There is no such thing as a free Zumba class.

I was going to blog this all last night, but I passed out.  My husband will argue that I fell asleep on the couch watching TV.  With a BG like that, I know better, I was in a sugar induced slumber.

A good friend of mine had called me Sunday night asking if I wanted to join her for a FREE Zumba class last night.  I really like Zumba because I really like to dance.  I don't like to exercise, but, to me, dancing is not exercising.  Zumba and I get along.  Well, except for the whole routine of it. 

If you have ever been to a Zumba class and look around, they are all very similar.  In the front of the class is the super adorable teacher, very slendar with curves in all the right places.  These people are born that way- you can Zumba until the cows come home, it's nature in this instance.  I'm not saying you can't make some major improvements.  Some have the genes for this but it has been hidden behind cookies and coffee.  Most of us, we don't have this.  But don't stop trying!!!  All this fighting a losing battle stuff is really good for your heart.  At least that's what the doctor's always say.

Super adorable teacher is in the front in her awesome (read expensive) zumba pants that have those adorable hangy things on the butt that she can actually spin around by moving her hips (which is amazing since the only thing mine can do is bear a child).  Behind the teacher is what I think of as her Cronies (with all due respect).  These are the women who are also wearing the cute zumba pants with the thingies on the butt and can also make them spin simply by moving their hips.  These women know the routines as good as, if not better than, the teacher herself.  In my mind, I secretly dream of being one of these women.

The rest of the room is full of an assortment of women ranging from 8-70 yrs old, a majority of which are probably 27-52 yrs.  These women can keep up with the 'moves' and the instructor, though, most lack the hips.  They anticipate what is next and flow smoothly through each song.  Even a lot of the first timers seem to catch on.  I brought my mom once knowing she likes to dance.  I had been going for sometime and was able to hold my own, only 'messing up' a few times a song.  My mom isn't the most coordinated person, I figured it would take her a bit to catch on.  No.  Apparently, zumba is the modern day jazzer-cise, which my mom was a goddess at.  She should have been up front with the cronies.

The other type of person in class is the person that lacks any coordination.  This person may have taken years of dance and still cannot jump and clap hands at the same time.  You can always find this person because they are usually the one getting run into when everyone else is moving.  If this person is aware of their lack of abilities, they usually find a spot along the wall (less people to run into or get in their way).  I am this person. 

So, last night I am anticpating my free Zumba class.  Make a nice fish dinner with some rice (going to need some carbs for zumba) and broccolli.  We gobble up dinner, even the toddler chows, and I clean up.  Go and change into my cutest black sweat pants and a tee shirt, grab my zumba shoes (the ones that kill my feet for the first 5 songs and then are like heaven), and fill up a water bottle.  As I am pouring my cold filtered water into my favorite water bottle my pump starts 'yelling' at me.  It has been an hour already?  Alright, time to test the BG.  73.  That is not good for someone who is going to be hard core sweating in an hour.  Grab a nice 19 g carb peanuty granola bar and pack some extra test strips.  It will be fine.

My friend picks me up and we are off.  I make mention that my BG wasn't terribly cooperative earlier, but I am sure it will be fine.  We are searching for this place that neither of us have been before and end up in a sleeping trucker haven.  Realizing we must have passed it, we cross our fingers we didn't wake anyone and turn around.  Just around the corner from sleeping trucker haven sits the church in an industrial looking strip mall.  It looks very small from the outside.  This should be interesting.

We walk inside to find coat racks, apparently they are expecting quite the crowd.  After hanging up our coats we find the zumba room.  This place is quite large actually.  Wow.  A great place for zumba.  We sign in- we're like number 11 and 12 on the list.  I decide now is a good time to retest.  Still in the 70's.  I am not going to make this without some hard core low GI index carbs now.  Grab my can of ER pineapple juice and chug.  I reluctantly finish the can- it's like 24 g carbs and I don't want to spike- but I would rather spike than look a fool.

