It's been a few days

Giving myself the insulin shots has not been difficult. Just another routine to add to a day that already always seems overfilled. However, so far it does not seem to be reducing my blood sugar level, even with continuing my oral medications.

We started at 10 units injected at night -- the physician's assistant did say she wants to increase that to 20 units but wanted me to call her to report my readings after the first week, testing twice a day.

So... I get to stick myself once in the morning to test my early morning blood sugar, before breakfast. Then a handful of pills for different things with breakfast. Then at night I take another dose of the oral meds with dinner. Two hours after dinner I take my blood sugar levels again. Then before bed I do the insulin shot.

Stick, Stick, Poke! Sounds like a medical version of Duck, Duck, Goose! And it's not quite as much fun.

It's time for me to go to bed. I have to say I have enjoyed my three-day weekend for the most part. It was all spoiled this afternoon, though, when my very good friend Ron called me. He has been the music director and organist at my former church in Oklahoma City for about 20 years. He is an excellent musician with a powerful gift.

Well, he was calling to let me know he had just been fired. He has become the latest victim of a minister who needs to be removed for the sake of the church. A couple of months ago this minister engineered the firing of the director of adult ministries, who has done an exceedingly excellent job for about 10 years.

What's at the root of the problem? The minister can't keep his pants on in the presence of the church secretary, and everybody knows it. They have been caught with their "hands in the cookie jar" so to speak, many times. Yes, both are married to other people. So in a failed attempt to cover up their own moral weaknesses, they are resorting to setting up other people on the staff in a series of dirty tricks, forcing them to resign or forcing them to be fired if they will not resign.

Witnessing this has been devastating on so many levels. For those of you who pray, please pray for this situation.

As in all such situations, there is far more to this horrible story than I can convey in a single blog post. But as you surely can imagine, it is a painful situation for everyone in the church and beyond.

Everyone have a great week! Spring is on the way again.

Huh. I wonder why I was afraid.

Turns out the insulin shots are nothing. No big deal. The needle is tiny -- smaller than the lancet I use for testing my blood sugar.
I've successfully done the shots two nights in a row.

The thing I am semi-panicky about is that I've misplaced a package of two vials of my testing strips. That's about $50. I had to go to the pharmacy this morning to get more because I used the last of my known supply yesterday morning. You know what will happen -- I'll pay for the new ones and then tonight I'll move one piece of paper somewhere and I'll spot the ones I haven't been able to find. Meh -- I've had to do some mild house cleaning in my search, which absolutely is not a bad thing.

Oh, I'm a bit panicky about something else. I got my pay check today and only had one half-hour of overtime pay. I can't live on what I earn! I'm used to checks with a LOT of overtime (which I still can't live on, but at least I get closer.) I'll have to do some definite belt-tightening for the next couple of weeks.

We're expecting snow at the end of this week. It figures. We're supposed to have a city-wide garage sale day on Saturday and I've scheduled myself to be off work Friday and Saturday. Looks like I better get stocked up on DVDs, groceries and books and just plan to have a nice three-day weekend at home, alone. If it does snow they will postpone garage sale day to April 4. Not sure I can manage to be off two Saturdays in a row. Oh how I miss having two-day weekends off every week!

Time for lunch. Thanks to all of you who have responded to my posts. It is so good to "see" you all! Hope you have a great day!

Went to the doctor this morning

It was a mixed bag this morning at the doctor's office. Some good news (blood pressure and lipids are doing much better). And some bad news. Blood sugar is back up high; bad A1C results. The verdict: Insulin injections, starting tonight.

It's not something I look forward to, but it appears to be a necessity. Oral meds are not doing the job well enough alone and have some problems of their own (like... one is a sulfa drug to which I am allergic.) We'll see how this goes. It's good that I am not needle phobic. In addition to the nighttime injections, I will have to test twice a day now, morning and night.

Going to the doctor's office is a source of depression for me. The past three visits I have seen the physician's assistant. She is nice enough but for some reason I just don't respond well to her. The last time I was there I told her that I was depressed and wanted to move away from here. She basically told me to stop whining and go. Well, so far it hasn't worked out, but when I went in she said "Huh. I didn't really expect to see you. I thought you'd be gone by now." So, I started out feeling defeated because the economy is what it is, and I haven't been able to go someplace else. And I felt like she was rubbing my face in it. Oh well. I did get my prescription refills so I'll be set at the pharmacy.

I do have to call in and let her know what my blood sugar levels are each day for the next week so we can start calibrating the insulin dosage.

Next time I will see the doctor instead of the PA. She's really good with the tongue-lashings but at least she is more sympathetic which I consider a strong point for those in the medical field. Sometimes a person just needs a few minutes to feel like there is someone on their side.

I'm curious to see how the insulin injections go. I need to do some reading on the matter.

You have to see the eagles!

If you haven't already looked in at Eagle Cam you need to. The first of the three eggs hatched this morning and both parents have been feeding it. At this moment there is a large fish in the nest and one parent is sitting on the two eggs and hatchling.

It is fascinating checking in on them. There are two excellent cams watching the nest so you get to see them from two angles. Go get hooked!

Well, you see, it's like this

It seems a lot of us bloggers have moved over to Facebook because we are too busy to be bothered writing thoughtful posts about meaningful topics, which was what prompted us to start blogs in the first place. So, we've been settling for one-sentence quick hits on non-topics instead. The fast-food of communication. Yeah, we'd rather accept meaningless requests from our "friends" to tend a plant that doesn't exist or "help save the rainforest" or "clean the ocean" without having to do a darned thing except click the right button.

Meh. There are aspects of Facebook that absolutely make me crazy. All those stupid applications that waste my time and do NOTHING. True enough, it can be a useful way of conveying a quick message to several people at the same time, or posting an interesting story to different groups of friends. But seriously, couldn't we do that with e-mail or a blog just as easily and with less frustration?

I don't know any more. Each communications "improvement" seems to take us so much farther away from our connections goals.

Anyway, I've been watching Eagle Cam for the past few days. You can see it here:

http://www.suttoncenter.org/eaglecam.html

I did get to see both eagle parents eating a fish this evening, both standing up without being on the three eggs in the clutch. They are expected to hatch starting as early as tomorrow. Can't wait to see the babies over the next several days!