Yesterday started with some sunny spells, but most of the day was dull, and occasionally very dull. It was a dry day, and just about warm with a top temperature of 20° C.
       

  I think the BBC's forecast of medium light cloud is truer than The Met Office's dark clouds this morning. On the other hand, it dies seem to be getting duller now. Both forecasters predict rain this afternoon. The BBC says from 4pm, and The met Office say from 3pm, and they also say some of it could be heavy rain. The maximum temperature will be 19° C, and it will start to fall as soon as the rain falls. Tomorrow should start nice and bright, possibly with full sunshine for a few hours, and then sunny spells until a duller period in the afternoon. It will probably feel rather cool with just 16° C predicted.

   Yesterday can be described as quite a good day. My stomach problems seemed to be over, although I was still careful not to eat too much, or anything too spicy. However I did eat a few things that might have not been good for me, but it seems I got away with it.

  It was nice to wash my hair, and have a good wash under the shower after not showering the previous day (because I was still wearing the 24 blood pressure monitor in the morning of the day before yesterday). What was odd about it was that I did it fairly early in the morning (about 10am). After a terrible night's sleep I wanted to spend all morning snoozing, but I got bored trying to fall asleep again.

  One reason for being unable to relax properly was an itch to go shopping. I particularly wanted to buy a couple of bottles of real Diet Coke. While I had the stomach upset I found the supermarket own brand sugar free colas were not that nice. I might have even thought that maybe they were not helping because of some unknown reason. It also seemed like a good idea to get some food that might not antagonise my stressed digestive tract.

  I am tempted to say that it was nice to walk to Tesco, but while it was almost painless, it was maybe a bit too dull to really enjoy it. I have a feeling that the dull weather may have slowed my walk down a bit, although I would have thought it would speed me up to get the dullness over with more quickly. I suspect all this is just thinking what might have happened, and the actual thing was that I walked perfectly normally.

  The first thing I headed for when I got in Tesco was the ready made salads. I bought tow simple salads, and one Greek salad (which really is not a patch of Sainsbury's Greek salad). I then went to the instant noodles, and put quite a lot of packets in my shopping basket. I decided to miss the fresh meat section, but I did buy a small pack of ham and a small pack of corned beef - both to add to salad,

  Instead of meat based meals I decided some fish would be easier on my recovering digestive tract. For simplicity I went for the ready meals, and put two ready to cook fish based meals in my basket. Then it was off to the ice cream section. Ice cream should pass nicely through my recovering guts, but yesterday morning my blood glucose readings were extremely high, and in theory I should not have been even thinking of stuff like ice cream. I still bought a 1 litre tub, but I was quite selective about what I chose. I found a plain vanilla ice cream that seemed to have less sugar content than some.

  Finally I went to the soft drinks section, and grabbed 2 x 2 litre bottles of Diet Coke, plus 2 x 2 litre bottles of Lemon flavour Coke Zero. I think there were only two checkouts open at that time, but neither had a big queue, although Sod's law dictated I chose the slowest moving queue !  With my goods finally paid for I headed home. It was not a fast walk, and I can't say it was very warm out, but I still felt slightly sweaty after I got home. I blame high humidity.

  It was barely past 11am when I got home, and put my food away. I suspect my subconscious was playing tricks on my mind because I suddenly realised that the only way I would get the tub of ice cream in the freezer was to take out the 2/3rds eaten tub already in there. That meant I would have to eat the rest of that tub before it melted. Now as I mentioned above, eating sweet ice cream when my blood glucose was so high in the morning was madness.

  On the other hand, I had eaten those 2/3rds of the ice cream, a third at a time, and it had hardly made any difference to my blood glucose readings the next morning. With my fingers crossed, I ate the rest of that tub of ice cream, and of course it was really delicious. The new tub of ice cream I bought seemed to have very slightly less sugar in it than the one I finished. That could be a good thing.

  I feel inclined to try some dangerous experiments when it comes to sugar consumption. One theory that seems to explain how ice cream causes little increase in blood glucose level the next morning, is that because it is almost in a pure form it is absorbed almost instantly, causes a huge sugar high, and a big surge in insulin that deals with it very quickly.  Other forms of sugar are a lot slower, and so cause high readings for a lot longer. Of course it could be true that even a modestly short huge peak in blood glucose is damaging, but my only tools are my morning blood glucose measurements, and if they say OK, I plan my day on that OK.

