Ravings from a Danish City at Night

Stressed Out.

As of today I'm on 50% sick leave for four weeks.

My body and mind need a break. I'm simply totally stressed out. 

One symptom was my blood sugar which I measured one sleepless midnight to be 20 mmol/L. Which is very, very bad.

I had begun to feel haggard, thin and stretched, "like butter scraped over too much bread", or as I said it I felt like I was drowning in myself.

So I decided to ask for some sick leave, which my employer granted. We both agreed that I should keep some classes. I know myself well enough that if I got off totally I'd lose contact, connection so much, I'd have trouble getting back.

Now to recuperate. Happier, more craft-related posts to come soon!

Eyesight and Insights

I got my eyes checked today. As the doc had to see the retina, the layer of nerves at the back of the eye, I got to arrive half an hour early and get drops in my eyes to dilate the pupils. The exam itself was pretty standard. Doc first took a picture of each retina, studied them for dark spiots, then looked more exacting at those two small spots in my left eye. After a while he declared them to be pigmentation spots (Freckles inside my eye... whoever knew...). Now I can go and get my eyes measured for new glasses.

This eye exam, as light-hearted I describe it here, is actually quite important. Diabetics are at risk of developing micro-bleeds and micro vessel hyper propagation (big word that simply means the small blood vessel in your eyes grow out of control trying to repair damages).  Both of those can and will damage sight receptors/nerves if left uncontrolled, eventually leading to blindness. One of the first symptoms of these bleeds are small dark spots on the retina. I quite value my eyesight, so I'll keep an eye (ha-ha...) on this.

Of course it was cloudy all day.
Of course the sun came out with a vengeance as I had my exam.
Of course I had no sunglasses with me and had to stumble through the glare with wide-open pupilles...
Smart guy with poor planning abilities, yeah, that's me.

 

As a type II I sofar can control my diabetes with pills and diet and I very much hope it stays that way. I was reading about  Confucius the other day and got to thinking how a Chinese gentlemen's diet would actually be quite beneficial for this. Small, exquisitely prepared dishes, high on vegetables, low on simple/refined carbohydrates, spread out through the length of the day, never a big meal, but never hungry either. Of course there are several obstacles to this. For the first I'm not quite a gentleman-at-leisure. Two, I don't have the household nor the staff nor the funds necessary for either. Third, this may just be another Western writer's misconception of  ideals probably not even reached in China itself.

But it describes the basics for me: several meals, not just the 'Big Three', more vegetables than in a 'usual' diet, less simple carbohydrates.

In my search for such, I stumbled upon this food-blog: 101 Cookbooks.
Very appealing phoyography, simple preparations, and very tasty dishes that easily can be tweaked to my needs and tastes (as well as the available shopping facilities).

Speaking of shopping, I think I splurged a bit. My favorite internet yarn shop has a sale. So I herewith confess to buying sixty skeins of yarn. They are for weaving, I know exactly what to do with them. I just need the time to get it done. Summer holidays in six weeks!

A Close Call

There is something immensely satisfying about a thick roll of warp.

10.5 metres of Shetland wool yarn from the Gardiner of Selkirk mill. 2 grey ends as floating selvedge, 12 black ends as border, 160 grey ends main warp, and mirror.

It was a close call though. I wasn't too sure whether I had enough room on the beam for it all. But as you can see, it just about fit:

About 1 cm of space left. But I doubt I'll put on longer warps, as those 10.5 metres was the maximum length I could wind on my warping board. I might go wider though, in this yarn I could put on 480 ends for a full 80 cm width. But no real use for that at the moment.

The brown stuff is a double layer of Kraft paper which I use as warp divider. The warp threads have to be separated into distinct layers as they wind around the beam. Should they mix, sink into each other, some threads might get longer than others, causing different tensions in the warp.

I did of course make a mistake when threading.

Those threads got all pulled out, got re-threaded and re-sleyed and then it was tied up.

I've started weaving already, couldn't really resist starting on my sampler. The first one-and-a-half samples are done already. The lower part is a simple 2/2 twill, a weft thread goes over 2 warps, then under 2 warps, then the whole shifts one to the right in the next end.

To separate the sections, a few shots with grey with hem-stitching to stabilize it. The upper part is a vertical zig-zag over 6 ends, basically a 2/2 twill that shifts back and forth. The paper strip to the left I use to make all the different sampler section the same length. A strip cut from an A4 sheet is fixed to the weaving with two pins and then used to mark how much I've done. Two pins, so I can move one and the other still holds it in place.

One minor problem though: my fingers are sore! I'm attending diabetes school at the local hospital this week and they asked us to do 7 blood sugar tests each day... Thumb and first finger are reserved, the other three get pricked for blood. Ouch!

Especially as I hate needles!

There are two things to that:
1. While blunt pain isn't a big deal for me, as I've been thrown, kicked, hit enough in my martial arts years, acute pain, like in pricks, pins and needles, feels a lot sharper, harder, deeper to me.
2. Grandpa had diabetes type 1 and used an old-fashioned glass-steel syringe with a very thick needle for his insulin. The thought of having to inject myself with such a 'drain-pipe' is one of the motivators for me to keep my diabetes type 2 under control, so I can avoid that as long as possible.

So today when we had to prick ourselves with those training injector pens, I balked first.  However the needle is so fine and thin on those, when I did it, I hardly felt anything. At least objectively/physically. Subjectively/psychologically was another matter entirely. I had shivers, sweated, felt cold around my head and neck, slightly nauseous, hair rising on my neck. All those signs I know that I'm about to go into a slight shock, my rather typical reaction to needles. Both my doctor and my dentist have seen that in me when I got vaccinations or dental anesthetics. I took a deep breath and willed it away, for it wasn't really that big a deal, that injector needle. But try telling that to my inner coward.

I still decided I'll do whatever I can to drop those 45 kg of overweight I drag around. Each gram is a step away from insulin.   

    

Out with the old, in with the new...

That's basically what my doctor told me regarding my lifestyle.

I got full type II diabetes. My doc put me on meds immediately, I got a referral to an ophthalmologist to get my eyes checked, to a foot therapist to get my feet checked (diabetes can cause very severe foot sores, going all the way to gangrene and amputation...), I'm signed up for Diabetes School, a weeklong course for newly diagnosed diabetes, at the hospital, I'm to see a dietician to get my new diet, I might even get a gym membership on prescription.

Lots of change in a short time. And I'm not too sure how I'm coping mentally. I got enough stressors already.

I'm very glad my mother's half-brother, who also had type II diabetes, not too far away. He has offered some advice. I'm also already looking at the Danish Diabetes Society's website and getting their info material soon.

Doctor said my blood work showed I'd probably been diabetic for several years, but symptoms only showed now. About 2% of the population here are probably undiagnosed type II diabetics and that it probably also is a bigger killer than cardiovascular disease. Scary.

First treatment goal is for me to loose 10 kg of body weight. Slowly and steadily, no use rushing it. I'm already reserving 30 minutes every afternoon in my calendar for a walk. Amazingly enough my cholesterole is fine and my blood pressure is below what it should be for type II diabetics.

I'm very glad for my knitting right now. It calms me and grounds me. As a side effect I'm making inroads on my WIP-pile. Pictures soon.

As this is going to be a major part of my life now, it will also become part of this blog. So, if you aren't up to reading about that aspect of me, you're herewith warned.