Kerri: Blogger & Mom

Appreciating the Dexcom.

After BSparl was born, I was overwhelmed with adjusting to life as a mom, and diabetes took a backseat to just about everything. I was healing from my c-section, attempting to snap up all the snappy things on BSparl's clothes, and figuring out how all the pieces were coming back together after having been completely blown apart.

I experienced some extreme diabetes burnout, where I stopped exercising, cut way back on testing my blood sugar, and the Dexcom receiver collected dust in my bathroom cabinet.

But I've been really trying to get my act together here. Now that we're quasi-settled in our new house, I'm back at the gym, testing with an increased frequency, and tuning back into my diabetes management. I couldn't force these issues, though. I needed to get things rolling again once I was really ready, and not beforehand. With BSparl a little older (almost six months old!) and her schedule actually resembling something plot-table, I knew it was an okay time to start focusing on myself a little more.

I'm resolved to make exercise part of the equation once again, and I'm doing well with that goal. And to be filed under "TMI," I'm keeping my glucose meter on the bathroom counter and am testing after every visit. (Sounds weird, but it helps me remember to test and helps shrink the gap between blood sugar checks.) And I'm back to Dexcom'ing it 24/7.

I didn't realize how much I missed this thing until I took a few weeks off.

It's easy for me to slack off when I'm avoiding my glucose meter. Mostly because my glucose meter doesn't scream at me every few hours. But the Dexcom does. Once it's on and calibrated, it BEEEEEEEEEP!s every time I'm high, low, or if it needs a blood sugar number. I feel ready for this information again, instead of overwhelmed by it, and I'm ready to make use of this data.

In the last two weeks, my meter average has come down from 179 mg/dl (ouch) to 148 mg/dl. And I'm hoping that I can bring it down a little more in the next two weeks, hopefully while avoiding the extremes on either end of the spectrum.

While I know plenty of people with diabetes wrangle in their numbers without the use of a CGM, I seem to be better off with one. Something about that constant stream of information keeps me both accountable and tuned in. Even though I'm not a fan of wearing a second device (hello, skin real estate issues), my health is better for it. Sometimes it takes coming back from a round of diabetes burnout to remind me why I fought so hard for this device in the first place.