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Why Did You Start Blogging?

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

I am currently up in Orlando right now at the IZEAfest at SeaWorld 2009.  It is a social media conference for the weekend.  I am in between sessions right now so wanted to try and get a post in before the next session starts.  I haven’t even checked into my hotel yet, so I better go and do that soon.  I have my insulin with me and didn’t leave it in the car like I usually do.  Amanda is coming up later today as well because we received a free SeaWorld ticket along with admission to the conference.

Anyway, onto diabetes.  Yesterday was a better day with my blood sugars.  Nothing over 200 at all, so I was excited about that since the past few weeks I have been having a lot of highs.  I still haven’t completely figured out why they all have been coming, but I have an endo appointment next week, so I better have somewhat of an answer for her.  My goal for this weekend being away is to actually eat healthy.  So that means eating salads for dinner and some chicken, and not tacos and fast food and fried food etc.  I have been doing great with losing weight and exercising, so I can’t throw it away in just one weekend away.

I just heard somebody at the conference say, the “power of blogging.”  That comment  just completely changed what I was going to blog about and thought about what that actually means.  When I first started blogging almost 2 years, I did not know the most about diabetes that I thought I did.  I didn’t realize how many other diabetics were out there.  I thought that I was the only one going through this crap and nobody knew how I feel.  Then I came online and found these amazing blogs and thought ya know what, I think I want to do this too.  When I first started to blog, I didn’t really care if people were going to read it.  I just needed a way to get out of my mind how I was feeling, and I couldn’t keep a journal because I hate writing, and I am constantly online, so it just made sense.

Then people started to read and people started to comment and then it just turned into a daily, well I try to do it on a daily basis.  Blogging is now fun, and I enjoy it because it relieves a lot of stress for me.  So that leaves me with this.  I am curious to know how you came about blogging and who inspired you to start blogging.  I’m guessing majority of your answers will be the same as mine, (Kerri).

All You Can Eat Gnocci’s

Chris Stocker

Just by reading the headline, I’m sure you can understand how I feel.  My girlfriend’s father is from Argentina and his family is over here visiting now.  So we went to an Argentina restaurant in Lantana, FL and Tuesday night is all you can eat Gnoccis.  Well they are already one of my most favorite foods, and the sauce at this place was amazing.  I had 3 plates, which was a lot of carbs.  My sugar was getting really low before I started eating, so I had to snack on some bread before hand which was using up my insulin.

I just got home a little while ago from the place, so I had no time to go to the gym.  That means that tomorrow morning, I must make it to the gym before I even go to work and then again after I get home from work.  Unfortunately, gnoccis make me very tired, and it is already 10:30 p.m. so this post is going to be extremely short.

Good night ya’ll and tomorrow’s post will be better, I promise.

Support / Advocate Luncheon – H1N1 Vaccine, Medicare Fraud, Kidney Disease

Chris Stocker

Every other month I attend a luncheon in Boca Raton at the Bova Cucina. It is a diabetes advocate and support group type meeting.  It is usually comprised of several CDE’s, diabetics, sales reps and a few MD’s.  The support group is put on by Murray Pincus.  Majority of you probably have no clue who Murray is, but if you are diabetic and live in the south Florida area, then you should know his name.  Murray is a great friend of mine and a terrific advocate of diabetes.

Today’s luncheon was comprised of 3 main parts.  Session one was a lecture on diabetes and kidneys by Dr. Frank Lavernia, who is an esteemed endocrinologist in south Florida.  He gave a great lecture on kidney disease being such a silent killer because so many people are living with it right now and have no idea.  Not just diabetics, but people in general.  Diabetics usually find out before non-diabetics because they should be getting tested for it.  Dr. Lavernia’s suggestion for finding out if you are at risk is simple, “Pee in a cup!”  He also explained that it is not just the high blood sugar that will affect your kidney’s, it is multiple things.  Cholesterol problems, high blood pressure, and there are multiple different factors that affect these problems as well.  And of course all of these risks increase with type 1 diabetes.  So to sum it all up, we need to make sure we go to the doctor’s follow the guidelines and be prepared by being ahead of the game and having tests done.

The next part was a talk given on Medicare fraud.  In south Florida, where I live, Medicare fraud is extremely high.  Mainly due to the obvious reasons, people retire to Florida.  There are also the snowbirds (people who come down south for the winter).  Snowbirds may be receiving supplies up north and may switch to a different company when they come down south and the DME can continue to bill for supplies that aren’t even being sent out.  And how can they dothis?  Because they rely on the elderly not paying attention to their statements and being “just old and out of it.”  There are organizations around the country now that do nothing but look at Medicare claims and make sure their are no fraudelent ones.  Unfortunately, there are not enough people doing it.  (Imagine what a national run healthcare reform would look like!)

