If it's Saturday, it must be St. Paul.

I've finally got back to the twin cities, after finding half the world has moved here. The exception is my brother who just left a couple of years back. So on to the ramble.

The Drive was better than I thought, since I thought I would fall asleep behind the wheel after 2 hours to anywhere. However, I've found out some very nasty things.

One, it is possible to overdose on Sorbitol. One if my routines when driving is chewing Orbit Bubblemint and downing Eclipse Winterfrost mints like there is no tomorrow. Both have Sorbitol a sugar alcohol substitute. One of the reason I do this is to keep my mouth happy, thus causing me to stay awake and not run into the minivan filled with Nuns and orphan kids. (There's an express ticket to hell.) Since I'm diabetic I try to avoid sugar when I can, hence the need for the Sorbitol. However, soon after arriving in the Twin Cities part of my body feel like they have gone to another country and started drinking the pond water. The Odd thing is this happen the week before, and the week before that. Almost like clockwork.

Last time, this happen was in College when I would get a headache at 2 PM every Sunday and would clear up by dinnertime. Turns out that my body was going through Caffeine withdrawal. Hmmmmmmmm.....

Let's run it down. Two weeks, I drove to Des Monies for a conferences, then last week the HP and I took the kids to Adventureland. Both road trip with my usual routine, and a couple of days afterwards of me finishing off my supply of Eclipse mints. All followed by spending more time in the bathroom than a ten dollar hooker on payday. A little research and you guess it: Sorbitol! One more thing to scratch off the list. Other side effects: Gas. (Yeah, like I need that!), High Blood Sugar readings (Oh Shit, why don't you just say my head could explode.)
Truth to be told, the blood sugar reading are a result of my biochemistry and the sorbitol working together in interesting ways. Which leads me to my next point.

300 mg/dL! You gotta be Shitting Me! I admitt I have not been as diligent about watch what I eat, but I haven't had a donut in weeks and only one funnel cake in the past week. Some of this maybe the Sorbitol, but I hope it's not my pancreas giving up the ghost. I though I had this under control, before my lancet device failed. Which brings me to my next point. I'm sure all of you have seen those diabetic ads for all kinds of stuff. (Aside: I'm always tickled by the TV shows that have diabetic and ED ads in the same break time. Makes me think of old fat guys in wheelchairs with boners.) One of the ads is for the OneTouch Ultra Mini.

Sure, it's cute and small, but it's a pain in the ass. The unit is sold as being hip, small and convenient. I picked up one of these units for free at the local Hy-Vee store from the local rep pitching the product to the pharmacy customers. What they don't tell you is you have to dragging all the other crap with you: test strips, lancets, lancet device, and the case to carry it all. The picture makes it seem the unit carries the strips, HA! You load one test strip for each time you test. My old Accu-check Compact has all the test strips loaded into a drum so it's one less thing to carry. It's about three times the volume, but the case size for all the accessories is only 50% larger than the OneTouch. So I'm sticking with the Accu-check