1000th Comment Contest Winner

This one almost passed me by, but this blog  just surpassed another milestone!

Congratulations to Scully for posting the one-thousandth comment on this blog! On my Respect the power of insulin post, she wrote:

You’re right though… the power of insulin is gigantic.
One measly drop…

No, there is no $1,000 prize. I can’t afford it, and filing taxes internationally is a real bitch (I own a couple of shares of  Tim Hortons stock, and with the taxes on the dividends, it’s hardly worth it). But I can offer a prize that is truly priceless: I will finally add Canadian D-Gal to my blog-roll, which was last updated about nine months ago and was woefully out of date.

Other than the one addition, it still is out-of-date, so I don’t think it’s really worthy of your attention. But you should check out Scully’s blog — because that is definitely worth it!

Congratulations!

Wordless Wednesday: CGM-wuz-Here

Remember that sensor from Friday which I allowed to overstay its welcome? Well, I finally banished it from my kingdom (my body), but not before it left a little bit of vandalism behind.

Careless. Senseless. Tragic.

I wish that the common cold virus produced insulin. If it did, my immune system would’ve kicked into high-gear and rid my body of these nagging runny-nose, coughing, stuffy-head symptoms that had been bothering me for the last week.

But even more than that, I wish that pediatric doctors were trained to recognize the symptoms of Type 1 diabetes in children*. Or, even better, if they included blood (or urine) glucose tests as standard protocol when seeing a child, making it just as routine as listening to their chest with a stethoscope. It’s incredibly easy to do, but is all too often overlooked.

If you haven’t already, please read Sunday’s post from Tom Karlya on DiabetesDad. Then read ALL the comments (there are a lot!).  It is, perhaps, the most terrifying thing I’ve ever read. Kids come to see their doctor with the classic textbook-symptoms, the doctor writes it off as a common illness or bacterial infection, and then sends him or her home where they ultimately end up in Diabetic Ketoacidosis (DKA), or perhaps even worse.

Trust but Verify

Trust but Verify. It’s a phrase a co-worker of mine often uses. It’s a more polite version of the “When you assume…” saying, but the message is the same.

Anyway, this is what I saw when I got to work and out of my car this morning (though not at the same time).

Respect the power of insulin

I’ve only met him three times. You could call us casual acquaintances, but we had no emotional investment in one another. As hard as I try, can’t even remember his name.

But he was my wife’s sister’s husband’s father. Maybe that makes him my brother-in-law’s father (I’m not good with naming extended family relations), I’m not really sure. But it doesn’t matter.

My wife got a phone call Tuesday night with the news that he had just passed away. Though he was feeling a bit under-the-weather, this wasn’t at all expected. As is often the case, the details were vague at first.