Crisis in the backseat

Last night I jumped in a taxi during rush hours and headed across town to meet old friends for a few drinks and oysters. Before I left the office I knew my Dex was pointing south but I didn't realize how quickly it was heading south. Once I jumped in the backseat I could feel it, I checked and was 64. Not terrible, I had 4 Honey Stingers and tried to calm my mind and slow my heart rate. Confined in the back of this random taxi stuck in traffic on a Tuesday night I was starting to panic. The radio was too loud, the car moving too slowly, the headlines from the other late of traffic were shinning too brightly. 5 or so minutes passed and I was feeling worse, jump out of your skin worse, thoughts of passing out ending up at the hospital worse. Dex has rendered it's self useless at this point still saying 83 and dropping, I pull out my monitor and say a little prayer that I'm at least starting to move in the right direction. 43, crap. 

I'm having a medical crisis in the backseat of your cab and you have no idea. I have probably at least one medical crisis a day, a dozen a week, a hundred a year and no one knows. I'm sitting in a park bench, leaning against the outside of the grocery store, sitting on the steps out front of an apartment building and I'm have a medical crisis. And you know what? It fucking sucks. 

I don't mean to be overly dramatic but when you're the the throes of a low blood sugar everything IS dramatic. And yes my number maybe 65, or 45, or even 32 and the chances that I will ultimately pass out are unlikely but in the middle of it all it feels so real, so possible and even at times probable. I've lived with this beast for 17 years and eating sugar has ALWAYS resulted in the cause and effect. Eat sugar, recover from a low. But despite this clear out come that has worked 100% of the time I still resort to irrational thinking, thinking this time, on the back seat of this dark cab I'm going to pass out.

3 Months Later

Thanks to Dex in three months I've managed to drop my HbA1c from 7.8 to 6.5. 

My carb counting, psychotic Dex watching, obsessive tracking has paid off. But I still have .7 to go before I reach my goal. Which means some more tightening and fine tuning has to occur. Lower carb diet and more exercise is what I hope will lead me to an even lower more desirable HbA1c. 

With T-minus 3 months to my next endo appointment I've definitely got some work cut out for me, so today begins the start of some new habits. 3 months ago when I embarked on this journey to get my shit together I stopped running and doing all cardio. I was finding that to keep my numbers in a normal range while running I was letting my blood sugar spike upwards of 200. Then while running I'd just watch it drop and drop, no matter how high I was prior to running I would inevitably fall below 60. This overall was not a good strategy but at the time I didn't have to the tools to figure out any other way. These pre-exerices numbers were adding to a very bad HbA1C and the downing of glucose gels was not helping maintain my weight so I opted for a break. I started doing anaerobic exercise in the form of Pure Barre, which has been amazing. I rarely go low before or after and the intense muscle work really has helped with my insulin sensitivity. But I realize the needs to get back in the running game and I'm hoping the addition of Dex will help with this. 

So today's plan is this. 3pm reduce basal insulin to 50%. When I begin my 3 mile run at 430 I'll take 8g of fast acting carbs with another 4g every mile afterwards. 

This is all trial and error so WHO knows it this will work and I'll tweak as we go. My overall goal is to run a 1/2 marathon in 1 year from today.