Last Friday, my doctor’s office called with a terse message. It wasn’t my own physician, it was one of the assistants.
“Your A1C was 6.6, and your blood glucose was 220. You’re diabetic.”
She went on to say that I’d need to come in for a follow-up appointment with a different doctor and speak with a diabetic counseling nurse; for some reason my own doctor wasn’t available (probably booked up) and so I’d have to see the practice on-call doc on the night the specialist nurse was in. I was handed a free kit, with a scrip for more test strips and a scrip for getting nutritional counseling and another for a better glucosemeter if I wish.
Here’s my new gear, which I must use consistently per doctor’s orders (which will be a challenge for me, as I’ve always been consistently inconsistent).
So last night at the follow-up I was quickly trained on how and when to use the glucosemeter, and used the lancette to test my pre-dinner glucose. This morning, I got up and tested before breakfast, like David does. I did ask the follow-up doctor whether that alarmingly high 220 glucose was from the fasting blood test, as opposed to a second test I went back for that was non-fasting. It was somewhat of a relief to find that my “fasting” test glucose was about 137, still on the high side of the prediabetic range.
Okay, I’m diabetic now, this is my new reality, and this is me, living with diabetes. Woo?
In June I’m riding 40 miles in the Chicagoland Tour de Cure, with a goal of raising at least $2000. Please help support my ride with diabetes by visiting my Tour de Cure fundraising page, via either one of these links:
http://blogula.ridewithginny.com
http://main.diabetes.org/goto/GinnyRED57
Please check the hashtag #RideWithGinny, too – I’ll use it on Twitter and Facebook, too.
The first page re-directs to my fundraising page, but adds some tracking stuff that will plot the donations by location on a map that is just for fun and gives me an idea of whether someone gave via a Twitter link, a Facebook link, via this blog, or some other source.
Hop below the fold to see more about my new reality; for now, I need to get a healthy breakfast, jump into my cycling gear, and get on the indoor bike to log some miles, because my butt is In Training.