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Excuses, Excuses!

Not blogging since August? I have loads of excuses! The main reason is that we have been away from home and my in-laws only have dialup access to the net. The building work on the extension is finally finished. Our builder finished 10 days early and inside budget. He and his team are absolute stars! The final month of the build was particularly messy, and meant that we were without cooker, sink and use of the conservatory. For that reason, we moved out to Claire's parents' house. We have been there 4 weeks now and should hopefully move back home at the weekend. They have been very kind to us and it has been good for Claire to have some help, particularly as Josh is in a frustration phase, where he really wants to be mobile, but just can't quite get there! It will be so nice to have our own space back and also to get Josh in his new room. Josh was 1 on 8th November. He doesn't have any friends his age yet, so we had a low-key family party to celebrate. Claire

More stuff

Hello dedicated readers!! Again I haven't blogged for a while. Part of this is Harry Potter's fault. I am rather behind, but have now nearly finished book 6. I have the final book, but face a dilemma. I have a PRINCE2 (project management) course the first week in October and I have an entire coursebook to read and digest. Do I read the coursebook or HP? I think I better do the PRINCE2 stuff otherwise I won't pass the two exams that are contained in the course. Building work continues apace. Here are two pictures of how it looked yesterday: The brickwork is going up quickly, but I guess the insides will be a bit slower. At least now, we can see the outline of the kitchen and will soon be able to see the extent of the upstairs rooms. The money is also flowing to the builder quickly. At least he says now, that unless we change the plans, it will come in on or around budget. I am going to my first civil partnership ceremony in London tomorrow. It will be interesting

Building work so far

Here are the pictures of the first two weeks of building work. I tried to get the pictures side by side, but Blogger seems to insist on them one on top of each other. I am taking roughly a picture a day, so you can see the excellent progress Gordon and his team are making. Abby thinks Gordon is a total hero! She keeps looking for him and going and chatting about all sorts...she even had to show him her fairy pyjamas the other day! Anyway, here are the pictures: And finally one of the foundations after the lovely rain we received last week! I wanted an extension not a moat!

Extension - The Beginning

Here are the photos of what the place where the extension is to be built looked like this weekend. At 8am this morning, the three builders arrived along with a skip lorry and two skips. Builder asked whether I had sorted getting the gas meter moved. I haven't, so am now worried that it may hold the building work up! I thought I was paying someone else a large sum of money and didn't want to have to do anything myself...hopefully it won't continue in this vein.

Finally an Update!

So, I have finally got the motivation to update my blog. There's probably nobody reading it anymore, but just in case...here goes. What has been happening? Well, I am still honeymooning in terms of my diabetes, so need less insulin than previously. It is proving a bit difficult to judge and I had a bad hypo last week. Basically, I was almost unconscious and Claire had gone out for the evening! Luckily I found some wine gums and came out of it eventually. Last weekend was Josh's thanksgiving. Our church doesn't really approve of christenings of babies whose parents are not both confirmed. As neither of us are, then a thanksgiving was the choice. It turned out to be a lovely service and the small group of people that we had meant that it was a great day. The sun even shone for most of it. This weekend is the Open Day at work. I have helped organise it, including getting a person to create a special newspaper for the day and be there to add pictures and make a live n

Rant Time!

Excuse me while I have a rant. As many of you know, I am quite a mild-mannered, quiet person who does not get easily riled. Well, I forgot to mention an incident a couple of weeks ago that really 'got my goat'! It was to do with Josh's eyes. We finally lost patience waiting for an appointment to have tests on Josh's sight, so Claire went to our GP and explained the situation. He said the situation was unacceptable and immediately got on the phone and got us an appointment next day. We went to the appointment the next day. Although the staff were mostly friendly, it was the worst appointment we had ever been to. Josh sat on Claire's need and they attached some electrodes to his head, which he absolutely hated. They flashed some lights at him. Went away for a chat, then put some more electrodes on and flashed some more lights. They then said that was all and bade us farewell, saying they would write to the eye person at our local hospital. At that point I sa

High Days and Holidays

After a long break from blogging, guess it is time to resume once more. It has been a busy few weeks. Highlight was last week's holiday in the New Forest. For those of you that don't know, the New Forest is located to the South West of Southampton. It is a beautiful area of unspoilt rolling countryside with extensive woodland and rights of ways. Animals including cattle and ponies roam wild and make it seem like a different world. It is definitely picturesque, but the volume of traffic that passes through the narrow lanes and small towns of the relatively small area make it difficult to get around. I hate to think what it would be like in the school holidays. Anyway, we hired a cottage for a week. It was a Friday to Friday let, so we actually got the best of the early summer weather. The cottage was in a great location with lovely countryside views. This was the view from our bedroom: The village that we stayed in was called Emery Down, just outside the town of Lyndhu

Laziness

Again I have been lax about blogging. It hasn't been that I haven't had interesting things to describe, it is pure laziness. In fact Claire has just switched on the 3rd episode of series 1 of 24, so I want to watch that, so will write more later. I am on holiday in the New Forest for a week, on Friday so will write when I get back.

