… I get really sick of being diabetic. Today is one of those days, I’m afraid.

The last day or two I’ve had pretty crazy blood sugar – really high and really low, which is unusual for me. Yesterday, Border Crossing Day, was particularly bad. I was strangely high after breakfast, then strangely low a few hours later, low again before lunch and then high after lunch, despite having taken enough insulin. I couldn’t figure it out – I’d changed my short-acting (daytime) insulin a few days before, so I couldn’t blame that, and I was sure I was taking enough for the food I was eating. I actually started thinking I might have some kind of allergic reaction to crossing borders – that the stress of avoiding scams and waking up really early and figuring out a new country’s code of conduct made my blood sugar go haywire.

Not a particularly medically sound diagnosis but, you know…

It was only as I was lying on a garden lounger watching the sun set over the sea that I hit upon the answer. I think it was from watching a fishing boat bob in the waves – it made me think that my blood sugar readings didn’t seem to have an anchor, they were really up and really down. Anchoring blood sugar is the job not of your daytime (short-acting) insulin, but your nighttime (long-acting) insulin – the one I take every night before I go to bed. And that made me realise that although I’d changed my daytime pen a few days before, because it wasn’t working properly and had obviously been heat-damaged, I stupidly hadn’t changed my nighttime pen (extremely foolish, seeing as I carry them around in the same bag). D’oh!

But still , a solution! I went to dinner feeling rather pleased with myself, and made sure to take a fresh pen out of the cooler full of insulin I kept in the fridge.

And then.

I woke up this morning feeling like death-warmed-up. Exhausted, heavy and with flashing eyes, a sign that a migraine was just around the corner. It wasn’t a fully-fledged migraine, I must admit, but it was enough to send me back to bed, miserable, head pounding and feeling nauseous. Not a great first day in paradise!

I’ve just surfaced now, after 3pm, and I’m feeling somewhat human again, but pissed off at diabetes. I feel like it’s one of the only conditions that never gives you a break (this may be an emotional rather than a logical statement). If you work too hard and abuse your body, you’ll usually get a cold or flu or feel rundown, but if you catch it in time you’ll be fine. If you drink too much you’ll usually get a hangover, but sometimes you’ll be fine. But if you have a crazy blood sugar day, even if you figure out the problem and sleep 11 hours and do all you can to rectify it, it still punishes you with a bad health day the next day. I know, I know, you can’t look at it as punishment, but that’s what it feels like today. I want to say to my body: “Seriously, can you not give me one day off? Can the diabetes not take a back seat for one day? Please?’

But of course it can’t.
That’s the whole beauty of a chronic condition, it never takes a day off.
And just for today, I wish it were otherwise.

Tomorrow I’ll be chirpy and feeling well again, I’m sure. For today? I’m taking it reaaaallly easy. I think I’ll go for a stroll in the garden, check out some of the indigenous trees, and maybe take a dip in the ocean. Restore my perspective a little. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

PS – It’s a few hours later, and my blood sugar has stabilized, so I feel like myself again. I’ve also remembered that a side-effect of high blood sugar is that it makes me irritable… Something to bear in mind next time I’m blogging on a high!