I saw my endo the other day and it was such an awesome appointment!!! I've only had one appointment with him before so wasn't sure what to expect for the second one. He spent almost an hour with me looking over readings and discussing things. He wasn't able to spot any patterns (other than that my readings are unstable!) so didn't change any insulin doses. He was most concerned with the lows I'm having lately, so suggested I change my duration of insulin action to four hours from three, which I did. I've still had lows since the appointment so also lowered my basal rates.

He also thinks my A1c of 7.3 is a bit too high, and wants to work on getting it a bit lower. Soooooo refreshing from my old endo who just gave up and said that was "good enough for [me]" (literally his words), and he'd be happy if 50% of my readings were in range. My new endo was also concerned I didn't have a glucagon kit so prescribed one, even though I live alone I will fill the prescription and perhaps give it to a friend or my parents to keep around their place. He also gave me the name of a diabetes nurse he thinks can help with my reactions to infusion sets. He had no problem when I told him I wasn't taking cholesterol medication; said as long as I was informed, it was my decision to make, not his. He also weighed me and I found I lost three pounds during the past three months. It's not much but at least it's something, and the effort I've been putting in is paying off slowly.

It was such a great appointment. I actually left feeling happy and optimistic instead of frustrated and depressed!

In other news, I got a bunch of gift cards for Christmas and used them to buy a Fitbit and a Garmin FR70 heart rate monitor. I had a Timex HR monitor in the past but can't find it since I moved, and wanted something that connected to the computer. So far I LOVE the Fitbit!!! So worth the money!!! It's so motivating to see how active I am and really motivates me to do things like take stairs instead of elevators, etc.

I also like the HR monitor a lot, especially the computer download (partly why I splurged, I really like the download of my swim watch and this uses the same website). I need to talk to my doctor about some things ... Mostly my ankles/toes hurt too much for me to go very fast for very long on the treadmill, even though the rest of my body could do it no problem. (We have a gym in my apartment building, and I'd like to use it every day since it's free and since I love swimming but don't have time to do that every day.) I also can't get my HR above about 120 no matter how hard I work out. I think this is from taking a beta blocker, but I'd like to ask my cardiologist how I should adjust exercise goals for it. I worked with a personal trainer a year or two ago who said I should have a heart rate of 140-150 when I exercise, which I'm pretty sure is impossible now. My cardiologist has said I'm fine to do any exercise I want, no restrictions or anything, but he might know about how I could adjust my target.

Overall I'm feeling super optimistic and good about my health this year! I really want to get better diabetes control and lose weight (and not ending up in the hospital repeatedly for random problems would be good, too) this year. I'm not setting any specific goals because they are hard to meet, but just to put in 100% effort and make any progress would be good!