Vindication!!! (sort of)

Last night, Husband and I were having one of those oh so rare moments after Son went to bed that did not involve folding laundry, policing the rowdies outside (that would be the dogs), or loading a dishwasher. He was on the phone to work covering some things with his second shift, and I was laid out on the couch trying to convince my ribs that they really needed to go back to where they belong, and stop hurting so damn much while watching a marathon of one of my favorite series on Sci-Fi.

As Husband came upstairs, it was time for me to the do the poke and hope, er, two hour blood glucose check. My number came back higher than I expected (as usual). Husband wanted to check his for kicks as well. It came back astronomically high. We both agreed that while the chili cheese fries and hot dog weren't the best nutrition choices he had ever made, the number seemed waaaay out of whack, so he tested again. From the same stick, on the same finger, with a different result. Now I don't know if 10 points is statistically significant (I'll leave it to the math geeks like Pithy to tell me that), but it seemed fishy to me. I mean, it was less than a minute later!

So, my curiosity piqued, and in a desperate hope that maybe things aren't as bad as they seem to be with me, Husband retrieved my new, but yet unused, tester. I didn't have anything against using the new one, but I had just refilled my test strips on the old one, and was going to switch once they were gone. Sure enough, another different result, but this time with a nearly 15 point difference. Eureka! Old tester=undue stress for pregnant woman who freaks out on husband with every bad test and finds herself crying nearly uncontrollably in her glorified, windowless, cube office.

It was now too late to test me again, since the window had passed, but I decided to do a dual test this morning when I got up to test my theory once again. Once again, the hypothesis was proven (gee, I feel like I'm on Mythbusters or something!).

• New Tester: 89
• Old Tester: 103

Voila! Not wanting to tick off my endocrinology doc too much, I tried it again over lunch, and once again a decent difference; 11 points; 127 v. 116. I was also a bit worried that I was trying to cheat to a certain degree. In law, when a plaintiff goes looking for a jurisdiction to file their lawsuit in that has a history of leaning one way or another, we call if forum shopping. To some degree, I felt like I was tester shopping, but the scientist in me told me that this was not an isolated incident, and that I had calibrated the new one per the instructions. My other one is so old that they don't even make the calibration solution for it anymore. Using this as my rationale, I called the office today to tell them that (1) my OB had upped my nighttime insulin by two units, and boy howdy, did that do the trick; (2) my OB also wants them to check my numbers twice weekly, since the once a week thing isn't cutting it; and (3) am I in a sugar delusion that testers could differ so much?

The office called back relatively soon to tell me that they had faxed in a prescription for the new test strips and lancets to my pharmacy, and that they would be ready to go this afternoon, and that the upped dosage had been noted on my chart. Not too much push back on that one. And yes, once testers get elderly they tend to become more and more screwed up.

So, yes, I feel better about this. If my tester was that fouled up, then my after meals may not have been as jacked up as they appeared, which means that I may be able to dodge the fast acting insulin bullet for a while longer. I know that I'm not out of the woods for the long run, but for now, I can cut myself a bit of slack. I've been doing a great job of beating myself up about how things have been going, so now that I have actual proof, I can relax a little. Still eat to plan, and since its now out of the high 80s and 90s, take the rowdies out on a leash, and just breathe a little. Now if my ribs and back would just cooperate....