[Diabetes-talk] a little humor in blood testing

[Julie Kline]

This is primarily to Star Gazer but could be of interest to anyone, but I
wanted to offer my recent testing experience during one night this week,
after our meal was done and dishes were put away, etc. etc., I made myself
sit down at our kitchen table with my solo meter and a paper towel and
decided I was going to give testing another go.  It was at a time in the
evening where I wasn't rushing off to be somewhere (rare for me) and not
during a morning or time of day where I had to rush off to work or someplace
else (again, extremely rare for me since we're always going).  My doctor is
mainly interested in fasting blood sugar numbers so he probably wouldn't
have cared about this test, but I figured I may as well start somewhere.  It
wasn't the 30 second test that most people seem to experience here.  As a
matter of fact, it took me probably 4 or 5 minutes, 3 different test strips,
the use of 3 fingers, and 4 sticks with the lancing device set on the
highest it would go to finally get it right where I had enough blood to make
the damn thing work.  (I wonder with the number of items I mentioned here if
they'd make a Christmas carol out of my testing debacle).  Anyway, I got
enough to finally get a reading.  It was the only time this week I ever
messed with the meter.  Prior to that, I haven't touched the meter in
several months because things took so long to do.  I guess what I wonder
from that is maybe I should practice at a time where I'm not against a
deadline, even if my doc or no one else will care about the result.  I know
when I decided to try taking up testing again, I look back on that night and
find the humor there even if it was a handful of things to coordinate.   At
any rate, if things don't go smoothly for you, you can think of my story.
good luck.