Tag: wedding

Dealing with Diabetes When You’re the Maid of Honor

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No, no, no. Not today diabetes. Dammit.

The morning of my cousin’s wedding, I woke up to a blood sugar of 237 after a night of fighting elevated levels. There was no rhyme or reason for the high blood sugar – I hadn’t eaten a single thing for 16 hours at that point, but I had changed my pod an hour or two before going to bed.

Why You Should Get a Flu Shot (If You Haven't Gotten One Already) (2)
When you’re the MOH and you also happen to have diabetes, you worry about a lot more than just your speech or your makeup.

WTF was wrong? Was the pod’s cannula bent? Was I high due to wedding day jitters? Would the highs persist all day?

These were the thoughts racing through my mind almost as soon as I woke up the morning of my cousin’s wedding.

I didn’t have time to worry about my MOH speech, or whether my hair would turn out the way I wanted to, or even to drink a celebratory mimosa while I got ready with the rest of the bridal party – I was too preoccupied by my elevated blood sugar.

All I could bother to think about was a potential solution before we all walked down the aisle.

Somewhere between applying my eyeshadow and having the 111th bobby pin secured in my hair (yes, it truly took 111 bobby pins to make my intricate braided up-do possible), I remembered “The Incident” from last year. I’d slept through a high blood sugar that, the following morning, refused to come down. As my frustration grew, so did the pain in my belly that lead me to the bathroom, where I came very close to passing out. One ambulance trip and ER visit later, I discovered that my pod’s cannula was bent, leaving me with no doubt that a pod malfunction was responsible for the whole ordeal.

With that memory vividly replaying in my mind, I made the executive decision to change my pod a couple hours before we were due at the wedding venue. And I can’t even begin to explain how happy I am that I listened to my intuition to do so. Upon removing it, I noticed blood at the site – not as bad of a sign as a bent cannula is, but a possible indicator of a problem. By the time we were in the venue’s bridal suite, my blood sugar was sitting pretty at 90 and I was finally able to focus on the beautiful, meaningful afternoon.

Sure, it was a stressful morning and far from an ideal situation, but I am extremely proud of myself for how I handled it. I didn’t panic the way I normally do. I didn’t shed any anxiety tears. I kept the issue pretty well-concealed from the bride, who shouldn’t have to worry about her MOH’s health on her special day. My calm approach paid off, and though it sucked to waste almost two days’ worth of insulin when I disposed the wonky pod, I knew I should pay closer attention to the fact that I did what needed to be done.

And even better was that my diabetes mostly cooperated with me the rest of the day. It didn’t stop me from delivering a fantastic speech with the matron of honor. It didn’t prevent me from enjoying some tasty wedding food, cake and all. It certainly didn’t keep me from tearing up the dance floor with my enthusiastic family. And it didn’t end my night early as I went out with my boyfriend, the newlyweds, and the matron of honor and her husband to a bar to shoot some pool and continue our celebrations.

Turns out that dealing with diabetes when you’re the maid of honor has a lot to do with keeping a cool head and living in the moment, two things that are so important to do in a variety of situations.

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My Diabetes Hates Weddings

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So basically everyone in my life right now is engaged, or on the fast-track to getting engaged.

And that’s awesome! No, seriously, it’s an exciting time for a lot of my family and friends. And I’m happy to be part of it all because I like going to weddings. Who doesn’t love to celebrate love?

Well, I can tell you what doesn’t love to celebrate love…MY DIABETES.

My diabetes effing hates weddings.

My diabetes hates weddings SO much that I’ve yet to go to one where it doesn’t act up in some way.

My New PDM (1)

I was naive enough to think that it would actually be a good diabetes day during the last wedding I attended. And it was, for the most part: I woke up, had a Dunkin Donuts sandwich for breakfast, got dressed and made-up. I showed up for the ceremony with a slightly low blood sugar that was swiftly corrected with a mini box of raisins (oh, if only I knew how many more I’d consume that night…).

