"We also need to talk about your eating habits, Jake. Since your body doesn't produce insulin, it has no way of dealing with the sugars that foods contain. Basically food is made up of various nutrients, such as proteins, fat and carbohydrates. There are different kinds of carbohydrates, but what it boils down to is that all carbohydrates break down into sugar. Sugar can't be absorbed and used in the body without insulin, which you are now going to have to inject yourself," Dr. Watkins explained, “since your body isn’t producing it.”
This was beginning to sound like a whole lot of not fun. He then told me that I needed to cut out as many sugars as I could, and to start avoiding them altogether. Goodbye desserts, goodbye sodas, goodbye basically everything that is fun to eat or drink. My mind was racing...imagining all the food that was now off limits - cheesecake, Coke, peanut butter cookies, tapioca pudding...my list of favorite recreational foods was rapidly dwindling.
"And since there are carbohydrates is most foods, you will need to know how much insulin to inject to account for your carb intake," he went on.
Yep, you're getting the picture. He told me I have to count carbs. I imagined some cheerleader wannabe counting carbs in everything she ate because she wants to fit into that perfect dress for prom. How freakin' lame is this! The doctor then pulled out this chart that took into account height, weight, age and gender to help calculate what the insulin to carb ratio I should use would be. So, with me being 6'2", 145 pounds and a guy, the doctor said they would start out with a 1/15 ratio. So for every 15 carbs I was gonna eat, I'd have to take 1 unit of insulin in a shot.
He had the nurse bring in a bunch of medical supplies, like needles (oh sorry, they are called syringes...my bad) a bottle of insulin, and a blood glucose testing meter. I got the run-down of how each of them worked, and got to try my hand at sticking the syringe into the rubber top of the insulin bottle, and then pulling out various amounts of insulin all the while being watched over and "coached" by a nurse (didn't mind that, as she was kinda cute). Then I got to practice injecting the insulin into an orange. I guess they say it "feels" the same as if you were injecting it into your own skin.
Then I got lessons on how to check my blood glucose levels. That's where you prick your finger and get a little drop of blood and put it on the end of this strip that connects to the meter. 5 seconds later, you get a reading. The doc said that a "normal" reading was one between 80 and 120 (yeah, mine was 485, remember?). Another thing that injecting insulin could do is to bring that reading down. He pulled out another chart that showed various amounts of insulin that could be injected to bring down your numbers. This chart wasn't as exact, as there are lots of different factors, such as metabolism, age, physical activity, etc. that can affect how much insulin is needed to bring a high number down to within normal range.
Then, I got me some homework. Yep, I had to test my blood (the little finger prick) 10 times a day for the next week, and those readings would be stored in the meter and downloaded at my next visit. He also assigned me to count carbs, and take one unit of insulin for every 15 grams of carbs that I ate. He had a nutritionist lady come in and tell me all about the different ways to count carbs. It seemed like it would be pretty easy since most of the packaged food you buy at the store has those nutrition facts printed on the box or can, and it tells you the serving size, and the amount of carb grams in each. She had me practice with a few empty cereal boxes and soup cans that she brought with her.
Then the hooked me up with a few bottles of insulin, a glucose meter of my own (I got to pick the color....big whoop, there was grey or navy blue--I chose the blue), a couple of boxes of test trips for the meter, a box of syringes. Then he gave my mom this huge stack of prescriptions for all the stuff I would need to get me going, and a bunch of pamphlets and other reading material for me to read.
What could go wrong? That's a post for another day, but let me tell you this...diabetes is a pain in the butt, and can be a little scary, too!
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