Suddenly I look around and see about 60 people lining up in this room that doesn't seem as big anymore.  We find a spot along the wall (I know my abilities are less than grand).  We are ready.  For how crowded this room is I find that there is plenty of room to do the routine.  The routine is fun and energetic, giving a good full body workout and not too terribly hard to follow.  Of course, I still manage to start with the wrong foot and get lost in the routine, but my friend managed just fine.

After each song I look at my continuous monitor.  This isn't looking good.  I am sitting in the 80's with a nice flat arrow.  That would be great if I was sitting on the couch reading a book, not great when I have just started a hard core workout.  As we continue through the songs that flat arrow begins the slow decline.  Dang it.  I already used my ER juice.  I decide I need to stop moving and do something about this before it becomes a problem.

I jog through dodging a line of like 15 women who are zumba-ing all over the place to the churches kitchen area.  They are a church, they must have coffee, and if they have coffee they must have sugar.  2nd cabinet and I find the sugar and a styrofoam cup.  Put an unknown amount of sugar in it, put some tap water in it and stir with a random knife.  I think of my dentist as I chug my sugar water like a starving butterfly.  Cheers.  If that doesn't do it, nothing will.

I dodge the 15 women back to my spot and check my BG.  Wow, it's worse than my CGM read...I'm at 53.  CGM still has a slow decline.  I decide that until things start moving up I should sit out and stretch.  So much for not looking like a fool.

My friend asks how it's going and I lie (like a good diabetic who is trying to not be too bitter about all the women around her who don't have this) saying everything will be fine.  She insists that we leave and I remind her that I will be hypo here or at home so she might as well get a good workout.  I must not be a good actress because she's not buying it.  She says she is shot and is ready to go (this woman is in better shape 4 weeks post partum than I EVER have been in my life).  I appreciate her understanding and not making me feel like an even bigger fool, so I agree.

We dodge the 15 dancing women and get out of there.  In the car we are saying that in our 20-30 mins of  zumba we hope we burned 400 calories.  I add up how many calories I consumed to compensate for the low and realize that it would need to be more like 500 just to break even.  When I get depressed about that idea I think of the doctor saying it's good for my heart and want to throw up in my mouth.  It's not his muffin top that's going to need a pair of bigger jeans.  So much for free zumba.

I get home and try to close the garage door.  The opener is insisting that something is in the way.  I turn on the outside lights trying to see what the garage door's problem is and find that somehow, something totally broke off the garage door sensor on my hubby's side of the garage.  I come inside and tell him to deal with it-it is his side of the garage after all.  He asks if I hit it with a shovel or something...NO.  I don't know what happened.  It would appear that we have a garage door sensor breaker running through our neighborhood because neither of us know how it broke.  Hubby fixes it without too much trouble as I admit defeat and take a shower.

I begin to mope.  Stupid diabetes.  My BG is settling in at 100 and remaining steady.  I grab for a piece of birthday cake and bolous for it the same amount I did earlier in the day that worked perfect.  We start a movie and I pass out/fall asleep.  Hubby wakes me up and encourages me to get into bed.  My CGM is quiet and still looking good so off to bed I go.

About 1 AM my CGM is screaming at me.  I never heard it before then (that's why I insist it was sugar induced slumber, this is the thing that woke me up 5 times the other night).  329.  WHAT!??!?!  I have it set to alert me at anything over 120, every 1/2 hour.  That means I missed at least 4 alarms.  I give a big old correction and return to my sugar slumber.

I woke up this morning feeling like death.  Which is what happens when you have syrup running through your veins all night after not being able to keep a steady BG during zumba.  I should have known, there is no such thing as a free lunch or a free zumba class.   

I am the snowstorm, diabetes is the unpassable road.

