All posts by Stacey D.

Today.

Advocacy, Community, Education, Events

Diabetes. Everyone has heard of it. I’m pretty sure anyway. But not everyone knows the facts about it. Those of us living with it or who cares for someone living with type 1 diabetes know it all too well. Some of us who were diagnosed at an age young enough, only know life with diabetes. Some people remember life without it. Either way, all our lives changed dramatically at one point. Some of us use an insulin pump to dose our insulin. Some use multiple daily injections. Either way, we all need insulin to live. Some of us test our blood glucose levels 10+ times a day. Some test fewer times. Either way, we all need a glucose meter to live. Some of us SWAG (scientific wild ass guess) when it comes to carbohydrate counting. Some weigh every little bit of food. Either way, we all need to know the carbs in what we’re eating to live. Some of us rely on juice boxes, even as adults, to bring our blood sugars up. Some rely on candy or glucose tablets. Either way, we all need that sugar to live in those moments. Our diabetes may vary, but the necessities are the same. The lives of people living with diabetes are dependent on so many different things. And not everyone knows that. There are so many variables that can affect one’s blood sugar – not just food. And not everyone knows that. We can do everything by “the book” and still get undesirable results. And not everyone knows that.

Today on World Diabetes Day, the birthday of Frederick Banting who, along with Charles Best, first conceived the idea which led to the discovery of insulin in 1922, all of the diabetes online community are getting the word out. About how crucial it is to act on diabetes.   But if you’re outside of the community and you haven’t heard a lot about diabetes, listen up. Or if you’re tired of hearing about diabetes, don’t be. The facts are astounding but the true stories are even more.  You would want there to be much focus and awareness about it if you or a loved one were living with it. Trust me.

The Empire State Building is going to be lit blue and white tonight in honor of World Diabetes Day. I’m going to try and grab some pictures tonight!

**Update** I went to the Empire State Building on my way home from work last night to get a view of the blue lights.  To my dismay, they were not blue at all.  The schedule was changed in memory of Evelyn Lauder who was a strong part of the pink ribbon breast cancer awareness campaign.  While I find a tribute to her significant, I did not find it important enough to change the lights from the planned blue to pink. I think they could have changed the scheduled blue today for the Mary Poppins Broadway anniversary instead of changing yesterday.  Someone has their awareness priorities mixed up and was very disappointing. 

D Blog Day 2011.

Uncategorized

My friend Gina, well my diabetes BFF, started a tradition called D Blog Day a few years ago.  Today is the big day for 2011 and she has asked us to do a scrapbooking project including a few specific details.  Since I don’t pay attention to instructions (and used the wrong kind and size paper), what I created last night is just a draft and the real thing will be completed this weekend.  This was fun!

Happy D Blog day everyone! 🙂

 

**Update** The below is my final scrapbook page (with the correct kind and size paper 🙂 )

My Two Cents.

Advocacy, Community

Last week in conjunction with the start of National Diabetes Awareness Month, the launch of their new logo and their new T1Day, JDRF posted this ad in both the New York Times and Washington Post.  I personally did not see the ad in either paper but on the JDRF’s Facebook page.  Well, this has caused quite the stir around the diabetes online community.  I wasn’t going to write anything about it but instead step back and lurk at what people had to say.  However while reading through the very long thread over at Children with Diabetes, it got me thinking.

When I was diagnosed back in 1981 my family was told that a cure was around 10 years away.  As of today, I have been living with type 1 diabetes for 29 years, 10 months and 14 days.  My father lived with it for over 30 years before complications took his life, both figuratively and literally.  Call me pessimistic, but I do not foresee a real cure in my lifetime.  I’ve come to accept that I will live with diabetes for the rest of my life.  But that doesn’t mean I still don’t have some hope for a cure.  Since I believe a cure is not in the predictable future, what I would like need now is for the diabetes management tools to continue to improve to help me and other people living with diabetes do just that.  Live.  But healthy.  Safely.  Enduringly.

