Wishin' and a Hopin'

I know you’ve all been dying of curiosity about my circus school application. Well, I handed it in last Tuesday. That’s right, it was Tuesday February 14^th, widely known across the United States as “Valentine’s Day.” For me, it was, “Hand in NECCA Application Day.” I totally should have put some heart stickers on the envelope before handing it in. What was I thinking?

They post invitations to auditions by Friday March 2. I won’t be able to tell you anything more about my prospects until then. The auditions take place on Saturday March 17, and then “Round One Acceptance” is posted by Monday March 26. So…I wait. With fingers crossed. Some days I feel confident. Others I feel…very not-confident. But that’s the way with applications, right?

Peace out and good night!

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…

You Might be Low if...

· You wake up on the floor and don’t remember how you got there. People may be hovering over you with concern.

· You get really angry for no reason.

· You start crying for no reason.

· You get angry and start crying…for no reason.

· You wake up (in your bed) with something like an anxiety attack, thinking:

• “What if I don’t get my circus application in on time?”
• “What if I am late to the Bike and Build orientation?”
• “Oh no, I totally forgot to prep the fruit salad, breakfast is going to be a disaster!”
• “I’m going nowhere in life and will wind up living under a bridge and dying in a gutter by the time I’m 40.”

· You wake up, in bed, tossing off all the blankets and sheets because you’re overheating but the room is only about 40 degrees F because it’s the middle of winter, and your sweat has soaked through the sheets so you’re going to have to replace them after you get your glass of juice. And maybe toast with jam, too.

· Nothing seems to be going right. I mean nothing. Then you cry.

• “Why can’t I do these kick-over to seats on the German Wheel?”
• “There’s no way I can do these math problems. The 3’s multiplication table is impossible.”
• “Why do I keep dropping everything?”

· Someone does something nice for you, and you get angry.

· Someone asks if you’d like some help doing a somewhat difficult yet not impossible task, and you get angry.

· You’re talking gibberish. Or rather, the story you’re telling makes no sense at all to anyone but you.

· You lose all sense of coordination. That is, if you had any to begin with.

· Mood swings? Haha, mood rollercoaster!

· You think to yourself, “I should go grab my blood test machine and do a blood test because I’m feeling a little off.” Then you realize that you’re already holding your meter, and that you’ve actually been holding it for a while, but you don’t know how long. And you have no recollection, whatsoever, of getting up, walking over to the table, grabbing said machine off the table, and returning to the chair. Then when you finally get around to doing a blood test, the machine reads “34 mg/dL.” Score.

*Some of those things may or may not have occurred in the course of my diabetic life.

It's Shnow Time!

Well, it’s snowing. Finally. I’m not one of those huge fans of snow, I don’t hate it but I don’t absolutely love it. I accept it as a natural and necessary occurrence of wintertime. And, yes, it can be fun. It’s a bit of a nuisance when you want to go ice skating on an outdoor surface, such as a pond-out-back, and have to shovel a lot of snow, usually heavy snow, before lacing up the skates. But I was starting to feel a bit unnerved due to the lack of snow. You know that whole “global warming” and “climate change” deal? Yeah, these strange weather patterns make me feel glad to live on a hill…hopefully it’s a tall enough hill, if you know what I mean.

So, this week is the first week of winter session classes at NECCA. I have one class on Monday, two on Tuesday, and one today (Thursday). Hopefully the weather cooperates and stops weathering this afternoon so that the class will happen tonight. Oh, you’d like to know what those classes are, eh? They are: Acrobatics 201 (aka Tumbling), Fabrics 101, German Wheel (love love love) 301or whatever level I’m at, and Bungee 101, respectively. I am also working on putting together my application for the Intensive Program at NECCA. Filming for the short 5 minute audition/application video has already begun, but I’m probably worrying too much and taking it too seriously. I’ve done somewhere in the vicinity of a billion cartwheels, (ok that might be an exaggeration - probably more like 50), because I want them to be very good and if I wobble a bit on the landing, I’ll re-do it. And re-do it. And re-do it. I just need to relax and have fun.

