The Grand Canyon Trial Run

Labor day was a great excuse to get in our first trial hike. Michelle and I are planning to hike/run the Grand canyon from rim to river to rim in one day at the end of September. I chose a 5-mile loop in Encinitas because I was familiar with it and it had some great inclines to mimic the Grand Canyon. Since recovering from thyroid disease that kicked my butt, I'm not as confident of what my body is capable of.

This hike was a great place to test it out. The bottom of the Grand canyon is not the place to figure out that you have gone beyond what you can handle. Because the first part of the hike is spent easily descending, many people venture too far before realizing it is at least twice as hard to hike back out. the official Grand canyon website is littered with warnings about venturing too far.

The Encinitas hike couldn't have gone any better. It was a lovely 82 degrees at noon, similar to the 90 we will encounter in the interior of the canyon. Michelle was a perfect hiking buddy holding a swift pace and keeping the conversation entertaining.

And my new Hoka One One running shoes made the day. They are made for long distance running with 30% extra cushioning in the soles. And I felt every bit of it. It felt like I was hiking on spring loaded marshmallows. I never even felt the trail. T

he last time I hiked the Grand Canyon I wore a twenty pound pair of hiking boots with a steel rod running through the sole. By the time I reached the top my feet had passed through hellishly painful to just plain numb. I know this time my feet might be sore but the will be in much better shape because of the new shoes.

Penny Magnification

My night last night.

Notice the "HIGH" for eight of the ten hours I was asleep? Which means that Nick was yelling at me every two hours throughout the night. Screaming his loudest. And, yet, I did not wake up. I have programmed myself to ignore his shouts while I sleep, kind of like a husband learns to tune out his wife's nagging during the football game. I am completely oblivious to it.

One of the major reasons I got Nick was for him to wake me in the middle of the night when I am high. I want to attack those high blood sugars immediately, not wait ten hours until I wake up in the morning and realize I spent the whole night ripping holes in the small capillaries in my eyes and thickening my blood with too much sugar attached to my red blood cells. I need him to wake me when my sugar goes to low, too, as it does so often, so that I wake up in the morning, as opposed to not waking up.

My solution? Nick's new megaphone

This is Nick's new nighttime home. The coins rattle around with the vibrate mode and the glass bowl serves to magnify that sound like horn on an old record player.

And it works wonderfully. I have heard everyone of Nick's calls since I gave him his new home. Now if only I could get him to use ringtones to wake me instead of the standard beeps. P.S. Thanks mom for the cute bowl. You couldn't have had better timing.

Tip of the Day- Basal Checks

So here's the diabetes tip of the day. Make a basal check a standard procedure every two to three months. Like I've said before, I've been struggling with blood sugars all over the place but mostly up. My first thought is always to my site failing or my pump not working properly.

But rarely do I figure that maybe its my basal rates that have overstayed their welcome. The last time I checked or changed my basal rates was at least six months ago. I keep thinking that nothing has really changed since then so why change my basal rates, but when I really sit down to think about it, a lot has changed.

I have gone from working full time to ten weeks of an amazingly relaxed summer vacation and then back to work again. I have begun working out again and made some huge advancements in my overall aerobic fitness. My stress level has dropped since my kids are now going to the same school I teach at so I no longer have to fight thirty minutes of traffic while preventing fights and major meltdowns in the house and the backseat and worrying if I will make it to my classroom in time for the first bell of the morning.

And the biggest factor in all of this, my thyroid is closing in on being back at a normal level. After three years of being totally out of control, it is responding to the meds and mellowing out. Its amazing the effect it has had on my basal rates over those three years. When it was at its max my nighttime basal rates were reduced by fifty percent while still fighting off constant lows.

Now I have hesitantly brought it back up to pre-thyroid levels and even a little higher since I was in much better shape before this whole ordeal started. For the first night in weeks, last night I had a good blood sugar night. Nick didn't wake me once and the clarity of mind I have found today from quality sleep is terrific.

The worst part is that I should have figured this out months ago, if I had only done a basal check. So now along with my quarterly A1C check, my TSH, T3 and T4 check and my five minute conversation with my endo, I will be performing a basal check. -