The life of this diabetic has been crazy busy over the last few days.  This new work schedule is finely starting to feel normal, and I must admit, I actually like the schedule.  Let’s take a look at how my new day goes:

7:00 a.m. – Alarm goes off

7:15 a.m. – I actually wake up

7:15 a.m. – test blood sugar

7:20 a.m. – coffee, breakfast, shower

8:00 a.m. – hitting the road for my commute

8:45 a.m. – get to work and test sugar again to see how breakfast was holding up

11:00 a.m. – test sugar to see if correction was good

12:30 p.m. – test sugar because it is lunch time soon

2:30 p.m. – test sugar to see how good my bolus was

5:30 p.m. – test sugar once more because I am getting ready to leave at 6 to drive home

7:00 p.m. get home from work and go for a quick walk

7:30 p.m. – get home from walk, start to cook, eat and cleanup dinner

9:00 p.m. log into blog, check out comments, attempt to respond to twitter comments

10:00 p.m. – check sugar

12:30 a.m – laying in bed trying to fall asleep to start the same thing over the next day.

There is not one time throughout the day that I hate that busy schedule.  I absolutely love it.  Living a schedule like this with type 1 diabetes or any disease in that matter can start to wear on your health if you are not taking care of yourself properly.  I try to force myself to test my blood sugar during these times because I know that I will forget to do it.  I set the alarm on my pump now, I have never used that alarm before in my life.  I think it might annoy my co-workers, but nobody has said anything yet.  They are all usually listening to music anyway, so I don’t think they even notice.

Tonight I am going to be up later because I have a lot of other things to take care of, lots and lots of e-mails I haven’t responded to in almost 3-4 days.  So if you e-mailed me, sorry I will get to it tonight, promise.

Time for that energy drink.

Have a great Friday tomorrow everybody.

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Do you ever get the feeling that no matter how hard you are working or how much effort you are putting into something that you are just always falling behind?  I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way.  Sometimes I just feel that I can never catch up.  No matter what it is.  As soon as you try to catch up on your work, you fall behind on exercise.  You try to catch up on tv / movies / reading, you fall behind on work.  You catch up on e-mails, Twitter, Facebook, and you fall behind on family time.  It is just one big revolving cycle.  There is one thing that sometimes takes a back seat, but I need to make sure it moves right up to the front of the line, diabetes.

Too often I am skipping a test because I am busy and just want to eat quickly and guestimate my bolus.  “I’ll just bolus for the carbs and then check later to correct”.  How often do you find yourself saying it?  Because I know I’m not the only one who odes that either. But as bad as I know it is, I still do it.  Why?  I guess it’s kind of like a kid knowing a stove is hot, but still touching it anyway?  Or is that just a bad analogy?

Why does it have to be so difficult to manage at times?  I do so well managing it for weeks at a time, but then I get complacent with my numbers and start to slack and then all of my hard work is now ruined with a few days of really high numbers.  That’s it.  I’m putting my foot down diabetes. You are not going to make me feel like crap ever again.  I am going to test, test, test and test again when I feel like you are starting to win a battle over me.  If you are gaining on me, I will send in reinforcements in the form of insulin and conquer you!

Take that one diabetes.

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First, I want to thank you all for your feedback, RT’s, and comments from the Fired Up Friday post about drink options.  I am glad to hear that I am not just being a drama queen (or would it be king?) and overreacting to something like this.  Anywho, the weekend was great!  It of course went by way too fast, but I accomplished a lot.  Friday night, Amanda and I were going to see that Shutter Island movie but decided to wait a week or two so there is not as many people there when we go to see it.  I hate being in a crowded movie theater, I don’t like tight spaces.  Plus, since I’m diabetic, my blood sugar can get high as we all know and I will need to run to the bathroom a million times during the movie.  Since, we decided not to go that night, we didn’t do anything.  My blood sugars were still a little high all night Friday, in the 175-190 range.