In other news, it turns out my endocrinologist’s officer (diabetes specialist) is not covered under my new health insurance plan. Awesome. That means I either pay for the visit out of pocket, travel more to find an office that is under that plan, or switch insurance plans…again. Whatever, I can take care of my diabetes just fine as long as I know I can’t necessarily count on having competent doctors (“Doctors, Insurance Companies, and Test Strips, Oh My!”) or being able to see my endocrinologist on a regular basis. It just means I need to step up my game a little. No big deal. The big problem, however, is that I can’t write out my own prescriptions or prior approvals for more test strips. Oh well. It’ll all work out in the end, somehow.

If you’re wondering about pull-ups, I’ll have a post with another update soon…I hope. And hopefully with some cool info and diagrams about muscles and stuff. Yay for sentence fragments! That’s the plan, Stan. I don’t know who Stan is.

May the Road We’ve Yet to Take Leave a Smile Across Our Face

Yesterday was last week, last month, and last year. For less than 24 hours, that’s a long time ago. It’s nice to use this time of year to reflect on the past and plan or look forward to the future, but I am choosing not to make any “New Year’s Resolutions” this year because I already have some goals on which I have been working. I try not to end my sentences with prepositions; thank you high school grammar. I also usually end up disappointing myself when it comes to resolutions, and why do that to myself? This seems to happen especially if I make diabetes-related resolutions. Every day is a different balancing act; metaphorically speaking, one day I might be juggling while tight-wire walking and another I could be hula-hooping and unicycling. Each day brings something different to the diabetes circus, so it’s best to simply try every day, and hopefully on a good day I’ll learn from my mistakes and do better the next time, and maybe even replicate some successes.

With that, I hope you all have a happy and health New Year.

By the way, the title for today’s post is taken from a line in the song, “Cradle of Humankind” by Flogging Molly. I think of it as a good song for the New Year. Give a listen if you wish.

Finally, I promised I would divulge my warm-ups for pull ups. Incidentally, I use the same warm-up for pushups as pull ups because I usually do my pull ups right after my pushups. I’m following a “7 Weeks to 100 Pushups” routine (from a book by Steve Speirs), which is where I got the warm up routine. So, I hope I don’t get sued. Generally, it’s good to move your neck, shoulders, back, and waist to warm them up. Do each move 8-10 times before moving onto the next.

• · Move your neck side-to-side, then up and down, then look side-to-side, finally roll your head all around clockwise then counterclockwise.

• · Shrug your shoulders up then roll them back and down. Repeat but roll them forward.
• · With your elbows close to your side bend at 90 degrees with your hands in front and twist your torso side to side.
• · Let your hands hang down by your side then reach one side to the floor (or to your knee) keeping your hand close to your leg, then the other side (back and forth).
• · Run in place for a minute or two.
• · Big arm circles forward and backward. As if you're swimming through air, keeping your arms straight. Can be done one side at a time or simultaneously.
• · Rotator cuff warm up 1 (my addition): with your elbows tight to your side and bent at 90 degrees and hands in front (I make mine into fists), pull your hands away from each other as if you’re opening cupboard doors. Bring your fists back together.
• · Big hugs. Holding your arms out to your sides, parallel with the floor, swing your hands in front of and across you so that you end up giving yourself a hug, or a double pat on the back (one arm will be over the other). I like to alternate over-under arms.
• · Rotator cuff 2 (my other addition): with 90 degree bent elbows, again, hold your arms out so you look like a cactus or a football goal post (your upper arm is parallel with the floor, your forearm is perpendicular), then rotate from the shoulder and try to point your hand down toward the floor. Arms may move simultaneously or one-at-a-time.
• · Reach to the sky and rotate your torso “leading with your stomach,” whatever that means.
• · Run for another minute or 2.
• · Then I usually do a few more shrugs.

· Then it’s onto pushups or pull ups. Or both.