This morning I was back at the hospital again for my seventh appointment at the Diabetes/Obstetrics joint clinic. Since I knew I'd be having my pupils dialated for my first trimester retinopathy screening I wasn't driving. Instead, my parents came to stay with us last night so that they could drive me to and from the hospital. I'm so lucky to have such supportive folks.
It was a fairly short clinic visit - I was called in to see Dr Inspiring bang on time, and the first order of business was putting the drops in my eyes to dialate my pupils. That done, we moved on to discuss how things were going. I explained a bit about my changing insulin requirements, and about the three horrible hypos I've had in the last fortnight or so, including a doozy last night (S cooked a wonderful roast meal last night, with Pork, Crackling, Roasted Veg, Applesauce, the full works. The usual insulin had me bouncing along the bottom with a sugar of 3.1 at bedtime, and I ended up drinking a box of apple juice and eating a cereal bar and a bunch of chocolate over the space of an hour and a half, before I felt I could go off to sleep - Grrrrr). My sugars have been a little more chaotic since the insulin requirements changed - I've had a few more smaller hypos as well, and the fear caused by the bigger ones has probably caused me to over-treat a little). Still, my meter averages look pretty great, and Dr I was pleased with how I've been doing [7 day = 6.9, 14 day = 7.2, 30 day = 6.7, 60 day = 6.9 and 90 day = 6.9]. We talked a little about how I might avoid the hypos and swings, and decided that the trick might be to eat smaller meals more regularly with a small breakfast, mid morning snack, small lunch, mid afternoon snack, small dinner, bedtime snack, rather than sticking to three bigger slugs of carbs per day. This sounds like a good solution - I'm all for trying it, but wonder how well I'll be able to stick to it, given my slightly hectic lifestyle. It'll probably be much easier on weekends and days that I'm in the office, and harder on days when I'm in meetings or travelling. Still, anything's worth a try, and ultimately my health (and my passenger's) is much much much more important than work.
The appointment finished up with Dr I checking the backs of my eyes. This was the low-tech approach (no camera/photos), but he couldn't see any cause for concern at all, which is brilliant. I was fairly confident about this, since I've had retinopathy screening (with photographs) within the last 6 months, as well as a trip to the eye hospital necessitated by an over-keen optician (result = no problems detected whatsoever, and a full discharge). Dr I said he's always more concerned about the eyes of pregnant women who have some pre-existing retinopathy. So, all in all it was a really good clinic visit. I'm back at the clinic again in a week for my viability and dating scan, and then will return to see Dr I and his team on 14 October (three days after my first appointment with the midwife). Appointments, appointments, appointments... but I'm so glad to be being looked after so well. I can't wait for next week and the scan - hopefully the results will be good and I can feel even more reassured than I did after today's news that my eyes are okay. I'm 9 weeks and 1 day today, so my little passenger has already graduated from embryo status to foetus status. Where is the time going? It seems to pass really quickly in some ways, but quite slow in others (can't wait to reach the scan and then the second trimester).
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