I woke up this morning (7:30 a.m.) to a blood sugar of 87. I did my 9K walk last night, took my meds around midnight (yes, I'm back to the old nighttime-meds thing), slept a few hours, and here we are. Exercise definitely helps with blood sugar.
At this point, my A1c is pretty close to a flat 7. If I can keep my daily fasting glucose in this range (say, 80-100) for the next three months, I might have an A1c under 6, at which point the hospital ought to start taking me off some of my current meds. The only monkey wrench in the works is the extra testing they're planning for me for this coming July 12: among the new tests will be an evaluation of my body's ability to recover (blood sugar) after eating. I have no faith in my body's ability to recover: I suspect I'm very insulin-resistant, which means I'll need way more than two hours for my blood sugar to return to whatever its baseline is. Once the docs see how slow my recovery is, they might hesitate to take away my meds.
The nighttime-meds thing hasn't been bad. I tried taking my meds during the day for a few days, but I never achieved a comfortable rhythm. That lasted only a couple of days. Nighttime is better for me, despite the risk of in-bed incontinence. Thus far, I've had little trouble with gurgling guts at night (knock on wood). If I suffer a Daegu gas explosion, though, I'll be sure to report it. (Hey, Beavis—you said "Report"! Huh-huh-huh...)
Congrats, your fasting blood sugar is now lower than mine (on my pre-diabetic drug cocktail).
ReplyDeleteRegarding the upcoming tests, I would give your body some of the credit it deserves. Yes, bits are creaky and leak, but find me a 50+ year old in perfect health and I'll show you someone who hasn't truly lived.
With the right combo of meds, exercise, and future weight loss, your insulin resistance will likely improve in tandem with your A1C.
No guarantee the docs will take you off the meds in the near future. If they do, great. If not, think of it this way. The meds like reading glasses. Yes, they're a hassle and merely paper over the real issue, but having 20/20 vision or a ticker that lets you walk without suffering from pain is a lot better than the alternative..
So there's the theme for today: three cheers for temporary fixes. Life itself, of course, is a temporary sputtering of light amidst the great dark expanses of nothingness that lie on either side of the provisional oasis we find ourselves on amidst the abyss.
The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.
ReplyDelete—Vladimir Nabokov, but I think you knew that
My fasting blood sugar was low two mornings ago, but this morning, it was up in the 190s because I'd made a grave mistake the night before, having bought some cookies labeled as "Zero," but which obviously weren't. I knew this already, but I didn't listen to myself, and I paid the price. We'll see how well I do tomorrow morning.
Thanks for the encouragement.
Leave it to Nabokov to infuse an ordinary sentiment with sublime beauty.
ReplyDeleteAnd here's what Vlad suggests we do during that brief crack of light:
"Let all of life be an unfettered howl. Like the crowd greeting the gladiator. Don't stop to think, don't interrupt the scream, exhale, release life's rapture."
The idea of "Zero." Just like Biden's supposed golf handicap, - lies, damned lies, and statistics... (And a healthy dose of senility)