  A bit later in the afternoon I had more naughty food. It was some tomato flavour crisps, but I did not have that many. I also ate something else straight after the crisps, but I can't think what it was. It may have been a chunk of cheese. What ever it was, it all worked to stop me feeling hungry until the evening, and even than to have no more that a Tesco "simple salad" bolstered with some croutons, corned beef, and a good sprinkle of balsamic vinegar and oil dressing.

  There was one important thing I did in the afternoon, and it was to hand wash three t-shirts and three pairs of underpants. I had actually left them soaking in detergent after my morning shower. After wringing out the detergent I began to feel that I wouldn't be able to finish the job in one session, but I think I only thought that way because my back felt a little stiff. Leaning over the bath to pick the clothes out the big buckets seemed to make my stiff back a bit looser, but I was starting to tire towards the end. However, I did finish the job in the one session, and hung the stuff on the big clothes horse to dry overnight (although it still seems a bit damp this morning).

  My intention was to have a very early night, last night, but I didn't seem to feel as tired as I expected. I didn't go to bed early, but I did brush my teeth before just laying on my bed to read after having exhausted any TV entertainment for a time. When I felt I had read enough I was about to get into bed, and turn the light off, but I noticed it was just before 9pm. I got up again to watch an episode of The Avengers on Great TV!

  At 10pm I was back in bed, and tried to go to sleep. I failed, but thankfully it was not for one of the really annoying reasons - my sometimes attacks of late night heartburn. On this occasion it was partly not seeming to be as tired as expected, but mostly lots of silly things. I would be laying there almost relaxed enough when a stray hair would tickle my face, or my ear, or even my lips. I also discovered two lumps in my mattress, and another in my pillow - neither were there earlier in the day, or this morning.

  It must have been gone 11pm before I fell asleep. Once I was asleep I seemed to sleep as well as I expected to for a night after a previous terrible night. I know I woke up a couple of times in the night, and probably both were to go for a pee, but my memory of those events is so hazy - they could almost be poorly remembered dreams. One one of those occasions I know I turned the heater on low.

  Try as I might, I cannot seem to remember any of the dreams I am sure I had. I do seem to remember that I was dreaming, but none of the details of the dreams seems to have survived into daylight. The most definite thing I remember about the night was waking  up at about 5.50am, and thinking that was too early. I remember laying there with my eyes closed, and thinking about random stuff. It is possible that was a dream, and the fact I can't really remember what I was thinking about, strongly suggests some or all of it was a dream. Maybe the clincher was that it was suddenly 7.05am.

  This morning, despite what I ate yesterday, my blood glucose is back down into the good area. The Contour meter read a very good 7.4mmol/l. The GlucoRX meter read a bit higher at 7.6mmol/l. The Sinocare meter read the highest, as it often does, at 7.7mmol/l, but that is still in the light green area, and so is "good". Even my weight has come down a couple of hundred grams, although it could be a few more days for it get back to what it was - if I am good.

  My other health indicator is my blood pressure. Just now it was 109/47, and that is in the "Optimum", or better than "normal" area. It is becoming a real bother that while I seem to be fairly healthy in many ways, I can't capitalise on it by doing some simple walking exercise I would like to do (although maybe not on a now gloomy day day like today) to get even healthier. I hope my next hospital test, the CT scan in just under a fortnight now, will show a treatable problem, and I can get back to normal - ideally the normal that was in the middle of the worse pandemic of the century, the Covid 19 panic, when I don't think I have even been healthier !

  Today it is not impossible, but it is highly unlikely that I will be going out to get even the mildest of exercise, although I keep thinking I could possibly go to Aldi to get a few things that I can't get from Tesco. The only trouble is that it is only "a few things", and it ought to be a lot of things if I am to avoid using the self checkouts.  If I get too bored, and do go to Aldi, I would have to limit most of my choices to long life stuff like canned stuff, because I have no room in the freezer, and little room in the fridge.


 





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