It's all over the news, the storm is coming.  Beware, be prepared.  I am a preparer.  I like to be prepared for anything.  That is why my purse is a backpack, literally.  I carry so much stuff all the time that I was getting a really bad knot in my neck because of the weight of carrying my purse on one shoulder.  It took me about a month to figure out, but once I switched to the backpack it's been smooth sailing.

With that said, a snowstorm stresses me out.  I love snow and I love snow days and I don't mind being snowed in except for it scares me.  The what-if game runs wild.  Of course there are the typical thoughts, do we have a shovel, some food for a few days, have we dvr'd enough Everybody Loves Raymond that if the satellite goes out we won't be bored stiff? 

Then there is the diabetes stuff (which I might be borderline freaky about).  How many vials of insulin do I have?  1 vial lasts me almost a month so I must have at least 2 vials in case we are snowed in for 2 months?  I don't know.  What about test strips?  How many boxes do I have?  I test 8-12 times a day, I go through about 1 box every few days.  I need like 6 boxes, right?  What if the snowstorm is sooo bad that even when I re-order the delivery trucks are backed up all over the mid-west and I run out?!  That will destroy my A1C.

I always have a massive amount of insets and such for my pump.  What I don't always have is a plethora of batteries.  I stock up when they are on sale and I have a coupon.  It really is a crime that insurance doesn't cover the batteries that my pump requires to work.  Batteries last about 2-3 months for me.  I have enough for the next 6 months.  Phew.

What if I have a bad low and pass out?  It will take the ambulance until spring to get to my house.  I have a glucagon emergency pen, is one enough?  Nevermind, I won't need it, the stress is raising my BG.  Do I still have enough insulin?

The storm arrives last night as predicted.  It's looking cold and blowy and nasty.  I crank the heat up.  I figure if the house is 95 degrees before the electricity goes out we will stay nice and warm for a few hours.

Every 10 mins my hubby is looking outside pointing out drifts of snow.  After it has been snowing for an hour he is straining to look at the yardstick that he put in the yard a few hours before.  He can't read it but is convinced that we've already gotten a lot of snow.  He loves snowstorms.  Maybe that's why he married me.  I am the human snowstorm.

The prediction for crazy was there before he married me.  We dated long enough, he knew.  What he didn't realize was that once he said "I do" and the storm arrived, he would be snowed in with all of the craziness.  I don't think he minds though.  I make really good cookies.

This morning I wake up at 5 AM (thanks toddler) and look outside.  There is a minivan just parked in front of my house.  Wait, no, he's not parked, he is moving at a rate of approximately 5 feet an hour.  He stopped moving and the tires spun, snow sprayed everywhere.  He was stuck.  Reverse 5 feet.  Then forward 5.1 feet.  Stuck.  It was a very delicate dance he was doing.  I think he could have done this dance forever.  And yet he was going no where...

Suddenly I am overcome with sadness.  I have a realization.  Everyday, I spin my tires.  I put it in forward, I put it in reverse, I dance this very delicate dance.  What I didn't realize previously is that no matter what I do, I will always be stuck.  Controlling my blood sugar won't cure me.  I will always be here, at this point, doing this dance.  I cry as I watch the poor guy in the minivan stuck in front of my house.

I read an article yesterday about the new leader of JDRF that a friend shared with me.  Some of it was very exciting to me.  There are so many new tools that they are working on to make diabetes more manageable.  Better tools will give me some endurance (and better moves- like the electric slide) to do this delicate dance.  At the same time, they are cutting down their funds towards the cure to put some funds to these new managing tools.  I always felt like "JDRF has GREAT faith we will have a cure SOON!  Look at all the money and resources going towards the cure.  It is close."  Some of that was taken away when I heard this news.  To me, it was like they were saying "Yeah, we got nothing.  Lets see if this will pacify you for awhile.  Hang in there."  It's like when I shop with my son.  I know he's crying because he wants to get out of the stroller, but I give him a sucker to keep him quiet because I have a lot more shopping to get done.   