Krissy and Phil's Wedding

There is one sure-fire way of forgetting your pains and troubles: do something memorable and truly special. Well this weekend definitely fulfilled those criteria. Not only did we leave Abby with her Grandma but also it was the wedding (finally!) of Krissy (or Kristian if you are being formal) and Phil (Phil Collins...not the real one!). Krissy started on the same day as me working at Mirror Newspapers on the first day of employment for both of us after university. We shared an office for ages, not sure how long but probably over year and I have great respect for her abilities and believe we complement each other very well. Anyway soon after we started working at the Mirror, a shy, quiet, handsome (I am told!) young man started working in the platemaking area of the factory. Now, if you went into the platemaking area, Phil would stand out: it is not an area where many under-60's used to work. Now, not being particularly apt at spotting instant attraction, I did not notice tha

Diabetes Progress

So I have been whinging and moaning about the woes of my calf pain etc., etc. I have probably therefore lost most of the audience to my blog because I am depressing them so much! Shame, but I will plough on regardless. Anyway, I have kind of forgotten to keep track of my diabetes control. This is mainly because it is so much part of the routine now, that I hardly notice it... Here is an update of my levels chart, which shows the number of times my blood glucose is within a certain range: Pretty pleased with it as my target range is between 5 & 10. The majority of the high readings were also in the early stages after my diagnosis. However, having had a kebab and chips for lunch, not sure whether I will be adding to the high reading later!

Hmph!

Still not eased the pain totally...thank goodness for the TENS machine...can you get addicted to electrical impulses?! I wasn't sure whether the codeine-like medicine that I take 10 of a day was doing anything. By accident I forgot to bring them to work yesterday. By 4pm my pain was at about 8.5/9 (crying point) so I guess they are doing something! I didn't fully recover and get my pain below about 5 until 9 this morning. A bit miserable that I am reliant on these tablets and that the pain is not diminishing. As I said before, I am told the pain increases before it finally fixes itself. Had a letter from the consultant confirming her diagnosis and stating how unusual my case was. Had a phonecall a few weeks ago about Josh's eyes. We said that we still believed he could see very little. They said that they would bring the appointment due at the end of the summer forward so that they could try and decide the extent of his problems and put actions in place as soon as p

Pain 4, Nick 0

At least I am back at work. The pain is quite variable. It has been as high as seven on the scale, but today it is about a 4. The TENS machine is definitely giving me relief. At least I am sleeping at night, which means it is easier to cope. My diabetes has also been a bit variable with a couple of unexplained lows and a high that didn't make sense. Guess it is all part of the learning process and the unpredictability of my condition. I continue to use diabetesdaily.com and have become quite attached to the chat room on there. There are some interesting people and it is good to talk about all sorts of things with people from other countries with different life experiences. There is also planned to be a meet in Birmingham of people that use the site. I have never me someone that I have only previously spoken to on the net, so it will be an interesting event. Claire, Abby, Josh and her Mum went to Lickey Hills Park in South West Birmingham yesterday. I had searched for a b

Two Photos

Here are two photos of the children. Abby is on my shoulders making snow out of the cherry blossom and Josh is just looking contented on the chair. Very proud of them both!

Health Summary

Hi, I'm back at work today so feeling somewhat more cheerful. The pain has diminished but not gone. I have posted quite a lengthy summary of my situation on diabetes daily, however some of you may not use that site, so here is what I wrote (if you want to skip this, there is more news at the bottom!): Thought I should share my neuropathic experiences. I was diagnosed as a Type 1 at the beginning of February. I had diabetic symptoms for well over a year, and had no ketones at diagnosis. My diagnosis bg was 37 (666). The medical profession and someone on diabetes daily suspect that I may be type 1.5 (LADA), not that it makes much difference! About a month post-dx I started to get pains in my calves. I took 400mg ibuprofen, thinking it was a muscle pain, but they did nothing. I saw my doctor and he didn't really listen that the pain wasn't muscular and prescribed other muscle painkillers, which of course did nothing. The pain got worse and caused me to have disturbed sleep

Frustration!

