After the diagnosis

So, where were we?

Oh yeah, I’ve been diagnosed.  As I mentioned the surgeon wants me to get my blood sugars down below an A1C of 8.0.  It was 10.5.  Not good, I know.  (No lectures, please.)  So that’s where my focus is going to be the next few weeks.  I begin a stringent regimen of tracking my blood sugar numbers and eating less and better.  In true nerd engineer-like geeky fashion I created a spreadsheet to help me.  Those of you who remember Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant will remember the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures “…with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us.”  Well, I created a spreadsheet with rows and columns and colors and a key chart to be used to keep me straight.  Here’s an image of the actual spreadsheet, so far…

My endocrinologist today said that I have provided too much information.  It’s overwhelming and hard to narrow anything down, but that’s jumping ahead a bit.

Anyway, with my meter and my chart I track myself morning, noon, and night.  I have two appointments later in the month, the 28th with my endocrinologist, and the 30th with the surgeon where we will set the surgery date, providing my blood sugar numbers are down to being reasonable.  Today, as I write this, it’s the 28th.  Had my endocrinologist appointment this morning.  Two days to the surgeon’s appointment.  I’m just a little anxious, I want to get it scheduled and done, but I digress.

A couple days later my endocrinologist’s office calls and wants to see me for some diabetes education, so I set an appointment and we meet.  Ends up being two appointments over two weeks and some good information is exchanged.  The nurse marvels at my out-of-date glucose meter… she had to go look for the program to download it, it had been so long… so she gives me a new one.  Then, we’re both perplexed because the new meter’s smart phone app to track for me won’t download onto my phone.  Ya see, I have an Android v5.0.1 and the minimum version number is v5.1.  Figures.

Long story short, things are going  well and the next two and a half weeks go by fine without incident, until…