After staying at my cousin's house in Dallas, I woke up late for my first appointment on what I'm calling 'after chemo day'. The day after usually includes a follow up shot to boost my immunity, but today I was also going to follow up with Dr. L. and have her check on my port after surgery next week. So I wake up late and hit a HUGE pile up on the highway. I took my regular insulin the night before, so I did my routine morning blood sugar check in the car. It was almost 600! As soon as I got to the hospital, my first stop was to stop by Dr. S office and let his nurse know. She said it had to be from the massive amounts of steroids I received the day before, and that my endocrinologist, Dr. B. would need to make some adjustments.
My next stop is to go downstairs and get my booster shot. On my way to see Dr. L., I stopped by Dr. B's office and tried to leave a message for the nurse as to what was going on. But, the nurse said Dr. B. wanted to see me right now before I did anything else. Dr. B. is nice, but he can be pretty stern, so he was somewhat upset with me that I had not notified him of starting chemo and the drugs I had. I explained everything to him that I knew, so he was able to put me on additional, fast acting insulin for the weeks I am on chemo (many of you know this as a sliding scale). He explained that I would use this insulin only during the week I am on chemo, and the steroids should stop effecting my sugars so much by the end of chemo week. He gave me some insulin right in the office and told me to wait an hour to check it again.
But during this hour, I ran over to Dr. L's office, who said my port incision and biopsy sites were looking great. I will do another sonogram with her after my next chemo treatment to see if there is any early improvement.
Then I went back to Dr. B's where we found that my sugars were down, but not enough, so he gave me another dose of insulin and had me wait another hour to test it. An hour later my sugars had gone down again,but were on borderline as to where he wanted it. He said I could go home, but had to keep a close eye on it.
Several hours later, my sugars had jumped back up to over 500. I panicked! But luckily Dr. B. told me to call him if I had this problem. I called the after-hours line, who got me in touch with him. I told him everything I'd done since I left his office, so he adjusted the insulin to a higher dose and told me to eat some protein and recheck in 2 hours. I was a nervous wreck and was so upset that nothing had been working all day. By 1am, I re-checked my insulin and had brought it down to 302! (I know everyone is thinking this is still a bad number, but the goal for tonight was to just get under 400 and stay there). I called him back and told him the 'good' news. He seemed pleased, and sleepy, and told me to take one last, small dose of the new insulin before taking my now increased dose of regular, nightly insulin.
So, here I am at 3am, so relieved that my sugars are actually responding to medicine and so sleepy from the turmoil of today. My belly feels like a pin cushion and I seem to have a collection of pin holes surrounding my belly button - there has to be over 10 puncture wounds from the different does of insulin I had to take today. I'm running out of good places for future shots...
Dr. B. told me that during the week I have chemo, I need to increase my protein and cut back on carbs, just to help stay ahead of things along with the insulin. This week was my first dose, and it feels pretty hard getting my sugars back under control without a heads up, but he seems to think it will level out by the weekend. It's a good thing too - I was dying to come home and celebrate my first round of chemo with a pint of Ben and Jerry's. But I guess that can wait until next week.
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