Saturday morning was the WordCamp Miami conference, so I was up at 6:00 a.m.  I got my stuff ready the night before because I knew I would forget either my meter, or extra insulin, or a couple extra infusion sets, etc.  The conference was a lot of fun and I learned a lot more about WordPress then I initially knew going down there, so it was well worth it.  If you are interested in that type of geeky, web stuff as well, then read my other blog as well, Chris Stocker, Inc. because I don’t talk too much about on it here.  Saturday night we headed up to West Palm Beach for the Opening Night of the Waterfront.  It was basically just some streets blocked off and lots of food, beer, live entertainment.  I’m not so sure about the exact history of it, but I gave you a link if you’re interested, but it was fun.  Amanda and I ate at some Mexican place and the insulin didn’t seem to take, so that type 1 diabetes thing I have made the sugars a little high, about 275.

Sunday morning was another little community thing that Amanda, her brother, and myself went to.  It was in Lake Worth, FL and it was some outdoor thing where artists and kids were drawing on the street with chalk, it was actually pretty damn cool.  I’m having trouble with my camera uploading things, so I will post some of the pictures tomorrow from it.  Other than that, it was time to go home and get to work.  I have a few blogs that I am almost finished designing for clients and a couple of other websites that are still in process.  I’m getting a little stressed from the work, but after these couple projects are finished it will slow down because there aren’t any other large projects lined up right now, but I prefer to be extremely busy like that.  The busier I am, the more of these I drink.

Finally, for the bad news.  My ear is still clogged up pretty bad, so I am going back to the doctor on Tuesday to just make sure that I don’t have an infection or something else worse going on.  I found a place that will accept the insurance, so it won’t be as much money to pay for this visit.  I really appreciate all your help and suggestions.  The Neti Pot worked miracles, but it doesn’t keep it un-clogged, it always seems to clog back up after I use it, or sometimes it doesn’t even work.  It’s just becoming frustrating right now.  But, just another obstacle to overcome when you have a life of a diabetic

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Here it is another Friday and another week gone. Where has the time gone. This had been one of the busiest and craziest weeks of my life. Everything from battling high blood sugars, extrely high blood sugars, meetings with clients, writing proposals and contracts, actually doing the consulting work, exercising, dieting, losing weight, 3 am bed times with 7 am wake-ups. What a week!

I used to get so excited about Fridays and the weekend starting. But now? Not so much. I used to be able to relax on the weekends and go out on Fridays and Saturdays and have a good time. I have decides not to do that anymore. I will only go out one of the two nights and not even late either. Instead, I have a lot of work to get done in such a small amount of time.

Currently I am writing 2 daily blogs, I do on site consulting for about 25 hours a week at Volvo Aero Services and managing some other consulting services, trying to exercise and eat healthy, which is almost impossible when you’re working at a pace like this.

But you know what? This is the life that I chose, so I am not complaining about it because I love it! I’m doing what I have always wanted to do, screw the sleep. I know that it’s not the best for my health, but ya know what no matter what I do, there will always be something that is not good for your health.

Last thing I want to mention. This Sunday I am going to the 25th anniversary of the Chili Cook Off. Google it because I am typing this on my WP app and can’t add a link. It features Zac Brown Band, Gloriana, Sara Evans, Montgomery Gentry, and Rodney Adkins. Should be a great time.

Have a good weekend y’all.

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Last night I was up very late again.  I don’t know why I even mention that because it is a norm for me now.  My new shutdown time is 3:00 a.m.  That is when I finish up whatever last project I am working on, well maybe not the whole project but part of it and then call it quits, lay down on the sofa bed and fall asleep.  Right now I am living with Amanda and her family and I don’t have a bedroom.  There is a family room upstairs along with 3 bedrooms, Amanda’s and her two brothers.  The family room is pretty much my living quarters.  This also happens to be where the computer desk is, so it is very convenient for me.  They all go to bed and shut their doors and I stay up, typing and clicking away not keeping anybody up.  Well, last night, my diabetes kept me up.

I have been eating somewhat healthy, but for some reason last night I wanted some type of dessert.  I was going to eat something healthy, but then Friendly’s was brought up, which is literally right across the street from the house.  We live on a long road, so it is about 0.5 mile walk total, so we figured, hey we will walk there and back and that will burn at least SOME of the calories off.  I tested my sugar and it was 155 when I ate the ice cream.  3 hours later, my blood sugar had sky-rocketed to 492!  This was at about 12-ish and I knew I would still be up for about another 2-3 hours doing work, so no big deal, I took my correction, which just so happened to be 17 units!  Seriously, what kind of correction takes 17 units.

