Blog Archives
#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.
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.
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.
OT: Happily upsetting
Unbelievable!
This has absolutely nothing to do with diabetes.
But I’m going to use this forum to congratulate Lehigh University, my alma mater (Class of ’96), for beating #2 seeded Duke in the first round of the NCAA basketball tournament!
When I went to Lehigh, they were so bad that I sometimes went to games with my roommate and we were the only spectators in the entire building. It’s great to see that small school in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania getting some recognition on a national stage!
On to Round Two…
Know when to fold ’em
This isn't how I planned it would be.
Today is the NHL Trade Deadline. It’s the day when each club, via its roster moves, proclaims whether they think they have a legitimate chance at reaching the prize or whether they’ll throw in the towel and try again next year.
About three weeks before each A1C test, I go through a similar exercise in my mind – I need to decide whether I need that little extra push to reach my goal, or whether I’ve already slipped too far and am resigned to falling short of my target yet again.
A stick-tap to athletes with diabetes
This is me, bottom row, third from the right, following a game in 2001 at the (then) First Union Center in Philadelphia,
I’m generally not a fan of professional bowling. But after reading an article about my favorite hockey team in the sports section of today’s paper, another headline caught my eye.
Shafer doesn’t let diabetes spare his game
The article is about Ryan Shafer, bowler extraordinaire, whose achievements at the lanes has netted him much fame (and prize money!) throughout his professional career. He also has Type 1 diabetes and, according to the PBA website, he’s also a spokesperson for Animas.
I admire professional athletes who play at the top of their game with diabetes. Heck, I admire any athlete, even at the recreational level, who doesn’t allow the disease to stand in their way. But I’ll be honest, when I think of sports where diabetes poses a challenge, bowling is not at the top of my list. It’s not physically taxing, there is sufficient “time-out” to attend to needs, and no linebacker is going to plow you into the ball-return and unknowingly rip out a cannula. But diabetes, and the ways it manifests itself, is not all physical. As Shafer describes, “when your blood sugar gets a little low, you get a little shaky, you’re not steady on your feet. Then after you eat, you want to make up for it and you feel that spike and all of a sudden you feel lethargic and you’re going from one feeling to another.”
Rolling in the D 