"DON'T YOU QUIT"


This blog is a first for me, it describes part of my life before, sometimes during and after tranplant. working towards recovery, charity kayak (uk circumnavigation & Ireland) if humanly possible, and leg, and how I deal with my diabetes during training and expedition, maybe some inspiration along the way.


"To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour."
William Blake

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Wednesday 14 April 2010

Kayak in Weymouth





What I find hard at the moment is training with the lack of gear I have which is a risk, I compare it to a diver going out on his own rather than with a buddy. On the one hand I can't do anything about the Diabetes side but the lack of VHF makes the the situation worse,as always this cost money and because of my circumstances at the moment there is nothing I can do.
I have basic gear, PFD, Cag, Paddle, and spray deck but I also have determination and hopefully a good sense of danger and when to push it and when I think the moment might not be quite right.
So I deal with one risk at a time and the one that I can do something about and that's my fitness, kayaking skills and Diabetes in preparation for the expedition.

Tuesday 13 April 2010

Insulin manipulation

Today I'm intending to go out for another training session on the water. I've lowered the lantus last night from the normal 17 units to 14, this has left me with a blood sugar of 13.2 on waking, this is worrying. I've given 6units of Humalog and going to eat my normal breakfast and I know my blood sugar will be high going in the water. Not sure if lowering the lantus that much is for me but we'll see today.....

Monday 12 April 2010



Well, Went out for a training session Saturday, It was nice and sunny all day, if I remember rightly the temperature was a lovely 16 degrees with a slight 3mph  SE wind.
I thought I'd take a nice paddle up to Ringstead, I parked up at second wind rather than at the other end of the beach road as I knew there would be a better chance of parking. I had packed plenty of food, a huge Jacket potato measuring in at a whopping 100 grams of carbs/salad, 50g cho Rice pudding, cheese and crackers,Chicken some dried fruit slightly covered in water, to get the benefit of some nice juice, 2 bottles lucozade, 1 bottle of Gatorade, 2 litres of water; well stocked for what I intended to do, or so I thought!!

I tested my blood sugar just before going down to the water, it said 10 on the bg metre, so as I wasn't sure where I was going to stop I had 1 square of chocolate and a swig of lucozade and off I went. I took a slow to med paddle up round to Osmington bay it was around lunch so I thought I'd park and have something to eat  before going onto Ringstead. Now I tested again before eating and it had climbed to 18.4 I wasn't happy so I gave myself 4.5 units of Humolog which I thought would be just right, with plenty of room to spare HA!!

About an hour later just before turning into Rinstead I thought I'd check my BS it was 7.1 as there was another hour before the insulin reaches it's peak I downed Half a jacket, half a bottle of lucozade just to be safe and carried on paddling. Half an hour later tested again 4.2!!.
Now I'm in that position where I didn't really want to be, but I knew that it was inevitable that this would happen to me at some point, First thing I knew I had to do was get some more carbs in so I drank more lucozade/jacket potato and some dried fruit mix, and started analyze the position I was in, most of the shock was seeing the numbers on the metre after that although I was a bit nervous I was also pretty calm and quite focused on what I was doing, I knew I had another bottle of lucozade and Gatorade, I had the mobile with the Coastgaurd number which would have been the last resort I also knew that I could probably make to sure or even rocks that were high to rest on if it got to bad.

I tried to control my breathing and not panic and made a slow paddle towards the Rocks. I could have stayed where I was but this was the first time I had experienced a hypo at sea so thought it wise to move in,  if it did come to a point where I would pass out, I'd be somewhere above water.
I stayed in the kayak and decided to paddle on, roughly 25 minutes later I tested again and it had climbed to 8.3 and there it stayed for the next 3/4 of an hour.
There is a school of thought that because of Gluconeogenisis If I was to do a quick spurt of a hard paddle and keep it up until I could do no more the liver would kick out glycogen and my bloodsugar would rise, as it does when I first begin a weight training session, and where sometimes I would give myself some insulin to counter balance that effect, but to be honest I wasn't willing to give it a try at see, on my own.
When I got home, just before tea it was 18.4!!
Now I know my body uses up carbs/glycogen differently to weight training but by how much  I wasn't sure and know one can really tell exactly, it's just trial and error.

Apart from that I had a really great day lol.