Posts
that I spend most of my sleeping hours - awake - or being woken - or in the process of being woken by an alarm - or dreaming about accidentally not setting my alarm so that Im panicking as I sleep about NOT being woken for the said alarm...
Those awful hours when I should be sleeping
(and boy oh boy my body knows it should be sleeping)
are spent with my eyes squinting, hurting, adjusting to a darkened room while I check a blood sugar.
Normally this involves repeat alarms because Im so tired when the dreadful thing goes off I press snooze. The other morning the alarm went off at 2am and I managed to get myself upright and checked Reubs by 2.37am...
Sleep deprivation truly is a method of torture.
I fumble with the pricker. I drop it on the floor. I pat around the floor until I recover it. I try to unzip the glucose monitor bag. (I use the accucheck mobile at night now, forget about fiddling with strips in foil packets or in little cannisters!) If I squint just so from my right eye and get enough moonlight from the window, I can just about do the remaining 90% of the job by feel alone!
Sometimes its all too hard and I put my mobile phone in my mouth and bend forward so it casts enough light to see where the lancet actually provided a droplet of blood.
Often Im not even squeezing the right toe.
Ive been known to throw things and say impolite things as I can get quite agro when my brain is this exhausted. There should be no excuse for error-ing blood glucose tests at witching hour!
So here goes my petition for my mothers day gift - Dear husband all I'd like for mothers day is a TORCH.
Id like a fancy dinner, chocolates, flowers, a massage, a bottle of wine, breakfast in bed and all the housework and Mummy jobs completed for me - however what I REALLY need is a torch.
It needs to have a button I can find easily and quickly to switch it on in the dark while my grey matter is the consistency of marshmallow
It needs to have good battery life I dont think I will let it live if it fails me
It has to be small so it can fit in my mouth while doing a BGL on a flip-flopping toddler
It cant be breakable It has to like being brutalised
And please make it ugly so my other kids dont want to play with it!
I have a great small torch (about 8cm long and push button on the end) for the middle of the night. It's bright enough to light up her hand but not the room. I do all the set up in the dark adn just out it on to get the blood. I hate sqeezing the wrong finger.
ReplyDeleteShe shares so I don't want to have to put the light on. I did that twice when I keep getting error messages and not enough blood. I couldn't bear to waste even more strips on just one test.
I'll try to get one for you if you like?
I have a nice little "torch" too, that I use. After my son was diagnosed, my hubby brought home a flashlight he used to use at work (he works in maintenance dept, so he needs a flashlight to peek into the small nooks and crannies on machines LOL!). I love it! I push the button up and it turns on the flashlight beam, i push it all the way down and it turns on the sidelight on it (little dimmer but ample light for what I need it to do), and if I put the switch smack in the middle, it turns it off completely. Takes 2 AA batteries, but I swear those batteries last atleast a year! In the 2 1/2 years my son's been diagnosed, I can only recall 1 (definitely) battery change, possibly 2, but definitely no more than 2! It has an LED light, so it uses less battery power. And, OMG have I beat the snot out of this lil thing! Only thing thats happened to it by all the constant drops I've made it endure has been the batteries pop out, but thats because ever since he brought it home from work, the battery cover has had a little crack in it so id doesnt always close completely. LOVE LOVE LOVE IT! Wish I knew where he got it so I could get another one for back up just in case this bugger DOES break (or my kids break it or lose it lol)
ReplyDeleteI used to wear a "camping head lamp" - I think I looked a little bizarre to our guests as I would parade through our home on my way to Joe's room. Now I turn on a little night lamp in his room and I can see just fine. Joe is a heavy sleeper though.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your "ugly" torch quest!
melissa, is felicity a light sleeper? cos i co sleep with dh over the other side of the bed, hes pretty grouchy when i wake him. the torch situation is one of those things i never remember about when im at the store, you know go to bunnings get everything BUT a torch! im going to make a post it note and stick it to my forehead to get out and actually do it.
ReplyDeletedawn, lol! @ beat the snot out of it !! haha. thanks for the tip on the LED light didnt think of that!
reyna, lol. i nearly spat out my chips lol i got a real visual of you in the camping headlamp. i think it would have far too much appeal for my 6 year old and my 3 year old. you know, on par with walkie talkies.
going to google 'durable battery operated torches that small kids find uninteresting'.
Mine is a LED one too.
ReplyDelete