I was knocking out my work like it was my job, oh yea, it is, and I had to have an energy drink because I just couldn’t go without one.  I knew this wasn’t going to be the best for me since my sugar is that high because caffeine makes my sugars go crazy some times.  Before I went to bed at 3:15 I tested again and my sugar was down to 230, so I was confident that come morning time when I woke up at 7:30 that my sugar levels would be around 150-ish.  Well I was a little wrong on that estimate as well.  When I tested my sugar again at about 8:30 it was still elevated at 215.  It still came down from 495 to 215 in 6-7 hours, but not where I wanted it to be at. As I am typing this post now at 12:30 my sugar was just 127, so we are good to go and it is almost lunch time.

I posted my sugar last night on Twitter and I want to thank @mydiabeticheart , @tinashaye , and @lizalovecyprus for all your kind support with the @ replies last night.

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At my old job I talked and communicated with a lot of other diabetics, but I didn’t actually work with any other diabetics.  At one of the places I do on-site consulting for 3 days a week, Volvo Aero Services, I have been introduced to 2 other diabetics already.  This is a great feeling.  The first person I was introduced to, I already knew about because I had spoken with them via e-mail a few times to get them help with their strips and supplies.  The coffee is in her office so I see her multiple times a day(I’ve cut back to 5 cups of coffee a day).  The other person I wasn’t formally introduced to, but this is how it happened.

Before lunch one day, I headed into the bathroom to wash my hands.  While in there I saw this guy pull out an Aviva meter and check his sugar.  I saw a not so happy look on his face.  He then proceeded to take out a piece of paper which looked like a sliding scale for his correction, plus meal time bolus.  After a quick calculation he was drawing back a syringe.  This whole time I am just washing my hands, glancing over.  Probably the longest hand wash in history.  At first, I was a little hesitant to ask any questions, because I know not all people are willing to discuss their diabetes.  So, I decided to mention my diabetes first and see if he would open up.

I looked at him and just said, “my blood sugar was 195, so I’m going to eat a small lunch to try and bring it back down with a little correction bolus.”  He looked at me like I had 3 heads!  I followed that with, “I’ve been diabetic for 6 years, so I understand the lunch time finger pricks”  He opened right up to me about his diabetes.  Basically he explained that he has had diabetes for 10 years and that he was in a denial for about the first year and that he hasn’t been able to manage it that well.  I gave all the best advice that I could that you have to just keep on pushing.  Your not always going to figure out your diabetes, but you can get it right as often as possible and that is the best you can ask for.  I explained to him to not get discouraged when he sees a high number because it will stress him out and keep it high.

I gave him my contact information and let him know where my desk was if he had any questions or problems with his diabetes.  I also gave him contact info to a few support groups that I knew about and have previous attended.  I really hope that he decides to go, because he seemed as if he needed a little additional support for his diabetes.

How many of you work with other diabetics?  Are they part of the D. OC as well?

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Wow, this may be the first time all month that I have blogged in two consecutive days.  It is cold down here in south Florida, about 50 degrees.  I know that is nothing compared to the northeast where I am from, and where I am going next week, but for being down here, it is cold.  But it is a good cold, not a bad cold.  What do I mean by that?  It is nice to sit outside, exactly what I am doing right now.  I am sitting out back at Amanda’s house in a screened in patio typing up a blog.  I am away from Monday Night Football, away from the Panthers hockey game (which is taping, so I haven’t escaped it completely), and just relaxing in the nice outdoors of her 1 acre lot (for those of you who live in south Florida, you know the annoying condo / highway life that exists everywhere else).

Today was a long day at work as well.  It was tough and hard on my brain because I was doing things that I don’t think I ever did before in Excel.  As a consultant, I am open to doing pretty much whatever is needed by somebody, you have a question and if I have the answer, I do it.  Right now I am doing data analysis for Volvo Aero Service (pretty much sell jet engines and parts.)  There are a lot of parts and a lot of numbers that go along with jet engines, so it can be a little stressful getting the numbers into the correct places.

