This is Why I'll Have a Secret Stash of Juice

My number one complaint about my OB is that I always have to wait on her.  At my appointment yesterday, I sat an hour in the waiting area and another hour in the exam room.  Nearing the end of this, I was getting really weepy about the fact that I'd gone from feeling uncomfortably puffy before my arrival to feeling like I was dragging around dead weight below the knees.

Seriously, if you're going to make pregnant women wait around two hours for an appointment, at least provide some way for them to prop their feet up a bit!

But as I struggled just to stop crying, I had to stop and think... Wait... This is the time of day when, at the office, I keep my Dexcom in plain sight to watch for sudden drops in blood sugar... only I'm taking a couple days off from Dexcom.  (I can't really put it on my belly anymore, and it doesn't seem to work as well on my lower back.  Frustrated, I'm taking a break before I try again.)

I tested and saw a 59.  I dug for starburst in my purse and unearthed three of them.  I ate them and then caved into the voice in my head that told me it would not be enough and ventured out to the front desk to snag a sucker.  A few minutes later, I tested at 55 and went back out to the desk for some hard candy.  My OB was out there looking at my chart by that point, so I said I just needed to grab some candy for my blood sugar.  Her nurse practitioner overheard this and said, "Do you need some glucose tabs?  I have a stash, because my husband is diabetic."  I gladly accepted three tabs (they may be gross, but they're faster than most candy) and headed back into the exam room.

My OB entered and declaired, "Well dear, first things first, you're carrying the wrong thing to bring your blood sugar up!"

I was starting to break into a sweat but, struggling to seem together, I said, "I always have glucose tabs in the car, but candy is usually fine.  I just forgot to put more to my purse, is all."

Then she surprised me with, "Wellllll, shouldn't you eat something like peanut butter?"

Um.  Wait.  What?  I'd assumed she meant I should have had glucose in my purse instead of candy, since it's faster.  I'd thought that was a little bit nit-picky, but whatever.  This, however, was just... wrong.

"Well, no," I said, as respectfully as I could.  "Peanut butter would help keep my blood sugar up once I have it up, but it would take forever to raise it.  It's mostly fat and protein."  (Not to mention, it took about 30 carbs and a temporarily reduced basal rate to bring me back up to a BG of 99.  Even if peanut butter were an appropriate choice, 30 carbs of it would be about... 8 tablespoons?  That's half a cup of peanut butter! As much as I love the stuff, I'm pretty sure that'd make me puke!)

She answered with a simple "oh," and went back to my chart.

And that, my dear friends, is part of why I'll have a secret stash of clear juice in my bag while laboring in the hospital.  Even among medical professionals, there's misinformation regarding diabetes (or at least information geared more toward type 2).  I feel pretty strongly that I need to be able to handle things myself, when it comes down to it.