Today I woke long before the crew and the additional state licensed plumbers got here. I ask God to help me to deal better with all the stress I have been under. They all arrived a little later than they told me but still early in the morning, 8 AM. It was okay as I was calmer than I have been in days.
It was a cold and long day. The state licensed plumbers fixed the gas line and installed the new meter outside of my home to meet the latest State Code for natural gas to my home. The other crew is another matter. The main guy leaned on a shovel or on his cell phone talking personal business. He brought two other people with him, but only one did any work. She did paint the wall with cement, yes paint! Then after it started setting up good on the wall. She painted the wall after lunch with a black tar sealant. Notice I bolded the word she, there is a reason. The young 22 year old woman, mother of 3 children, was down in a trench painting my wall while two adult men stood leaning on shovels, talking on cell phones or to each other while she did all the painting of a very long wall. It would have taken half the time if one of the men grabbed the other paint brush and climbed in the trench to help her paint. She is also 3 1/2 months pregnant. I asked her why she was doing this kind of work. She told me her dad taught her how to make extra money doing construction labor work. She wants her kids to have a nice Christmas. I liked the strong and admirable qualities about her. Caring about her children that way, yet being careful she said with her pregnancy.
It was 36º F. outside. The wind was not as bad as yesterday, but it was still cold. My Raynaud’s Phenomenon was not as bad as yesterday, but it is still affecting my fingers turning them very white and lose the sense of feeling on my nose when I am outside. I did have two family members awake not feeling good today, but that was okay and understandable. The Christmas lights are up outside my house, for how long I am not sure as the new gutters are to be installed if the weather holds up. My old ones are leaking and are corroded at the seams. More work to be done to the inside of my house.
I did manage to get more decorating on the inside of my house along with one of the family members. It is starting to look more like Christmas around my house and my tree is all decorated. Need to finish writing my Christmas card and monthly bills over the weekend. Thankful that my blood sugar stayed more closer to the normal range today and I felt better. There is power in prayer.
The construction crew came back do to other work that is contracted to be done on my basement wall on the outside. Moisture has been coming through and the wall is starting to lean out. They ran into a situation with the gas line into my home while digging out along my house. Had to call the gas company to come and turn off my gas to the house. The gas provides heat to my house and the hot water tank. It is very COLD outside with blowing 18 MPH winds, wind chill of 26. The only saving grace right now is it is sunny. The crew is under a deadline to get my gas back on for the night as it is going down to the temperature in the 20s plus the wind making it even colder. They have to call the gas company by 4 for them to come back and turn on the gas for us to have heat tonight.
I am feeling so stressed out over this construction work being done on my house and all the problems they are running into. It is definitely affecting my blood sugar level causing it to rise rapidly to 312 then dropping quickly to 136 after my morning shot and I had forgot to eat my breakfast this morning. Ate some lunch, I am starting to feel a bit better, but not totally. Between my Raynaud’s phenomenon that affect my hands out in the cold and my arthritis in my joint and where I broke my leg this year, I am in pain. This stress is also exhausting me. I wonder how much more I can take. I know with God’s help I will make it through all this. I just don’t like how it is affecting my body. Did some deep breathing techniques to calm my nerves and sat and prayed.
I have to go back outside to constantly check on this crew. Don’t need them breaking the gas line, because I just found out from the gas company man that I am not covered under the gas company line insurance. No one from the gas company has ever mentioned about this type of insurance. If you live in the cold climate areas of the United States, be sure to ask your gas company if you are protected with this insurance. It sure can save you a bunch of money just in case there is a problem with your gas lines. I just called and signed up for $4.25 a month, even though it won’t take affect for 30 days. Praying nothing happens to the gas line in the mean time.
Well, something happened to the gas line and there is a leak per the Gas Company man. It is going to cost an additional $800 to fix it. If I had known about the gas line insurance sooner. I would not have to pay the $800 out of my pocket. Lesson learned a little too late.
The stress of today has made me feel very sick and my blood sugar has been yo-yoing all day. Been very hard to keep it balanced. Not being able to keep on track with my time management and organization plan, has made me depressed more the last two days again. Fighting hard to not let my depression get more deeper. Praying for a light at the end of this tunnel.
One of the crew will be here at 7 AM tomorrow. The State Licensed plumber will be here at 8 AM. Pray for me that I handle things better tomorrow.
Tuesday is get back on track day. My kid goes back to school tomorrow and I have the computer back to myself most of the day. I feel I have gotten so far behind during the Thanksgiving break. With having had that low energy spell that I had, it also made a difference too.
