hello bangaru bujju konda,
I know it's been a long time we had a connect, almost a month and a half. Call it fate or coincidence this delay is for 13th post, a number which is commonly believed to be unlucky. Let me tell you I am not one of those who believes in things like that and get this across.
Lot of things have happened since then, two doctor visits, two childbirth classes, your peddiaha's trip to Hyderabad with your brother Ram, World Cup. I will try to cover some of these in details.
Let's first get over the doctor's stuff.
Doctor Visits -
The first doctor's visit wasn't much of a thing to talk about. Everything was ok, not much to be concerned about. She confirmed that it is perfectly fine to continue driving till your Amma can. In the next week or the one after Amma undertook GTT exam as was scheduled to monitor the sugar levels. The results weren't encouraging. Do you remember me telling Amma was too sweet during earlier time? It's the same again. It was little disconcerting. We made some phone calls to your Lakshmi avva and she told us to be take some steps to correct mainly in the way food is being consumed, and the amount of food intake, quality of food intake etc.
In few days time one afternoon, I got a call from Fernandez. The lady at the other end had got hold of the report and she said that that level of sugar is absolutely not good and as top most priority we had to consult nutritionist at the earliest possible time. She further added that one more check up needs to be done in 2 weeks time frame. It really scared the hell out of me with the way she told and seeing the urgency in her voice. It was a weekday and the day was almost ending. On inquiry the only available nutritionist was at Hyderguda which was like almost 20 Kms away but we didn't have choice. Amma was initially reluctant saying to let this wait till weekend and then we can consult the nutritionist. I wasn't ready for that and made it clear we had to do it the very next day and that I would make an appointment. We weren't on the same page and Amma was quite a bit furious that I was making a mountain out of a molehill. Begrudgingly though, she was the one who phoned around and made an appointment for the next day evening.
I had taken a half-day leave on that day even though hours before I came to know that our appointment had been scheduled for the evening from morning. I had badly wanted some break, hence came home early during lunch and was able to catch all the action going on in house with your Peddiah, Peddamma, Avva and Ram. Avva had taken leave for almost 3 weeks to stay with them. Thanks to the delay I was able to help out with some shopping for Peddiah and do some house work etc.
Around 4:30 P.M. I reached your Amma's office and from there on we went to the nutritionist. To our utmost surprise there was hardly any waiting time and only 2 patients were in queue. When booking the appointment the folks from hospital had told us that all the "available" slots were over and that as a special case they were considering us. It ticked us off to no end on seeing that it was all bunkum. I mean quite literally the floor was empty barring 2 patients who were ahead of us. Had the attendant who had made our appointment been there in front of Amma, she would have just melted down like a iron cast in molten liquid. I made her cool down and in a few moments time it was our turn.
The doctor was a nice slim and petite lady dressed in sari who looked like she practiced what she preached. Once the pleasantries were exchanged we got down to the actual stuff. We told her about the results of fasting blood sugar report, the earlier history of similar spike that we detected, our current eating habits, some questions on intensity of the sugar level i.e. if it really meant that she had become diabetic or if it was only a temporary state. To the last one she agreed with Amma's conjecture that she was not a diabetic and also that during pregnancy it is normal for some hormone levels to fluctuate and cause such imbalance. You should have seen the triumphant look on your Amma's face, like that of someone who has won million dollar lottery and has just got her lottery ticket numbers confirmed, to which all I could offer her was a sheepish grin. As she was talking to us, she took out a brochure and started going through each of them that mentioned what kind of fruits were good to eat by pointing to various things within the brochure. It got me to thinking if only I had a chance to flick that thing from our countless trips to Fernandez, we would have saved all our trip and additional 400 bucks.
After finishing what she had to say, she brought out her notepad and started listing down things to eat at proper time. Here is how it goes -
7:30 A.M. Milk
9:30 A.M. Idli ( Urad Dal (3) : Wheat (1)) / Pesarattu / Upma (Dalia rava) with chutney
11:30 A.M. Soya Milk
1:00 P.M. Rice with Green Leafy Vegetable(GLV) Curry & Soya chunks / Vegetable Curry & 6 piece Paneer
5:00 P.M. 50 gms Channa/Lobia/Rajma
Hard task I must tell you especially when this is the stage Amma might feel some hunger pangs to eat stuff like ice cream, chocolates etc and added to that she has a sweet tooth. For the few days following our meeting, she wasn't able to adhere to it strictly as there were too many people at home and too many parties at stake.
Once they were gone I wanted to tighten it to the maximum which led to scores of tiffs between us. You see her reasoning is, the doctors usually exaggerate things more than necessary and that she is perfectly capable of being a good judge of herself, hence it should be okay to indulge once in a while for eating chips or pani-puri or some pala kayalu etc. For me even a small deviation from the prescribed routine is completely non acceptable. First off we aren't doctors, and there was a reason why this "sugar" level are so VERY important.
