So hubby isn't diabetic any more. . .

He had a one-on-one meeting with a "diabetes educator" and I'm so sorry I missed it.  I had a killer headache and just about any attempt to move would make me throw up, so I couldn't go.

He showed her his record of glucometer readings - all but one within the normal range.  The one that was high wasn't off by much.  And he has NOT been at all faithful with the dieting.  So he asked her, flat out:  "If I haven't been staying on the diet and my blood sugars have remained within the normal range, then how can I be diabetic?"  She replied archly, "Oh, you're diabetic, all right!"  He reworded the question several ways - the numbers all say NORMAL, despite eating anything that didn't bite back - so how does this back up the diagnosis.  She would never come back with a concrete answer, but she continued to insist that he is a diabetic.

It probably was a good thing I wasn't there.  I would have been in her face with the same question.  If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and quacks like a duck, why do you persist in calling it a kitty-cat???

He takes no medicine, doesn't stay on the diet, and yet continues to have normal blood sugars.  So how, exactly, is the diagnosis of "diabetic" appropriate??

His highest-ever recorded blood sugar level, taken months ago, was 141.  It has never been anywhere near that high since that one time.  He is overweight, but has lost about 1/4 of what he needs to lose.  He is exercising often. Diabetes runs in his family, so I can see that it is a definite possibility.  But the circumstances seem to have changed.  What am I not seeing here???

Do Glucometers Keep Your Whole History?

I mean, stuff like how often you checked your blood levels, what dates, what times,  and not just the readings themselves?  I'm wondering if a diabetes counselor who has the meter-reading gizmo can determine all this, and see for herself/himself when hubby has had periods when he decides not to be diabetic any more and quits playing nice.

If there is such a thing, boy - will there ever be a day of reckoning!  I'm not sure I want to be there when it happens.

But as several people have pointed out, we are not their mothers or their jailers.

So my husband informs me this morning. . .

he has a busy day ahead, no time for breakfast. . .and he may not get around to lunch, which means around three-thirty-to four, the Great All- American Pig-Out commences, and will go on until further notice.

We DID the diabetic thing LAST week, with blood sticks and counting carbs and all that, and now he's tired of it.

Should I call the AMA and tell them that these days, people are only diabetic when they FEEL like being diabetic???

News to me, but hey - I'm still just a rookie.  Can you tell I'm just a wee bit perturbed?

Another question for those with more experience:

Since my DH was issued his glucometer, he has been pretty good about checking his sugars.  One morning, it was at 147, but that is the highest it has been.  The pattern, every day, seems to start out high and then, no matter what he eats, his sugar level just goes downhill.  He had about two and a half normal meals for supper, plus lots of snacks, but 3 hours later, his sugar was around 74.

I'm not yet familiar enough with all of this to know - is this at all a reasonable pattern???

May I borrow a brick wall - for smacking my head on??

DH has been doing pretty well lately - dropping a few pounds, checking his blood sugars (he seems to run on the lowish side) and paying attention to what he eats.

But every once in a while, (like tonight) he will have a planned-for snack (which is fine) and then go berserk and start stuffing his face with everything that isn't nailed down.  And he will give me this look that says,  "Don't even think about saying anything!" What can you do??? He KNOWS he isn't supposed to be eating like that and he doesn't want to hear about it.

Just a few hours ago he was strutting around proudly in a shirt that he couldn't button a couple of months ago and now it fits nicely. . .and then he goes completely off the wall and starts eating like a vacuum cleaner.  I SOOOO don't get it.

Feeling Isolated - When You're with Him

DH and I just got back from seeing the last Harry Potter flick.  I admit it - I am and always have been a rabid Harry Potter fan.  I have every book and most of the DVD's.  I LOVED the final movie and felt high as the proverbial kite after seeing it and could not stop chattering like a squirrel or maybe a delighted school kid.

But my intended audience simply wasn't there. It wasn't like this hasn't happened before.  It has, many times.  But today, somehow, it hurt more.  The first time, I was happily chattering about a particular scene that had delighted me.  He was making listening noises and then exploded with "THAT SOB!!! They shouldn't let people like that on the road!"  So I tried to steer the conversation back to Harry Potter, only to get derailed seconds later by another storm of outrage about some other driver.  After a third try, I just gave up and stayed quiet.  He didn't bring the subject up either, so I realized that he hadn't really even been present to the conversation that I had been so excited about.

That hurts.  Here I thought we were sharing a wonderful  adventure together.  He wasn't even there.  Do I just need to buck up and learn to be a grown up about things like this? Quit talking about things that matter to me? Just pull up the big-girl panties at age 64 and keep stumbling along?

First "low sugar" crisis today - I think.

I had to get an MRI on my shoulder (I've had surgery on it before and think I have re-injured it.  Oh boy.)  Anyway, DH offered to drive me to the MRI facility.  As we were waiting for me to be called, he mentioned that he was hungry.  I told him I thought there was a snack dispensing machine around the corner in the same building.  Then they called me back for the MRI.

The doggone procedure took twice as long as it should have because I needed to take deep breaths, but couldn't, and despite my best efforts, apparently I fidgeted inside that long cylindrical gizmo.

By the time I got back, DH had not, of course, even gone to look for the snack vending machine.  He announced that he was light-headed, felt terrible, and HAD to get something to eat IMMEDIATELY.  I knew where there were several fast-food places if he turned left, off the street from the medical facility, but he insisted on turning right (where I never go, so I had no idea of what might be there.)  So we are passing all these stores - Target, Kohl's, Lowe's - but noplace to get any food.  And he is keeping up this constant bellowing about how he is getting fainter and fainter.  This was not much fun, as he was driving. (I'm afraid I was a little cynical, though.  I figured that if he had enough energy left to bellow like that, he wasn't quite as faint as he was claiming. Am I wrong?)

Finally, we saw a McDonald's and turned in there.  He got his food and seemed to bounce back very quickly after two cheeseburgers, a packet of fries, and a sugar Coke.  (I vowed to myself on the spot that I would keep something non-perishable in the car at all times, like those Nature Valley Granola Bars that don't have a chocolatey coating  and won't turn to slime inside a hot car.)

I don't like to be in the car with him anyway, because invariably, other drivers do things that set him off and make him want to "teach them a lesson."  For 20 years, I have pointed out that this is not a good idea and that they probably would not be receptive students.  Sometimes, he listens - sometimes not.

Is this what a "low sugar" meltdown really looks like?