Don't get me wrong.  I do not disagree with JDRF's decision.  I totally see where this decision came from, it's practical and smart.  It was just kinda a dream crusher.  Maybe I'm an optimist but I kept hoping we'd have a cure in 5 years.  At this point, no one would dump money into faster acting insulin and closed loop systems if the cure was 5 years out.

Whatever happens I will still be here dancing.

How do I do this again?

So, first things first.  I just spent about 20 mins trying to figure out how in the world I am suppose to find my blog to blog.  I log into google and go to blog, it gives me a search engine of about 500 trillion blogs.  Apparently people have a lot to say, or are hoping that someone/anyone will listen to them.  I fall into the latter of the two, I have a toddler so most of the time no one listens to me. 

I am searching through 500 trillion blogs and am beginning to think this is a sign that I just need to give up.  That is when it came to me, facebook.  It's like I knew yesterday that today I would have no clue how to do this again.  I log into my facebook and locate the link to my blog.  Thank goodness I had the sense to post it to my facebook page yesterday or I would never have found it. 

Here I am blogging to the two people who might read it.  The decaf coffee thing holds true from yesterday.  My BG after decaf was PERFECT.  I like the idea of 1/2 leaded and 1/2 unleaded, trouble is that they don't make that for my handy dandy coffee maker.  After a lot of thinking, I am going to endure the headaches for a few weeks and go decaf.  I just keep picturing myself blind and footless going through kidney dialysis all because I couldn't endure a few weeks of caffine withdrawl. 

Speaking of blind, this is crazy.  My BGs have been pretty good today.  I have been poking before meals/snacks for the last few days to try and get tight control again and it has been paying off.  For the last few weeks I have been a nice wife and have been shoveling the driveway.  It takes all of 20 mins when I do it and it takes the hubby about an hour (he claims he does a better job, I claim he is avoiding the toddler inside). 

Today, I decide to shovel again.  Get the boy into bed and pray that he takes a nap today (he skipped yesteryday, but that is a whole other blog in itself).  I put on my hot mama winter attire which consists of a mens red and grey jacket, black sweat pants, a pink/brown&green crochet'd hat, a hand-me-down pink & purple scarf from the 90's, some sweet 80 year old taupe boots and hot pink glove mittens.  I know I am rocking the neighborhood. 

Like the responsible diabetic I am learning to be, I poked before going outside and was sitting pretty at 137.  A good place to start before shoveling, it gives me some wiggle room to drop. 

It is cold, I mean really, really cold.  There is snow everywhere.  Does anyone else feel the need to wear sunglasses even on cloudy winter days?  It is soooo stinkin' bright out!  Well, I forgot my sunglasses inside and was afraid to wake up the *hopefully* sleeping toddler by going inside to get them.  That was a mistake. 

I am outside in the freezing weather in my hot mama clothes shoveling the driveway, throwing all the snow towards the house (hello igloo insulation!!!!) and my vision is blurry.  Of course my vision is blurry, my eyes are frozen, it's soooo bright out they are strained, snow is blowing everywhere as I am trying to throw it at the house to save 1/1000 of a cent on my gas bill, and I don't have my glasses on.  My vision should be blurry, this is a normal person thing not a diabetic person thing.  An aside to that thought- I think that diabetics are a million times more intuned with their bodies- it's like a trade off.  You get diabetes and your senses and sensations in your body are heightened. 

Anyway, I am shoveling and can't see.  Whatever.  Spoiler alert- Kate is yelling at the screen right now that I am an idiot and I need sugar.  She is the only other person I know that thought, like I did, while watching Celebrity Apprentice that Bret Micheals would have a low from running up and down 13 flights of stairs.

I notice the blurry vision and keep shoveling.  I am shoveling everything.  In my blindness, I even shovel out a path for the dog (I usually don't, hubby does.  I was thinking of the gas company again and the snow storm predicted for tomorrow.  If we lose heat, our house will stay warm longer because of my eskimo tactics). 

