Honshū Day 1: Small train lines to Iwakuni
A tale as old as the hills: decent day of blood sugars after a high morning spike.
Today was Day 1 of my big train trip across Honshū island in Japan using local trains only. I woke up in my hotel in Shimonoseki just before 7 am; I was 138.
After the hotel buffet breakfast though, I was 224. I checked out and walked to the station and got on the first local train of a very long journey. After riding a while I checked again – 226.
But my corrective Humalog doses began to work. Too well. A couple hours later I was 93, and though I ate some glucose immediately because I knew it was still going down, I still got a low BG alarm about 20 minutes later.
But it was ok by lunch time, 114. And in fact, the rest of the day, it was pretty much between about 70 and 140, no matter what I did. A lot of walking around the station areas during my long transfers helped.
The strangest thing that happened today was in a small wooded park near Kushigahama Station. There is a large rock at the entrance, carved with the park’s name. But on top of it was a discarded Humalog pen. No needle, and I thought I could make out an expiration date of seven years ago.
Very odd to see something so extremely rare in the wild, but such a daily object for me. Let’s call it a ‘good sign’ for the trip. (The pen was empty though, so I couldn’t siphon any out for my own use.)
For my coffee and donut snack around 3:30, I was 82. I ate the donut, about 35g of carbs, without taking any insulin whatsoever. And it turned out to be the right move: I peaked at 109 afterwards, and was going low yet again by the time I got to my hotel later.
I had Indian food for dinner – a large naan that is always hard to dose for. I did it in two shots, but I still spiked a bit high.
Oh well. It was still under 200 for much of the night. I’ll take it. Great day to start the trip out with, overall.
