Pupils: Waiting to Dilate

May 26

So I have my first eye appointment of this pregnancy, though it’s not the first time I’ve had to call the Eye Doc. Back around week 5 or so, my right eye (and only the right eye) began tearing up. It was annoying. Particularly so because of the pregnancy, I was advised not to take a standard antihistimine because of the potential pregnancy interaction. So my eye doc recommended artificial tears. Which seemed to be beside the point; I mean, my eye was *already tearing*, so why add more tears to the mix?

Regardless, thankfully the eye thing cleared up after three days, but my eye doc insisted, several times, that I needed to see her within six weeks. I’d already had an appointment scheduled for today prior, so I just kept my appointment (at 6 weeks), and here I am.

The front of the eye was unremarkable, as usual. The optometrist, a short woman with towering heels who I’ve seen before, but she clearly didn’t remember me, was pleasant asking me questions about my son based on the notes in my file. I told her I was pregnant, so that yielded a number of other questions about medications and how far along I am and all that. Otherwise, my eyes—the visit itself, the pressure as a glaucoma check, wavy lines, peripheral vision—it all came back fine.

Amd here I am, sitting in the dilation waiting area, annoyed as always that there’s no Internet access here, and I can’t text because I need to really see the keys I’m pressing to type on my phone and I just can’t see well enough. There was some high school girl here with her mom, wearing the same pump as me, who said she wants to be a “diabetes endocrinologist” when she grows up. Good for her. I told her to stick with it, as type 1 endocrinologists are so much better than those who don’t know what they’re talking about. I would have liked to have talked to her more, but neither she nor her mother were all that chatty.

Mister Lyrehca has called and texted a few times to tell me to call him if I need him to drive me home, which I am sure is not going to be the case. Even if my doc tells me she needs to do laser right away, I’ll tell her that I’ll come back next week or whenever, when I don’t have to drive myself home. So we’ll see.

The irony is that my blood glucose meter’s averages, this morning, were crazy impressive. Like, my average over the past 7 days was 90. I have never seen that kind of number as an average before. I think it’s skewed, though, because my CGM clearly shows spikes, and I don’t test every hour because of the CGM, so I suspect there are more lows factored into that average than not. I’ll be interested to see what my next A1c is, though.

But beyond all that….well, I feel like there’s not much else to report about this pregnancy beyond what my blood sugars are and how my eyes are. Honestly, why would I focus beyond that? I have had no morning sickness, haven’t felt bad at all, have noticed my stomach getting bigger and my bras getting a little tighter, and again, weight gain has happened.

I’ve also had… I don’t know if I can call them cravings because, are they? But I’ve bought and devoured big chunks of (Pasterurized! Not moldy! Perfectly acceptable for pregnancy!) cheese: fontina, gouda (unsmoked) and havarti, and devoured them. I mean, really, is that a craving? I’d devour big blocks of cheese anytime, but most of the time prior to this pregnancy, I’ve refrained. I figure that’s what’s helped my belly to balloon. I’ve also eaten, throughout the last week or so, big bags of chips and, at one point, a bunch of homemade chocolate chip cookies. The irony is that I can take giant (and when I saw giant, I needed to increase the upper limit of the amount of insulin I could take at one time) and sometimes, my sugars are really just fine. Other times, I eat the shell of a whole wheat bagel (with all the soft inner parts ripped out) and butter, bolus a good 60 grams worth of insulin, and see myself soar up to 300 and I get pissed. Last week, I thought to myself that it would be a miracle if this baby was born without any health problems. And then, my meter is telling me my last week’s readings average was 90 and that my A1c is going down.

So you can understand why I’m pissed and hardly think of pregnancy as something magical. I thnk it’ll be a real neat trick if this baby is born healthy and happy.
Wow, I just got myself into a cynical and cranky state.

Where is my damn eye doctor????

To top it all off, my sugar was lounging in the low 70s and 60s for a good half hour, and I dutifully treated with ten grams of carbs (doctor office packets of graham crackers) three times in a row… with the blood sugar not budging. And yes, I both watched my CGM and tested my blood sugar three times. Now, 45 minutes later, my CGM tells me I’m shooting upward at 104, with my arrow going straight up. Who knows how high that’ll climb to? Plus, my pump battery is low, and while I’ve been a rebel and gone up to a day or two and ignoring the battery alarm to see how long it would last, I’d rather change it out right now , but don’t have the right kind of battery on me.

Finally! My name was just called and into the retinology doc's office I go!