My Bank Account : My Diabetes

Yeah, so it’s been a while. And while I think of it, I should pay my student loan bill for this month since it’s due…today. Brb, brah.

Ok, that’s done. I just hope they don’t consider it late because the “payment effective date” is tomorrow (2/22/12)…I think there’s a 6-day leniency or grace period or something to that effect. This date didn’t catch me by surprise. The payment is due on the 21^st of every month. I knew it was a-comin’ but monetarily…I wasn’t exactly prepared. So, today, after work I bee-lined to the bank to deposit my check so that I’d have enough in the account to pay the bill. Turns out, there was plenty of money in said account because another check I had written out last week still hasn’t gone through. I didn’t want to take that chance, though, and pay before being able to deposit said paycheck. With my luck, I would have been hit with an over-draught fee. Or whatever it’s called. Nobody likes it when that happens.

What does all this have to do with diabetes and circus, you ask? Well, personally…I was in such a rush to get out of work asap that I didn’t do a blood test before leaving work at 2:45pm. Actually, I hadn’t done a blood test between when I woke up (around 6am) and when I got back home from my day (around 5pm). So…none of my usual mid-morning, or at least noon-time testing. I didn’t really eat lunch, either. I had some leftovers: veggies, a muffin, some brownie crumbs. Then, in my car I had some almonds and a “firecracker” mix of sesame sticks, wasabi peas, peanuts, and I think soy nuts. I bolused (stupid auto-correct made that into “bloused”…what does that even mean?) what I thought was an appropriate amount, but since I didn’t know what my blood sugar was, I probably played it “safe” (i.e. underestimated the carbs/insulin). So, when I got home my blood sugar was 350 mg/dL. I should also mention that part of me is trying to cut back on tests per day because insurance only covers up to 5 tests per day…and my average is probably 7 or 8 tests per day, sometimes as much as 10. This doesn’t even count those times when I waste a strip or 2 because there isn’t enough blood for the meter to read the glucose but enough to trigger the testing to be done, so that it can tell me that there was an error because there wasn’t enough blood on the strip for it to figure out how much sugar is in the blood. That is the most annoying thing…ever. I digress. I had 4 strips left at the beginning of the day, so I needed to buy test strips today, anyway. Where am I going with this? Oh yeah, I was going to tell you how my bank account relates to diabetes in a more analogous or abstract way, and at the same time bitch about the insurance company and the doctor who wouldn’t even try to put in a prior approval form to said insurance company.

Similarities between bank account and diabetes:

· Checking your bank account balance is like checking your blood sugar.

· If you’ve got a lot of money, you can spend a lot of money.

· If your blood sugar is high, you need more insulin, or more exercise. You can “spend” more blood sugar (in the form of exercise).

· If your bank account is low, you should put more money in before spending more money. If you spend money that you don’t have, you get fined. Nobody likes getting fined.

· If your blood sugar is low, you should eat more food. Or take less insulin next time. And you shouldn’t exercise until you’ve brought it up to the safe zone. If you exercise or take insulin while your blood sugar is low (i.e. “spend more sugar than you have”)…you could faint. Nobody likes to faint.

· How do you know how much money is in your bank account? You keep track of it. You do this by balancing your checkbook. Or, if you’re like me, you check it on the ATM machine or the slip of paper they give you when you deposit or withdraw money. I used to balance my checkbook well…oh those were the days. I try to have a rough idea of how much is in my bank account based on deposit vs withdraw habits, but sometimes I’m wrong or payments haven’t gone through yet (like today).

· How do you know how much sugar is in your blood? You check it. I find it pretty hard to “just know” how much sugar I have stored in my blood. Sometimes I have a rough idea, like if I’ve just snacked all afternoon and not bolused for everything, it’s probably high. Or, if I feel cranky, it might be low. But sometimes my guess is totally off and “I really shouldn’t have bolused for that piece of toast, now I have to eat another?! Seriously?! Annoyed.” So, to balance my insulin doses with food and exercise to achieve good blood sugars I check regularly.

· And that is how bank accounts are just like diabetes.

P.S. I still haven’t forgotten about the pull-ups update. One of these days…