Monday, August 13, 2012

A maze of twisty little passages, all alike

I'm going to get a little geeky on you here for a second... When I was about 11 or so, we had this text-only game on our computer called "Adventure". If I remember correctly, the goal of the game was to go into this underground cave, fight monsters, collect treasure, and try not to get lost and die.

I came within one step of winning too... At the end you were supposed to drop a magical staff you were carrying before you went through a door. I didn't, and the result was that I blew myself up.

One of the most frustrating parts of the game was when getting lost in the maze. Whenever I would stumble into it, I could never get out. Whichever command I typed, it would spit back "you are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike".

Go south.


You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.


Turn right.


You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.


Turn around.


You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.


And so on... Until I was so lost, all I could do was turn the game off and walk away in frustration.

Lately I have found that trying to change any of Elise's pump settings is like being lost in that maze.

Waking high in the morning? Change her basal between 5-8. Now she wakes up low.


You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.

Low two hours after lunch? Change her I:C for lunchtime. Now she's running high.


You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.


A correction overnight drops her too low. Change her ISF. Now that high won't budge.


You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.


Get the picture? Each move gets me further into the maze and even more lost. I do wait at least three days to make sure what I need to fix isn't just some random weird blip on the radar, and I only change one thing at a time, but come on diabetes... Give a girl a break!


What I used to do when I would get hopelessly lost on the computer game is just start over. And I've started taking that approach with changes... I just go back to the original settings. And it seems to work. Every time. What can you do?

Just throw your hands up in the air and be thankful that I'm not blowing anybody up along the way.

8 comments:

  1. Me too, Joanne! I have a blog post almost finished about this very same thing - getting lost in the basals, looking back to my book about all my basal settings, and going back to the original. It's like hitting paydirt - BAM - it works. What the heck????
    Same same.

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  2. Gotta love those twisty little passages of diabetes...they have made many a grey hair over here!

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  3. Such a perfect comparison!
    And sometimes all you can do is start over...and it's beyond frustrating when the settings that were so not working suddenly become the ones that work. UGH!
    So glad you aren't blowing up in the process!! ;)

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  4. It seems like as soon as I think I need to change a setting, it reverses itself and so, I change nothing.
    I cannot imagine what it's like with a child.

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  5. I would have thrown that computer OUT THE WINDOW! My brother and I had one game on our Sega. It was the Lion King game and we could get to the very last part of the very last level, but we COULD NOT BEAT SCAR!!!

    I had a horrible diabetes week last week. I was about ready to increase every single setting I have. Then on Saturday and Sunday I had practically 48 hours of a no-hitter. Argh!

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  6. Bravo for waiting 3 days! I'm so impatient I often make daily changes further adding to the maze of twisty passages. Then when I finally say FORGET IT, close eyes, spin 3 times and take a blind path, I usually find my way out. Go figure.

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  7. I feel like I am in an endless maze, sometimes there are fun things around the turn, other times not so much!

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  8. wow. Sometimes you read something and you're like, "this is just effing brilliant" and that's how I feel right now. twisty little passages. ain't that the truth? unfortunately we can't turn the game off and walk away. bummer.
    keep at it though, EVENTUALLY we have to succeed to some degree right?! I mean, we won't be at the door of winning the game because there is no end but we can't stay in the maze forever. I don't think.

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