How has this affected my diabetes?  Not bad at all.  I have gotten back into a normal way of life, working 8:30-5:30, eating lunch at the same time, eating dinner at the same time, being more productive with my life and back to testing my blood sugar once an hour or two hours at most during the day.  I am eating better at breakfast and at lunch, dinner I am still trying to work on.  I don’t eat fast food breakfast anymore, like I did pretty much every single day at my old job and I don’t pay for coffee anymore, which saves me between the two about $75 a month.  I lost a little weight, but put some back on this past week because I was very stressed out about moving and getting out of my old house and into my new house.  I will get into that blog tomorrow.

Until then, I am signing off tonight.  Oh by the way, you may not see me tweeting as much, but I am still there in heart, I am reading, but not always posting.  I can easily read tweets during work, but I don’t always have the time to write something and then I just usually read them at night, but by that time it’s too late to respond to them.  I am finally back to living a normal life of a diabetic.

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Today is my birthday and it can turn out to be potentially one of the best birthdays that I ever had.  Reasons are simple, it is an all day New York – Philadelphia day.  At 1 p.m. the Eagles have a huge NFC East match up against the Giants and then at night it is game 4 of the World Series with the Phillies and the Yankees.  Do you think my stress level is going to be high?  I’m not even sure exactly what it is going all day during my birthday because of all the sports, I think it may include a cookout between the games, but not sure.  This is my 25th birthday (yes, I can now legally rent a car and my car insurance rates should go down), and it is the 6th birthday that I have celebrated with diabetes.

My birthday’s haven’t really changed at all since I have been diagnosed.  There is really only one thing that I require for my birthday, call it high maintenance if you will, but I must have an ice cream cake because the greatest thing in the world is the little chocolate crusty things in the middle layer of the cake.  I get to eat that about once a year, so it’s allowable on my birthday.  My birthday gifts have changed a bit from family members however.  Now when mom and pops ask what I want for my birthday this year, I usually respond with, “How about picking up the costs of my insulin for this 3 month supply.”  That’s usually what the gift is now.  And I am more appreciative of that gift then I am for any other gift out there.

I didn’t get a chance to post any pictures from our company Halloween party from Friday, so here are just a few.  This is my buddy Brian, who writes one hell of a blog about baseball and baseball cards, dressed up as one of the Disney Imagination Movers and then another with the proverbial 800 pound gorilla that we are all up against half the time in life.  I’m dressed up as a low budget Chase Utley (I have a man-crush on him).  This is also the same thing that I was last year..  I didn’t do any Halloween parties or do anything related to it this year because the Phillies were playing game 3 last night.  I was doing a little “trick – or – Tweeting” though however.

So today is not only my birthday, but also the first day of National Diabetes Month.  It’s also a bunch of other things, but I don’t feel like talking about that stuff.  Start today with spreading awareness.  Tell one person starting today about diabetes, almost like a Pay-it-Forward style.  Do your part, if we all do ours we can create a big movement.  Don’t just do it on November 14 on World Diabetes Day, make it the whole damn month!

Have a great Sunday ya’ll

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Recently I started to think about some of the things related to diabetes that really make me mad.  Diabetes in general doesn’t because I have learned to live with it, deal with it and manage it.  It is usually other people that make me mad when it comes to diabetes.  Let’s start with the top 3 things, in no particular order.

Diabetic vs Person with Diabetes

I personally don’t understand all of the hype around this.  If you want to call me a person with diabetes, go ahead.  You want to call me diabetic, which I prefer, then go ahead.  I don’t really care what you call me.  Diabetic is just the term that is used to call somebody who has diabetes.  Why all of a sudden is it such a bad thing?  I think it is a good thing when someone calls me a diabetic, because I have diabetes, so therefore I am diabetic.  I guess if I hear one very good logical reasoning of the PWD thing then I will go with it.  Like I said, I have no problem if that is what you want to be called, I will call you that.  Quite honestly, I would rather call you by your first name and not diabetic or person with diabetes at all.

Supply Switching

Who the hell are you (fill in the blank with your supply company) to tell me what meter, strips, lancets or pen needles I want to use?  Do you think that I care about your bottom line figures and that you make more money off of the generic lancets than the brand name.  I don’t really care about the 200% profit you are making, I care that the lancets that I am using are not damaging and bruising my fingers constantly.  I want a pen needle that is going to penetrate my skin and not hurt when it goes in because its not sharp enough.  A few years ago when I was still using an old supplier, will not mention names, they continued to send me these cheap generic lancets when I wanted the One Touch ones.  They kept sending them every 90 days and I would call and tell them to stop, but they wouldn’t let me return them, I still had to pay for them.  They then went far enough to tell me that the One Touch ones are no longer made, they have been discontinued.  So when I was walking through Wal-Mart one day I saw them there and then went off on the company.  I called 4 times a day every day for like 2 straight weeks to make sure I got every customer service rep there.