There are many things that can go wrong in the life of a diabetic.  On both ends of the BG spectrum.  That 1 in 20 dying from a low blood glucose is just one of them.  While the scientists work on finding that cure, I think what is important to us all now is decreasing the number of precious lives lost from this disease.  From whatever cause.  And helping us maintain as close-to-normal BG levels as possible so that we can improve our chances against complications.  If an organization chooses an advertisement that some find fear mongering or sensationalized in order to draw attention to a disease that needs well, attention, I don’t think that is so wrong.  Things have come a long, long way since the days of urine testing in tubes and sterilizing syringes before injecting and giant BG meters that took almost 5 minutes to read a result with no memory.  But we still have so much further to go.  And to get there we need the work of organizations like the JDRF or DRI or ADA.  No matter how alarming their ads may seem to some.

Refrigerator.

Community, Events

First off, I jumped on the bandwagon and set my blog background blue for National Diabetes Awareness Month 🙂 

Second, I had every intention of particitpating in the Juvenation blog carnival challenge however being that it’s already the 4th of the month, I guess you can say by now, I’ve been unsuccesful at the challenge 😦  But I am still going to use some of the blog prompts and hope that’s ok with the gals over at Juvenation!

Today’s prompt is “If you open up your fridge, what is the first thing you
would eat? And why did you pick that food? How many carbs does it
have?”

I’m trying to think of what is currently in my refrigerator.  Do I have to pick just one thing?  😉 The first thing that comes to mind is string cheese.  I’ve been eating them like crazy lately.  Those are actually zero carbs.  So maybe I’ll take two!  The next thing I would eat is a Chobani yogurt.  Preferably pineapple.  They are delicious!  One of those is 21 grams of carbohydrates.  To wash those down I’d drink either a Diet Dr. Pepper or some Diet Peach Snapple.  These are some of my favorite things to eat and drink which is why I chose them.  Not to mention healthy snack items.  (If the question was what would you eat from your cabinet, that would be a different story!  See: chips or cookies.)

Not Sure What to Think.

A1c, BG, BG Meters, Edgepark

Recently I mentioned in a post that I have been testing my BG 17-19 times on some days.  I am trying to “control” my BG like never before but those frequent tests do not have all to do with my efforts.  I can thank many of those tests for the lack of confidence I have in my glucose meter readings. A few months ago I blogged about frustration I was having with my One Touch meter, leading me to switch my primary meter to the Freestyle Lite.  Since then, I have used the Ping meter on occasion since I am lazy it is convenient to be able to bolus from that, especially when I wear a dress or skirt and the pump is tucked away.  Also on occasion, I have continued my comparison between the two meters.  Here is where things take a turn.  When I conducted my “testing” between meters back a few months ago, the Freestyle was ALWAYS higher.  And I mean always.  Now in recent weeks, every time I do a comparison, the Freestyle is ALWAYS lower.  And I mean always.  (Except when I encountered a meter reading fantasy and the meters read the exact same!)  This is so perplexing. 

I was so sure that since using One Touch, I was not getting a1c results I expected since it was reading lower than my actual BG readings.  Now, I’m not so sure.  I don’t know what to think most times when I test my BG.  All I want is a reading that will help me manage my diabetes and let me make the right decisions that my health and life depend on.  All I want is information I can work with to get my a1c below 7%.  How am I supposed to do that if I’m not even sure what my BG really is?  Can the FDA or a diabetes meter company answer that for me?

Thank goodness for Edgepark allowing a split shipment of test strips between different kinds. I’m not sure what I would be doing if I didn’t have that option.

Guest Post.

Emotions, Guest Post, Pregnancy

I met Sysy this past spring at the Diabetes Sisters Weekend for Women conference in Raleigh, NC.  I’m very glad I did 🙂

Being that she has children of her own (two beautiful twins mind you) she had asked me to provide a post on the perspective of being a woman with diabetes and not having children.  It was a hard one to write but I did want to share that with everyone.  I’m honored to have my post over at The Girl’s Guide to Diabetes today. 

A Type 1’s Decision Not to Have Children 

Thank you so much Sysy for the opportunity to write for you!

381.

Uncategorized

Values that are found in friendships (from my good ol’ reliable friend Wikipedia):

  • The tendency to desire what is best for the other.
  • Sympathy and empathy.
  • Honesty, perhaps in situations where it may be difficult for others to speak the truth, especially in terms of pointing out the perceived faults of one’s counterpart.
  • Mutual understanding and compassion; ability to go to each other for emotional support.
  • Enjoyment of each other’s company.
  • Trust in one another.
  • Positive reciprocity — a relationship is based on equal give and take between the two parties.
  • The ability to be oneself, express one’s feelings and make mistakes without fear of judgment.

