Friday down in Charlotte which was not so bad.

Results for the week and the month of May totals:

• Tuesday 5-24-11 - 10.60 miles in 47:48

• Wednesday 5-25-11 - 5 miles in 25:00

• Thursday 5-26-11 - 10.08 miles in 47:00

• Saturday 5-28-11 - 11.15 miles in 56:00

• Sunday 5-29-11 - 10.03 miles in 71:00 (Bike ride with Ryan before he left for a week of camp)

So totals for an abbreviated week of riding were 46.86 miles in slightly more than 4 hours. Also, there was no basketball this week due to the Memorial Day holiday. So all in all, not bad considering I only got out five times and one of those was cut in half.

Now the impressive totals, at least for me, for the month of May were 225.34 miles!!

I increased my mileage from April (170) to May (225.34) be more than 55 miles!!

If I don't see results tomorrow with a much improved A1C at my quarterly Endo appointment over at Duke, I'm going to be pissed!! Honestly though, I'm fairly confident that my number will have dropped to a more comfortable level based on the numbers I've been seeing on my meter for the past two months since I've started riding. I only wished I'd gotten a bike sooner!!

The month of June, and continued persistence on the bike, starts tomorrow.

Week in Review: 5-16-11 through 5-22-11

Wow!! What a workout week!!

Starting on Monday this week I told myself that I was not going to let the two main monsters in my life, Low Blood Sugar and Laziness, ruin a perfect week of going seven for seven on Goose. Well I got seven rides in this week, but Tuesday's ride was compromised greatly by the two main monster's diabolical first cousin, weather. I thought I was in the clear on Tuesday night when, after getting the kids down to bed and getting other things organized, I checked the radar only to find a small window of opportunity in which to ride. Well one thing led to another and by the time I got out, the rain was pelting the south side of my neighborhood at a good clip and showed no sign of ending. I made it out for all of five minutes and rode for a whopping 1.11 miles on a very rain slicked road. Not much fun at all!! But I'm glad to say that I kept the other two monsters at bay the other nights of the week and put up some impressive totals for a full week despite Tuesday's performance. Results from the week:

• Monday 5-16: 10.41 miles in 50 minutes

• Tuesday 5-17: 1.11 miles in 5 minutes

• Wednesday 5-18: 10.41 miles in 49:30 minutes

• Thursday 5-19: 8.15 miles in 39:33 minutes

• Friday 5-20: 9.18 miles in 40:25 minutes

• Saturday 5-21: 14.3 miles in 66 minutes

• Sunday 5-22: 10.01 miles in 61 easy minutes

Amazing totals for me for the week were 63.57 miles in nearly 5 hours and 15 minutes!!!!!!!!!

On top of all of that, I actually got out last night and played two hours of full court basketball up at the church with the guys!! So slightly more than 7 hours of exercise for the entire 7 days of the week!!

I've got one week and two days before my next Endo appointment over at Duke on June 1st. Again, the goal is to have a much reduced A1C number than my last appointment which came in at 7.2%. With proper maintenance of my workout schedule and a better eating plan, I know I'm headed in the right direction.

Week in Review: 5-9-11 through 5-15-11

Well, the first four work days of the week got off to a great start. But then the identical twins, Low and High Blood Sugar, did me in for what would have been a seventh consecutive day of riding early Friday morning. After my ride Thursday night I got the craving for food and juice after experiencing a post ride low. Well as you can probably guess, I over did it. Shocking I know!! So the resulting low led me to over treat, and I woke up Friday morning with a number that I hadn't seen in quite some time. Now I'm doing my best to really lower my A1C before my next Endo appointment on June 1st, but I had been pretty good with only treating lows in a good kind of way by not over doing it. But Thursday night I completely fell off the wagon. I really wanted to get five rides in during the work week because I knew I wasn't going to be able to get in my "long" ride of the week due to the fact that I was going down to the beach for 24 hours, leaving Friday night and coming back home Saturday night. So anyway, I was moderately pissed at myself for letting temptation get the best of me this past Thursday night. So without any further ado, my results from an active week.

• Mon. - 5-9: 10.47 miles in 47 minutes
• Tue. - 5-10: 10.50 miles in 47 minutes
• Wed. - 5-11: 6.36 miles in 27 minutes. This was my speed workout of the week done over lunchtime under very humid conditions
• Thur. - 5-12: 10.01 miles in 46.30 minutes
• Sun. - 5-14: 8.75 miles in 44 minutes. Took it relatively easy after two days off and because I was going to play basketball at night which I did.

Overall riding results for the week: 46.09 miles ridden in 3 1/2 hours. Plus an additional two hours of full court basketball Sunday evening at church. All in all a good workout week. Very thankful for having the ability to spend 24 hours down in Emerald Isle with my men's bible study group from WFPC where we conducted our year end study and got a chance to play 18 holes of golf with a fun group of guys.