I have a few weeks before having to mail my boxes to my family members for Christmas. Working on decorating the house for Christmas and writing Christmas cards have become a priority right now.
Shortly after starting this post, I got unexpected visitors at my door. They stayed for over 2 hours. Then my kid wanted to go to the mall. More interruptions from what I started off set to do today. When am I ever going to get a chance to do MY important things? This is really starting to bum me out.
Today is now Tuesday and I forgot to post the part above for Monday. I can’t think straight. Woke this morning to more interruptions again. Shortly after I tested my blood sugar, reading of 112, I ate my breakfast. Eager to get started. I no more sat down when a family member came rushing to me. Telling me that I had a leak in the main water pipe right above the water meter. I immediately called the contractor that is suppose to start in the next few weeks on fixing or replacing much needed work on my house. He told me he would send someone right over. That was 10:15 AM. No one showed up for the next hour. Called the contractor again, he told me that the crew was in a different town and were finishing up a job and then drive to my house. Thinking to myself, okay it will probably be at least another hour and a half. I got a call from the contractor telling me that it would 2:30 that he and the crew would be at my house. Needless to say, the contractor finally shows up at 3:10 PM and his crew did not show up till 3:30 PM. Within 5 minutes the contractor left after giving instructions to his two man crew. Within 20 minutes, the crew managed to break the pipe below the meter going out to the City water system. They did not inform me they broke the pipe. One of the crew asked me to look up the City water dept number very calmly. I didn’t really think much of it at the time till I heard his conversation with the Water Dept. concerning the pipe broken and water going all over MY basement. I quickly ran down the stairs to the basement. I was horrified at the site. I have my eBay and website merchandise stored on shelving and racks down there. I was lucky to get down there when I did cause if I hadn’t heard that conversation they would probably never told me. I put circus rugs down around the edge of the ever growing huge water puddle and pans and small garbage can around the spray to divert it off any shelving. I started pushing water with a mop to the drain in my basement floor. I did this and dumping the pans and can down the drain as fast as it filled up, then go back to pushing the water down the drain with the mop. It took the City Water Dept. employee to arrive here in 25 minutes. I was exhausted from the work and the stress of worrying. I talked to the City Water Dept. employee about the situation. He told me this could have happened due to the age of the pipes. My house was built in 1923 and these pipes were the originals put in the house. The other thing the employee informed me was that if these men got the pipes fixed, I could call them tomorrow early morning and someone could come and turn my water back on. UGH! No water for kitchen or bathroom or laundry all night. I do have a water machine that holds 5 gallon water bottles. So my kid and I will be able to have water to drink and brush our teeth. Ordering subs from Creno’s tonight for dinner. Yeah, no dishes have to be washed. Took my blood sugar for the second time of the day. I am suppose to test four times a day and I missed one for the no lunch one. Reading of 289. I know it is the stress of today that brought my blood sugar up that high. Think I am going to start decorating my Christmas tree before anything else happens.
I slept over 10 hours with only waking once last night. Felt rested and made it to church. We had a substitute pastor today because my pastor had surgery this past week. Pastor Chuck reminded us to bring our Faith Level up. Without faith, we can not receive the blessings of mercy and grace. I sat there wondering what I needed to do to strengthen my faith. I have been feeling so low in energy lately, I haven’t read my Bible and took the time to pray for myself lately. I do pray for other people a lot more than myself.
After church, I came home and had lunch. I have been trying to eat the excess turkey everyday because the rest of the family is tired of turkey. There is no way I can hide turkey in another recipe. They know! Anyway, within 30 minutes, I got extremely sleepy. Was hard to understand after sleeping over 10 hours. I started to cry because I was sick of the low energy and feeling tired. I remembered someone once telling me that turkey can make you sleepy. After doing some research, I found that turkey contains tryptophan, an amino acid. Our bodies do not produce it. We have to eat or consume foods that contain tryptophan. Tryptophan helps the body to produce Vitamin B Niacin, which in turns helps the body to produce Serotonin. Serotonin is a chemical that causes a calming affect on the brain. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter produced in the brain known to influence the functioning of the cardiovascular, renal, immune, and gastrointestinal systems. This plays a key role in sleep. Serotonin is a precursor of hormone melatonin.
So after eating turkey for the past 4 days, my body has been producing more serotonin plus I have been taking my melatonin at night to help me sleep. I am Bi-Polar and the feelings I have had lately were putting me into depression even though my blood sugar have only been slightly elevated compared to in the past for me. Thank God I discovered the reason for my tiredness. I think I will give the rest of the turkey meat to the dogs. Maybe they will sleep good tonight.
