Has It Really Been Six Months?

My husband, Tony, has been doing triathlons for three years now. He has come from a couch potato to placing very high in his age group. Yesterday he went to pick up his race packet for yet another race, his fifth this year. As he reached the front of the line he gave the lady behind the counter his name and the greatest thing happened. "Spineto? Is your wife that diabetic sailor girl?" she asked.

"Yeah?" he questioned not knowing where she was going.

"That's so cool. I follow her blog. I'm a diabetic, too." she said.

(By the way, if you happen to be this lady, leave me a comment, I'd love to hear form you.)

When he came home and told me this story, my first thought was of how guilty I felt for not writing in six months. well, that's not exactly accurate. I have written, I just haven't written a blog post in that long. Who knows the real reason why I haven't, maybe I am avoiding being so public with all of this, or I was rebelling against having to write on a deadline after doing it for a while.

I would like to think that maybe it was just because I was out living my life, storing up stories to write about at a later time. But which ever reason it was, I thought it was time to break the streak.

I returned from my trip in February and took a week or so to get back in the rhythm of everyday life. In March, I started construction on Come Monday, my twelve foot plywood and epoxy sailboat. Building a boat was one of those things on my "Someday I Will" list, but was never the right time mostly due to lack of space and lack of funds.

Since we moved a year ago, I now had a little space in the garage next to the cardio training room, my writing studio, Tony's painting studio, the surfboard quiver and the laundry room to build a smallish boat.

My requirements were simple. The van could handle a boat up to 12 feet on the rack and I would need at least that much to float the whole family (with a little leeway if my kids ever decide to grow). So it would be a 12 foot boat.

The epoxy could fix all the poor craftsmanship due to twenty year old tools and the fact that my only training was twelve weeks of seventh grade wood shop. Any pathetic cut I made just got filled in with epoxy. After two months and around sixty hours of labor Come Monday took her first voyage, across the Carlsbad Lagoon with Tony, Shea and Eli aboard. And she actually floated.

Me being me, I forgot the oar locks so we paddled her with oars far too long to do it comfortably. I am still working on her sailing rig, cutting down an old sail my friend, Craig, so kindly donated, and working on the mast and spars and rudder and leeboard.

Come Monday showed she was seaworthy just as I was finishing up my thirteenth year teaching, which means I have been a teacher just as long as I have sat in those little desks before high school graduation. I also reached the point where I have spent as many years since high school graduation as it took me to get there.

Summer came with the promise of finishing all of those projects I put off during the school year, but as soon as the days got long and hot and the kids were off playing for hours on end in the cul-de-sac, all I wanted to do was laze around by the pool and thumb my nose at my to-do list. I even dared to watch a T.V. show in the middle of the day, a true indulgence.

My thyroid has cooperated with the meds and is getting back in line, no longer doing whatever the hell it wanted. It is listening to the rules of my body more and more which is great for my overall well being.

I have recovered enough to get back the desire to compete in triathlons again. So in June I chose one in October and began training. I had no idea though not only how badly out of shape I had become after being sick for 3 years, but of how slowly my recovery would be. My body just doesn't bounce back like it used to. Maybe its still recovering from the thyroid or maybe I'm just getting old, or maybe a little of both.

Lucky for me I am good at dragging my feet at paying entrance fees, October is far too soon for a race. Instead I will shoot for the Carlsbad Half-marathon in January. Insulindependence has a team that does the race and they do it right with a whole weekend of events and parties and a great support tent out on the course. Even if I have to walk it, which I'm pretty sure my pride won't let me, (I finished the last one with a stress fracture in my foot from the obstinate thyroid) I want to be a part of it.

And since there are so many great people doing the race, that same pride will drag my lazy butt out to the treadmill day after day to train so I won't have to walk it. And my good buddy Michelle has been dragging my ass out to meet her to bike every week which has been doing wonders for my recovery. (Thanks, Michelle!)

Although I haven't been writing for the blog, I have spent a good chunk of the last six months working on the book and it's really starting to take shape. I figure I'm about two-thirds of the way finished with the first draft. and just as I am about to celebrate, I realize I haven't accounted for the time needed to complete my second draft and my third.

I have lined up an editor, which, I am sure, is obvious I desperately need. I forgot to pay attention to these things in high school, instead choosing to spend most of the hours of my class asleep on my desk. Some days I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Other days I see that light receding into the abyss.

I have had my fill of crappy diabetic days. Those days when a 300 that you cursed over at noon becomes your best blood sugar of the day. When the thought of spending some time praying to the porcelain god flits through your head and the only thing that takes away that thought is curling up in bed with your softest blanket and watching hours of a new TV show on Netflix. I have brought down my A1c's from an unacceptable range due to the thyroid and lack of exercise to a less shitty level. Still not what I want it to be or what I would be proud of, thus, why I have not mentioned any numbers.

