I have always loved icing. It's my favorite thing. And not that fluffy cool whip stuff, real "lard" icing, with nothing in it, no nuts, no coconut, just plain soft creamy icing.....mmmmmm.....
Growing up a diabetic, icing was hardly ever allowed. Which, you know, makes it even more appealing. Much, much, later in life I have learned that you can allow "bad" things, in moderation. And even after I figured this out I figured out you can just eat what you like - meaning you don't have to eat the cake, you can just eat the icing. So these days, when I want a special dessert, I get the cake with creamy white icing, and I eat the icing and throw out the cake. If I'm lucky I get the corner piece. If I'm really lucky it's a Price Club cake with the giant roses of icing, and I get a corner with a rose. Heaven!
The day of my breast cancer surgery everyone wanted to bring me food. I didn't want any of it, but one thing. I asked my Mom to make me her icing, which is really my favorite. She thought it was odd, but she said ok. After my surgery she handed Brad a small cooler. Inside was a sandwich size container, when I took off the lid there was a full container of yummy creamy white icing. Written in beautiful pink letters across the bed of icing it said "Feel better Soon Jenny!" and it had pink flowers made of icing along the sides. Mom had decorated the icing with more icing. Perfect! I took out a spoon and ate it all and loved every bite.
Now, on a normal day this would have been ok, I could have taken extra insulin and life would have gone on, not much different then a Thanksgiving dinner. But this wasn't a normal day. The anesthesiologist had me not take my N's (long acting insulin), which I know now I should never do. The long lasting insulin is my baseline, and keeps me more like a normal human even with no food, so without it my sugar levels were way too high. That evening they kept climbing, 300, 400, 500. I kept taking fast acting insulin 20 units at a time (which is alot of insulin!) and it just kept climbing. I was scared. Brad was scared. We set the clock and got up to test and take more insulin every hour. Finally about 3am my next dose of N's which I had taken at bedtime started working and it finally started to come down. The next day I was more near normal numbers.
I did talk to my doctor about this and he explained to me how important N's are. He made me promise to never not take them again, and furthermore if anyone told me not to take them to make sure either they called him or I called him. He told me the fast acting insulin cannot work fast enough to bring levels down that are consistently that high. They work for food because food is digested, released into your system and then "wear off". But you cannot skip your long acting insulin dosage. Take it late if you have to, but never skip it.
So the lesson is not don't eat icing. Hee Hee. :0) The lesson is - you are responsible for your body, you are responsible for knowing what you are doing and why, and you are responsible for asking questions from your doctors. The doctors were not with us at 3am when my sugar was over 550. Educate yourself, know what to do........your health is your responsibility, no one else's.
Growing up a diabetic, icing was hardly ever allowed. Which, you know, makes it even more appealing. Much, much, later in life I have learned that you can allow "bad" things, in moderation. And even after I figured this out I figured out you can just eat what you like - meaning you don't have to eat the cake, you can just eat the icing. So these days, when I want a special dessert, I get the cake with creamy white icing, and I eat the icing and throw out the cake. If I'm lucky I get the corner piece. If I'm really lucky it's a Price Club cake with the giant roses of icing, and I get a corner with a rose. Heaven!
The day of my breast cancer surgery everyone wanted to bring me food. I didn't want any of it, but one thing. I asked my Mom to make me her icing, which is really my favorite. She thought it was odd, but she said ok. After my surgery she handed Brad a small cooler. Inside was a sandwich size container, when I took off the lid there was a full container of yummy creamy white icing. Written in beautiful pink letters across the bed of icing it said "Feel better Soon Jenny!" and it had pink flowers made of icing along the sides. Mom had decorated the icing with more icing. Perfect! I took out a spoon and ate it all and loved every bite.
Now, on a normal day this would have been ok, I could have taken extra insulin and life would have gone on, not much different then a Thanksgiving dinner. But this wasn't a normal day. The anesthesiologist had me not take my N's (long acting insulin), which I know now I should never do. The long lasting insulin is my baseline, and keeps me more like a normal human even with no food, so without it my sugar levels were way too high. That evening they kept climbing, 300, 400, 500. I kept taking fast acting insulin 20 units at a time (which is alot of insulin!) and it just kept climbing. I was scared. Brad was scared. We set the clock and got up to test and take more insulin every hour. Finally about 3am my next dose of N's which I had taken at bedtime started working and it finally started to come down. The next day I was more near normal numbers.
I did talk to my doctor about this and he explained to me how important N's are. He made me promise to never not take them again, and furthermore if anyone told me not to take them to make sure either they called him or I called him. He told me the fast acting insulin cannot work fast enough to bring levels down that are consistently that high. They work for food because food is digested, released into your system and then "wear off". But you cannot skip your long acting insulin dosage. Take it late if you have to, but never skip it.
So the lesson is not don't eat icing. Hee Hee. :0) The lesson is - you are responsible for your body, you are responsible for knowing what you are doing and why, and you are responsible for asking questions from your doctors. The doctors were not with us at 3am when my sugar was over 550. Educate yourself, know what to do........your health is your responsibility, no one else's.
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