Peace of Mind
the canary came back
WARNING :: I was advised by a pharmacist friend who is also a reader that there is a bad reference in this post. I mention that I was treating my tennis elbow with Ibuprofen and Naproxen. That is INCORRECT. I was taking Acetaminophen and Naproxen. Taking Ibuprofen and Naproxen simultaneously is bad for you because they are both NSAIDs. I will correct it in the post and republish — that is what this is.
I am writing this on Wednesday but will probably post it tomorrow as I already have tonight’s post already scheduled. I am hoping I am getting a decent cadence. At my writing group yesterday, I expressed that I wonder/expect to run out of ideas. Our leader advised me not to worry as I might be surprised how much there is to write about. One of our members reported an outbreak of illness in his family. I listened to all the details and just took it in.
Since about Saturday I had not been feeling perfect. I find that my Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) gives me an insight into my health somewhat like a Star Trek medical tricorder. Thanks to the avid fanbase of Star Trek, finding an image of this imaginary device was pretty easy. It sort of looks like a more advanced Nintendo GameBoy. My CGM is my “canary in the coal mine” device that seems to flag whenever I am not feeling perfect sometimes before I realize it. As I’ve learned about the effects on our bodies when our blood sugar is not right, I am SO THANKFUL for the wonderful scientists that miniaturized such an amazing device even building in a little bit of network storage. One day I will write about it but that will be another day. Suffice to say, when I get up in the morning and eat my standard breakfast I have an expectation of what is going to happen to my blood glucose level. It will of course go up but is expected to drop relatively quickly after a meal, indicating that my body identifies:
Oh no, he just ate something again.
My stomach sees the carbohydrates and immediately celebrates by spraying those carbohydrates with just the right chemical.
That magic step breaks the carbohydrates down into a sugar called glucose.
Glucose is energy so they get loaded on the rollercoaster and enters our bloodstream. Spots all over our body are looking for oxygen and energy and the bloodstream is the ride that never stops and delivers around the clock.
Too much glucose in our bloodstream does a lot of damage to all sorts of things since our bloodstream is taking it everywhere. Once it appears, we need to pass it on as soon as possible to a cell that can use it.
The pancreas sees what’s going on and is going to make sure some of the glucose can get in and feed some cells. It does this by secreting some insulin.
Insulin behaves like a key that can unlock your cells and let the sugar get in.
Once the glucose enters your cells, it is not in your blood anymore so voila, your glucose level in your blood will fall and all is good in the world again.
Making sure, like the three little bears, that your glucose is not too high and not too low but just right is all that a diabetic is trying to do artificially when their body isn’t doing it on its own.
When anything is wrong for me (a) late-night watching a movie or a game that went into overtime (b) restless sleep (c) eating the wrong stuff or at the wrong time (d) stress like a sore arm or a cold or an upset stomach or (e) exercising too much or too little my glucose level will change from its normal pattern. So that is how that little piece of magic I stick to my arm and read with my phone is just like a Star Trek medical tricorder. Since I went through the above, when I finally talk about my little meter which I think is VERY COOL, I will skip the diabetes lesson above. I am not sure the above is that interesting to all of you but I am just a sucker for understanding how stuff works.
So for the most loyal of my readers, you may remember me carrying on about my little bout with tennis elbow. Ever since I started treating that I have been playing less. Between the change in schedule and the introduction of inflammation, I have noticed my CGM has been giving me a little bit higher readings than normal. Nothing to fret about but cool that I can actually observe that kind of stuff. On Saturdays, I usually play tennis for 3+ hours. It is pretty moderate as I refer to what we are playing as old-man doubles. Half the running, longer breaks on the changeover, and an acceptance that some lobs are not worth chasing down. Instead of tennis I rested my arm, did some yard work, went to a book sale, and went to Scotch Club in the evening.
Now things start to get complex. For some of my career, I worked with control systems. Almost always, they are designed to change one thing at a time. It gets tough to understand what is going on in any system when lots of things are changing at once. Well, I am afraid that sore elbow + less exercise + late-night drinking Rye + hanging around in a crowd during flu season constitutes a lot more than one thing changing at a time.
