Beach Adventure

     Managing diabetes is always crazy. The moment you think you have things under control, a new variable comes into the mix and throws everything off again. And that's just life. My numbers were quite steady all spring, but as always, when the heat of summer begins to return, I get a string of low BGs. I switch to different basal rates for the summer to accommodate this change.
   
     The summer adds another layer of D things to worry about, some that I am still learning. I kicked off the summer season by going to visit one of my dearest friends and fellow T1D, E, at her university which happens to be located right near one of the amazing Great Lakes. Whenever I am with this girl, I can totally be my crazy self. She knows me inside out and there is no way to hide anything from the boss. We can talk about anything and everything, D is quite a popular topic because we can bounce ideas and stories off of each other. She sometimes gives me the reality check that I need. I explained to her that sometimes I will here the low BG alarm on my Dexcom and just ignore it in order continue sleeping instead of getting up and correcting with juice. She reminded me of a recent story on twitter about a young teen dying in her sleep due to a low LG. She told me that I am lucky to have the CGM technology, and it would be better to just drink the juice and go a bit high instead of ignoring the low. I know that in my heart but sometimes these tasks seem like such a burden and it helps having a friend dealing with them right along with you. even though it totally SUCKS.

OUCH 

     I have only taken a handful of trips to the beach in my career with D so far so I am still learning little tips here and there. First, in the past at the beach my meter has not always worked because it became to hot, so we kept them in the cooler in order to prevent them from happening. E also reminded me to keep my pump under a towel or blanket while laying out in the sun to help protect the precious insulin. This is something I have always known, but with my constantly on the go personality, some of these "common sense" D tasks slip my mind ;). A universal beach rule that all people should follow is wearing sunscreen and reapplying every 80 minutes. Somehow, although we did apply sunscreen after arriving at our location, E and I got completely ruined by the sun and ended up with some of the most epic sunburns known to man. We looked pretty funny with our strange burn patterns, especially my insertion set tan line, hee hee!

    I say this all the time but I am so incredibly blessed to have people in my life who just "get me". Not everyone has such wonderful friends, and it is even more rare to have a best friend who shares the same life altering disease with you. It makes this crazy life not seem so scary and unmanageable <3