Had an appointment yesterday with the pharmacist attached to my doctor’s family medical practice, to discuss the results of my latest bloodwork. It was mostly good news. I no longer need to self-test five to seven times daily. Once or twice a day will suffice to keep track of my currently acceptable blood-sugar levels.
That will be much easier on the fingertips of my left hand, and should please executives at the insurance company that provides coverage for our prescription medications. They’ve already balked once at the frequency of filling my prescription for glucose test strips. At just under $90 for 100 of the little suckers, not including dispensing fee, I can’t say I blame them. Use five a day, that’s nearly $100 every three weeks. One or two a day stretches the supply to nearly two months. The difference is about $1,000 annually, and I've yet to mention the price of lancets.
On the other hand, who wouldn’t pay another thousand bucks to feel good all year? I’m slowing a bit, but there was a time the ticker on my annual booze meter must have swept past the one-grand mark without a backward glance. Maybe it would help if pharmacies dispensed prescription drugs to the back-beat of a solid blues ensemble, accompanied by go-go girls and an ambiance of questionable possibilities. Then again, pharmacies don’t have cover charges. Then again, again, “dispensing fee” might just be another phrase for “cover charge.” One way and another, every service has its cost.
Life in a mature, integrated economy is like laundry. My non-essential expenditures are someone else’s mortgage payments and grocery money, while essential expenditures make sure the economy stays in rotation, like it or not, until everyone gets a little dizzy from a couple go-rounds in the spin-cycle. At least the technology keeps getting better. Blood glucose monitors are endlessly improving marvels right up there with mouthwash and cell phones. Actually, as my monitor already lights up, reads and stores data for computer download, tells time, sounds alarms and indicates operational problems, how many more buttons would be required for it to phone readings directly to my medical records, or take collect calls when the wife is stranded penniless in Wally World? It has to be worth something that the 38 page manual is NOT an unreadable translation from Chinese, let alone that the monitor should help keep me going long enough to buy more test strips.
If you blanch at the thought of insurance company executives giggling over new-found savings, take heart from the knowledge that my daily dosage of Ramipril is going up. High though improving blood pressure readings, not to mention the protein in my urine, should wipe smiles from boardroom faces. Sorry guys. Must look after those kidneys. Man’s gotta pee.
Apr 28, 2009
Apr 17, 2009
The Winds
“Four Strong Winds” Ian Tyson wrote, meaning, I suppose, the points of the compass. My father had a fifth: his own. “I’ve got the winds,” he would say shortly before or after sharing. We couldn’t place blame; he wasn’t well. Blame is a wasted sentiment anyway. A good toot is one of life’s more reliable, if passing, satisfactions. “Better to let it out and bear the shame than hold it in and bear the pain,” a friend used to say.
Life is definitely breezier around here since my nutritionist recommended I consume a half cup of Bran Buds daily. They’re packaged by the Kellogg cereal folks, whose website claims that psyllium fibre, the noticeably active ingredient, can reduce bad cholesterol, helping to reduce risk of heart disease. More to the point, the fibre helps manage blood glucose levels and body weight, the latter by increasing satiety. That’s important for diabetics like me. I like that word: “satiety.”
The effect is achieved with mucilage, a somewhat less delightful word. In past experience that’s the stuff we used to stick paper together in grade-school art classes. I thought they made it from knackered horses, but apparently the stuff is found in the seed shells of plants native to Asia. It absorbs water, bulking up to ten times its dry size, starting a rush through the intestines and sweeping along lots of the other things found down there. I am now anecdotal evidence of this, and can attest also that it does generate “the winds.”
The water-soluble fibre has been used for some time in the treatment of constipation and as a binding agent in foods such as ice-cream. There’s more on that in an article at Wikipedia if you’re interested, but now that psyllium fibre is on grocery store shelves in cardboard boxes with happy, smiling faces on the outside, you can shake some out for breakfast with either eye barely open.
I sprinkle about 1/3 cup of Bran Buds into my morning cereal bowl, with bran flakes, milk and walnuts. The old familiar rolled bran fibre melted into a disagreeable mush with the first splash of milk, but these little budders hold their own, adding a slightly sweet flavour and crunchy texture to salads, soups, stews, casseroles, yogurt smoothies, even sandwiches. Kellogg suggests baking them into muffins, cookies and bread and adding them to meat loaf and hamburger patties. Well, they would, but really it sounds worth a try. In addition to the health benefits Bran Buds are a versatile and appetizing ingredient: Food, with occasional music.
Life is definitely breezier around here since my nutritionist recommended I consume a half cup of Bran Buds daily. They’re packaged by the Kellogg cereal folks, whose website claims that psyllium fibre, the noticeably active ingredient, can reduce bad cholesterol, helping to reduce risk of heart disease. More to the point, the fibre helps manage blood glucose levels and body weight, the latter by increasing satiety. That’s important for diabetics like me. I like that word: “satiety.”
The effect is achieved with mucilage, a somewhat less delightful word. In past experience that’s the stuff we used to stick paper together in grade-school art classes. I thought they made it from knackered horses, but apparently the stuff is found in the seed shells of plants native to Asia. It absorbs water, bulking up to ten times its dry size, starting a rush through the intestines and sweeping along lots of the other things found down there. I am now anecdotal evidence of this, and can attest also that it does generate “the winds.”