As I am shoveling I am thinking about life and BG's and what's for dinner and how I am going to get the kid to eat it.  I even think about what would happen if I was low while shoveling and passed out and someone saw me and called an ambulance.  Maggie would be barking which would wake up the kid who would be destroying the house but no one would go inside to see if there was a kid there, they would just assume it was me alone.  They would take me to the hospital and the toddler would be alone with the dog and they would eat all the suckers and make a sticky mess and he would spill the milk everywhere and the dog would lick it up.  Finally the hubby would get home the house in shambles and me at the hospital and then CPS would come because they'd think I was a bad mom for passing out in the driveway and not having anyone watch the toddler while I went to the hospital even though I didn't know because I was passed out.  I would be on TV and then no one would want to play with me or my son anymore.  Hey, there was a lot of snow to shovel.  It took awhile.

Finally I am done, or done enough.  I decide it's cold and I am coming in.  I take off my hot mama clothes and thank heaven that the toddler is still asleep.  Decide that I am hungry from all the exercise and test my BG.  54 (for those of you who are clueless, that is bad, it is too low).  I have been doing this for weeks, why now is it dropping so much?  Was the snow extra heavy today or something?  Ack. 

Here's the real kicker.  I KNOW my best indication of being low is my vision gets blurry and tunnel-ish.  I KNOW this.  I tell people that all the time.  I say "No, I don't really feel my lows unless I'm in the low 40's, I just notice a change in my vision."  I have said that to people so many times, maybe even to you.  What is wrong with my head?

Theory for why I am an idiot a lot of the time.  I have a low.  During the low my brain is starved from glucose and therefore cannot function so I am an idiot.  Excuse, I mean, theory for why I am an idiot the rest of the time.  I HAD a low previously and it killed off starved brain cells, hence, moron. 

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Coffee

I LOVE coffee.  I mean really love it.  It has become an integral part of my morning routine.  Even my 2 yr old has noticed it.  "Mommy have coffees".  Last Christmas my MIL gave us the perfect gift, a single cup coffee maker.  I can now have my cup of coffee faster and without the fuss!  This is amazing!

I have been trying to watch my BG's closer.  My diabetes does not like coffee.  At first my thought was too bad for diabetes.  I mean, I don't like diabetes, so screw diabetes, I am having my coffee.  But diabetes still wins then, it wil just reek havoc on my body over a period of time and I will pay for it later.  Grr.

Yesterday I woke up really tired.  After getting my son up and dressed I hurried to my coffee maker.  I grabbed my favorite mug, the one that fits perfectly in my hand, and brewed my Donut Shoppe coffee.  It smelled sooo good.  I loaded it with soy milk and a touch of Redi-Whip, bolused on my pump, and indulged.  Ahh.  1 hour later I was still exhausted when I finger poked, but my BG was pretty good.  I mean, it wasn't the perfect 100, but 125 isn't bad in comparision to previous BG's after my beloved coffee.  I was pleasantly surprised.

A few hours later I had a headache that wouldn't go away.  It was just horrendous.  I decided to have a cup of comforting coffee.  When I opened the coffee maker to put in the coffee I saw the coffee from earlier- it read DECAF.  I must have been exceptionally tired to have missed that in the morning.  That explains the headache- I am a junkie, a coffee junkie.  I was in withdrawl.

The most troubling part to me is that my BG handled the decaf well.  Does anyone else notice caffine effecting their BG?  Have I missed the boat on this?  Should I switch to decaf and suffer the withdrawl for the greater good of better BG control?  Are steadier BG's worth the headaches?  How will I wake up in the morning?   This is something I must seriously consider.

Before I make this decision I am doing more research.  This morning I brewed decaf yet again, only this time on purpose.  Perhaps it was a fluke yesterday.  I am not going to make any major decisions without adequate research first.    Only time will tell.