I did manage to hook up with Nick again (my Dexcom, not a sordid affair, I promise) after learning how to work my insurance plan. I have yet to get new A1C's done to prove his worth, but, I know it everyday he tells me I've exceeded my limit for sugar or when he gently nudges me in the middle of the night, telling me to storm the kitchen for some chocolate sludge.

As for the future I have my plans, and on top of that list is to finish the first draft of the book, the second and third and get it into the hands of an agent or publisher any way I can, which of course means learning a whole new business and doing that work that goes against my own nature, self-promotion. But it will be well worth it to hear just one person say they found some thought they could use in life.

Come Monday still needs her rig. I will celebrate my 35th birthday in a month and my 13th wedding anniversary in a few weeks to a man I am still completely in love with. I am determined to learn to run again.

And I have started the thought processes on my next big adventure. One involves the Keys, a journey, a group of friends, kayaks, some running and swimming. One involves the family, a boat and the Intercoastal Waterway. Maybe a group of girls and a multi-part running journey bringing only the clothes on our backs, lots of sugars, and a credit card for a place to stay. Then there's the Grand Canyon Part II, this time with running shoes and both walls of the canyon.

Or maybe flying a sixty foot hovercraft? Then there's enjoying some football, hanging out with friends and doing a better job keeping up with this blog. All in all it was a spring and summer well spent.

Just One of Those Days

I thought I would come back from a trip like this one with so much to say. Some new revelation about living with diabetes, maybe come back having conquered the disease. But really, I came back to the same old shit I always deal with.

There is no conquering this disease. There is no point where you have become good enough at taking care of yourself that it just goes away. There is no remission. It is always going to be with me and always going to suck up my time and energy just to feel as good as what other people feel like without even trying.

Diabetes is still the same old crappy disease it always was. I still have blood sugars I can't seem to get on top of. I still have to fight with my insurance to cover technology they already agreed to cover but have recently denied because my A1C's are too low because I have been using the very technology they are denying. I still have to find a new doctor because the only endocrinologist that I have ever liked had to move.

It took ten years to find a good doctor who understands that most diabetics really know more about their disease than the doctors. He would run my tests and offer advice where he could, but gave me full credit for taking care of myself and never talked down to me for being one of those "crazy" diabetics who doesn't think a moderate walk for 20 minutes is enough to satisfy my need for fun or who thinks that it is a great idea to go sailing off alone for four days.

I still wonder if tonight is going to be the night when my blood sugars get low enough that I just might not wake up while my insurance sits back and denies me the safety alarm that would prevent my untimely demise. And I still have to deal with the everyday stresses that every adult has to contend with, but I have to do it without allowing those stressors to pull my attention away from managing this life-long, chronic, crappy disease.

Maybe I should have come back from a great trip with a better outlook on Diabetes. But really I came back with a better understanding of what it takes from me and how it complicates my life in so many ways.

While sailing I only had two things to take care of: keep the boat pointed in the right direction and keep my blood sugars in the right zone. There was nothing else. There was no one else to take care of, no job responsibilities, no juggling of any kind. Just me, my boat, and my Diabetes.

Kind of what it was like when I first got the disease in college and had very few responsibilities. I did so much of a better job with it back then. If my blood sugars got out of whack, I would simply go take care of them-- leave class for a bike ride, go for a late night run. I can't exactly leave a class of 32 sixth graders to fend for themselves because I have to go for a run to bring down my blood sugars and I definitely can't tell my own kids to fix themselves some dinner and put themselves to bed because I need to go lower my sugars. My kids are extremely responsible and capable, but they are five and seven after all.

I guess I have just been reminded of what a horrible disease I do have. Its not a simple malady. Its not just athlete's foot or a weak knee. Its a shitty, life-threatening at times, life-altering disease that can be very good at bringing on a case of the blues or shaping one's outlook.

I know all the good things that I am supposed to write here, about how I have met great people, and how it has let me go sailing, and about how it has made me more humble and empathetic towards others, but I think I will leave that for tomorrow. Tonight I just want to bitch a little. I think after 14 years of putting up with this crap I am entitled to at least one night of self-pity.

Tomorrow I will be my usual optimistic, laid-back self.

Managing Diabetes On Board

BREAKFAST

As I get closer to launch day for my sailing trip, I have been focusing more on my diabetes management plan. One of the things that I have been concentrating on is my breakfast. It has always been one of the harder meals to get right because of the different hormones that circulate in the body and bring you from a sleeping state to a fully alert state. Most of these hormones make the body less sensitive to insulin. The result is that you usually need more insulin to cover the same amount of food eaten at a later time in the day. The other problem I have is that I love breakfast foods. I would eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner if I could (and sometimes I do).

