The Great Escape

Finally came home on Friday.  Problem is with coming home is that I spend close to a week just recovering from the hospital stay.  I'm still on IVs, but I've pretty much recovered from my stint at Stanford.

Saw an endocrinologist while in Stanford.  She put me on a sliding scale for insulin injections, and I have to do carb counting.  Carb counting means that I have to count every gram of carbohydrates I will be consuming during a meal and then I adjust the amount of insulin to inject.  Since I have an extreme fear of needles, injecting myself is impossible at the moment.  My mother has to give me the shots.

My other issue is that the insulin makes me exhausted.  I told the doctors at Stanford and they claimed that it wasn't the insulin.  I even told the endocrinologist and she didn't think it was the insulin.  I just find it strange that I can't even finish a meal before falling asleep after I receive an injection.  And this happens every time.  I have notified my own doctor.  Hopefully, he'll have some answers or can refer me to someone who does.  I did speak to the nurse there and she said my falling asleep after taking the insulin is not normal.  Especially since my sugars are in the normal range after taking the stuff, there shouldn't be a reason for me to be tired suddenly.

Another plus to being at home is that I get to use my own glucose monitor.  The one at the hospital requires a lot of blood for a sample.  The nurse literally had to squeeze my finger until the blood was dripping before the monitor would read it.  If I had stayed there any longer, I would have been bled dry. 

My glucose monitor at home is the Freestyle.  It takes a tiny sample of blood.  I mean a paper cut would produce too much blood for this thing.  I like it though.  I can take samples from my arm instead of my finger and it barely hurts.  For me that's a good thing since I use my fingers for a lot of stuff (sewing, typing...) and the pain from stabbing them everyday would be too much.

I didn't start with the Freestyle.  My first monitor was an AccuCheck.  I hated the finger sticks.  My fingers were so sore.  A close friend of my mother's is a diabetic nurse and she gets free samples of monitors all the time (companies want her to recommend their products to her patients).  We had gone over to talk to her when I was first diagnosed with CFRD to get some information and tips on what to do.  By then all of my fingers were pretty sore and I was holding off on my favorite hobbies.  So this nurse had me try one of the Freestyle samples that she had.  I really liked it, so she taught me how to use it and arranged for me to get one.  So six years later, I'm still using my Freestyle.

Since my IgE levels are going down, the doctors did lower my prednisone.  I was so happy.  I'm not a fan of prednisone and do all I can to avoid having to take that medication.  It makes my mind race, me feel like I'm starving, messes with my sugar levels, lowers my bone density, and probably a list of things I'm not aware of.  So getting my dosage lowered made me very happy.

Now I am home.  Sleeping in my own bed.  Eating my own food.  Playing with my own dog.  And I get to see my own doctor on Monday.  Life is as it should be...for now.