Report Card

This morning I girded my loins, took a deep breath, and reported T-Bear's numbers to the Endo.

I'm always a little anxious about reporting his numbers because we're not exactly the "ideal" D-Family. We don't eat at regularly scheduled times, usually skip breakfast (we don't even get out of bed til 10:00), and I don't force the kids to eat when they're not hungry. While we're very comfortable with our family's food life in general, it looks a bit different when your eating habits are being expressed in bald numbers, right there in black and white. To their credit, the CDE's at our Endo's office have NEVER given me a hard time about any "deficiences" in T-Bear's reports.

But, this was the first report made since our dietary changes, and I've been doing a lot of tweaking of numbers myself since our last report over a month ago (that in itself causes me to wince). I was half-expecting to be grilled about these "changes" and what the heck I was feeding T-Bear that so radically changed his BG. But, of course, the CDE was just as pleasant and supportive as they always are.

"I think you did the right thing lowering his Lantus and changins his ratios," is what she said. That's all I needed to hear. She wants me to lower is Lantus (AGAIN) down to 10 u, and drop his supper ratio from 1:10 to 1:8 (slightly more insulin per carb).

Overall, T-Bear's BG has been about equal parts on target, low, and high. But, he has not had any way-highs...nothing over 230. That's a big change from regular highs in the high 200's and low 300's. He's still going low during the night (thus the additional drop in Lantus tonight), but his lows haven't been as upsetting for him and they correct easily. From where I'm sitting, aside from having to get up every night to check his BG, it's pretty much all good.

And, Papa Bear has lost 20 lb without even trying. I'd bet his cholesterol has dropped into the normal range, too.

We're not what I would call "vegan" or even "vegitarian". I'm using little bits of meat, chicken, and dairy here and there, but most of our meals qualify as vegan. We're doing a red meat meal maybe once a week and fish a couple of times a week. We celebrated the SuperBowl with tri tip and grilled salmon, but opted for 6-layer bean dip with our chips rather than sour cream-based dips. MIL's fabulous broccoli salad did have some meat in it, but was easily picked out if needed. T-Bear's had may one or two small glasses of milk since our switch, and is fine with it. There's been a little grumbling from family members here and there (mostly from Brother Bear who's eating like a horse right now), but no revolt so far.

I think we're on the right track.

Oh, and I do have to say "thank you" to our friends who visit frequently and have been supportive of our dietary shift. Your willingness to accommodate "interesting" meal choices helps enormously. Love you all dearly!