Having a mini vacation

Two of my sisters live 3 hours a way and I came to visit them this week. It's been wonderful!! Loads of chatter, creative art work and good food. No menus to plan. I have such wonderful sisters!! And they know just when I need a break. I haven't been here in almost a year. Way too long!

Hubby and I skype a couple of times a day, so it's not like he's completely alone. I pretty much leave the camera on and he can call when he wants.

He's had diarrhea all week. Extreme case. So I'm really glad to be here. He misses me. But I know this is good for him. He will be very nice and on his best behavior when I get home! Ha ha!

When I went to check my blog tonight, I found TEN comments!! Wow! Some made me laugh! And it's good to laugh about this journey.

My one sister's husband just lost his brother to alcoholism, so we had a good talk about how similar diabetes can be to something like that...in the sense of how sugar destroys the physical and mental aspects of ones health just as alcohol does. I had never thought to compare the 2, but alcohol turns to sugar, something more tom study when I have time.

I highly recommend getaway weeks to keep your sanity, recharge your engine, revitalize your spirit! This is just perfect!!

DW

Here's why I quit cooking!

I really am a very good cook.  But no one knows it!  LOL!!!  After about 3 years into this relationship, I realized that there is no way I could have a restaurant in this house, with a menu, with options available at each meal!

I mean, seriously, who expects that?

My husband does!!!

If I fix hamburgers, he wants chicken.

If I ask him this morning if he wants chicken this evening, he will say yes.  I will thaw it out.  Then about 4 pm, he will say, "I don't feel like chicken, what else do we have?"

My answer is usually, "well, frozen pot pies, soup, or sandwiches"

None of that will sound good to him.  He will want to go out to eat.

What does he order at the restaurant?

Something with chicken in it!!!!

So I simply gave up.  I buy things that go into the freezer.  I always have fresh deli meats, veggies, salad and fruit in the refrig.  I always have eggs on hand.  In the pantry, there is always fresh bread, tortillas, and usually buns of some kind.

And I started telling other people this line:  "I cooked for 25 years while raising my sons.  When they left home, I quit."  Hey, I think cooking for other people for 25 years is more than enough!  Did he do that for his family?  Hardly!  And I'm just not in the mood to try and figure out what he wants to eat and have the stuff available to fix it for him 30 minutes before it's time to eat!

He has learned that he cannot "demand" a home cooked dinner from me (note to raging diabetic's wife).

He has learned that I don't stock orange juice.....just in case he needs it.....just to let it grow mold because he doesn't need it (note to wife of a diabetic2) He's going to have to do a better job of preventing his own sugar lows.  All I have are glucose tabs to give him.  If he passes out, I call 911....and he will pay the bill.

He has learned to cook for himself. Now - isn't that amazing?  He loves chinese food and I hate it, but he has become pretty good at making it.

I'm not a huge eater.  I don't like 3 meals a day.  I don't get up and eat breakfast.  I like a little something about 11 am, then a meal around 4 or 5 pm.  I don't like to eat late and then go to bed with a full stomach. I hate going out to eat.  So with his schedule of needing 45 carbs for breakfast, lunch and dinner,needing to eat on a set schedule, loving to eat out....we are just about as opposite as we can be on this subject.

We are also at complete opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to exercise. I love to get up first thing and get on the treadmill.  Listen to mp3 on my ipod while I walk.  Starts my day out great.  I like to go to bed early and get up early.

He would stay up until 2 am and sleep til noon if he could.  He wouldn't consider getting on the stationary bike until 4 pm.  If there's yardwork to be done, I prefer to get it done early before it gets too hot.  He wants to start at 2 pm.....when it's at the hottest.

I do not take any medications.  He has more than enough for an army.

How did we ever hook up?  LOL!  But I think you can see how different our entire metabolic systems are.

Most of these are simply non-issues. I made eating a non-issue as I simply quit cooking after 3 years in this relationship - when I realized how much work I was doing when I would sit down to the dinner table and he would tell me that he wasn't hungry for whatever I had fixed, get up and fix himself a bowl of cereal.

Yep, my cooking days are over. And it's great!!!  He still asks me every morning "what's for dinner tonight?" and I still say, "I have chicken I can thaw out".  Once in awhile - we actually thaw out that chicken!  LOL!!

DW

I want that flashing red light!!!

Lilly wrote:  I understand your prayer. I have even said like prayers myself! Wouldn't it be great if they had some flashing red light attached to them that would give us a warning when their sugars are screwed up? Then when we saw the light flashing, we would know not to say ANYTHING at all to them during that time . . . and maybe just get the hell out of their way. 

I want that flashing red light!  LOLOL!!!!! Seriously - I wonder if 100 years from now someone won't be able to invent something that attaches to a pump or something that monitors their blood sugar 24/7 and sets off bells and alarms when they go low.  Locks all the car doors so they can't drive.....I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility at all.  And would be so helpful!  Oh, it needs to lock their hands in place so they can't be on the computer ordering stupid stuff as well!!!

He has been sick to his stomach vomiting this weekend.  So, is it the flu.....or kidney failure?  His gauge is always to wait 3 days and see if it passes.  I am learning not to worry.  I think the experience of this last surgery was good in that it helped me learn not to worry. OK, it's like putting your teenager son behind the wheel of a car for the first time.  You "tell" yourself you are not going to worry.  But there is something nagging at you until he is safe back at home.  

I went shopping yesterday, then my middle sis called that she had come to town with her neighbor and the neighbor's daughter looking for a graduation dress and they wanted me to join them for lunch. It was a really fun day!!!  So you just have to get out and keep living your own life regardless of the life the diabetic spouse chooses to live.

But a sick husband over a 3day weekend is not what I need. Weather hasn't cooperated, so no yard work so far.  Maybe later today. I woke up at 4:17 am - couldn't sleep.  Might try for a nap next!  Going to be one of those days!  Plus, the smell of ketoacidosis is back in the bedroom.  It makes me quite ill.  His glucose has been running 220.  He said the endo has him back up to 20 U Humulin RU 500 in the morning and 16U at night.  Before surgery, he was 32U am and 20U at night.  

So, I decided to go online to his insurance records. I'm not sure that he knows I have access.  I found an unopened email from endocrinology dated May 19 that reads:

We have been unsuccessful in trying to reach you by phone. 
Dr Weber is requesting that you call us or email us with a week's worth of blood sugars and your current insulin doses.

Simple fact is that he just lied to me once again.  He is adjusting his insulin on his own.  He has not been in contact with the endo.  The email was UNOPENED.  If he had sent in the sugars, there would have been another email responding to it - there always is.  They document every change in insulin.  Even if they make them over the phone.  The last time he sent his blood sugars to endo was 3/27/11.

I have to simply take a deep breath and remind myself that this is his disease.  This is his life.  If he want's to die, this is his decision. If he wants to simply just get worse and worse, this is his decision.  And then I go ahead and plan what I want to do today. Most likely without him.  

But wouldn't it be so nice to have that flashing red light!  LOL!!!

DW