Day 67 - a day of colors

 

May your days be filled with the colors of happiness and laughter

Today is the 4th day of the 10th week, the 8th day of the 3rd month,  the 67th day of 2023, and:

• Day for Women's Rights & International Peace 
• Discover What Your Name Means Day - mine means "joyful song" or "song of happines".  It is considered gender-neutral, altho sometimes the masculine version is spelt "Carroll", and is sometimes considered a feminine version of the English name "Charles".  A carol is a traditional folk song or hymn, often associated with Christmas.  
• Girls Write Now Day
• Holi  - a very important Hindi festival, one of two that are the most important in their year
• International Women's Day
• International Working Women's Day
• National Be Nasty Day - this one is especially apropos for women, who appreciate the fact that as soon as you contradict a man, you are automatically considered a bitch.  Since back in 2016, the Nasty Woman Movement has been fundraising for Planned Parenthood.  And, yes, since you ask, I have a Nasty Woman face mask and bought my very feminist friend a Nasty Woman t-shirt.  
• National Biobased  Products Day
• National Peanut Cluster Day
• National Proofreading Day
• National Retro Video Game Day
• No Smoking Day [UK]
• Registered Dietitian Nutritionist Day
• Sterile Packaging Day
• Volunteers of America Day

Quote of the day:

"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river, and he's not the same man."

~ Heraclitus, an ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from the city of Ephesus, which was then part of the Persian Empire. Little is known of Heraclitus's life. He wrote a single work, only fragments of which have survived. [Wikipedia]

Remember the delay in using the phone to track my blood sugar?  I have been using the Libre2 sensor and phone app now for a month and I'm not at all sure that I like it.  The stats from the app are interesting, and I am pleased to learn that 78% of the time, I am within the "normal" range   But I'm finding the app itself to be very intrusive - or at least it was until I started turning off the alarms.  Those alarms are piercingly loud, and they go off whenever your blood sugar strays out of that normal range, whether it is above or below, or if the sensor loses communication with the iPhone.  Every single time. Woke me up in the middle of the night more than once before I realized it could be turned off - all but the "urgent low glucose" warning [a reading below 55; and I have hit that a couple of times during the night].   If it is above, then I have to decide whether or not to jab myself with fast-acting insulin; if it is below, I have to decide whether or not I should eat something and then what to eat.  Much to my dismay, the blood sugar readings shoot up much faster than they come down - every single morning, despite very low fasting readings, just drinking a cup of chai can send it soaring, even after taking not only 10 units of fast-acting but 30 units of long-acting insulin before drinking it.   The graph that is generated by all this activity looks like a roller coaster!  I have found myself eating when I am not hungry, because the level fell, or going to bed hungry because the level is too high.  And the impact of eating carbs on blood sugar is very obvious - my highest reading ever was when I had a cup of chai with a bagel for breakfast

Dealing with the huge variances in the blood sugar isn't easy.  The inhaler I am on to treat the inflammation of lungs caused by my severe allergic reaction to Ozempic [I wince every time someone touts that drug as good for weight-loss, but it did regulate my sugar beautifully] causes problems by suppressing insulin in the body, as do all steroids.  Comfort food is all but impossible to eat, which in the midst of not feeling well is a huge drawback.  Carbs help your blood oxygen level, so limiting them has caused issues when my lungs have already been struggling.  At the end of the day, I am dragging; at the end of the week I am too exhausted to do much more than just rest - there have been weekends when I quite literally did nothing.  I haven't even been going over to visit my daughter and her family!

I really want to talk to bossman about moving to a work from home schedule that only has me coming into the office on Wednesdays [the company day when everyone is supposed to be in], but given his oft stated preference to have WFH more limited, I haven't had the nerve to bring it up yet.  Instead I make sure that my days off coincide with times I am supposed to be in VS those days I can WFH.