I was fine, right through the cocktail hour and the start of dinner. But that’s where the troubles began. You see, there weren’t many passed hors d’oeuvres during the cocktail hour, and I could’ve really used some because I hadn’t eaten anything besides the sandwich and the raisins all day long. By the time dinner started, I was ravenous and basically shoved anything within arm’s reach into my mouth. This included a lot of cheese, meats, and pieces of flatbread.

If I’d actually been thinking about how my blood sugars usually respond to slow-acting carbs in things like flatbread, I might’ve actually wound up okay. But over the course of the next several hours, as wedding guests were whooping it up on the dance floor, my blood sugar was making a slow and steady climb up into the 300s! When I finally realized this, I started taking correction boluses that, apparently, were far too aggressive…because when I finally ended the night in my hotel room around 1:30 A.M., I was in the 70s. And dropping.

My lowest blood sugar was 43 that night. I ate multiple packs of raisins, 5 or 6 glucose tablets, a FiberOne bar, and half a pack of peanut butter crackers. All between the hours of 1:30 and 4 in the morning. It was exhausting. I was tearful and sweating so badly at one point that it looked like I had just come out of the shower. I even wound up sending my sleepy boyfriend down to the lobby at one point to buy me an orange juice, because I was running out of low blood sugar remedies. I drank half of it and was relieved to see my CGM showing, at long last, a diagonal up arrow. I couldn’t believe that I’d just spent the last few hours hovering below my “low” threshold on my CGM, but I didn’t waste any more time thinking about it – I was extraordinarily tired and happy to finally go to sleep.

But now that I’ve had time to think about it, I’ve realized that I need a new strategy for myself and my diabetes when it comes to weddings. I’m going to be my cousin’s maid of honor next month, for goodness’ sake, so I want to do everything I can to ensure “decent” (i.e, blood sugars under 200 but over 80) for the special day.

A key to success, I think, will be regularly scheduled meals and making sure that I avoid an empty stomach at all costs.

I Dos and Don’ts: My Tips for Attending a Wedding with T1D

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I can always count on diabetes to make life’s most joyous occasions just a bit more challenging…so I shouldn’t have been surprised when my diabetes threw several curve balls at me on my cousin’s wedding weekend.

There was the moment at the rehearsal dinner when I stood up to get something and hit my leg against a chair, literally knocking my pod off my thigh. (But I didn’t even realize it for another 20 minutes.)

There was the moment later that night, after the rehearsal dinner, that I discovered my blood sugar was high and that my mealtime dinner bolus probably was never delivered.

There was the moment the next morning that I realized my breakfast options were limited to a giant, carb-y bagel or a massive, sugary blueberry muffin.

There was the moment when I was with the bridal party – applying makeup, styling hair, and trying to calm the bride down – that it hit me that I had no idea what to do with my backpack (a.k.a., my diabetes bag) during the ceremony, as I had to be standing up there with the other bridesmaids during the vows.

There was the moment I psyched myself out big time by wondering what the hell would happen if I passed out in the middle of the ceremony in front of all of the esteemed guests.

There was the moment I went a little too overboard on drinking Prosecco at the reception…and a few more cocktails at the after party.

There was the moment I woke up the next day with a high blood sugar and hangover from hell.

Needless to say, there were quite a few diabetes “moments” over the course of an otherwise beautiful weekend. As a result of them, I’ve decided to document some wedding dos and don’ts for myself, as this won’t be the first time this year that I’m a bridesmaid in someone’s wedding. Here’s my unofficial roundup.

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Showing off my decked-out pod at the wedding reception.

Do have plenty of back-up supplies. I got lucky this time around because my parents were a phone call and short car ride away from me when my pod fell off. I should’ve been carrying insulin and a spare pod on me, but at least it was within my mother’s reach at the hotel room.

Don’t sweat the small stuff. Things happen, and I’ve got to learn to accept them more quickly so I can better adapt to a situation. It took me awhile to forgive myself for the pod snafu at the rehearsal dinner, and if I hadn’t snapped out of it, then it could’ve ruined the night for me.

