My New Spinning Game

 After testing my blood twice a day, I returned to the doctor on Thursday night. For all of my US American friends and readers, I had an appointment at 7pm, but went at 6:30 and was seen at 6:40. Each time I go, he spends 15-30 warm and caring minutes with me on each visit. This never happened anywhere I lived in the US, not even as a child. He even takes my blood pressure. He is young enough to be my son. The nurse's primary responsibility was to show me how to use the Accu-Chek and print out the prescriptions on the computer, but the doctor takes my blood pressure and does all of the hands on care.

One thing that is absent is diabetic education. I am not certain if it doesn’t exist or if it doesn’t exist in English. Of all of the services he has stated he will refer me to when we return from vacation, this has not been one of them. Although I have not asked directly, I did have a newly diabetic diagnosed student last year and remember his telling me the majority of his education was from the doctor and the Internet. Hence, I have not pushed it. With Google and the American Diabetic Association, I have been in fairly good shape, though finding diabetic acceptable food lists was more challenging than I thought they would be. Counting carbs is way too tedious even with an app on my smartphone, so I am working the diabetic plate method.

Per my instructions, I am logging my twice daily results, but here is where the doc and I are at odds. I am using this chart as my guide.

My monitor shows the results in a decimal point number as shown on the bottom row. The American version shows it as whole numbers as on the middle row.Taking my medication at night, my fasting numbers in the morning have been higher than my before going to bed numbers. Either way, neither has been over 6.8 which according to this is still within the Good range. My doctor says "No!" you should be under 6.0. Yikes! One day most of what I ate was lettuce a "free" veggie and my numbers were still over 6.0. I have not had a beer in over 3 weeks. Not that I am a heavy drinker, but a beer a day was a pleasure I miss. 

Now, besides the diabetic medication, the doctor put me on a  diabetic aspirin. This is specially formulated to aid in the prevention of arteriosclerosis. It was not long ago when I used to comment on how many pills and solutions our American guests would have to take during their time here, while bragging to Ron about how healthy and lucky we were not to be in their shoes. Well, that boastful nature is now from days gone by.

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I Guess It Is Official

I went back to the doctor last night with my blood results. Although, I could not find anything out of normal range related to glucose levels on the list, he diagnosed me as diabetic. Strangely, he did a blood test in the office at 7 pm and it came right within normal range. 

Regardless, I now have to take some little pill once a day, test my blood twice a day for the first week and then once daily thereafter. Today's fasting test, when I first got up and before eating or drinking came up with 73. The normal range for fasting is 70 to 100 milligrams per deciliter. 

This will be interesting. After we return from vacation, he wants me to see an ophthalmologist and have a stomach X-Ray. I am not sure why the X-Ray, but when the time comes, I will question it further.

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The Little Prick That Keeps Being a Prick

This Accu-Chek comes with a little plastic device that one is to use to prick their finger to draw blood to test. I have yet to master this either. After opening the case, you insert a lancet until it clicks. Put the cap back on and twist it to determine the depth of the prick. One is for sensitive skin that will start to bleed at the sight of a needle, while five is for those tough construction worker types who have calloused fingers that need extra deep bludgeoning. This is the same little machine that the nurse used in the doctor’s office, but at that time, I did not realize I should be paying attention to what she was doing. 

I inserted the lancet, twisted its protective cover off, replaced the cap, set it for 1.5 and then pressed the release while holding my breath and shaking with anticipation. Nothing happened. What did I do wrong? How do I pump this baby up again so that it will release, causing me a quick dose of pain and produce blood? No clue. Play, play, play, all to no great success, I decided that I would finally need to take the cap off to expose the pin. My dual nature kicked in. One side is screaming “Please don’t hurt me” while the other is angrily growling “Hold still and take it like a man.” In all of the excitement, I jabbed with the enthusiasm of a serial killer creating a blood river where a blood drop would have been plenty. The test strip was already in the machine, the little blood drop icon was blinking; I put my blood in the designated area and viola! The message is ERROR! Now that is really helpful, intuitive, and will direct me to do better next time. The PDF of directions is worthless in this case, not shedding light on a bad situation. Well that is the show for today! There is no repeat performance. Tomorrow is another day!

Well that was yesterday. Today, I tried again. Getting this drop of blood is reminiscent of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, yet somehow I manage without causing the neighbors to come to the balcony in distress. This time, instead of inserting the test strip first, I put my blood drop on the strip and then put it into the machine. This time I get E-5. There is nothing that tells me what this means either.

This little prick is going to have to wait until I see the doctor again and get some instructions. The way things are going, I will have used up the test strips and won’t be able to find a pharmacy here that sells more without having to order them from North Korea where there is a really big prick.

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So Much for Accu-Chek

The doctor wanted me to get a blood glucose monitor, which seemed a bit immature to me since I had not gone for the glucose tolerance test yet. I did it anyway, thinking, I should test randomly anyway in between the annual blood draws. It would be similar to having werewolf tendencies; you don’t want to wait for the full moon before you know for sure. If there were a home administered canine tolerance test, it could prevent some embarrassment later in the month. Random sugar testing could explain other behaviors.

