How a diabetic enjoys Thanksgiving

Ok, so it's been a week since we got back from New York and Thanksgiving, so most of you don't care anymore about whether or not it was good. But it was good.

The take at this year's table:

• Turkey (free-range)
• Cranberry sauce (sugar free, by Jennifer)
• Stuffing
• Mashed Potatoes
• Gravy
• String Bean Casserole (love this stuff!)
  
• Turnips
• Glazed Carrots
• Brussels sprouts (yes, this is the correct spelling)
• Desserts galore!

Most significant about that list is the last item. How, you may be asking, can a diabetic possibly enjoy desserts?

One word: Splenda.

One of the very few things I miss about the things I used to eat is cherry pie. I've been craving it nearly non-stop for two months. But my body reacts very very poorly to refined sugar. So no cherry pie for me.

Except for this occasion. Jenn - the master genius baker that she is - figured out how to make a cherry pie for me. It was easily the best piece of pie I've ever had in my entire life.

The thing with that is, it's true. I've had lots of good cherry pie before, but now that I really can't (without suffering some ugly complications down the road), this one was incredibly special. Anything I used to eat with impunity that I no longer can, like red meat, or cherry pie (especially cherry pie) tastes so much better to me now.

I was concerned that this particular indulgence would send my sugar higher than it ought to be (130 is a comfortable range, 180 sends me to the insulin supply, and I was estimating the latter). When I took my glucose level about two hours after dinner, it was 133. I was stunned.

What was even more stunning, though, is what happened to my BG (diabeticese for blood glucose) level after a trip to the fantastic Ukrainian restaurant Veselka, in East Village. Jenn and I met up with Ian and Sung to see Jarhead (a movie about how boring war can be, that is itself boring), then went to Veselka for dinner afterwards. Against my better judgment, I ordered the beef stroganoff. You're warned as a diabetic that stuff like regular pasta tends to send BG through the roof. My experience has been somewhat contrary to that, and I decided to take this measured risk. (In my two major trips since achieving freedom on July 5 (Discharge Day), I've allowed myself one major indulgence, and since Thanksgiving Dinner hadn't turned out badly at all, I called this one the Indulgence.)

It was a positively fantastic experience. This was the sort of food I grew up on... recipes my mom cooked because she learned them from her Slovak forebears. Man, what a great place. And it's open 24 hours!

Anyway.

The four of us hang for a while longer, then Jenn and I head back out to L.I. I take my sugar as soon as I get home (it's lingo... "take my sugar" to me means "check my BG level"), about 2.5 hours after we've eaten (still in after-meal BG prime time) and my level is...

115.

It seemed such a ludicrously low number that I checked it again on the spot.

117.

What was so shocking about this was that I did not take my usual pre-meal injection. The type of insulin I use for that is of the fast-acting variety, and I need to eat within about 15 minutes of taking it or risk some nasty hypoglycemic symptoms. I didn't want to be carrying a syringe with me all evening (perhaps not the best practice for a diabetic), so I didn't inject at all that night.

Nonetheless, 115 or so.

Overall, though I haven't been testing as much as I should in some cases, my sugar's been largely stable. I'll occassionally overdo it on my low-glycemic cookies, but I've never come anywhere close to being in a dangerous area (200+) since my first month home.

Before the holiday, I was a little apprehensive about the holiday. I used to really enjoy the turkey coma, and the over-full feeling, and the nap. I was afraid those things would go away. As it turns out, if you're smart about it, and you have a group of people around you, like Jenn and her family, who are supportive and are willing to play along, you can still have those things. At least, I could.