The water-soluble fibre has been used for some time in the treatment of constipation and as a binding agent in foods such as ice-cream. There’s more on that in an article at Wikipedia if you’re interested, but now that psyllium fibre is on grocery store shelves in cardboard boxes with happy, smiling faces on the outside, you can shake some out for breakfast with either eye barely open.
I sprinkle about 1/3 cup of Bran Buds into my morning cereal bowl, with bran flakes, milk and walnuts. The old familiar rolled bran fibre melted into a disagreeable mush with the first splash of milk, but these little budders hold their own, adding a slightly sweet flavour and crunchy texture to salads, soups, stews, casseroles, yogurt smoothies, even sandwiches. Kellogg suggests baking them into muffins, cookies and bread and adding them to meat loaf and hamburger patties. Well, they would, but really it sounds worth a try. In addition to the health benefits Bran Buds are a versatile and appetizing ingredient: Food, with occasional music.
Apr 9, 2009
Little Pricks
Tykes marching around the family room to the Oliver soundtrack: “Food glorious food . . . never before has a boy asked for more! . . . we don’t want to make no fuss” and then “pip pip cheerio but be back soon,” which reminds me that I haven’t taken my portable blood-sugar tester out with me since getting it from the pharmacist.
This has been ragging my mind for some time now, but not so much I’ve actually started packing. What’s with me? I donated blood for decades, monthly toward the end, so it’s not like I’m afraid of a few little pricks. Is it? Not afraid to break skin. Not troubled breaching the envelope, drawing a little red. Not me.
What if, subconsciously, I’m not the tough egg I think I am? I’ve found some spots on the fingertips are a little more sensitive than others, and sometimes I’ve noticed a small amount of bruising, but nothing so bad it’s slowed my typing, you’ll notice. The blood clots quickly. No red-stained strips of toilet paper trailing across the computer keyboard. So what’s bugging me?
I’m maxing about five tests a day, which isn’t enough, and I’m often late with the post-meal pricks. Two hours after the munchies I’m in another world. You know how it is in front of the computer; time buggers off at a rate would make Einstein’s head spin. Maybe in another dimension I nudge little paper test strips against tiny blood bubbles exactly 120 minutes after my Wheeties, but it’s in this dimension, here with you, I have diabetes. In my other dimensions, I’m skinny.
I should carry the kit with me at all times. It’s high-tech, made for travel through time and space. Comes with its own little nylon pack to hold all the bits and pieces. I carry a small Kleenex pack to clean up (also handy for wiping the nose and the weary brow.) I removed the spool from a square, dental-floss box and it’s perfect for safely storing used lances when on the move. Slips into a pocket on the outside of the kit. Kit has a little Velcro strap to loop through my belt. If I wore a belt. I’m strictly a braces man now, and anyway the kit bulges like a snub-nosed .038 in the waistband of an ill fitting suit. Ruins my whole profile. Wouldn’t want to end my international modelling career before it’s started.
And suppose I’m shy? Don’t want to invite stares or comments, like a breastfeeding mom in a public park. Don’t want some offended ex-bricklayer to sidle up and slap me with her purse. Who needs that? Not me. Maybe I’m not the tough egg I think I am.
This has been ragging my mind for some time now, but not so much I’ve actually started packing. What’s with me? I donated blood for decades, monthly toward the end, so it’s not like I’m afraid of a few little pricks. Is it? Not afraid to break skin. Not troubled breaching the envelope, drawing a little red. Not me.
What if, subconsciously, I’m not the tough egg I think I am? I’ve found some spots on the fingertips are a little more sensitive than others, and sometimes I’ve noticed a small amount of bruising, but nothing so bad it’s slowed my typing, you’ll notice. The blood clots quickly. No red-stained strips of toilet paper trailing across the computer keyboard. So what’s bugging me?
I’m maxing about five tests a day, which isn’t enough, and I’m often late with the post-meal pricks. Two hours after the munchies I’m in another world. You know how it is in front of the computer; time buggers off at a rate would make Einstein’s head spin. Maybe in another dimension I nudge little paper test strips against tiny blood bubbles exactly 120 minutes after my Wheeties, but it’s in this dimension, here with you, I have diabetes. In my other dimensions, I’m skinny.
I should carry the kit with me at all times. It’s high-tech, made for travel through time and space. Comes with its own little nylon pack to hold all the bits and pieces. I carry a small Kleenex pack to clean up (also handy for wiping the nose and the weary brow.) I removed the spool from a square, dental-floss box and it’s perfect for safely storing used lances when on the move. Slips into a pocket on the outside of the kit. Kit has a little Velcro strap to loop through my belt. If I wore a belt. I’m strictly a braces man now, and anyway the kit bulges like a snub-nosed .038 in the waistband of an ill fitting suit. Ruins my whole profile. Wouldn’t want to end my international modelling career before it’s started.
And suppose I’m shy? Don’t want to invite stares or comments, like a breastfeeding mom in a public park. Don’t want some offended ex-bricklayer to sidle up and slap me with her purse. Who needs that? Not me. Maybe I’m not the tough egg I think I am.
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