Blood sugar meter, and my Christmas watch.

It rained and rained all day, but the temps were still above freezing, and that is good because if that had been snow, it would have covered the house.  But slowly we have been loosing the temps all day, and tonight it is still raining and down to 36.

We are to be at freezing by morning, and if the rain doesn't stop, you know what will happen next......

I spent most of the middle of the day researching blood sugar testing meters.  This required a lot of reading and you tube watching on the internet.  But slowly I decided that I liked the Freestyle Lite by Abbott Labs.

There were two different meters that were both Freestyle Lite.  The second was called a Freestyle Freedom Lite, and had bigger display numbers for those that were visually challenged.  But you gave up some features to get the big display, like the back lighting and strip lights.

The little light shines on the end of the strip where you are drawing in the blood, which I thought was helpful here in the winter, when daylight isn't up before you are.  The strips have test spots on both sides rather than in the end, so that helps with placing the meter on the blood spot depending on whether you are testing the right or left hand.  You can't just keep poking the same finger all the time......

It also takes the smallest amount of blood to test of any of the machines out on the market, and you can test on your arms.  So over to Wal Mart, with Walgreens as a backup source.

Wal Mart had both models, but the boxes are sealed and unless you had done your research ahead of time you wouldn't have any idea what was really in the box. I grabbed the straight "Lite" without the big display but with the light system.

But that was when I learned that the strips are over the top expensive.  Makes sense, small amount of blood and no machine coding, equals higher price.  50 strips were $63, Wow..  The machines are much cheaper at $18 for either one.  I think they almost give you the machine so that you will use their strips.

After sales taxes I had $85 in this new machine idea.  I will take it with me to the hospital, as they want to test your sugar about every 3 hours, and their machines use about a quart of blood each time.  I told the docs that we would be using my machine, and they agreed that the hospital equipment was from the dark ages.

I also received a Christmas present from me, to me, in the form of a new watch for the collection.  Loyce helped me pick it out the other day last week.  It is a midnight blue ceramic bracelet, skeleton dial, automatic movement.  It is so light, but can be a bear to size.  So I spent better than an hour tonight getting the bracelet shortened up for my stubby arm....

I got it out of the mail box when Loyce wasn't looking, as I was afraid she would say I had to wait until Christmas to open it...........  But I might still be in the hospital, and there would be no way to size it there.

Most of the time, it is recommended that a jeweler size ceramic bracelets, since they use teeny tiny collars over the bracelet pins.  Takes tweezers to even pick them up.  I had to take out 4 links, driving out that many pins and not loosing the tiny collars.  You put them back in with a jewelers hammer, so careful is the watchword.  Pun intended......

Anyway that was my day, and Loyce was gone all day shopping, and I didn't even ask where..... do I really want to know?

Retired Rod