The doctor and I had to negotiate when I would get this test done. He wanted me to go on Thursday, but I had to explain Thanksgiving to him twice. Initially, we agreed on Friday, until Thanksgiving night, when I realized that the dinner could very well alter the results by the next morning. Nix that idea. Monday is looking good. In the meanwhile, he is expecting me to test my sugar on a daily basis.

I bought the Accu-Chek machine upon the pharmacist’s recommendation shelling out over $50 when I really wanted the $15 model. She assured me there were instructions in English in the box. When I opened the kit, there were pamphlets in 47 world languages including Cherokee, but nothing in English. Thanks to the Internet, I was able to find what I needed in a downloadable PDF document.

According to the directions, after removing tape from the battery, it should turn in by pressing a button. Nothing! Taking the battery out and replacing it did nothing either. I had Ron return it to the store. He returned claiming you had to hold the button down longer to turn it on and yes there are directions in English in the box. Hunting through again, there they were: How to clean your machine. End of story! So much for the English instructions.

Conferring with the PDF document, I first need to insert the computer chip into the machine. This is followed by placing a test strip in and placing one drop of the Accu-Chek Control Solution on the test strip. This will make sure your machine is calibrated correctly before you do your first test. There was no Accu-Chek Control Solution included in the kit, creating another trip to the pharmacy, but with negative results. Nincs! We don’t sell that solution. Strange, you sell the machine, but not the control solution? Well, if they spoke English or I spoke Hungarian that would have been the question to ask.

Pharmacies 2, 3, and 4 had the same disastrous results. One of them did give me the phone number for the Accu-Chek company here in Hungary to call to find out more information. When our massage therapist arrived later today, I had him call for me. The company that supplies the machines to the pharmacies told him that they do not have a list of which pharmacies stock which of their products; therefore, they could not tell him where to buy the control solution. Is there a wonder why businesses come and go here?

A brainstorm hit! I called one of my students who was diagnosed with diabetes over a year ago and has since branded himself as the Hungarian poster child on diabetic information. No answer. Then I called the First Med Center, the clinic that caters to ex-pats. They would have a doctor call me back. Still uneducated, I fumed over this nonsense and waste of time.

The doctor from First Med called me back. It took some time for me to explain about the control solution, but finally she understood. She said with the new machines, it is not needed as the computer chip does the work. How queer that the directions mention the control solution right after they instruct you to insert the computer chip with each new box of testing strips. Okay, I surrender! Maybe the control solution is not needed.
My student called back. He uses a different machine, causing him to be clueless over my issue with the control solution. Our massage therapist called four more pharmacies. Not one had heard of this solution, though all of them sold the machine.

It seems I am totally out of control for now.

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FLU One By Me

Something hit me in the middle of the night, about 4am. After getting up to use the facilities, when I climbed back in bed, I had a bad case of chills. Af first I thought it was just the exposure to the night air and I would warm up again once under the covers and self-tucked in. The chills continued soon followed by dizziness. I know I am sick or drunk when I am dizzy while flat on my back, but I have not been that drunk in over twenty-five years. The 3rd symptom to crop up was this feeling like my chest was going to implode, not explode. It was the strangest sensation that my chest wanted to cave in. I thought perhaps I was dehydrated, which it highly possible regardless of whatever else was happening. I guzzled water until I could not swallow another drop, but the chills kept me awake until the alarm went off at 7:3oam.

When I tried standing, I could not. I was overcome with dizziness. The thought that my blood sugar my have been low did spring to mind, but we had nothing to eat in the room. Ron had some mints, so I ate one of those. I wasn't going to make it to breakfast unless someone carried me on a litter or brought a guerny. Not even a wheelchair was going to work; sitting up made me feel sicker. Ron went down and ordered modified breakfasts to be sent to us. All I could eat was the fruit, hoping the sugars would assist me in getting on uptake. I had to forfeit a shower; I had concerns about standing and falling on the concrete, possibly hitting my head. The last time I had felt like this was when I had a  sever allergic reaction to fish at a Paris hotel restaurant.

Joseph arrived on time as usual. It took a number of feeble steps, but I did make it to the van. Ron told him I was sick and may need to make stops along the way. I curled up on the long back seat meant for three passengers and nested. Within seconds I had lost consciousness. Two hours later, I awoke only long enough to need a stop, but went back to sleep immediately after crawling to the back of the van. Five hours later, we were back in Nairobi and at the hotel for our last 2 1/2 nights before returning home again. This is not a hotel to brag about, so I am not even going to include the name. For some reason, at the end of a vacation, we feel it is necessary to tighten the belt and go really cheap. Okay, this place is clean, the sheets are clean, the staff is friendly; that is the extent of the tribute.

As soon as we were checked in, I crawled into bed and slept until 6:3opm. There are no restaurants close by, so to avoid taking a taxi, we tested my equilibrium by walking to a nearby hotel restaurant at The Heron. Nice hotel, nice restaurant, good sized portions. Back to our hotel and in bed to sleep.

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