Do try to plan meals when possible. I knew that I should avoid a high-carb breakfast on such a busy morning, but I can’t resist a blueberry muffin, especially when it’s one of two breakfast options I had. I wish I’d thought to bring food that had accurate carb counts on it so I could’ve had more predictable blood sugars throughout the day, but I did come back down from the sugar-induced high relatively promptly.

Don’t forget that family and friends are willing to help. My “problem” with my backpack was solved by handing it off to my boyfriend about 30 minutes before the ceremony started. I didn’t miss any photo opps with the bride and bridesmaid during the hand off and I felt better knowing it was in good care.

Do remember that time flies. I had to keep myself in context; after all, I was standing up in front of the guests for less than 30 minutes. I knew there was relatively little insulin in my system and that I was starting to level out somewhere in the 100s by the time the ceremony started. The odds of me passing out were slim, and I needed to give myself that reality check.

Don’t forget to drink plenty of water. Duh, that’s drinking rule #1! I’m embarrassed to admit that I maybe had two glasses of water during the entire reception and after party. It’s not like there wasn’t water available, so I don’t know what I was thinking. But I do know that I was incredibly lucky to hold onto stable blood sugars well into the night, despite my lack of hydration.

Do have a plan for hangovers. Sometimes, they happen, and they’ve got to be dealt with swiftly. After some consultation with my mother, I set a temp basal to fight against my high blood sugar and downed glass after glass of water. By early afternoon, I was feeling much better. And even though I had a bellyache, I didn’t yak, so I suppose that’s a silver lining.

And one extra “do”…do have fun with diabetes devices! I decked out my pod in a Pump Peelz sticker that had an image of the lighthouse we were near on it. Sure, it wasn’t visible to anyone but me (and a few people I couldn’t resist showing), but it still made me feel extra special and coordinated with the wedding venue. Sometimes, its the little things in life.

So besides taking several valuable dos and don’ts away with me from this weekend, I’m also walking away with a wonderful first experience as a bridesmaid to a cousin who’s always felt more like a sister to me. When it comes down to it, my irritation with diabetes doesn’t matter – it’s the love and celebrations I felt all weekend long that do matter.

Type 1 Diabetes…the Uninvited Bachelorette Guest

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T1D is an unwelcome presence in my life, but I’ve made peace with it. However, it doesn’t stop me from worrying about how its existence might affect others in a wide variety of situations.

Take a bachelorette party, for instance…I wasn’t sure how my diabetes would respond to a weekend spent in Saratoga Springs with my soon-to-be-married cousin and the gaggle of girls who would accompany her to a few different wineries, a comedy show, and other various shenanigans. I went into the situation hoping for the best, but expecting the worst.

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What does “expecting the worst” mean? Basically, it meant that I was preparing for the apocalypse. The bachelorette weekend was barely 48 hours total, but I was so paranoid about something going wrong with my diabetes that I packed twice the number of pods that I would need, extra insulin, spare syringes, Glucagon, and a low-blood-sugar-snack stash. Although I had a rough idea of what our itinerary looked like for the weekend, I still wasn’t 100% of what we would be eating and when, which as any T1D could tell you, is kind of a major concern when it comes to taking proper care of diabetes – and that concern is intensified when alcohol gets thrown into the mix, as it unquestionably would on our quest to find the best winery in Saratoga.

My worry only grew when things didn’t exactly start as I envisioned them. We hit the road around 4 o’clock in the afternoon that Friday, and picked up the delighted bride in Western Mass a short while after 6 o’clock. I expected that we would stop for food soon after the bride joined our caravan of cars bound for New York…only to be proven totally wrong when I discovered that most people were too excited to stop and eat. “No problem,” I said to myself. “I’m sure that by the time it’s 7:30 or so, people will be hungry.”

