Once a year….

That loud THUMP was me falling off the blood sugar control wagon. On the bright side, the vampire bat that bit me Halloween night went into an immediate comma and died from the high level of glucose he sucked out of my neck.

All week long I had been brave. My boss put out a candy bowl about the size of a hot tub, full of Hershey bars, Crunch bars, Snickers, Ressese Peanut Butter cups, Kit Kats, Three Musketeers and a couple of others. The bowl was a symphony of color.

As the week drug on it became increasingly monochrome. By Halloween day it was brown and blue. Only the Hershey bars and the Crunch bars remained, apparently the least favored among our crew. It didn’t surprise me that the Heresy bars were left (borrrrring), but crunch bars? Come on!

I happen to love them…

They are really small.

How much harm could it do?

Bad error of judgment on my part. Once the gates were open the carb barbarians plundered the city. My sugar went through the roof and my judgment went through the floor.

I left work early on Halloween to take in the costume parade at Rio’s kindergarten. Sooooooo cute! 128 five-year-olds in costume! Fun, fun, fun. Rio was a bat. His mother made him a clever top with wings he could flap by flapping his arms.

Then it was time for trick-or-treating.

Locally, families take young kids to pillage the business district. Although the local businessmen and women take it in stride, I’ve always felt it was wrong to take advantage of businesses you don’t patronize. Most of those people only set foot in these establishments once per year, and that’s just to get free stuff for their kids, then it’s off to Wal-mart to spend their pay checks.

We vowed to only take Rio to businesses we did business with, plus his various Tias (Spanish for Aunties) and of course his Nana.

I can’t fucking believe that sooooooo much candy came from so few places. By my best estimate Rio took home eight-hundred-thousand-four-hundred-twenty-seven carbs of candy from a mere 12 locations. The problem with patronizing places you patronize is that they are generous in return. And for a family brimming with T-2s, Rio’s Tias bought him an insane amount of goodies. Oh yeah, and he brought home several bags from the school to… eye-yi-yi….

To her credit, his Nana (Deb’s Mom), came up with the most sensible collection including raisins and granola bars. One of his Tias gave him bags of nacho cheese Doritos because she didn’t want him having too many sweets. I bit my tongue.

To his credit, Rio doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth; but this was about accumulating wealth. He was after a high body count. The winner is the one with the most tonnage.

He was the winner.

I was the looser.

Yeah, right good plan. Let’s take the heroin addict and lock him in a room full of bags, and bags, and bags, and bags of heroin. Does heroin actually come in bags?

Of course once my blood sugar went up, my hunger went up with it. The more I ate the higher I went. The higher I went, the more I needed. The vicious cycle had begun. The insulin shots became a blur of injection after injection and the roller coaster ride began.

Once the flood gates were open, it didn’t stop with the candy. I was into the pound cake I had watched my T-3s eat with no temptation just days before. But it didn’t stop there.

I put vanilla ice cream on the pound cake.

And chocolate sauce.

And whipped cream.

And walnuts.

Where the hell are the maraschino cherries?

I didn’t die in the night, but I’m sure I was flooded with ketones.

The next day I was into the pasta.

On the third day I finally got a hold of myself while surfing EBay. Huh. I wonder what the link between high blood sugar and addiction is? Excuse me while I delete all of these snipes at eSnipe.

Ok, now I’m back. But even after I stopped eating, it took days for the sugar to get out of my blood stream. Like fallout from a nuclear detonation, the residual radiation of the sugar binge stuck with me. My body strived for homoeostasis at a blood sugar level of 225.

I felt like crap. Oh well it’s only once per year.

But then there is Thanksgiving.

Followed by Christmas.

Followed by Valentines Day.

Followed by Easter….

Followed by…..