2 hour countdown

My Dad was in town this weekend, with my Uncle, cousin, and good family friend. Every year we have a little tradition of attending the Dirtbike Supercross in San Diego. Despite my Dad's best efforts to get me to ride a dirtbike when I was 12, it didn't really become something I wanted to do very often, but I can safely say that the males in my family are very much into it. Nonetheless, attending the Supercross with my Dad is a fun experience we share together each year.

Going to things like this, in addition to having a husband who grew up eating out for meals a lot, I am constantly faced with the fear of having to guess how many carbohydrates are in a polish dog or nachos or beer, for example, that I am about to consume. The guessing can get REALLY tricky sometimes, leaving me with approximately 2 hours of anxiety following these guessing games.

Before each meal, I follow the routine of checking my blood sugar, counting the number of carbs I am going to consume, entering the information into my insulin pump, and then the insulin gets delivered into my body. Let the countdown begin ... For me, insulin works for about 2 hours in my body, meaning that 2 hours after an injection I can check my blood sugar again to find out if I've injected too much, too little, or just enough insulin for any given meal. If my blood sugar is low after those two hours it means I injected too much. If my blood sugar is high, it means I injected too little. You get the point ....

Well, after 13 years I can pretty much guess what my blood sugars are going to be and what they will do during those 2 hours for the foods I commonly eat. I try to stick to a pretty regular diet because of this. But the anxiety really kicks in when I am left to guess how many carbs are in a meal I don't usually eat. Going to restaurants can be a nightmare sometimes.

Last night at the supercross I ordered a polish dog and agreed to have some of my husband's nachos. Recently I had a hot dog at costco and thanks so my handy-dandy iphone app (Calorie King) I knew there were 35 carbs in the hot dog bun there. The polish dog last night looked a little bigger, so I guessed 40 carbs for that one and 20 carbs for the nachos (about 2 carbs per chip, meaning I knew I could only have 10 chips). Boy does this get exhausting!

Blood sugar check. Counting carbs done. Enter the information into my insulin pump ... begin delivering bolus (that's the term for a one-time insulin injection). I eat and then I wait. 2 hours of holding my Dex, watching which way my blood sugars will turn. Will they go up? How fast will my blood sugar rise? Did I give too much insulin? Is my blood sugar going to plummet? Oh gosh, where are my sugar pills? Do I know where the closest medic station is in case I pass out? Pearce will surely know what to do. Oh, gosh this will be so embarassing if something happens to me right now in front of all of these people. Okay, Danielle, calm down ... And so I go back and forth trying my best to simultaneously watch the races and keep an eye on my blood sugars. As this is how it normally goes most of the time when I am left to guess if I gave myself the right amount of insulin.

Luckily last night everything worked out. I had probably guessed a little too much insulin, as my blood sugar was slightly low about 1 1/2 hours after I ate. I chewed on 2 sugar tablets and I was good to go the rest of the night and headed to bed around 11:00pm with a blood sugar of 114. Crisis averted ... this time. :-)