Wine and Buddhism

I woke up this morning at 10 am with a blood sugar of 35! Being that low, and especially dropping that low in my sleep scares me. It makes me feel a little lonely and nervous about sleeping alone. For the past 13 years that I've been diabetic I have always woken up when my blood sugar was low or high (knock on wood) but I fear that one day I won't and there won't be anyone around to notice that something is wrong. In the past, sadly the fairly recent past, my body has been so used to my bloodsugars running high, that if my bloodsugar grazed 60 I would wake up feeling miserable, so not waking up till I'm 35 makes me uneasy. This is why I rarely drink very much and don't enjoy weed like every other art school kid seems to, I dont like the feeling of losing control. I think it's a rational and healthy fear for me to have.

But anyway, it wasn't so bad that my bloodsugar was so low this morning because I think that I figured something out. Usually I take my lantus dose at 11pm and I have had trouble with lows then around 6 am. That's where I've found that eating a snack before bed eliminates those lows. Last night I went out and didn't get back and take my lantus until 3am. So then this morning my bloodsugar was low at 10 am which is exactly 7 hours later, the same amount of time my bloodsugar bottoms out when I take the lantus at 11pm. TA DA! So it's a little discovery, but I feel I can rely now on my bloodsugar bottoming out 7 hours after my lantus dose, no matter when I take it. That's a good fact to know about myself.
I didn't have a snack last night before bed because I was all off schedual and my bloodsugar was 200, so I wasn't sure that it was necessary. I read recently, although now I can't rememeber where, that beer and wine will tend to make bloodsugars drop. I dont understand why that is, perhaps it takes more energy to digest the alcohol than the drink gives you. I had two really hearty helpings of wine last night so thats probably another reason why my bloodsugar dropped as low as it did. That's also a good fact to know.

I've had this disease (actually it's a chronic condition, my friend Allison always corrects me when I call it my disease)for 13 years, so since I was 9 years old. I feel like I should have all the answers by now and know all the facts; I feel like taking care of myself should be an old hat. I've had this disease through the awful puberty years, through highschool and the first times that I experimented with drinking. I've had it through prom nights and church retreats, and through my freshmen year of college where I frequently binged on peanutbutter and icecream with my room mate. I even studied abroad in Rome with this disease where for four months I ate nothing but carbs and gelato (oh, man I really miss that food). I even traveled in Tunisia, where the whole trip I had no idea what I was exactly eaten and little less how many carbs were in it. Anyway, my point is that I have lived with diabetes for so long and through so much that I feel like I should know how to do this, but I really don't. Every day my body does something that I'm not expecting; I'm constantly trying to figure it out; everyday, every meal, is a new puzzle. I recently had an appointment with my endocrinologist and I talked with him about this. Our bodies are always changing and moving so I will never be able to find a routine or figure out a formula that will work forever.

On this though, I just finished this book When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron. Pema Chodron is an American Buddhist nun so the book is overall about using Buddhist practices to get you through difficult times. I'm not that interested in studying Buddhism; meditation sounds like torture to me. I really enjoyed this book though because the overarching concept is that pain and challenging times are a part of life and have always been, yet for some reason we act shocked and feel angry or like life is unfair when we experience these times. It's healthier to realize that there is no way to avoid pain and heartbreak in life and to accept that we have very little control over anything. She teaches to realize this and because of this enjoy the very moment you are in. Enjoy the good times more because you know that they won't last forever, and to get through the challenging times also knowing that they won't last, but also realizing that they can teach you something and make you better. She says to remember that a problem won't fully go away until it has taught you its lesson. So in a way I'm very blessed to have Diabetes because it reminds me of this everyday. Everyday my body reminds me that I want so badly to be in control of everything, but look, my very body is a mystery to me. It teaches me to live in the moment and deal with what is happening right now, because lord knows I can't predict what will happen next.