I have been signed off work for a bit due to the drowsiness brought on by the medication. In my last post, I said I was pain free. Unfortunately, it has gone downhill since then and the pain is back at the levels of a week ago. Had an excellent weekend with various friends, but am not in the mood for writing about it today. Will sign off and hopefully update with a more positive post late in the week.

Conclusions

Well I visited the consultant today and there is a firm theory about what is the cause of my pain. Unfortunately it raises many questions. What they believe I have is acute neuropathy. Neuropathy is a condition of the nervous system that causes pain in the legs and numbness in the feet. Diabetic neuropathy is a common condition in diabetics, but only occurs after 10-15 years of poor control. Acute neuropathy is rare and very rare in type 1 diabetics. However, it appears that I might have a type of diabetes called LADA (latent autoimmune diabetes in adult). This is exemplified by later onset diabetes (after age 25) and also slow onset of the symptoms. This makes sense as I had symptoms of diabetes for at least a year, maybe as much as 2. It doesn't really make any difference that I have LADA, I still need insulin. The consultant hadn't seen a case of acute neuropathy in a type 1 before, so quite rare! It results from having high glucose levels for a long period followed by a qui

Pain Free!

Well almost pain free. The tablets seem to be working. Seeing as they are described as being for moderate to severe pain, I should hope they would help. Have felt rather drowsy and sick all day, but these are expected side-effects of the medicine. Have been catching up on the last 5 weeks of lost sleep, which is a big relief. Appointment with the specialist on Monday, so fingers crossed that the blood tests will show something conclusive. I can cope now, because at least the pain has gone from 9 (on a scale of 1-10) to about 1. The weather has been gorgeous today, so in the few hours that I have been awake, I spent time with the family in the garden, digging, playing football and preparing the ground for a new compost heap. Another day in the garden tomorrow.

Pain again!

Another short post I'm afraid. The pain in my calves has continued to get worse, getting to a peak last night, when I only had 2 hours sleep and was crying (wimp!) with pain twice in the night. At last however, the medical professionals are getting concerned and I have some action. I had a blood test yesterday and have a consultant appointment on Monday. I went to see the doctor today and he thinks the problem is related to my diabetes but was honest in not knowing what to do next. He did however prescribe me a much stronger pain-killer (tramadol) and a drug that deals with nerve pain. He thinks that it may be neuropathy, which is rare in a recently diagnosed diabetic, but seems the most likely outcome with my symptoms. This afternoon I had the best sleep in ages and hopefully that was because of the pain-killer. I couldn't go to work today, which was fustrating as I hate having time off sick (in fact this is the second day in 10 years). I just wasn't fit enough to

Time & Energy to Post

At last I feel I have the time and energy to post once more to my blog. Not that my calves are feeling any better, but at least the codeine I have been prescribed is giving me a little respite. I have now seen three different doctors (not by choice), an osteopath, my diabetic nurse and am going to a physiotherapist next week. They are all confused by my symptoms, so I don't hold out much hope of them sorting it soon. So what have I been up to since I last posted? Well, lots, most of which is not at all interesting! We had an excellent time in York, even though we got snowed on. Abby loved it; the whole experience of going on a proper train, seeing the trains in the Railway Museum and going to the Minster. The guest house was great (Staymor Guest House) with the owner really making an effort to make all of us welcome. The breakfast was exceptionally good too. Below is a picture of Abby's favourite engine (we are the tiny figures in front of it!) She even asked for a poster of it

Weekend & Pain

Not written for a few days. A number of reasons for this: I thought that the readers would be really bored if I wrote a load of mindless drivel about the trivialities of my life, the pain in my calves and being rather busy at home and work. Spring seems as if it is well and truly here. I even cut our lawn on Saturday. It is a great garden, but even with a self-propelled lawnmower, it takes about an hour to cut. Also managed to dig the vegetable patch and do some general tidying. We even planted a blackberry bush. Not sure we will get fruit this year, but should get a good crop next year. Whilst digging, Abby suggested I had dug up a snake! Of course, it was an earthworm. I picked it up and showed it to her. She asked to hold it and managed not to squash it! It was great to be outside as Abby can run around getting rid of some of that pent-up energy that she seems to have in limitless supply. Saturday evening was spent at the wedding of an old school friend. It was a really excellent ev

