Category: Uncategorized

Dear Diabetes,

I know you can’t read this because you are obviously not a person, but can we pretend for today that you are because there are some things that I want to to tell you.  We have a love-hate relationship for sure.  We have our highs and we have our lows, especially when it comes to my blood sugar.  There are times that I curse the moment that I met you.  On the flip side, there are also times where I am so happy to have met you because you have changed my life.

No matter what anybody else says about you or thinks about you, you are here to stay.  You can either be my life long nemesis or you can be a life long friend.  I choose to have a life long friend by my side to get through life.  When I sit down and think about it, I owe my life to you.  Let’s look at some of the things that have happened that would not have if I did not meet you.  Good and Bad.  We will start with the bad so we can end on a good note.

I may have still been playing football.  I stopped playing football in college because I did not know what was wrong with me and I had no energy and no drive to continue to go through winter and spring workouts.  I would have a lot more money because I wouldn’t have to spend so much on you.  You are more spoiled then one of those Real Housewives of New Jersey ( kind of viscous like them at times as well!)  I wouldn’t be testing my blood sugar and inserting a needle into me constantly.  I also wouldn’t be waking up in the middle of the night in a sweat and light headed wondering where I can get my next fix of sugar.  But diabetes, like I said we have some good things as well.

First, I would never have moved to Florida if it wasn’t for you because I would have finished college back up North and probably stayed in that area.  That obviously means that I would not have met Amanda (girlfriend of almost 5 years).  Which by the way, I am glad that you and her are able to get along and play well with each other because if you couldn’t, then I don’t know where I would be.  If it wasn’t for meeting you Diabetes, I would not have a blog, which means I would never have gotten to know all these wonderful, caring people.  You have given me a whole new outlook on life and showed me that there is still good in this world and not everybody is just out for themselves.  Finally, if it wasn’t for you, then I would not own my own business.  I would not be doing the things that I love to do if it wasn’t for you.  I may not even have loved the things that I now love because of you.

In ending this letter, let me just say a few more things.  Diabetes, you are my friend.  When we have a bad moment, let’s just fix it and move on and not think back and hold grudges.

Sincerly,

Chris – The Life of a Diabetic

I spoke before on here about the fact that I need to cut back on my caffeine intake.  It was made very clear to me at my last doctor’s visit, that I must do this.  Mainly, my doctor felt that it could be one of the main facts of my blood pressure being high.  I was drinking anywhere from 8-10 cups of coffee a day, plus 1-2 energy drinks a day.  Some days was less, and some times even more than that.

Lately, I have been following the rules.  I have cut back my coffee to scary levels.  I drink a large coffee in the morning or 1-2 mugs of coffee and then 1-2 after lunch and then that is it.  Every so often there will be more caffeine in there, like an energy drink late at night to keep me going to finish some projects that I am working on.

Now that I know that I can cut back on coffee, I also know that I can cut back on the amount of food that I intake at every meal which means an easy way to lose weight.  Losing weight is the next big step in my life.  I have turned to quotes from Joel Osteen to help me reach these goals, more on that in a post tomorrow.

Until then, have a great day.

Normally on Mondays I give a quick little update of the weekend.  Well this weekend was very busy.  I fished, fished, fished and watched the boxing match.

This post is being done late at night right now, and I don’t really have too much to say……sorry.  I’ll have something good tomorrow, I promise, I think.

Let’s first start off with the press contact info portion of this post.  We all get those e-mails from different PR companies or diabetes companies that are looking to have us write a review or give us free products.  That is all fine and dandy with me and I don’t mind doing it, but just know a few things.  By you giving me free product, I am not going to automatically write a good review, so don’t send me an e-mail after I told you what is wrong with the product and tell me that you don’t appreciate it when you sent it to me for free.  Yeah, I actually received that e-mail.  If you need to contact me, just use the contact form on this blog or send me an e-mail cstocker at chrisstockerinc dot com.  Now, moving on.

Starting the week of May 10 I will be doing a guest post week.  The length of the guest posting will depend on how many posts that I receive from all of you.  If you would like to submit a guest post, please just send me an e-mail or use the contact form and @ reply me on Twitter.  You know how to get a hold of me.  Guest posting is fun.  I love doing it.  I don’t do it as much with this blog, but I guest post a lot on other small business / social media business sites from my other blog.

Quick post today, but just wanted to let you all know about the guest post opportunities.  No specific post, you come up with the post and I post it, simple as that.

I haven’t been  blogging lately or have I been on Twitter.  I’ve been really busy around here with camping last weekend, traveling up north next week, losing my dog, and purchasing my first ever Mac.

I just wanted to post quickly, this is my first post using my Mac and I absolutely love it.  I am now trying to get this thing ready to be my full time machine by switching over a lot of stuff.  The number one thing that I am missing is my Adobe CS4, which I might just have to get the full CS5 package!

Well, until next time, have a great day.

