Who needs a psychic octopus when you've got diabetes?

Recently, I’ve noticed that my blood sugar levels have been higher than I’m normally used to seeing, plus giving myself extra insulin doesn’t quite seem to do the trick. For example, this time last week I had a total daily dose (TDD) of 28 units of insulin – yesterday I had 43 units, but still ran high levels for part of the day. How to explain this? Well, with diabetes (and the ability to measure your blood sugar with a meter) you can see how your body is beginning to fight an infection before you feel any other symptoms. In my non-diabetic days, the first I would have known that I had caught a cold or stomach bug would have been when I started sneezing, sniffling or feeling poorly. Now I can become aware of it at least two or three days earlier, effectively seeing into the future! Of course, my pre-cognition only extends as far as personal illness is concerned, not predicting the outcome of World Cup Finals, so Paul the Octopus still has his niche! But I’m working on a way to get my diabetes to help me predict lottery numbers – perhaps my meter is trying to tell me something…!

Who needs a psychic octopus,
The future to foretell?
A cold Cassandra cephalopod,
When I can do as well?

Who needs a mentalist mollusc,
Who crawls the ocean floor,
To tell us what the future holds,
When my meter tells me more?

For, blessed with diabetes
My predictive powers are strong,
And unlike squid or nautilus,
I’m very rarely wrong!

So when my levels start to climb,
But nothing else seems wrong,
Then be assured that I will be
Quite ill before too long!

Before this foul disease took hold,
I lacked this inbuilt sense,
Consulting eight-limbed oracles
For my fate a few days hence.

But now I plan to make me rich –
My meter holds the key!
And when I get the numbers right,
I’ll win the lottery!

Hurrah for diabetes!

Voodoo Meter!

People imagine that the most painful thing about having diabetes must be the injections, but it’s not so. Even those who are controlled by diet and exercise or pills have to suffer the pain caused by stabbing yourself with a lancet in order to discover your blood glucose levels. Depending on the person and the treatment regime they are on, this might happen between 2 and 12 times a day – for some people even more!

Personally, I test my blood between 4-8 times a day, on waking, before meals and before and after exercise. The thing is, it is rather painful, especially after you have used the same poor fingers a few hundred times! How much better it would be, therefore, if there was a meter that could do a ‘remote’ test – perhaps in the same manner as those Voodoo dolls that you can stick pins in and the person the doll represents feels it, although this time giving the blood glucose levels not the sensation of pain! I’d buy one of those!

Firstly, please let me commend you
On purchasing a Voodoo Meter!
We hope you like the chicken-bone colour,
And the size of it couldn’t be neater!

You’ll notice that there are no lancets,
Just a packet of bright-coloured pins,
And a little cloth doll with some markings
To show where the pins should go in…

Before you start using the meter
Take a lock of your freshly cut hair.
Don’t worry if you are a baldie,
For the hair can come from anywhere!

Tie the hair to the head of the dolly,
Then utter this mystical spell:
‘By the power of the Voodoo Meter
Do your magic, and please do it well!’

Now you are ready for testing,
So take out a bright coloured pin,
Then pick up the doll by the scruff of the neck,
And without hesitation, stick it in!

In an instant you will see on your meter
Your levels – without any pain!
And what’s better, the pins are recyclable –
You can wash them and use them again!