I’ve changing the ratios of my breakfast foods and have achieved some degree of success lately by making breakfast a low-carb, high protein meal. This has lowered that morning spike in my blood sugars and also leaves me feeling fuller. After four weeks eating the new protein based breakfast and finding much success with it, not only in better controlled blood sugars, but, also with the bonus of weight loss. SOME RESEARCH

I came across a study published recently. It was a study of type 2 diabetics (different from type 1 diabetes, I know, but interesting all the same). In the study, the researchers gave the patients a high-protein, low-carb breakfast and found that it lowered their morning blood sugars, which should be obvious.

We have all known that carbohydrates have a far greater impact on blood sugars than proteins do. But what they also found out was that the meal caused their body to replenish their glycogen stores with the sugar instead of storing that sugar as fat.

So the way the body reacted to the sugar changed in addition to there being less of it. If the carbs were later added to a morning snack the patients did not see the same blood glucose spike as when they ate the carbs as their first meal of the day.

I always have to laugh when scientists spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of time to figure out the same thing I figured out in two weeks with my own body. It is nice to have real evidence to back me up, though. And, of course, they can publish their work and make safe recommendations to other people based on their science. I can only change what I am doing, knowing that every diabetic is different and may not react in the same way I did to changes in their diet.

PROTEIN IN THE HEAT I want to continue this high-protein breakfast on my trip, but it presents some slight problems. One of my main morning proteins is eggs. Eggs, however, are very hard to eat if you don’t have a stove or any source of heat. I am all about protein, but I am not going to go Rocky-style and down them raw. I tried that once when I was eight and never will again. I could do a protein shake but after consuming those for breakfast and lunch for four weeks, I have found them very hard to swallow without gagging. So, I have settled for a cheese stick wrapped in turkey slices as my plan for now, but I don’t know if that will work in the long run and I’m not sure that sounds too appetizing first thing in the morning. LUNCH AND DINNER My other meals will certainly include carbs. I am in no way opposed to carbs; as an athlete, there is no way I could be. I will just have to include some of those high-carb breakfast foods I love later in the day.

SITTING STILL One of the other morning issues I will be facing is one that I have more experience with in long car trips early in the morning than I do with sailing. Sailing involves a lot of sitting around. Your body becomes more or less sensitive to insulin based on how active you are throughout the day. I have found that if I take a long car trip starting early in the morning, my blood sugars will race up very high and stubbornly stay put no matter how much insulin I give as a correction bolus to bring them back down. Once I get out of the car and start moving around for an hour or two this problem is quickly remedied. To fix this, I simply have to put in a good workout before getting in the car, and stop every two to three hours for a quick five to ten minute burst of exercise.

PLANNING FOR ACTIVITY While in the Keys, I will have to work-out each morning before I take off for the day. Most days I will go for a quick three to five mile run. When I stay at Fiesta Key for the second night, I get to use their Olympic size pool to put in a quick mile swim. One of the rules of the trip is that I won’t stop until I reach port each night, so I will have to find some way of doing those ten minute bursts of exercise on board. I won’t be able to run or even be able to walk around much as the cockpit on a 22’ Catalina is only about 6 feet long and has the boom of the main sail about 4 feet off the deck.

As a result, I am stuck with calisthenic type exercises that can be done in very little space. To maximize the effect of each exercise I will need to use the largest muscle groups and use as many as possible in each exercise, all while holding onto the tiller so the boat does not go spinning in circles or run aground on one of the many sandbars lurking just below the surface of the water. Included in my workouts will be squats and lunges, which recruit a lot of the larger muscles of the body. Adding to the exercise schedule will be calf raises, which will round out the lower half of my body. I may be able to pull off some push-ups on the seat of the cockpit while holding the tiller still with my foot. EVENING WORKOUTS To round out the exercise regimen, I will need to get some activity in after I dock for the night. This shouldn’t be much of a problem since I will be in search of a warm meal and a view of the old Keys, Florida as it used to be.

Even with all of this physical activity, I will still have to make some adjustments to the basal rate of the insulin, constantly supplied by my pump, to take care of normal bodily functions. The first day I will try a bolus increase of 125% and adjust as needed. FINAL ANALYSIS Each night I will go over my blood sugars and my maintenance plan and will reassess for the next day. Hopefully by the end of the trip, I will have developed some sort of protocol that I can use in future sailing trips, so I won’t need to use myself as the living guinea pig. WHAT'S NEXT As you plan your next adventure, you might want to do two things. First, analyze what you do at home and figure out how that will change as you take off to new places. Second, make a plan to keep your activity level and food roughly the same so you can avoid those whoops! moments while adventuring.