Next year, IF we have turkey on Thanksgiving Day, I will buy just a turkey breast.
My body has not caught up yet from being so busy the last two days. I am not sleeping as well as I should. My energy is still low. Even though, I slept like a rock with only waking up twice last night. I still woke up feeling low energy even though my blood sugar was 122. I usually wake between 3 to 4 times a night in a 5 through 7 hour period. Getting out of my routine after getting up around a certain time in the morning to drive my daughter to and from work at her new job. She is working various hours during the Thanksgiving break from school plus being home and wanting to go places together shopping.
It is hard to balance my home life and business life this week. I feel out of whack physically and mentally being tired. My plans to continue to work on organizing and getting started on my time management seem out the door at the moment. This is causing me to be stressed and depressed a little. I have realized that when my life is starting to feel out of control and helpless, I experience depression.
Having trouble sleeping soundly through the night is definitely a problem for me. I probably wouldn’t sleep as well as I do if I didn’t take the melatonin.
Women are twice as likely as men to have difficulties falling asleep or maintaining sleep. Hormonal changes can affect sleep in women. As well as, women coping with work as well as with their roles as mothers and wives may cut back on their sleep, ignoring signs of fatigue and other effects of insufficient sleep. Getting enough sleep has an enormous impact on a woman’s life as it improves general sense of well-being, concentration, job performance, social interaction, and driving. Sleep deprivation has been proven to affect driving ability in three areas:
- It impairs coordination
- It causes slower reaction times.
- It impairs judgment.
It has been estimated that between 16% and 60% of all accidents have sleep deprivation as a cause. I do worry about driving with having sleep dysfunction. Sleep dysfunction is associated with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), Chronic Pain, Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS), Periodic Limb Movement Disorder (PLMD), Narcolepsy, Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome (DSPS), anxiety and depression.
Praying that I sleep better tonight. So I can get back on track tomorrow.
I wouldn’t have driven on the streets of my town today, except my adult child had to be at work at 4:30 AM till 11:30 AM and going back tonight. I could not believe how bad the traffic was between 4 and 4:30 AM. Normally, I have avoided in the past driving on Black Friday AM traffic. I decided to go to a few of the large chain store since I was right there in the area and see what finds I could obtain for Christmas presents. I usually buy most of my Christmas presents online or gift cards put in the Christmas envelopes with very few boxes to mail. The cost of buying on the internet or eBay with sellers willing to gift wrap and send to the recipient for a small extra charge with the shipping cost is well worth it for a peace of mind compared to waiting in long lines in the cold, people pushing and shoving, grabbing items out of other people’s hands, just plain rude people that I experienced at such early hours. I ended up wasting precious hours of rest and sleep fighting my way through all that. Didn’t bring home much to say the least. Never again except to drive to and from the work place!
I found out later that 4 other major chain stores had opened at 4 AM. No wonder there was so much traffic out so early in the morning
I remember as a child how I was excited by Christmas. The thoughts of celebrating Jesus Christ’s birthday and Santa Claus coming. The shopping trips to the local Ben Franklin’s Five and Dime Store were fun and happy. I remember the huge old wooden floor store. I was always afraid of making the floor squeak. Anyway, getting to see all the new toys that were displayed for Christmas. Picking out for our list to give to our Mom. She always gave us on Thanksgiving afternoon the new Sears and Roebuck Toy Catalog to look at too for Christmas gift ideas. Helping to decorate the Christmas tree that night. Going to the local electric company to sit on Santa’s lap with my list. Life sure was much simpler back then. As a child believing in Jesus Christ and Santa Claus seemed so simple. No pushing and shoving, rude people. I remember people having manners and saying excuse me, thank you and please. It is sad to come to the realization that people have lost that sense of respect for other people and especially the elderly when out shopping even if it is a Black Friday.
The stress of this morning caused me to sit in the seat of my vehicle doing some deep breathing techniques to calm myself from my frayed nerves. I still had to eat when I got home because the few restaurants that were open were packed to the outer doors. Surprisingly, my blood sugar was at 168 after all I went through in those crowds. It shows that doing the deep breathing techniques work in reducing stress and my blood sugar level.
Been trying to focus on myself and getting more organized with my life so I can more in control of my health and personal situations. Today, I realized that there was no school till next Tuesday for Thanksgiving break for my child. Which meant that what I had planned for today, was totally throw out the window.
