In One Piece... Just

I'm back in England after my week on the Italian slopes, and have finally crawled out from beneath the mountain of dirty ski clothes that needed laundering! Fortunately I'm all in one piece, if only just!

I was pleased to discover that I can still ski, although my leg strength isn't quite what it was prior to my ankle injuries, which has clearly had some effect on my technique and ability. I also earned a reputation as a cautious skier, since fear of further injury dented my confidence somewhat and I wasn't quite as keen as they guys in the group to hurl myself down any old black run at the highest speed possible!

It turns out that caution doesn't always pay, though, as I still managed to have two accidents. On the very first afternoon we set off to ski back down to the village. Unbeknown to me, someone had evidently taped a luminous "Snowboarders aim here" sign to the back of my jacket as I was hit by out of control snowboarders not once, not twice, but THREE times on the way down. The third time, just around the corner from the final drop into Sauze, a snowboarder turned across me and ran straight over my ski tips catapulting me in to the air and tearing my calf muscles. The snowboarder riding the chairlift above heard very clearly what I thought of snowboarders at that point! Thanks to wonderful friends, lots of ice and massage, I was back on the slopes the following morning though.

The second accident occurred on Friday while we were over at the resort of Montgenevre, in France, at the far end of the Milky Way ski area. We'd had a pretty good morning, although we accidentally took a complete beginner down a very steep red run with zero visibility due to a sudden snow storm! This was thanks partly to poor signposting and a crappy piste map - what kind of piste map shows higher areas of the resort nearer the bottom of the map than lower ones?! I skiied that run twice, but then came unstuck on another, probably less difficult, red run just before lunch where I hit unexpected ice and twisted my knee. It took until yesterday for the full glory of the bruising to emerge, so I still managed to ski out the week on Saturday.

On Thursday night we enjoyed dinner at the top of the mountain. We played football in ski boots (as difficult as it sounds) and went bum-boarding, which basically involves sitting on a plastic dish and sliding, down the bottom of the empty pistes, before eating a lovely meal. I elected to indulge in the included wine and so, rather than skiing down to the village in the dark, we rode down on a Skidoo. What I didn't realise was that the Skidoo driver was going to take us straight down the same ski run as the skiers. No quiet track through the woods, but straight down steep Red-11 in the pitch dark with  the snow cannons blowing. All I could do was close my eyes and hang on tight! I have to say this was probably the scariest experience of the whole week, far scarier than standing at the top of any black run and realising the only way is down!

Diabetes-wise it was an interesting week. My blood sugars were fairly well behaved, but there is also lots of CGM data that mimics the mountains and valleys we were surrounded by.

I discovered that the CGM alarms are pretty useless when you are skiing. They would invariably go off when I wasn't easily able to stop and deal with them, progresssively escalating to irritating sirens that distracted me from the skiing. After the first day I turned the high and low alerts right off during the day and simply checked my numbers and trends at the beginning and end of every run. I also discovered that keeping my basal rates the same, but not bolusing for food worked well. I ate a fairly standard breakfast, generally stopped for hot chocolate mid-morning and ate a fairly standard lunch. It's the first time I've tried this approach, so I think the jury will be out until I've experimented a bit more with it.

Another thing I learned this week was that keeping tubes of glucose gel in the cargo-style pockets on the side of my ski trousers wasn't a good idea. At some point I must have fallen one of these, leaving me with a very sticky, messy pocket!

The only other significant diabetes happening was when I'd obviously failed to tuck my tubing back in properly after checking my pump on a chairlift. Somehow the tubing got snagged on the chair as I skied off the lift. It twanged back pretty quickly, but not before dislodging my infusion set. I've now added "the top of a mountain" to the list of odd places I've inserted a new infusion set!

Overall it was a fantastic week, even if our hotel rep was something of a prat, the hotel food was less than gourmet and we had to up ridiculously early for both our outward an return flights. It was wonderful skiing and wonderful company, and good to spend a whole week with Rob. To the right is instructor Luciano who patiently tried to beat my bad habit of turning my upper body out of me, and helped me work on perfecting  proper pole plants, so I'm also definitely a better skier now than I was a week ago. Honestly you've got to envy this guy though - he teaches sailing all summer and skiing all winter...

Can't wait for my next snow fix!

Comments

[Colleen]

Gee, sounds (and looks) like a great trip.

[Randee]

Seems like you had a great time! Just wondering, where did you keep your pump & meter while skiing? I've been snowboarding and have trouble keeping the meter warm enough. When I went, i cut my basal rates by 50% and that seemed to work out ok, although i've only gone for 3-4 hours at a time so far.

[Caro]

Yes, I did have a great time :-)

Randee - I kept my meter (a Freestyle Flash) plus a bottle of strips and Multiclix in the inside pocket of my jacket. As I was wearing an insulated jacket rather than a shell, this seemed to work ok. I certainly never had any problems with the meter not working due to cold. I ski with a camelback rucksack and also kept a complete meter kit in there (I once dropped a testing kit from a chairlift!) plus a third bottle of strips in a case with all my other medication. You can get Camelbacks with specific pockets for heat pack inserts (those gel packs you snap and they magically warm up) to keep the rucksack contents warm, but I don't know what the risk of overheating would then be.

Admittedly the weather was not the coldest I've known, and I didn't try using my meter at 9am at the very top of the mountain, so the jacket pocket may not always work. In the dim and distant past I wore bibbed salopettes, that had a pocket in the bib that worked well, but I wouldn't even consider wearing those now! You might be able to find a fleece with a zip up pocket that could be worn under your jacket and so be warmer. I kept my pump mostly in my trouser pocket, which lay beneath my jacket and was out of the side "fall zone" (the bits I tend to land on if I fall). If you wear quite baggy boarding trousers, pockets in these that also lie under your jacket may work for your meter. I guess you could make a specifically insulated pouch from an old glove or sock and keep your meter inside that in a pocket too. Makes it more fiddly to get at, but if it works it may be worth it. Hope you work something out.

I've tried cutting basals in the past, and also found it worked quite well, although I had quite a bit of variability, which is why I decided to experiment with a different approach this time.

Oh, and I don't really hate snowboarders... several good friends, and my brother, are boarders. I may even be persuaded to try it myself sometime... ;-)

[Scott K. Johnson]

Sounds like a really great time!

I must say, having "top of a mountain" on your list of infusion set changes is pretty impressive!