And the pancreas gives up the ghost

Well... mostly, from what I'm aware of.

I'm now a potential new member of club CFRD and I'm quite annoyed. I don't care if this is something that happens to nearly all CF patients at some point, and I don't care if I'll get used to it. Right now, it's one more 'thing' and a bit of a shock to the system when I heard the words "I think we're going to start you on some insulin".

You see, I can't remember if I mentioned it before, but last month or so, I did a three day blood sugar monitoring after a lot of suspicions with my dietitian that I could maybe be borderline diabetic, considering one of the symptoms is an inability to gain weight even when eating plenty, and my weight is so goddamn erratic, and because my HbA1C level was 50 at my annual review, as they do a random check of that too as well as everything else under the sun with the 12 pints of blood they seem to take. Anyhoo, I was given my own little blood sugar monitor and sent on my merry way. My sugars seemed fine for the three days I checked them - first thing in the morning before food, and two hours after my biggest meal (usually tea. And don't get me started on the whole lunch/tea/dinner/whatever you call it thing, THAT is a never ending battle with certain nitpickers...) except from the one time where I had my tea, went straight out to the pub and drank a J20, and then not long later needed to check my sugars... which were 11. I'd been told 4-7 in the morning, and 4.5-7.5 after my meal were fine, so this one surprised me. Ironically, at the time I was sitting with a friend who has type 1 diabetes, and he pointed out that 11 would still be pretty good for him, haha.

A couple of days later, we had to phone up the dietitian to tell her the results. She actually said that 11 was quite good considering the J20, and apparently she wanted me to slip up to see what my sugars did, which is fair enough, cos if I'd just not had anything with plenty of sugar in (which I usually do...) for the whole 3 days before checking them and went back with perfectly good sugars, it wouldn't be a true reflection of what they do if I usually eat my fair share, and everyone else's share, and actually had sugars going completely mental.

With me so far? Hope so....

So yeah. Potential CFRD-er. Or at least borderline, as I remember her saying she doesn't think I'll need to shoot up my insulin with everything (and my fucking god, I'm tired of explaining to people why they want to start straight onto that, and not try the whole tablet or diet control versions - other than the fact that I know diet control isn't possible cos I need to keep the calories - I DON'T REALLY BLOODY KNOW MYSELF! I'm new to this, don't ask ME the questions!!!) She thinks I'll probably just need it with bigger meals, and maybe when I've eaten way too much sugar. I know some people who only need to have insulin like that, or for example, when they do overnight feeds, but I don't do them. But I'm probably one of those kind of maybe-CFRD-ers.

But anyway, whether I've got it or not, I'm still pissed. Mostly cos it's just another 'thing' to deal with, it'll be a pain in the arse, at least to start with, and even though I'm going to continue to have 2 sugars in my tea, and I hate the taste of diet coke as opposed to normal (and I don't want to have to start asking for a 'vodka diet coke please'...) I'm going to ignore every one who whines at me about sugars, cos I'm taking the whole 'maybe only needing insulin with bigger meals' thing as being allowed to have some sugar, so NER!!!!

Besides, if it was major, ohmygod you're in immediate danger sort of high sugars, I'm assuming they would have started me on insulin now, rather than leaving it until my next appointment (and I've been told to do more random bloody sugar tests in the meantime). Which incidentally is in two weeks, to start IVs as I'm going to Chicago for 10 days at the end of Sept. If I have to add insulin to my list of crap to take, that might take the piss, as airlines are weird about insulin and apparently you can only take so much, bla bla bla. The other day, whilst looking up flights on AirFrance, I saw a separate part for diabetics, and thought I was lucky I didn't have CFRD as that potentially looked like a bit of an extra headache (we're not even including the whole thing with travel insurance in America - according to my physio, it's more complex than travel insurance with Europe, which was a walk in the park for me -, yet alone adding potentially diabetic and the extra it might cost me, crapppp!)

This was a bit of a long one. And I'm aware it was quite rant-y, but it's allowed. If you're going to tell me that diabetes, CF or not, is 'easy once you get the hang of it', or any thing else 'helpful' like that, go away, before I stab you in the eyes. I'll be fine with it, but right now, I want to rant and I want to complain and I want to be angry about the fact that my pancreas has decided to pretty much pack up and walk out on me. I don't care if it won't be a big deal eventually. Right now, it's new. It might take a bit of time to absorb that bit of information.

I'll finish off with a few photos. I've got 1,200 from Spain, and 900 from Keilder. Won't be putting all of them on, but here's a handful. Or three.