Calves & Korma

My calves have been causing me real hassle over the last 4 days. I have had cramp in them and can't seem to shake it off. The diabetes nurse suggests it is lactic acid build up from the cycling rather than diabetes related, but I'm not sure. Ibuprofen doesn't seem to be helping either. Will see how it goes over the weekend and see my GP if necessary. Had a good evening yesterday. After working late, I bought an indian take-away on the way home. Thought I would risk my favourite, Chicken Korma. Didn't have naan bread, as that wouldn't have been sensible! I took some extra insulin (12 unit as opposed to my usual 8 or 9) and was in the low 4's two hours after the meal. It is really great to know that I can have this treat occasionally. Spoke to Severn Trent Water about the sewer issue and they suggested that it was more than 2 metres down so may not be an problem for our extension. Maybe we will get it built one day! Had a manically busy week with lots of frustrat

Glycaemic Response

I mentioned the above picture on an online forum. It shows the affect over time on glucose levels of different foodstuffs. It came courtesy of another T1 friend in South Africa (thanks!).

Not much to report

No posts for a few days? How slack of me! Reason is that things have settled down and their isn't much to report. Rather than boring you with inane rubbish I have voted for a policy of silence. Most interesting thing going on at the moment is waiting for the planning application for our extension to be considered. Shouldn't be too many problems, however the big hurdle is going to be to get consent from Severn Trent Water to build near a sewer. I previously got a copy of the plans from them, but they are inaccurate. I wrote to them asking for them to be changed and they have sent the letter back saying that I need to fill in an application form. I posted this form to them last week! It doesn't have a section covering disputes about the location of the sewer so didn't think it would suffice. We'll have to see how it goes, but I am fairly pessimistic that it is going to delay the start of our works. Didn't cycle today as I had to get various cards for peop

Appointment and Weekend

The appointment on Friday was a bit of an anticlimax. They weighed me (5kg heavier than a month ago), and took my blood pressure (130 over something or other). Apart from that it was just a chat to the doctor and the nurse. Was concerned about them testing my levels at the clinic so didn't want to be high. Unfortunately, I overdid it and managed to have a hypo (3.0) in front of the nurse! How embarassing! She gave me a bag of crisps and I had some glucose tablets and felt better. The nurse and the doctor seemed to be pleased with my levels and didn't think anything needed to change. They don't do DAFNE at this hospital, but I have been put on the waiting list for a carb counting course. I also mentioned pumps. Basically, there is no chance of getting one any time soon. I knew that would be the case, but wanted to check. I have to go back in a month, having done a blood sample to be sent off for Hba1c testing. The rest of the weekend was quite pleasant. Saturday

Logging and Blogging

Cycled to work today again, so feel good. Had a cake at lunchtime to celebrate! Chocolate eclairs seem not too bad carb-wise. Have my first check up at the hospital tomorrow. Hopefully it will go alright, but I'm not sure what they are going to do, so a little apprehensive. At least I know my levels should be alright. I think I'll carb count at lunctime to make sure my levels are alright by the time of my appointment at 2pm. Have drawn a bar graph of my levels so far. This shows the frequency that I have been at various blood sugar levels: Seems like the readings are in the right ball-park. If the do a Hba1c tomorrow, hopefully it will be good, although it may be too soon. Had a lovely note from a lady who had read my blog. It is good to see that people are reading it and not finding it too boring. She had lots of advice and experiences that I have taken on board. I am sure we will correspond again. Abby and Josh had their appointment with the doctor yesterday and they both

mg/dl and mmol/l

Americans use mg/dl as the unit for measuring glucose levels. Most other countries use mmol/l. The relationship between the two is that 1mmol/l = 18mg/dl. I was interested to understand this relationship (as a former chemist) and also find out what it meant in practical terms. It is a bit sad, but here is my calculation (previously posted on diabetesdaily.com in response to a question): The unit mmol/l stands for milli-moles per litre. (or liter in the US, I believe). milli means a thousandth, so what is a mole (other than a small rodent-like animal). A mole is that quantity of a substance whose mass in grams is the same as its formula weight (atomic weight). Each molecule of glucose has 6 Carbon atoms, 12 Hydrogen atoms and 6 Oxygen atoms. A carbon atom weighs 12 units, a hydrogen atom weighs 1 unit and an oxygen atom weighs 16 units. These units are called relative atomic mass units (don't need to go into why). So the atomic weight of glucose is (6x12) + (12x1) + (6x16) = 180. Th

Flapjacks!