I almost forgot to take the turkey out of the freeze yesterday. Should have took it out on Sunday and put in the refrigerator to thaw. It’s a large bird. Praying it thaws in time to cook it.
By the time I finally got to work on my computer today, over half of the day was gone. Then my child wants to go to the mall and get the free gift she had won. Geez, more interruptions, but what the heck, she’s happy to be the winner. She has a very competitive nature. Wonder who she got that from.
As we were coming back from the mall, I got a very bad headache. Then I remembered I didn’t eat lunch or a snack or take my noontime shot of Novolog. I knew that as soon as I got home I would be starting to cook dinner. I tested my blood sugar and the results were 240, that was the reason for the headache. Hyperglycemia is when the blood sugar is too high. Normally when I don’t eat my blood sugar goes down, but due to the added stress of the day, it went up. Took 6 units of Novolog and then cooked dinner.
I was reading a news press release about Avandia, which is one of the pills I take for my diabetes. MSNBC states that FDA warns of heart attack risk taking Avandia and a drug probe into the Gates Foundation. This makes me concerned as I have taken Avandia for 4 years. Before that was Glucophage. What are my chances of a heart attack now?
Tomorrow will be a busy day in the kitchen as I prepare a traditional family breakfast as we rarely get to eat together in the mornings. Putting in the turkey basted in butter and stuffed with celery and onions and spices in the roasting bag. I love the smell of baking turkey or ham in the holiday times with all the trimmings. Stuffing, mashed or sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, corn on the cob and pumpkin pie have always been a traditional at my family’s Thanksgiving table. Resisting over portion sizes and the pie is going to be tough.
To my readers, Have a Happy Thanksgiving! I appreciate the comments you have left as I know what interest you have to in type 2 diabetes and/or making your life better.
Woke this morning Tues, Nov. 20th* with low energy. Checked my blood sugar and it was 118. I couldn’t understand why I had no energy even though I have had insomnia for years. As the day went on, the weather here has been gray and dreary. When the weather conditions are like this, it affects my mood and energy level and my chronic fatigue syndrome.
Women are twice as likely to suffer from insomnia than men. I have chronic secondary insomnia which is caused by my health conditions. For myself, I have to do relaxation therapy exercises to be able to go to sleep each night.
Sometimes I wake up from severe leg cramps. My doctor has advised to cut back on the amount of caffeine I drink to help the leg cramps and my insomnia. It is very hard to do as I love my coffee and hot or iced tea. I have cut down on the amount of diet soda I was drinking as I read some articles on people believed getting brain cancer from drinking too much diet soda. Scary to think soft drink companies are selling something that could cause cancer.
So I am going to bed earlier, I take Melatonin to help me sleep too. My chiropractor was the first one to tell me about melatonin. He knows how my body tenses from lack of sleep trying to give my back an adjustment.
*Note: the date and time were off on my blog.
Woke up with a blood sugar of 138 this morning. Had to get up early to take my kid to school. Normally she takes the school bus and I can sleep a little later. After taking her to school, I came home with the intentions of going back to sleep, however I got to thinking about all the things on my list for today that I needed to do. So I got started on the list and writing down how much time it took me to get a task done and how many times I was interrupted and how much time was involved.
My family is trying to be more understanding since I had a talk with them last week about my frustrations. However this morning, I got interrupted numerous times by a family member who had been reorganizing the basement and finally wanted me to come down and look at their accomplishment. As I walked down the stairs, I said a quick prayer that all would be well. The rooms were more straightened, HOWEVER, a lot of my merchandise is now buried behind other personal boxes. I had a system with the merchandise boxes by having a sticky note taped to the box with the inventory numbers listed on it that it contained. All stacked in order by the inventory numbers. Oh my, oh my, I am going to have to go back down and reorganize the basement room again to be able to find what I need before listing it. I never expected the family member to just reorganize the basement as they haven’t done anything in a year down there, much less to do with my online businesses. They were looking for praise at their hard work and I was feeling anxiety over where to find a piece of merchandise. I should be just grateful.
I did manage to accomplish some task that were on my list today with the help of a friend and mentor, it felt so good to complete them. I didn’t get as many done as I had planned. I need to set more realistic goals on time frames to complete each task. Goals can be in different levels; career, education, home, personal, physical and financial. Can be short-term or long-term goals. Setting priorities for me has been a tough decision. My Mom use to say, “Too many irons in the fire”. Until I finish writing down all the things that need to be prioritized, it is hard to make the right decision at the moment on what needs the most attention.Writing down your goals is important so you can be more focused and positive minded. Gene Donohue wrote in his site about 7 easy steps to goal setting. I got a better understanding about goal setting.