Not the same goal in mind

There are a lot of non-profits, organizations, blogs, communities and they do not know how to work together.  What do we all want?  A cure, right?  Of course there are some other things that would be great along the way, but ultimately it is about finding a cure, spreading awarenss and giving people an arena to share and talk about, especially in the online world.  Then why can’t we just all work together and not look at other people in the diabetes world as “competitors”.  I’m not saying that everyone does that, I’m speaking of the minority on this one, but it just irritates the hell out of me.

Those are the 3 main things that just make me mad.

What are some others that tick you the wrong way?

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Last week I decided to take some time off from Twitter, Facebook, blogging and every other online outlet for 4-5 days.  I had a lot of things coming up and just needed a break.  It’s now time to get back to work however and catch back up, which is harder than actually doing the work in the first place.  I needed to get some offline things done, it’s crazy that theirs actually an offline life out there.  You know, all the fun stuff plus the diabetes stuff.  The life of a diabetic always consists of making sure you have the essentials.  Since I am type 1, I had to make sure that I had enough insulin in my pump before I went to do all of the fun events thisweekend because there is nothing worse than going out somewhere and not having enough insulin.

Friday night after work I headed down to the Panthers game for their exciting win over the Flyers.  It was a stressful event for me.  The Phillies started at 4:00 p.m on Friday, so I was wearing my Chase Utley jersey all day long and had Amanda drive down to the BankAtlantic Center so I could pay attention to the game on my phone.  When I got to the arena, I had to take the Phillies shirt off because the Panthers were playing a Philly team (Flyers), so I was in a little predicament.  Ultimately, the Phillies lost and the Panthers won.  During the game I decided to get some nachos, so I bolused for them and chowed down.  After eating them I started to feel a little low in the middle of the period, so Amanda went out and bought me a huge $4.00 chocolate chip cookie.  I didn’t test to see how low my sugar was because of course my meter was out in the car.  Finally, I felt better and my sugar was about 160 after the game.

As soon as the game was over, Amanda and I went to Super Wal-Mart because I had to get all the fixings for pasta salad (my favorite food in the world).  Saturday was my future father in-law’s birthday party for his 60th birthday, which is actually today.  My roommate (my girlfriend’s brother) and I decided to get a keg for the party because there was going to be a good amount of people there.  But that wasn’t the main reason for the keg.  We knew that the Oklahoma – Texas, Gators – Razorbacks, Virginia Tech – Georgia Tech, and the Yankees games were all on Saturday, so we knew there was a lot of beer to go through for the day.  I’m not even going to get into Virginia Tech blowing any chance that they have to play for the national championships.   At the party I didn’t have my meter again, starting to be a not so good recurring theme here.  I was eating a lot of pasta salad, macaroni salad, beer, chicken tenders and mini subs.  So a lot of insulin wasb eing consumed there.  When I went home I tested and I was near the low 200′s, which is where I stayed pretty much all night long.

And to top it off the Eagles barely outscored the Phillies on Sunday.  The Eagles game did have my stress levels at a high so far this season because they have been playing well so it hasn’t affected me too much.  Since my meter was left in my car, surprise surprise, I had no idea what my sugar was.  All I knew was that I didn’t feel dizzy and I didn’t have to pee a lot so I knew I wasn’t at either extreme.  I know this isn’t good because sometimes I am just dehydrated and drinking a lot because I was sweating so much.  Sometimes I will take some insulin because of that, which is not a good idea, so don’t try that at home kids.  But at the end of the night the Phils win at least made it a little better.

Last night after work I had to coach a game which was the best game all season so far.  It was a 12-6 loss for my kids that have been averaging about 21-0 losses.  Then at night, Mr. Jimmy Rollins rocked Philly with a walk-off double, which sent me running and screaming around my house at about midnight, waking up my roommate who is cheering for the Dodgers.

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