As always, Type 1 Diabetes has been my main focus on this new found exercise regiment. I'm slowly but surely getting a better sense of how my body reacts after some intense workouts and in the end, this will help lower my A1C number to a more normal level/percentage.

10 Things I Hate About You, Diabetes

This is the one day this year that I'm going to completely bitch about this damn disease I've been dealing with for nearly 57.6% of my life. WARNING: Curse words may be included in items #9 and 10!!

1. I hate that slightly more than 25 1/2 years ago, I was robbed of a great freshman year of college because of my diagnosis with you.
2. I hate that for nearly 10 years after my diagnosis with you, I did not properly monitor you and that I will dearly pay for that later in life with the people that mean the most to me.
3. I hate the still occasional feeling of guilt that comes with treating a low because I was told "You can't eat/drink that" so many times by medical professionals back in the mid 1980's.
4. I hate being asked if I'm going to shave during a business meeting when I pull out my rather large bag that contains my Type 1 testing paraphernalia.
5. I hate that one single test strip to an uninsured individual cost nearly $1 to tell them if they're OK at that particular moment in time.
6. I hate putting too little blood on said test strip and getting the all too often Err symbol and wasting a perfectly good $1.
7. I hate not being able to do anything fun on a whim.
8. I hate thinking I've done everything properly to prepare for a workout routine only to be told by my machine that I'm either too high or to low.
9. I hate not being able to look my two sons, ages nine and five, directly in the eyes and tell them they are NOT going to have to deal personally with this fucking disease at some point in the future.
10. I hate looking in the mirror each day I wake up because of the events that transpired in late April of 1992. You see Diabetes, that is when you physically changed the appearance of my face when you thought it would be OK to let me get behind the wheel of my car after a very long day of both school and work. The Reader's Digest condensed version of the story is that I totaled my Volvo on that evening more than 19 years ago in Greensboro, NC as I hit an embankment when I ran through an intersection at more than 35 miles per hour because I was driving around in a Diabetic coma. My face hit the steering wheel between the top of my nose and my forehead shattering every bone around my eye sockets to where the doctors, who operated on me three days after the accident due to the extreme swelling, had to literally stitch them back together. So needless to say my physical facial appearance was altered somewhat and for that Type 1 Diabetes, I fucking hate you very much!

Now the funny thing about all of this is that most people will tell you that I'm an extremely positive person when it comes to 99.99% of things. But when I saw this topic today, I just couldn't resist and felt it would be a good way to vent/rant/bitch/complain.

There are many things in life I'm very thankful for, with the love and support of my immediate family being first and foremost. But as many have said before, and will continue to do so in the future, this disease is mind numbingly brutal each and every day that we endure it. It's how we endure it as an active online community that makes each one of us special in our own way.

Week in Review 5-2-11 through 5-8-11

This week did not start off as I had anticipated due to a few variables that I was unable to overcome. First off, I wanted to get out on Monday but the low Blood Sugar monster reared its ugly head and left me completely incapacitated. Then weather and laziness, the low Blood Sugar's evil first cousins, did me in collectively on Thursday and Friday. So I'm not going to complain or offer excuses. I'm going to be honest and say I've got to do better about controlling two out of the three problems listed above. Because you really can't control the weather. With that being said, here's my rundown from this past week:

• Tuesday, May 3rd - I got out late and felt good despite taking the day off yesterday. I got around my loops for a total of 9.1 miles in 42 minutes.

• Wednesday, May 4th - Tonight I got out early, as in it was still light out when I left and for nearly all of the three loops I went around the neighborhood. This going forward is the answer both time wise and length wise as I've needed to increase both since I've now had a month on the bike and I need to have longer rides for greater distances during my night rides. Totals for the night were 10.55 miles in 49 minutes.

• Saturday, May 7th - The big ride of the week. This took place because of two things. Anger at myself for having missed both riding days on Thursday and Friday, and stress/anger issues coming from my house. There's nothing better than being able to get on a bike and push you limits because of stress. It was a great ride for both mileage and time. Totals were 14.03 miles in a brisk 65 minutes.

• Sunday, May 8th - Ryan and I got out on Mother's Day and rode to places we'd never been to before on our bikes. It's always fun to go out and see things you only ever pass by in a car. It's also pretty funny how often you don't realize how the grade in the road changes when you're actually doing the work and not your car!! We rode for 8.5 miles in right around 60 minutes.

Totals for the abbreviated week: 42.18 miles in a little more than 3 1/2 hours.

Also, there was no basketball played this week due to odds and ends around the house after our Mother's Day dinner festivities.

My plans this week are to ride every day during the work week as I'll be heading down to the beach on Friday night with my WFPC Bible Study Group and won't be home until Saturday night. This is going to force me to get up early and ride two mornings this week on both Wednesday and Friday. Keeping my Blood Sugar under control will be at a premium this week to accomplish my goals.