Living Well With Diabetes

I returned home last night after a visit with family in Minnesota. It was a nice trip during which I did some sightseeing, but mostly spent time with my parents in St. Peter and my brother and his family in the twin cities. I had two “experiences” during my visit that I feel are worth mentioning here.

During my visit, I drove with my parents to Mankato, Minnesota where we had lunch at local favorite restaurant of theirs. My mother said I had to experience the classic hamburger served at this restaurant. It was something ominously called the Butter Burger. Or maybe it was called the Butter Ball Burger, I’m not sure. Anyway, it was something involving butter. After a large dinner the night before, my instinct was to go for a nice, moderately-sized salad, but in the end, I gave in to the complete experience and ordered the Ball of Butter Burger or whatever it was called. Not the “Single” either; I went with the “Double”. And, of course, since I was giving in to the experience, I had to have the total, complete experience, so I had the “Deluxe” and fries.

As soon as I placed my order, I regretted it. I wasn’t that hungry. I would have been entirely happy with a salad or, at least, a single instead of a double patty Butter Burger. Oh well.

As it turned out, the burger whose name involves butter was aptly titled. I felt like if I lived to the point of paying the bill, I would probably survive the experience.

I was glad to be wearing my continuous glucose monitor so I could keep a close eye on my blood sugars. I suspected this meal was higher in fat (and protein) than my usual lunchtime meals, so I programmed a combination bolus instead of a standard bolus. The combination bolus would split the total bolus amount 60/40 – Sixty percent would be delivered immediately and 40 percent would be delivered steadily across the next two and a half hours. I don’t do combination boluses very often so this was nothing more than a guess, but it turned out to be pretty close. My BG got as high as 149 about an hour after eating and then dropped gradually over the next two hours.

My other “experience” happened yesterday morning. I headed to one of the local coffee shops in St. Peter, Minnesota. Waldo’s Coffee Company is located in a building in downtown St. Peter that was Stensby’s Dry Cleaners while I was growing up. Yesterday, I sat in a wire deck chair in roughly the location of the Stensby’s Dry Cleaners cash register. I enjoyed a glass beer mug full of an excellent dark roast of coffee. Now that was an experience!