The most interesting thing I took away from today's appointment was that stress and sickness will cause higher blood glucose readings. To combat this I can drink more fluids and do extra exercise if appropriate. That made me think back on a few results that I was at a loss to explain at the time. There were a few occasions where my blood sugar reading in the morning was no different than the night before and thinking back, I can see that one at least may well have been stress related as I'd gone to sleep upset and headachey! It was all the more ammunition in my armoury.
The nurse had trouble with my blood pressure reading again. The automatic machine said 162 over something to which I firmly objected. This nurse to her great credit, said "yep, that doesn't seem right" and went and got the old fashioned manual machine and stethoscope. She measured it several times to be sure, meaning that by the end I could barely feel my fingers, and came up with a reading of 115/70! She said that's well within normal for women and very healthy!
The nurse was trying afterwards, to ever so tactfully explain why the automatic machine might be having trouble with my arms so I helped her out by confirming that I understood it was hard to get a reading through all that fat. She laughed, I think relieved that I wasn't going to take offense. I can't imagine the sort of people she must get in there that would make her so hesitant to state such an obvious fact. It must be like trying to listen to the words of a new song with your head stuck in a bowl of custard.
My eyes were still fine too, though the left was weaker again. Marly has suggested I get a referral for an ophthalmologist just to get my eyes tested so that we have a baseline result for future comparisons. That seems like a sensible plan to me.
She also wants me to get some specific blood and urine tests for our next appointment: HbA1c levels which shows the average level of blood glucose over the previous three months, urine microalbumin to show kidney function, and serum lipid studies to see how my cholesterol levels are looking. I will be making sure my doctor orders all of those when I see her at the end of the month.
All in all I left in pretty high spirits. I got to work and I'm not sure exactly what happened but I felt pretty low and unmotivated by the end of the day. Nothing particularly odd or untoward happened today and I have a nasty suspicion that it may be more related to sugar withdrawals following the two big meals on the weekend.
At any rate, by the time I got home I felt pretty vague and uninterested in my exercise. Luckily, Mr Smart came to the rescue, "Boring episode of Buffy up next?" he asked. I didn't know, but conceded they are mostly exciting. "One way to find out!" he insisted. Bravo Mr Smart, well played. And it turned out that it was an exciting episode! Buffy's college room mate turned out to be a 3000 year old trans-dimensional demon who was slowly sucking out Buffy's soul! (Season 4, Episode 2)
Today's food and exercise were:
- Breakfast: Yoghurt, berries, fibre toppers, slivered almonds & pumpkin seeds.
- Morning snack: A slice of Bertie's homemade banana bread.
- Lunch: Two pieces of zucchini slice and seventeen strawberries which wasn't enough so I grabbed a nut snack pack as well (two brazil nuts, two hazelnuts, two pecan nut halves, four almonds and half a dried apricot).
- Exercise: 40 minutes on the cross-trainer with Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
- Dinner: A Mission Wholegrain Wrap spread with Yumi Hummus then topped with Dorsogna triple-smoked ham, cucumber, mushroom, and iceberg lettuce.
- Dessert: 17g of Klingele Balance dark chocolate with cocoa nibs.
All in all I did well for the day. I ate pretty well and I did my exercise. I now need to get on with the planning aspects of the program and try to schedule out the rest of my week and do a few bits of research and desk-tidying before bed! So I shall leave off here for today. Same approximate time tomorrow folks!
Jess
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