Remember the last meeting with Evita that I wrote about in my earlier post? She made a very nice representation of the situation. It's like this. Imagine a weighing balance, sugar level on the left, air to baby's (i.e. for you) on the right. More sugar less air, less sugar more air. It's that siimple. It was a delightful sight seeing Evita perform this simple routine with her hands.
This was the image that was stuck in mind and I wanted to take no risks at all. Your Avva was a party to our non-stop arguments and having a difficult role in deciding who was right (of course I was ) and who was wrong. She consulted her sister and we now have solution. Have a Glucometer in hand to do the checking ourselves, a practice that is quite common in the west and to take readings periodically. That way self-imposed regulation would kick in and our lives would be glorious ever after (note- there is a happiness even in fights).
Last week, we have got two sets of machines, one from Indrani Avva and one from Vasundara Avva. The one taken from latter was an imported one from US for which the testing strips were hard to get here, hence had to search for another one. Once we had it, last Saturday we went to Vijaya to standardize it (i.e. taking readings from the our machine and the sample taken from them) and more importantly to check for how are her sugar levels now. The machine gave a doka as the battery in it was not working. The results from the hospital though was not encouraging. The blood level before fasting has shot up one point more than the last time - 107 when the normal is supposed to be around 98. Poor Amma, she was praying and hoping that it would be low .
Again Jeijeyya (who had come here over weekend), Avva, Amma and I sat together and wanted to see where to plug-in the leaks and to see diet plan is followed to the tilt. Your Avva was very supportive and assured Amma not to be disappointed and that we can easily fight back and get some control. She also added since it was only for a week the plan actually kicked in, it is only matter of time before the levels reach to normal.
Starting this Monday, your Amma has been on strict diet again (with absolute no deviation, wonderful I must tell you) and also doing her exercises regularly (lessons from childbirth classes). To support her I have also resolved to stop eating junk, stop eating outside food, stop eating oily foods, stick with only home food. I must confess I have a hunger pangs akin to a 2 year old and that I wasn't able to resist eating something during snack time. From today I would try again. Your Amma though is very strong and determined lady with a strong will.
This coming Sunday we would be getting tests done again this time along with the instrument (last time it wasn't working). Fingers crossed and hoping for the best.
I planned to cover everything in one post but seeing that this has been a lengthy one, let me put it another post.
The rest to be continued in part - 2.
I know it's been a long time we had a connect, almost a month and a half. Call it fate or coincidence this delay is for 13th post, a number which is commonly believed to be unlucky. Let me tell you I am not one of those who believes in things like that and get this across.
Lot of things have happened since then, two doctor visits, two childbirth classes, your peddiaha's trip to Hyderabad with your brother Ram, World Cup. I will try to cover some of these in details.
Let's first get over the doctor's stuff.
Doctor Visits -
The first doctor's visit wasn't much of a thing to talk about. Everything was ok, not much to be concerned about. She confirmed that it is perfectly fine to continue driving till your Amma can. In the next week or the one after Amma undertook GTT exam as was scheduled to monitor the sugar levels. The results weren't encouraging. Do you remember me telling Amma was too sweet during earlier time? It's the same again. It was little disconcerting. We made some phone calls to your Lakshmi avva and she told us to be take some steps to correct mainly in the way food is being consumed, and the amount of food intake, quality of food intake etc.
In few days time one afternoon, I got a call from Fernandez. The lady at the other end had got hold of the report and she said that that level of sugar is absolutely not good and as top most priority we had to consult nutritionist at the earliest possible time. She further added that one more check up needs to be done in 2 weeks time frame. It really scared the hell out of me with the way she told and seeing the urgency in her voice. It was a weekday and the day was almost ending. On inquiry the only available nutritionist was at Hyderguda which was like almost 20 Kms away but we didn't have choice. Amma was initially reluctant saying to let this wait till weekend and then we can consult the nutritionist. I wasn't ready for that and made it clear we had to do it the very next day and that I would make an appointment. We weren't on the same page and Amma was quite a bit furious that I was making a mountain out of a molehill. Begrudgingly though, she was the one who phoned around and made an appointment for the next day evening.
I had taken a half-day leave on that day even though hours before I came to know that our appointment had been scheduled for the evening from morning. I had badly wanted some break, hence came home early during lunch and was able to catch all the action going on in house with your Peddiah, Peddamma, Avva and Ram. Avva had taken leave for almost 3 weeks to stay with them. Thanks to the delay I was able to help out with some shopping for Peddiah and do some house work etc.
