BM Half Stat Day:

P.M. Blood Glucose:     Time:  2030     Reading:  164

P.M. Blood Pressure:     Time:  2028     BP:  107/51     Pulse:  62

    I didn't intend for today to be a half stat day but, on a whim, I visited a pet store that was hosting an adoption weekend for the local arm of the Arizona Humane Society and came home with a male domestic shorthair kitten. Thus, Mom was allowed to sleep a little over 12 hours: I was home by 1215 and Mom was awake, with a kitten crawling all over her bed, at 1220. In the excitement, I forgot to take Mom's stats before breakfast.
    As well, Mom had been up at 0700 to use the bathroom and hadn't yet leaked (because of the furosemide she's still running a bit dry), so I changed out her underwear and although she soaked it thoroughly between 0700 and 1220, she didn't leak. Yet another short bath day. She loves those!
    I'm consciously adding more refined carbohydrates and today was a goldmine of carbohydrates for Mom. For breakfast she got a blueberry muffin instead of toast with cinnamon (although I put cinnamon on her muffin, just for good insulin sensitiviy measure). She didn't even complain that it was a whole wheat muffin, it was so loaded with blueberries. Then, besides lunch, which was her usual local, high calcium meal, plus 1 oz peanuts, she asked for, and got, a banana about an hour before dinner. So, despite her blood sugar appearing to be high, it's actually pretty much on target for having eaten a banana an hour before having her blood glucose taken.
    For dinner I made a modified Cobb salad with the one piece of leftover cold salmon (it still was tangy with lemon and delicious) with home made ranch dressing, crumpled Krinkle Cut Salt & Pepper Kettle Chips as croutons and stalked (for give the pun, unintentional) with pickled asparagus. I also grilled a couple of torn apart whole wheat bolillo rolls with garlic butter and freshly grated Parmesan. Unfortunately, they burned a little so we ended up eating about half a roll apiece.
    Her Bowel Movement occurred at 2005: Good volume; good consistency; very easy elimination; somewhat smeary clean-up. This time, since I wasn't interested in the possibility of plunging the toilet and cleaning the bathroom once again and her shit included a pretty thick turd, I gloved up and went after it. Good thing I did. It was one of those not-gonna-make-it-through-without-difficulty turds.
    Mom was in bed by 0030, 2/26/06. As I put this post to bed it is 0105, My Man (the new cat's provisional name) is in there with her and her light is still on.

Full Stat Day:

A.M. Blood Glucose:     Time:  1244     Reading:  123

A.M. Blood Pressure:     Time:  1318     BP:  148/76     Pulse:  52

P.M. Blood Glucose:     Time:  2034     Reading:  94

P.M. Blood Pressure:     Time:  2033     BP:  111/70     Pulse:  54

    Although she awoke this morning with no pudginess at all in her feet, it seemed to me that her face was a little more rounded than usual, her lower abdomen was a bit poofy, her blood pressure was high, including her diastolic, which, more often than not, remains low when her systolic goes high because of irritation with me taking her blood pressure in the morning, she hacked a little bit, that dry cough and was having enough trouble breathing this morning that I decided to keep her on oxygen during bathing. Thus, although it may seem ridiculous just 36 hours after she had a day of diarrhea, I decided to give her 10 mg furosemide. Since I have to use half a 20 mg tablet, I noticed that in the pill bottle there was already a half tablet that had been shaved at a little less than half, so she probably got about 9 mg, which was fine. I even considered cutting the pill into quarters, but then they crumble and make a mess. The furosemide starting working within an hour after she took it, which was a sign that it was a good idea. I pushed liquids today, too, although didn't get quite as much down as I would have liked. But, by this evening, her BP looked much better and she was breathing much better.
    For dinner I served salmon baked in basil butter and lemon juice and our last two pieces of corn on the cob. I tried to get her interested in grilled garlic/Parmesan bread in order to add some refined carbs, but she wasn't interested and I didn't push. After her nap, which lasted three hours (an unusually lengthy nap for her), all she wanted for lunch was a 1 oz bag of peanuts and coffee, so I didn't push anything else.
    She retired at 2340. It's just now 2359 and I notice her light just flicked off.

BM Half Stat Day:

P.M. Blood Glucose:     Time:  2110     Reading:  127

P.M. Blood Pressure:     Time:  2109     BP:  123/70     Pulse:  62

    Today was both worse and better than I expected, being The Day After Diarrhea Day. The effects of yesterday were evident: She was paler than I expected, much paler than yesterday; she was more tired than I expected, too. She awoke initially at 1105, much earlier than I expected. She didn't require a full bath, as she hadn't leaked through, which didn't surprise me, really. After all, despite me feeding her liquids as much as possible yesterday, she lost a lot, as well. She ate a full breakfast after a shortened bath, then was back in bed by 1300. I didn't fight this. She looked tired. She was up, again, at 1500, feeling better although still looking pale. She was hungry, so I fed her cottage cheese (a binder) pickled asparagus spears, V-8 juice to keep her sodium and potassium up and she asked for "a couple pieces of toast", so she got them. I'm sure it was the toast that was showing in her BG taken just before dinner. Dinner was also savory, and laden with sodium and potassium: Leftovers from our recent saurkraut/sausage and potatoes au gratin with additions dinners. She wolfed it down, which was nice to see.
    I was surprised when she had a bowel movement just before retiring at 0015 (2/24/06): Fairly poor volume; excellent consistency; fairly easy elimination; fairly easy clean-up. I wasn't expecting her bowels to move again for a couple of days. Maybe, as I once discerned after the Colonic which preceded her colonoscopy in July of 2003, when her bowels are thoroughly cleansed, it revs them up.
    As I finish this post the time is 0053, 2/24/06. Her light is still on, which means she's still reading in bed. Her spirits are good, even though she was sluggish and pale all day today. I'm expecting tomorrow to be an improvement.

Combined No Stat Days: 2/19 - 2/22/06

2/19/06
    Dinner. Hmmm. Let me think. Yes, I'm pre-dating this. Oh, yeah. That was the night Mom decided she wanted dessert for dinner, so I gave her a piece of that Costco chocolate cake and some French Vanilla ice cream. I intended to take her blood sugar the following morning, just to see if we had some luck in raising it a little, since that's what we're trying to do, right now, but I forgot. Can't remember anything about lunch. Oh yeah: Peanuts, olives and cottage cheese.

2/20/06: BM
    Dinner was sauerkraut with turkey/sundried tomato/artichoke/garlic sausages and grilled garlic/Parmesan cheese bread.
    Her Bowel Movement occurred at 2113: Good volume; excellent consistency; very easy elimination; very easy clean-up; well, except that she reached for the flusher while I had my back turned and I ended up in her bathroom for 45 minutes unclogging her toilet and cleaning up the bathroom floor after that.

2/21/06: BM
    Dinner was au gratin potatoes with added fried, defatted sausage, chopped and sauteed onions, green peppers and celery and seasoned with Penzey's Spices Herbes de Provence spice blend. Delicious!
    Her Bowel Movement occurred at 2215: Fairly good volume; excellent consistency; very easy elimination; very easy clean-up, no "accidental" early flush or clogged toilet tonight.

2/22/06: Frequent BMs
    This was Diarrhea Day for both of us but mainly Mom. Little to eat, lots to drink, in bed a lot, no stats taken. You can read about it in a post for today published over at The Mom & Me Journals.