Archive for the ‘health’ Category
Challenged
So this morning I had to go to the pathology place to do a Glucose Challenge. That sounds like an episode of Iron Chef (special ingredient Shu Ga), but it’s not as much fun. It’s a first check done at 28 weeks gestation which measures your levels of insulin to see if you’re at risk of developing gestational diabetes. If your results aren’t good you have to go in for the more formal Glucose Tolerance Test, which takes longer and needs more blood draws, and generally sounds unpleasant.
I wasn’t looking forward to this, partly because I kind of forgot about the test and have pretty much lived off mince pies and toblerone for the past week, and partly because my obstetrician made it sound so enticing.
“They’ll give you a drink that’s sickly sweet,” he said as he printed out the form. “It makes some people throw up. Do sweet drinks make you feel sick?”
“I don’t think so, I’m usually fine with sweet things,” I said, thinking of how I’m singlehandedly funding the social club at work through the chocolate cupboard.
“It will be like cordial,” he warned.
“Oh I love cordial.”
“Undiluted cordial?”
Well, who the hell can answer that question? I said something about thinking I’d be fine. Afterward Dave asked my I didn’t tell him I could eat a whole bag of jelly bellies in one sitting, but I didn’t think he needed to know stuff like that.
In the end it wasn’t so bad. The drink was lime fizzy, a bit like Gatorade. I’ve had worse cocktails. The only problem was having to skull such a large glass of it. Then I sat around in the waiting room for an hour or so. After about ten minutes the sugar rush hit; it was massive but again, no worse than some self-inflicted ones. It made me feel a bit weak and I wanted to lie down. By the time she called me to take blood I was pretty much back to normal. She warned me I’d feel tired afterwards but I actually feel pretty perky. Maybe I should have one of those drinks every day. Better than Berocca!
Anyway, I’m hoping the results will come back okay and I won’t have to do the glucose tolerance test. You have to fast for that one and it takes three hours, and those waiting room chairs aren’t comfortable enough to be doing that. Also, if I do develop gestational diabetes I’d have to give up pasta, and that’s just mean.