It was no surprise that I woke feeling a little different on Sunday morning. By the middle of the day I was a bit lethargic and had a sore throat. While I didn’t have a headache, I had been taking Acetaminophen and Naproxen as I was treating my elbow for a while. Still not 100% on Monday and all the while noting my CGM warning me that my blood glucose level was riding a bit higher than normal and staying higher for a longer time than usual. Since I eat a pretty predictable diet these days, that often means something else is going on. In the mid-afternoon, I got together with a friend and we played some disc golf. Some exercise and the wonderful destresser in my life of just spending some time with a friend. I went to a meeting on Monday night and found it hard to concentrate. I got to be early when I got home as I knew I needed to give myself a break. Something was not quite right. On Tuesday I ate a little bit less, exercised a little bit more but my CGM just kept giving me the signal that something was not quite right. Finally on Tuesday in the late afternoon, I made an appointment to see a doctor. What settled that decision is I came to understand that someone at the book sale was facing a bit of an outbreak of both COVID and Influenza-A in his family at a meeting on Tuesday afternoon. It was time to get things checked out!
While it was not always the case for me, as I have gotten older, I procrastinate a lot less than I used to. I still have a lot of work to do I suppose but I am now aware that I do it a lot less. I still like to gather enough facts before I just do something. However, I have learned not to delay making a decision until I know everything. In my working world, we call that analysis paralysis. I called my Health Plan and after a bit of back and forth chose the soonest appointment even though it meant a trip to the other side of town. My regular clinic offered an appointment on Tuesday morning. That was simply not going to do. I indicated I would go to any clinic in the Twin Cities if I could do it tomorrow. I think the scheduling program took my request literally as I happen to live in the southeast suburbs of Minneapolis/St Paul and the offer for an early morning appointment was in a town named Andover in the northwest suburbs. I guess they called my bluff. I left the house around 7 AM and made it back around 10 AM. My aging sixteen year old dog was thrilled as this meant, “hey Denny, would you like to go for a ride in the car?”. The answer was as it always has been the last fifteen years or so. The cropped tail of my cocker spaniel begins to wag and the whole back of his body starts to sway. I ate an early breakfast and we were off. We arrived about 805 AM for the 820 AM appointment, navigating through surprising traffic. Things are going well in my town and the economic recovery is seeming to be very good. I tested negative for COVID and Influenza-A, caught up on some outstanding tests from my last checkup, and was told that I might have a sinus infection. All of it was great news for me as I don’t have to tell anyone that I might have gotten them sick and don’t have to be cautious to keep my distance. Hallelujah!
While I really didn’t understand what the problem was, I knew something was out of order. Lucky for me, I had my “canary” stuck to my arm. It let me know something was not quite right long before I realized something was wrong. While my canary cannot fly, it is still pretty cool to me. The modern world delivers again. Life is good!
For those that are interested, canaries came to be associated with coal mines because they are very sensitive to changes in gases in the air, and coal miners depended on them for an early warning of gas buildup in confined spaces underground. While we all know the dangers of carbon monoxide, a canary serves as a bit of an early warning system. Tonight’s song was an obvious choice. Hope to see you tomorrow and thanks for reading.
Glucose testing has made great strides over the last 40 years. At that time, a diabetic had to dip a strip, Testtape, into their urine, wait a few seconds for it to change color and then match it to a chart printed on the vial of strips which indicated a range of glucose in the urine. The problem is, that was an indication of the amount of sugar in your blood hours ago. Then the first blood monitors game out which were quite complicated to use. Over the years the monitoring process became more accurate, easier to apply blood to a strip inserted into the meter, etc. However, one had to prick their finger using a new lancet each time after cleansing the finger with an alcohol swab first. The strips were quite expensive.
On Tuesday, once again, I could tell by looking into your eyes that something was not right. Having stated this to you in the past, I was reluctant to comment on it. I heard a number of times during my career that everyone has a canary living with them, their moms and wives. They can tell something is not right with you. Of course, Ann tells me that all the time. I think she is referring to my brain.
You have mentioned twice the last couple of posts about taking Ibuprofen and Naprosyn for your aches and pains. I hope you are not taking them together because they are quite similar and can be harmful to your kidneys long term. As a diabetic, one must be over cautious. I have just been taken off an anti-inflammatory drug I had been taking at a low dose daily for the last 30 years because it was affecting my kidneys, not in a good way. Sorry, I can't stop being a pharmacist watching out for my patients. I became good at noticing little differences in people.