Time to whine

I don't feel like writing anything terribly useful or instructional today. I've had one heck of a weekend, and I feel a need to complain about it.

Some of you know I have type 1 diabetes. I was diagnosed in 2002, when I was in college, when I finally decided weighing under 100 pounds for no apparent reason was a good reason to go to the doctor. I manage it well, though, and it rarely interferes with my work or my hobbies.

I do, however, like to participate in studies through my doctor's office. For the one I'm doing now, I had to be put on NPH, an older 12-hour insulin, on Friday.

My life has not been the same ever since, and I don't mean that in a good way.

Suddenly I understand why being diabetic used to be such a terrible thing. I was diagnosed after Lantus, the 24-hour insulin on the market, came out, so I'd never known anything but long-acting, even-keel insulin and highly effective, short-acting insulin. NPH, on the other hand, has extreme peaks and valleys in its effectiveness, making it impossible for me to do my usual carb-counting (how I determine the amount of short-acting insulin I take for each meal). I fight extreme lows all day, yet in the morning when I wake up, my blood sugar is sky high.

I had intended to get some work done over the weekend, but it just didn't work out. After crashing Saturday evening and narrowly managing to avoid crashing on Sunday, I just didn't have the time or willpower to work around our other weekend plans. And this morning I had such awful nausea while my blood sugar rapidly dropped from its morning high, that I have to confess I wasn't very productive today, either.

Luckily I should only be on NPH for a week. My next appointment can't come soon enough — I want my life back!