Julie Jay: Finding a Supermacs receipt is up there with a cheque for a lapdancing club

The gestational diabetes is back and this time round my motivation to get on board the diabetes train has been akin to a Junior Certer getting out of bed on a schoolday - reluctant, at best

Picture: iStock

My main problem is pricks. Nothing new there says you, but I’m pricking and pricking and just not drawing enough blood to get a proper reading.

This happens on the daily because I have gestational diabetes, just like during my first pregnancy, and I have to check my blood sugar levels.

Five frustrated prick attempts later, I make up an insulin reading, meaning so far my stat list, much like Hilaria Baldwin’s accent, is essentially a work of fiction.

During the week, my hospital touches base and I have to give a brief rundown of my numbers over the phone. The medical practitioner at the other end is impressed upon hearing the figures.

“Julie, you’re doing great,” she says, and what I want to say in response is, ‘well, of course I am, because I made these up’, but instead I say “thank you” because why not take the compliment?

Changing the needle in the glucose meter has resulted in me traipsing around the county asking various pharmacists for help. Given that this is not my first rodeo you would think I would be better equipped at this, but as my accountant would attest, I’m not great at adult things like savings and self-prickage.

Regardless of the situation, I tend to run my life by committee, so it should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever met me that chemists up and down Kerry have been invited, at my behest, into giving me an oul prick.

Perhaps it is the pregnancy insomnia but, at one point, I could swear I spotted a man on Main Street with a sandwich board charging €10 for a pizza, a pint and a prick.

After mastering the technique in the chemist’s shop, I return home to find I am once again, inexplicably, useless at this. So much so, Fred has been recruited as my resident Pricker.

He jumps at the chance to assist me in the drawing blood side of things, with a little too much vigour, if I’m honest.

Much like Chief Brody announcing the need for a bigger boat in Jaws, Fred has decided on a bigger needle. My husband invests the whole process with a distinctly sinister element by whispering, “I love you”, before piercing my skin.

I need a few extra pricks to get the blood going - I would like to think this is because Fred isn’t very good but have my suspicions he is taking a sadistic pleasure in watching me having chickens every time he takes the machine out of the box.

On one occasion, I study his face after I squeal the house down and can only liken his expression to when Matt Damon and Ben Affleck won the Oscar for Good Will Hunting - one of pure unadulterated glee.

Suddenly, I am reminded of Patrick Bergen in Sleeping With The Enemy and make a mental note to start the swimming lessons with immediate effect.

Though I haven’t reached peak gestational diabetes, I am doing my best to stave off the insulin injections by changing my diet accordingly. No takeaways, very little bread, no sweet treats, and mostly I have been sticking to it pretty well. That being said, if you spotted a woman who looks like me tucking into a cream bun in Dingle recently, please know that this was, in fact, my doppelganger.

What’s that, you ask? Oh, this cream-like substance around my mouth is in fact, toothpaste. Case closed.

Fred has been happy to support me in our healthier approach by also forgoing treats, which has made the adjustment much easier. It’s all been going swimmingly until this afternoon when I go to put a wash on. Reaching into Fred’s jeans pockets, I make a devastating discovery. I pull out receipts for a recent visit to Supermacs, and it is up there with finding a cheque for a lap-dancing club. This is peak adultery, surely?

When confronted, Fred immediately owns up.

“It’s true,” Fred admits, raising his hands to affect surrender. “Last night, I had a chicken burger meal in Barack Obama Plaza.”

Of course, if I had any integrity at all, I would have used this moment to confess to my slip-up and illicit dalliance with a cream bun. (You got me - there is no doppelganger! Je ne regrette rien).

“Was it nice?” I ask.

Fred is suddenly reminiscent of Ross in Friends, in that episode where Rachel asks him if his night with Chloe was ‘good’. The only acceptable answer here is ‘it was terrible’, but Fred, being Fred, responds with “it was lovely”. His honesty only rubs more illicit salt into my gaping Supermacs wounds.

So deep in conversation are we that neither of us notices that Ted has managed to find an opened pack of Haribo in my handbag (I was minding them for a friend) and consumed the entire contents. As he runs up and down the hall like a maniac, I check the sugar levels on the back of the bag and am pretty sure we will be reported to Tusla for this one.

I turn to finish putting out the wash and Fred comes up and hugs me.

“The Supermacs was nice,” he tells me. “But it was no Julie chicken dinner.”

And suddenly we are back on track. I end the day with one last reading - this time we get it on the first go, a miracle, and my bloods are well within remit. I treat myself to an apple as a reward and retire to bed absolutely weak for myself.

Going forward, it will be honest numbers only - except when it comes to my tax returns, obviously.