Setting goals in my personal, business and my diabetic life is important to me as I feel more in control and self-confident as I work to progress forward. My blood sugar has stayed more in balance today being home and maintaining a time schedule with my eating. One of my goals is to get my weight down and keeping my blood sugar more in control. The end results will be less units of insulin taken everyday.
I received a phone call this past week from a friend to come visit and see the two cats that I had given her. One of my cats was not adjusting well being away from me. Was 6, I still have 4 cats at home. Oh boy, the family was going to say “Not another cat”….lol. This would mean 5 cats total again plus we have 2 dogs. I love my pets and want them to be happy. I know Baby, the name of one of the cats I had given her, may have a hard time adjusting because he is so attached to me. By the way, all my pets are attached to me. They know they are loved.
So I took a trip this past weekend that I had not planned originally for this past week. A boomerang in my Time Management Plan. So I will re-work my Time Management Plan for this coming week.
I enjoyed my visit with my friends and godchild, loving called Little Wild Man. He is only 3 and definitely a ball of energy to keep entertained. Found myself tiring easy in the early evening due to the all day marathon to keep up with him. He likes to rise early in the morning. Stand over you, looking at you when you are sleeping. Somehow you sense that someone is standing over you and you peek an eye open and guess who is looking at you. He laughs at this event every time I come to stay. It has turned into a game with him and me.
My friends live out in the country. There are no other children for my godchild to play with living nearby. He will say, “Only GIRL cousins, no boys like him” live about 5 miles away. I get a ticklish laugh when he says GIRLS the way he does like they are yucky. Thinking wait till you grow up little man. I am concerned about my godchild as he is very overweight as so are his parents. With no other children to play with and it is cold outside, he has very little physical activity outside the home. His parents did enroll him in a little preschool where he has been going for part of a day since September. He loves school he tells me, however when he is home he like to act up for attention from his parents. This continuous behavior, he does to get something to eat. Saying “I’m starving” when he has had something to eat just 20 minutes before.
I talked to his mom, my friend, about Little Wild Man’s eating habits as I don’t want him to have diabetes. His mom has diabetes and is in denial about herself. I took her blood sugar while I was there, it was a reading of High Glucose, over 600. My mouth flew open as I didn’t expect it to be so high. I asked her if she wanted me to go get her insulin from the refrigerator for a shot. She informed me that she didn’t take shots anymore since her last surgery. I questioned her why? She told me her doctor took her off of her insulin shots because of her brain seizures. The more I listened to her, I knew she was in denial about her diabetes and also, her son’s health condition of over eating. I felt like crying about their situation. My friend has been in and out of the hospital for many surgeries and high blood sugars over the past three years since her son has been born. Her mother takes Little Wild Man to her house and spoils him with more candy, ice cream, everything he shouldn’t eat or over sized portions. Until they all start accepting their situation is out of control with their eating habits, Little Wild Man has a very good chance of getting diabetes.
With the different eating times they have each day, I was having a hard time keeping my blood sugar balanced each day. I did pack some healthy snacks in small containers to go with me in my vehicle, some fresh pieces of cut up apple, chunks of cheese and baked wheat pretzels.
Selecting foods for a healthy snack that can satisfy your hunger, supply your body with energy you need and provide important nutrients, i.e. whole grains, fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, and low-fat dairy products.
Kids now a days don’t seem to eat as much fruits and vegetables as they should. According to the CDC, obesity trends in the United States for the past 20 years has seen a dramatic increase. In 2006, only four states had a prevalence of obesity less than 20%.
I pray for my godchild to get help with his weight and his mom to stop being in denial about her diabetes and both parents about their weight. I want my friend to be able to SEE her son get married and hold her grandchildren one day. My friend was talking to me about her headaches and vision problems. I tried to explain having her diabetes so out of control will cause headaches and retinopathy. She was still in denial.
I came home with Baby, my cat, who was “talking” to me on the ride home. He purred a lot too. I was so glad to see him happy once again. The other cats just seemed to accept Baby was back. He loves to sit on my lap when I am typing at the keyboard like he is right now. I use to call him my eBay kitty, because when he was a baby kitten, we learned about selling on eBay together. Now if only Baby could do some listings for me on eBay and my website, pack merchandise and ship them off. <sigh, wishful thinking> I am glad to be back home and relaxed. Getting away even for a few days is always good for me. Sure helps get my stress level down.