Do most of the members from the diabetes community interact “online”? I’d say yes. (Hence the name DOC) Does that stop any of the above values from existing? No way. Every single one of the values of friendship exist among the diabetes community and that is what makes it so incredible. And the meetings in person just magnify everything it is made of. Empathy, sympathy, honesty, enjoyment, positivity, non judge mental, compassion. It’s all there. I’ve been fortunate to attend numerous diabetes meet ups of various kinds. This past Saturday I attended the biggest meet up I have experienced yet. There were 17 people with diabetes in attendance as well as some type 3’s. All to meet and hang out with a fellow diabetic from very far away; Australia. Diabetes wasn’t always the topic of conversation. Probably more often than not, the topic was something entirely different. But there was a lot of fun being had. By all of us. The whole time. I love the friends I’ve had either growing up or since my adulthood began. But in the past 3-4 years I have gained so many more friends that just happen to have diabetes also. And these friends have touched my life in a way that is indescribable. For that, I am forever grateful.

To steal an idea from Sara, together the 17 of us had diabetes for 381 years. That is A LOT of diabetes experiences. A LOT of high and low BGs. A LOT of finger sticks. A LOT of insulin. Yet there were A LOT of smiles and laughing all day long. Diabetes isn’t always the pits. You can do this.

Bummer Appointment.

Complications, Emotions, Endocrinologists

Yesterday afternoon I had an appointment with my endo. On the train on my way home (my endo is in my home neighborhood, not near my job) I found myself wondering why I wasn’t feeling my usual nerves.  It was then that I began to feel like I didn’t care. Like I wasn’t concerned with how my appointment was going to go. I can’t pinpoint what brought those feelings on but I was still pretty calm when I got to the doctor’s office. 

Overall my a1c went up a bit, my weight went up a bit and my BP was up a bit. I also had an ANSAR test done. If you’ve never heard of that before, it’s a test that determines anything wrong with the autonomic nervous system.  Dr. K is concerned that since I started with retinopathy, the chances of other complications may be likely. All of these new-to-me tests are scary. They are part of the reality I have always been afraid of.  But I know they are for the best. If I want to stay healthy, I have to be proactive and diligent about my body.  It was not the best appointment of all time.   But Dr. K thinks my “control” is decent and knows that I’m doing a lot to manage my diabetes.  I appreciate her outlook and her recognition of my hard work.  There is more fine tuning that I need to do which will happen with the help of my CDE.  And also with my own efforts of keeping up with exercise.  I feel like now more than ever, my BG control matters.  I’ll be soon commemorating 30 years living with diabetes.  And that’s a long time.  But to quote Dr. K, “you still have a long life ahead of you”.  And I want to make sure that life ahead of me is stable.  

So for the record, in looking over my meter downloads, I realized something. I do care. I care enough to check my BG 17-19 times in one day.

Exhausting.

Uncategorized

One might think that people living with diabetes get a rest at night when they sleep. Not so. Unfortunately blood glucose (BG) levels can change during the night, even while you are not doing anything but sleeping. Crazy right?  And this is where using a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) can help alert you of high or low BG that you otherwise may not know of.  Since you’re well, sleeping.  Except that those alarms from the CGM can cause for restless nights.  Last night had to be the worst in my CGM-ing history.  Before going to sleep, around 9:15pm, I was 156.  A while before that I had a low that was being stubborn.  And of course the carbs I ingested caught up to me.  Around 10:30 I got my first high alarm.  (my high alarm is set at 200 mg/dL)  I tested and was 231.  So I corrected and went to sleep.  And so it began. The night of hourly high alarms.  I wasn’t terribly high but hanging around the 200 mark. All.  Night.  I corrected, I increased my basal. But nothing seemed to bring me back to normal.  And since I was trying to sleep, and wasn’t dangerously high, I kept trying to sleep.  And the Dexcom kept waking me. Then my pump would go off too. The 2 hour reminder after my bolus.  And the beeping that I was down to 20 units in the reservoir.  If I wasn’t such a considerate individual, I would have contemplated screaming. And if it wakes me up, of course it wakes the hubby too.  So sorry Joe.

Diabetes doesn’t sleep. And that means sometimes, neither do we.