Tuesday, July 05, 2005

I Was Here, But Now I'm Gone...AND A Post-Script

I left my name to carry on....

(I don't really have to finish writing out the poem, do I? We all remember that one from grade seven.)

Yes, sometimes technology is SO frustrating. I wrote a posting two days ago, but Blogger DEVOURED IT. Then someone emailed me to tell me how witty my posting was (SERIOUSLY... the one and only time someone emails to tell me that, the posting is DESTROYED) and that I shouldn't have taken it down! Damn Blogger.

Anyway, the posting mentioned that my husband had read this review of The Bitch Posse in the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle. Now, I'm not reading reviews, but I'm making Husband do it! He said it was a good one.... WHEW! They're my local paper and it's nice they were kind. :o) Then we went out for diet root beer floats. Wait a minute, that was funny? NAHHHH. Perhaps my emailer was referring to this quiz:


Your Slanguage Profile

Prison Slang: 50%
Southern Slang: 50%
Canadian Slang: 25%
New England Slang: 25%
Victorian Slang: 25%
Aussie Slang: 0%
British Slang: 0%


(See, not NEARLY so witty the second time around! To tell you the truth, I'm not even sure it was so witty the first time either!)

Also, I've been named one of the first book recommendations on the site BuyAFriendABook.com. This is a great idea begun by Debra Hamel. The idea is that the first week of July, October, January, and April, you buy a friend a book for no reason at all.

The author who chose my novel, Damian McNicholl, also has a review and interview on his site today. Damian got me drunk on 12-year-old Irish whisky and I'm not responsible for anyone I may have offended on his site! (Actually, I notice that John Hlinko, the founder of StemPac.com, dropped by and commented... HE'S not pissed at me anyway... seemed rather pleased for the mention, in fact, and I'm glad to help his very worthy organization.)

AND MY POST-SCRIPT...

Yesterday was another reminder of why stem cell research is so necessary. Just as we were stepping off for the 4th of July parade (a 3-mile walk with the swim team), we tested my son's blood sugars... 359. That's VERY HIGH. He'd JUST gone to the bathroom and the parade was literally just stepping off, so there was no way to test his urine for ketones, which can develop at numbers over 300. (Ketones are the poisonous by-product of the body being unable to use the excess glucose in the blood and having to burn its own fats and proteins for fuel. They are what sent him into Diabetic Ketoacidosis before his original diabetes diagnosis, and nearly a diabetic coma. So ketones SCARE me.)

I gave him a unit of insulin (his correction factor is 0.5 unit for every 50 mg/dL > 125, but since we were going to be walking I wanted to be cautious) and the swim team organizer let him ride in the convertible along with the All Star 100M relay team (because if you exercise with ketones~and I wasn't sure whether he had them~the body interprets it as stress and makes even MORE ketones). I gave him a huge bottle of water to drink also, to help flush the glucose from his body.

Imagine me, raising my eyes to the sky and praying that the insulin will work and that he's not developing ketones. Me, running back and forth between where my daughter was marching and the convertible. Me, testing blood sugars (while jogging alongside a moving convertible) every 10 minutes. Me, chattering away at the mom of one of the twins' friends, who happens to be a doctor... not an endocrinologist, but she understands diabetes so I could bounce ideas off of her. Me, dialing home to Husband on the cellphone. Me, kicking myself as I figured out that the sugar alcohols in the diet pancake syrup had likely been the culprit. (He seems to be sensitive to sugar alcohols lately, which we didn't used to count.) Me, wondering if I was doing the right thing in not taking him home.... Color me upset...

THEN, after 30 minutes his blood sugars had only gone down to 345. Fuck.... After more chattering with my doctor friend, I decided I'd wait 15 minutes, test again, and give another 0.5 unit if his numbers hadn't come down.

10 minutes later, a little voice chirps next to me, "Mom, I feel better now."

What? We tested again and he was down to 240. WHEW! Now, in actuality, that's a pretty crappy number. That's double to triple his target blood sugar numbers, but out of the danger zone for ketone production at least. At 240, it's not dangerous to exercise. And by the end of the 3-mile walk, his numbers were back in range.

When I came home, I was exhausted, and not just because of the walk... I crashed and burned.

At any rate, I am everywhere but here today.