Addiction

You may have seen this already.  On the JDRF group on LinkedIn, a member named Michelle asked the following question:

 I had a parent recently tell me her child is addicted to diabetes like an alcoholic…what are your thoughts on this concept?

 This question generated quite a flurry of interesting responses.  You can read them here (you need to be logged in to LinkedIn to see it).  But it also really got me thinking about what it means to be addicted to something like diabetes.

Two lessons per day

After three decades, you’d think I’ve got it all figured out.  Well, here are 14 lessons that I’ve learned over the past week.

1. If the CGM sensor seems to be dead, it probably is.  Even if it eventually comes back in line with my actual BG, don’t get excited.  Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
2. Sometimes, feeling low sucks.  Other times, it feels like an enormous weight (300 milligrams of glucose, per deciliter to be precise) has been lifted off my shoulders.
   

   The best news I’ve had all day!

3. I may choose to ignore the advice that hot tubs are not good for PWDs..  But I should’ve kept the insulin pump (kept dry but not cold by Aquapac) out on the deck.  Heat kills insulin.
4. Just because the Aquapac keeps a pump – located INSIDE – dry, it doesn’t do the same for a cell phone located next to but OUTSIDE of it.
   

Wordless Wednesday: Anniversary

Every time I walk up the stairs of my home, I come face-to-face with this picture, taking eight years ago today.

#dblogweek – Day 7 – Diabetes Hero

Well, I’m back from my short vacation.  In four days, I’ve wasted four infusion sets, three reservoirs (one used twice), a CGM sensor, a half-full bottle of Novolog, seventy or so One Touch Ultra strips, a thrice-used syringe, a bright-purple ketone test-strip, and a hot-tub-drenched cell phone.  I never even broke the safety-seal on my massive supply of glucose tabs.  If I have the courage to write about it, I’ll write more next week.

The moral of the story: when traveling, pack spares.  Then pack more spares . Cause you never know.  Now on with today’s topic.

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For the next week, I’ll be participating in the 3rd Annual Diabetes Blog Week (for more info, click on the banner above). Each day, D-Bloggers will be (mostly) blogging about a common topic but offering their own perspectives.

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My diabetes Hero.

As I write this article, I’m torn by who to pick.  Should it be someone, like Dr. Banting, who discovered the magic potion that keeps me alive?  Someone like Manny or Kerri, who first gave me the setting and the confidence in which to openly discuss this?  Maybe Sonia Sotomayor, who pushed through the social and physical challenges of being an ethnic-minority-woman-with-Type-1-raised-in-poverty to become a Supreme Court Justice.  All of the above reached their goals based on hard work, perseverance, and a real passion for what they were trying to achieve.

There are so many heroes out there, and the word “hero” is a word that often gets tossed around indiscriminately.  In general, I feel like sports figures are most often described as heroes when they shouldn’t be, but in this case I’m going to go with one, because this gentleman (term used loosely) fits the “I have no idea how he did it” category.  I’ve mentioned him before.  He a former player, captain, and later General Manager of the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team, Bobby Clarke.

#dblogweek – Day 6 – Creativity Wildcard

For the next week, I’ll be participating in the 3rd Annual Diabetes Blog Week (for more info, click on the banner above). Each day, D-Bloggers will be (mostly) blogging about a common topic but offering their own perspectives.

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I’m not a real shutterbug, so instead of posting a collection of photos, I’ve decided to go with one of the week’s wildcard options and opt for the musical approach.  No, I won’t sing (you’ll need to do that yourself, in your own head), but the tune should be familiar – it’s to the national anthem O Canada.  (If you don’t know the tune, click on the video at the bottom of the page.)

The song is all parody. I hope it’s not offensive, especially to Bethany, Valerie Anne, Kayla, and the other North-American PWDs who measure their blood glucose in mmol’s.