Emailed the company that makes my favourite flapjack to find out the nutritional information for them. They replied this morning and it doesn't make pretty reading. The values for the 145g flapjack are as follows: NON HYDROGENATED FAT 28.7g PROTEIN 11.6g CARBOHYDRATE 92.4g!! ENERGY 660kcal!! Guess my flapjack eating days are over. I work on roughly 1 unit of insulin for 10g of carbohydrates. I usually allow myself 8 or 9 units per meal. Therefore I could have a flapjack for my meal, but nothing else. Worked out my average BG for the past 2 weeks. It was 7.5mmol/l, so am fairly happy. It could be a little more controlled, but I will discuss this with my diabetes nurse at my appointment on Friday. Josh is being really hungry at the moment, so we (mostly Claire) are struggling to keep him happy. It didn't help that when she went to get him weighed yesterday, he wasn't keeping up with the growth curves. We have no faith in these curves as they don't seem to allow for brea

Novorapid & Levemir

Not a lot to report today, so thought I would tell you a bit about the insulins that I take. For those of you who are type I diabetics, this will be dull and you will probably know all about it, but for others, it may be good to see what is involved. Apologies if the picture below makes you feel uneasy, but it shows what an insulin pen looks like. The needle attached is the smallest they do and is 5mm. The dial on the right is used to select the amount of insulin you want to inject. You then press the button and it clicks until the right dose is selected. This insulin is called Novorapid. As the name suggests, this is a rapid action that starts working in 10 to 15 minutes. It peaks (as far as I can tell, although opinions on the net vary) in just over an hour and can be in the blood stream for 3-5 hours. I have also read that it can be gone in 2 hours, so am not sure about this figures. Novorapid is taken before meals and means that you can vary the times of your meal and if you want

Count your Carbs...You Must!

Had a strange experience in a diabetes chatroom on Friday. Was happily chatting about levels and how I was coping, when one of the members suggested that my levels were bad if they went over 7 and that I must start carb counting immediately. When I said that I would consider it, but wouldn't be told I had to do it, she took umbrage and left following a rant about not listening to advice! Carb counting is quite an emotive issue, particularly I have found with Americans (although this person was British). People who carb count can almost be categorised like various stages of religious beliefs, there are atheists (not many), agnostics (me), followers and evangelists. This person and several Americans that I have spoken to fall into the latter category. I have no problem with people evangelising about anything, as long as they don't expect me to follow exactly what they say without question. The ironic thing is that this person is constantly complaining about having hypo unawar

Linear Relationship?

Starting to get a little frustrated with my diabetes and my especially my blood glucose (BG) levels. So far it seemed to be that if I ate more carbs, my levels went up in proportion, unless I increased the insulin dose. This is the principle of DAFNE (dose adjustment for normal eating). The principle of this is that you learn the amount of insulin that you need for an equivalent amount of carbohydrates. You do this empirically, testing BG before and after a known amount of carbs and insulin. I notice that my hospital is not a DAFNE centre, but there are some in Birmingham. Will ask my nurse about it. Have my first diabetes doctor check-up a week today. Quite worried about it as I don't know what they do...I am sure it will be fine, but believe it or not, I am concerned that they are going to take blood from me. OK, I have got used to pen needles, but not sure that I will ever get used to the big ones. At least Claire is going with me! Anyway, I digressed. I am frustrated

What does a hypo feel like?

Since being diagnosed and learning about diagnosed, I wanted to know what a hypo felt like. Last night my levels went down to 3.0mmol/l (54mg/dL). It was really obvious: I went pale, had a shaky feeling and started to sweat quite a lot. It wasn't pleasant at all! I didn't intend to go that low, but probably didn't have enough carbs at supper time. I treated the hypo with some fruit juice and some Weetabix. Very quickly these bought my levels up and I felt better. The theory, I believe is that you should take some rapid action carbs - fruit juice, glucose tablets, and then some longer lasting carbs - wheat, pasta. I also felt really hungry whilst my levels were low and therefore devoured numerous crispbreads afterwards. The problem with treating a hypo, is that actually you need very little food to raise your levels. In fact, by bedtime my levels were 11.2mmol/l, which is rather too high. I understand that people feel hypos as different levels and that people build