Monday, February 14, 2011

Honestly We're All Just Chasing Our Tails

Gestational diabetes is so stupid. It's so so stupid. When I first got thrown in here they put me on the diabetic menu but never explained how to use it. Then I asked about it and they took me off of it so they could get some baseline readings. Of course it took about 4 days for the switch to get to food services. Eventually I took (and failed) the delicious glucose test from hell. So here's how it went after my big fail. Day one I find out I failed the test and
get put back on the diabetic menu. This time it only takes about a day to switch. Also, side note, the diabetic menu is exactly the same as the regular except sometimes you can choose a small piece of cheese or a hard boiled egg. It's not like a low carb menu or anything that would actually make sense. Anyway. Day two the nutritionist comes
and gives me a diet of 30 carbs at breakfast, 75 at lunch and dinner and 15 at snacks. Fine, no big deal. I think most of my generation and socio economic status is pretty comfortable with nutrition labels and counting calories and carbs, etc. For the next day I stick to that diet. My finger sticks are still too high so for lunch and dinner I bring my carb intake into the sixties. Still too high. The next day I bring it into the fifties. Barely ok. The problem now is that there are no low carb choices in the hospital. Actually, there really aren't many food choices in the hospital in general. So to get my carbs down I am just eating less food. This makes mama bear HUNGRY! I'm freaking starving all the time so one of the doctors decides on Friday that for the weekend I should eat however much I need to and they will watch my levels and decide on the appropriate medication to control it.

Now I am on the diabetic menu but not contained to the carb limits. The complication with that is the computer caps you out at 30 carbs so to get more food in the morning the food services girl has to tell me what else she has on her cart and give that to me. For the weekend I ate as I pleased (as much as thats possible on hospital food) and of course had to explain to every other doctor that walked in what the other had said since clearly they never speak to one another. Ironically, on Saturday and Sunday my blood sugar started almost exactly the same. I had the same thing for breakfast and then for both lunch and dinner had significantly more carbs on Sunday than Saturday. The results were that even though I ate more carbs Sunday my sugars were all within range as opposed to Saturday when I ate fewer carbs I was high at every finger stick. Bite me. Really, I am clearly making myself nutso over something that has absolutely no rhyme or reason. So, this morning the doctors said to continue eating my fill and I will get insulin injections twice a day. Fine by me. I would love to say that I am sure this will stabilize everything no problem but considering recent history, I have a feeling this will just lead to more blog posts.

2 comments:

  1. The "betes" is a bummer, sorry. :(

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  2. This hospital is seriously ghetto! The computer caps out at a pre-defined limit and you get whatever is left on the cart for extra food? That's ridiculous. Wish someone could bring you food from outside the hospital for every meal!

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