Around 4:30 P.M. I reached your Amma's office and from there on we went to the nutritionist. To our utmost surprise there was hardly any waiting time and only 2 patients were in queue. When booking the appointment the folks from hospital had told us that all the "available" slots were over and that as a special case they were considering us. It ticked us off to no end on seeing that it was all bunkum. I mean quite literally the floor was empty barring 2 patients who were ahead of us. Had the attendant who had made our appointment been there in front of Amma, she would have just melted down like a iron cast in molten liquid. I made her cool down and in a few moments time it was our turn.
The doctor was a nice slim and petite lady dressed in sari who looked like she practiced what she preached. Once the pleasantries were exchanged we got down to the actual stuff. We told her about the results of fasting blood sugar report, the earlier history of similar spike that we detected, our current eating habits, some questions on intensity of the sugar level i.e. if it really meant that she had become diabetic or if it was only a temporary state. To the last one she agreed with Amma's conjecture that she was not a diabetic and also that during pregnancy it is normal for some hormone levels to fluctuate and cause such imbalance. You should have seen the triumphant look on your Amma's face, like that of someone who has won million dollar lottery and has just got her lottery ticket numbers confirmed, to which all I could offer her was a sheepish grin. As she was talking to us, she took out a brochure and started going through each of them that mentioned what kind of fruits were good to eat by pointing to various things within the brochure. It got me to thinking if only I had a chance to flick that thing from our countless trips to Fernandez, we would have saved all our trip and additional 400 bucks.
After finishing what she had to say, she brought out her notepad and started listing down things to eat at proper time. Here is how it goes -
7:30 A.M. Milk
9:30 A.M. Idli ( Urad Dal (3) : Wheat (1)) / Pesarattu / Upma (Dalia rava) with chutney
11:30 A.M. Soya Milk
1:00 P.M. Rice with Green Leafy Vegetable(GLV) Curry & Soya chunks / Vegetable Curry & 6 piece Paneer
5:00 P.M. 50 gms Channa/Lobia/Rajma
Hard task I must tell you especially when this is the stage Amma might feel some hunger pangs to eat stuff like ice cream, chocolates etc and added to that she has a sweet tooth. For the few days following our meeting, she wasn't able to adhere to it strictly as there were too many people at home and too many parties at stake.
Once they were gone I wanted to tighten it to the maximum which led to scores of tiffs between us. You see her reasoning is, the doctors usually exaggerate things more than necessary and that she is perfectly capable of being a good judge of herself, hence it should be okay to indulge once in a while for eating chips or pani-puri or some pala kayalu etc. For me even a small deviation from the prescribed routine is completely non acceptable. First off we aren't doctors, and there was a reason why this "sugar" level are so VERY important.
Remember the last meeting with Evita that I wrote about in my earlier post? She made a very nice representation of the situation. It's like this. Imagine a weighing balance, sugar level on the left, air to baby's (i.e. for you) on the right. More sugar less air, less sugar more air. It's that siimple. It was a delightful sight seeing Evita perform this simple routine with her hands.
This was the image that was stuck in mind and I wanted to take no risks at all. Your Avva was a party to our non-stop arguments and having a difficult role in deciding who was right (of course I was ) and who was wrong. She consulted her sister and we now have solution. Have a Glucometer in hand to do the checking ourselves, a practice that is quite common in the west and to take readings periodically. That way self-imposed regulation would kick in and our lives would be glorious ever after (note- there is a happiness even in fights).
Last week, we have got two sets of machines, one from Indrani Avva and one from Vasundara Avva. The one taken from latter was an imported one from US for which the testing strips were hard to get here, hence had to search for another one. Once we had it, last Saturday we went to Vijaya to standardize it (i.e. taking readings from the our machine and the sample taken from them) and more importantly to check for how are her sugar levels now. The machine gave a doka as the battery in it was not working. The results from the hospital though was not encouraging. The blood level before fasting has shot up one point more than the last time - 107 when the normal is supposed to be around 98. Poor Amma, she was praying and hoping that it would be low .
Again Jeijeyya (who had come here over weekend), Avva, Amma and I sat together and wanted to see where to plug-in the leaks and to see diet plan is followed to the tilt. Your Avva was very supportive and assured Amma not to be disappointed and that we can easily fight back and get some control. She also added since it was only for a week the plan actually kicked in, it is only matter of time before the levels reach to normal.
Starting this Monday, your Amma has been on strict diet again (with absolute no deviation, wonderful I must tell you) and also doing her exercises regularly (lessons from childbirth classes). To support her I have also resolved to stop eating junk, stop eating outside food, stop eating oily foods, stick with only home food. I must confess I have a hunger pangs akin to a 2 year old and that I wasn't able to resist eating something during snack time. From today I would try again. Your Amma though is very strong and determined lady with a strong will.
This coming Sunday we would be getting tests done again this time along with the instrument (last time it wasn't working). Fingers crossed and hoping for the best.
I planned to cover everything in one post but seeing that this has been a lengthy one, let me put it another post.
The rest to be continued in part - 2.
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