Today is going to be a busy day. It is the last day of the quarter, so I have a lot of paperwork and reporting that I have to prepare for reports that are due on the desk tomorrow. So, this post is going to be very short. Basically, all I wanted to talk about was that I have no more strips, completely out. I found about 5 boxes of OT Ultra strips laying around, but I can’t find my OT meter anywhere, and I didn’t see any on sale at the store. I think I will just have to call my doctor and see if I can get a free meter from them in the mean time.

So, I have no idea what my blood sugar is at all today, and that absolutely sucks.

Well have a good day ya’ll.

Before I start this review, let’s get to the disclosure.  Back in November I wrote a post about how I want a Contour USB meter.  Bayer’s PR or marketing team, must do a great job with social media and monitoring blogs because I was e-mailed within 24 hours asking for my address so they could send me one.  They did not ask me to do a review for this product, they just sent me a sample.  This review is my own personal review, not influenced by anything at all, but my own thoughts, so here we go:

Initial Thoughts

As soon as I saw the packaging I thought, “Wow, this things is freaking awesome.”  The black box it comes in is really sharp.  Upon opening it, I couldn’t use it right away because it had to charge for a while.  That was one thing that I did not like that I had to wait about 4-5 hours to use it for the first time.  Most meters, you just flop in the battery and it is ready to go.

The next thing that I saw and noticed inside the box was the multi-color lancets.  I don’t change my lancet very often, so I think this influenced me to change it more often because they were cool colors.  Finally, I got to the meter and liked the design of it.  It was thin and small, very large colored screen.

Usability

The meter was very simple to use.  I will admit that I did not use all of the features that I could have (I was restricted to the 20 sample strips that came with it).  One end of the meter is a USB that has a cap over it that you just pull off.  On the other end, it has a slot to put the test strip in.  It was self-explanatory what to do, put the strip in the machine and then it turned on.  Prick your finger, get the blood and let the meter show you your BG on a colored screen.  Once the reading comes up, you are able to categorize it by time of day, for instance, breakfast lunch or dinner.  I must say that I am not a big fan of the Microlet 2, at all.  I guess that I love the Freestyle lancing device so much, that there is nothing else out there that can compare.

Data Usage

Before I received the meter I had heard about it and heard about the great graph and data features that came along with the meter. The first time I plugged it into my computer, it took at least 20 minutes for the software to load up.  I know it wasn’t my computer because I run a lot of high powered software and applications on my computer and there’s never an issue.  Once it did finally load up, then it was still slow to click from graph to graph.  Once everything was up and running properly, I loved it.

Like I said before, I only had 20 test strips, and I tried to space it out as far as possible to test at different random times.  Here are a few snapshots from the photos below (click for full size):

As you can see from the first picture, the readings were color coded, would like to see more greens, but that’s the way it is.  I like this breakdown.  The second picture is easier on the eyes and see on a percentage basis where your numbers are based upon the ranges.  I really like the data summary on the left side of the image.  The last photo is a line graph which is useful to see visually how much your blood sugar is varying.

Overall I like the meter.  I would use it as my full time meter, but I have already put in a 3 month supply of Freestyle Lite strips, so I can’t afford to pay out of pocket for the Contour strips.  After this go-round, I may switch my strips and use the Contour ones instead.

If you have used this meter, please leave any additional feedback or comments that you have about it

Yesterday I came across a really good article on Yahoo Finance on the 10 ways the new healthcare bill may affect you.  I really liked the article because it breaks all the BS or politics down into 10 easy, simple descriptions of the bill.  There are some things that I love about the new bill and some things that I think are stupid.  Let’s start with what I like.

Bye-Bye Pre-Existing

By 2014, I will no longer have to call an insurance company wondering if I will get coverage or not.  This is something that I have been waiting for, for a long time and never thought I would see it.  Now that I own my own company, I have no way to get health insurance.  I am still covered through Cobra right now, but once that runs out, I have to go get another corporate job in order to get health insurance, unless I am married by the time that happens, which isn’t going to happen.  I will then be able to continue to run my own company and pay for my own insurance.

Along with that is the waiting period.  I haven’t been in this situation before, but there may come a day that I am.  I still need a little more clarity on the maximum benefits part of this bill, so I’ll do a little more research before I make a decision on that.  I am not sure if it is a yearly or life-long maximums.

Now, let me discuss the number one thing that I don’t like about this bill.

You Must Be Insured

From my memory of history classes and research projects that I’ve done, I could have sworn that this country was not built on the government telling you that you MUST do things.  The government already takes taxes from me and puts it towards things that I don’t want it going to, now they are going to tell me that I must pay for insurance as well?  Obviously with me being diabetic, I need health insurance, but I know people that haven’t coughed or sneezed in 10 years (obviously a little exaggeration). But if that person wants to take the risks, isn’t that their right as an United State citizens?

Overall, I think that the benefits outweigh the negatives.  That one negative that I discussed above, I do think is a huge negative and is 100% completely against what this country was built on.

How do you feel about it?  What do you like and dislike?