No such luck. As I watched my blood sugar slowly drop, my stomach roared with hunger as I thought about the last meal I ate, nearly seven hours ago. I knew I should speak up and ask the group to pull over, but I was scared. I didn’t want to be “that” person who was making such demands, especially since I was merely a passenger in the car and not driving.

But it was almost 8 o’clock and I knew that if I didn’t eat soon, it wouldn’t bode well for the rest of the night. My body tends to rebel if I go to sleep soon after eating a decent amount of food, and my blood sugars usually make me pay for the lateness of the meal. I feebly requested a stop to the girl who was driving, and discovered that she desperately needed to make a trip to the ladies’ room – at last, my chance for food! I called one of the girls in the other car to let them know that we would all be hitting up the next rest stop. “And Molly needs to eat!” The driver yelled into my phone before I could hang up. I felt myself blush, not wanting to be a pain in the ass…but little did I know, the girls wanted me to speak up.

When we all met at the rest stop, everyone asked with genuine concern how I was doing. As I assured them that I was much better now thanks to my Subway sandwich, I was gently scolded by the bride – my cousin – for not saying something sooner. Each girl agreed and I promised them that I would be better about letting them know about potential blood sugar issues for the rest of the weekend.

The funny thing is, though, that I really didn’t have any problems whatsoever. I was very surprised, due to the fact that we were eating late/inconsistent/not-very-healthy meals each day, drinking a few different kinds of alcohol, and spending less time than I anticipated moving out and about…normally, that’s pretty much a recipe for disaster. I can’t help but wonder if I avoided problems because I did everything the “smart” way – ate plenty of food to combat the effects of alcohol, took extra insulin as needed, and stayed hydrated all day, everyday. It certainly is a formula for success, and deserves credit for taming the unwanted bachelorette guest all weekend long.

Now if only I can replicate this for the upcoming wedding weekend…

The Red Wedding

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If you’re reading this post and knew immediately what the title was referring to…rest assured that what you’re about to read is not nearly as dramatically violent as The Rains of Castamere episode of Game of Thrones. I just chose the title because it semi-accurately described what I encountered with my CGM at a weekend wedding I recently attended. And because the final season is here in a mere FOUR DAYS and I’m struggling to hold in my excitement/terror/anticipation.

Anyways, the day of said wedding began normally, if not a bit early. I put on makeup and a nice dress, tried (and somewhat failed) to curl my hair, and ate a light breakfast. Somewhere between slipping on my jewelry and singeing my hair with the curling iron, I heard my CGM’s alarm blaring, notifying me that my blood sugar was going up. That wasn’t surprising, since I’d just eaten food. But I was caught off-guard when it stopped alarming after two alerts went off…I hadn’t dismissed the previous two, so why was it no longer making any noise?

I checked the app on my phone and saw “sensor error” on the screen…and said out loud, “NOT today, diabetes,” as I promptly stopped my sensor and ripped it off my body. I didn’t even hesitate to do it because I knew that the sensor was due to be changed that evening, anyway, so I saw no harm in doing it a bit early.

“What?” My partner yelled from behind the bathroom door.

“Nothing, nothing,” I said dismissively, which reflected my determination to just brush this inconvenience away and stick a fresh sensor on my body.

Oh, if only it were that simple…

It should’ve been an easy, routine sensor change; alas, upon pressing the button on the insertion device, I let out a little pained squeak. Sensors don’t normally hurt, but every now and then, I get myself in a sensitive spot. And I definitely did this time around. Before popping the transmitter into the sensor, I noticed a bit of blood pooling underneath the sensor’s adhesive.

Save the date

Pools of blood as I make my way to a wedding…do you get the red wedding connection now?

Fortunately, this tale has a happier ending than it did for much of the *spoiler alert* Stark family. Sure, my sensor kinda freaked out when it warmed up two hours later and measured blood instead of interstitial fluid, and it took like 12 hours for it to get its act together and display my readings accurately, but…it all worked out in the end. And thankfully, not a single person had any clue that there was a patch of blood on my belly throughout the wedding…it didn’t even stain through my dress.