Finally, it was summed up with a representative from CMS (Medicare).  He was there to talk about the H1N1 vaccine and if it’s covered by Medicare, who should get it, is it safe, etc.  Let’s start with his analogies.  CMS believes that everybody should get not just their seasonal flu shot, but also the H1N1 vaccine.  You can get these at the same time, 2 different shots, but at the same time.  For right now, the H1N1 vaccine requires a second booster shot, however that is beginning to change due to more recent research.  He explained the H1N1 vaccine as a seat belt.  Everybody should wear one.  If you don’t get into an accident, great, at least you were prepared.  However, if you do get into an accident then the person who is wearing a seat belt (the one with the H1N1 vaccine) is more likely to survive.  This was a good analogy.  Someone asked the question, is it safe to take, it hasn’t been around long enough to know the safety of it.  An MD responded, using the same analogy, “Don’t take the mindset that, ‘John Doe died because he was wearing a seat belt, if he wasn’t wearing it he would still be alive.”  As in, you know of one person that got sick from the H1N1 vaccine does not mean that every single person is going to get sick.

Now after all this, I must admit, I have never gotten a flu shot before.  I always think, what’s the point, I’m young, I don’t need a flu shot.  To me, the flu just means I’ll throw up a couple of times one day, have a bad fever, get the sweats, get the chills and then be over it in 2 days, no big deal to me.  As I get older, I understand that’s not going to always be the case.

What are your feelings / thoughts on it?

Weekend Full of Highs…Went over 500

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

This weekend involved a lot of highs.  I hit over 250 Friday night, reached 300 on Saturday and was over 500 on Sunday.  Sunday’s was the worst.  It was also the scariest, and also made me feel like crap.  I was coaching a football game Sunday afternoon and I was sweating a lot and felt a little low so I drank some Gatorade.  After the game and when I got home I tested and I was at about 240.  I then ate Arby’s because Sunday is my diet cheat day.  About 2 hours later I started to feel a little crappy, just felt like laying down. No big deal I thought because I was up early and was out in the sun all day.  I tested and I was now up to 300.  I figured it was because I ate fatty food so it will take a while for my levels to get back down.

Then I started to feel really thirsty and my stomach was starting to hurt.  I tested again and now it was over 400.  So I take some more insulin to correct.  About an hour later, or maybe even less then that, I tested again because I was even more dehydrated, and that’s when the meter gave the worst reading, “HI”  HI Blood Sugar

I didn’t panic because I knew I could bring it down, just do everything that I was always taught from my diabetes educator, thank god I’m able to still have a CDE!  I corrected on my pump and took the necessary insulin.  I tested 30 minutes later, still says high, so I changed my site and corrected with insulin in the new site.  I layed down and tried to fall asleep and wake up and hope that it was lowered.  I woke up about 45 minutes later and now finally I got a reading, it was down to 435.

Before I finally went to bed at midnight, it was down to 235.  I woke up at 4:30 this morning with a blood sugar of 65.  Talk about going from one extreme to the other.  I went downstairs and had some OJ and of course a few Skittles.  I went back to sleep and when I woke up and went to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast, I tested and I was at 106.  So luckily I was able to get it down and get it back to where it needed to be.  I ran a little high all day today as well, around 200 all day long.  I just came back from the gym for an hour and I am about 160 right now.  I thought my sugar was running high because I was starting to feel sick, but now I think that I felt sick because my sugars were high.

Well I guess this is part of living the life of a diabetic.

Friday Reflection Part 1

Chris Stocker

Every Friday from now on is going to be a “Friday Reflection” day in which I will attempt to reflect upon everything that happened during the week and try to make sense of it and move towards the next week.  This week was filled with some good positive things and some not so good things.  Sounds normal right?  Fortunately, my blood sugars this week have landed on the good side, so that is something that I am excited about.  Unfortunately, due to the bad things my blood pressure has been starting to get a little whacky on me.

This week started out with another long week of work ahead of me.  No different then any other Monday or week for that matter.  My responsibilities outside of work are what are starting to pick up and that is what’s causing the most stress.  I have football to coach on Tuesday and Thursday’s and we have games coming up soon so I am trying to prepare the kids for this and create a playbook for them to study from, which is taking forever.  There are so many damn blogs to read now a days I can’t seem to find a chance to read them all.  I find myself every night going to Diabetes Daily and just going through the lists of the posts throughout the day and some nights I make it all the way through and some nights I just can’t.  Monday night also included the first week of Monday night football, two games actually.  So that brought the excitement of the NFL back to me.

Tuesday, like I stated earlier was football practice and then home to try and get some work done on a few little side projects.  I’ve also been doing some brainstorming on some cool, fun little activities to try and give back to JDRF locally.  Wednesday and Thursday were just boring ole days, nothing really exciting that went on.  So that comes to tonight.  I just came back from TGI Friday’s and then heading out later tonight to check out the new Jennifer Aniston movie, should be good.  This weekend will be filled with nothing but football.

Looking back on the week I am happy.  I learned a lot this week.  A lot about myself, a lot about diabetes, and about life in general.  I unfortunately learned a lot about some people, that I did not know previously.  My goal every week is to learn more than I did the week before.  And to be able to look back on the week and think, what did I do to make myself better this week.  Whether a better person, a better diabetic, a better worker, better at anything.  As soon as I become complacement, things get back.

Well there you have it a summary of the week for a life of a diabetic.  Nothing too special, all pretty much boring ole life.  Have a great week ya’ll