This post is primarily for my local readers that may be interested in attending an event for Broward County. This event is great for parents that would like to speak to school nurses about nutrition and diabetes and any other related questions that you may have.
Below is the flyer for the event. Please register if you can. I will be there.
It’s been nine years since I was diagnosed with diabetes. It seems like almost yesterday when I was racing down the Pennsylvania Turnpike in the back seat of my parents car going to the emergency room with that 858 blood sugar. Every year I look back and reflect at all the positives that have come from diabetes. We can easily look at the negatives of being diagnosed with diabetes, but that brings you down and puts you in a bad mood, so it’s the positives that I try to always reflect on.
In these nine years I have:
Most importantly, I moved to a new state after diagnosis and met the love of my life and am getting married in 3 months.
Here’s looking back at those nine years and looking forward to many more.
I have been using my “home gym” for a while now, but I get the feeling that there is only so much I can do here and only so much weight that I can lose. Every time I watch the Biggest Loser, I think to myself, damn if I just had access to that kind of stuff, I could shed this weight with no problem.
So, that is exactly what I am going to do, join a gym. Amanda and I are going today to join a local gym, after some detailed research. I wanted to find something around $20/month, but around here, that doesn’t exist. There is a $10/month gym, but it is about a 20-25 minute drive away with local traffic, and I know that I will not want to drive there every single day. Plus with gas prices, it would be a lot more expensive than the $10. Read More
Over the weekend, on Saturday, I had the opportunity to speak to a group of parents and children with Type 1 at the PEP Mini Conference by the DRI Foundation. PEP stands for Parents Empowering Parents. This is a wonderful group because when a child is newly diagnosed, these parents reach out to the new parents and let them know that they can do the things that are going to be needed in order to help their child manage their diabetes.
I was asked to break off into a small little group with the teens and just have some sort of conversation with them. I was joined by Patti Sinkoe, M.S. We ended up talking about some of the things that may bother or frustrate them. One of the most common examples given was that they don’t like being asked “Did you test your blood sugar?”over and over and over. But, as us adults with Type 1 know, those questions will continue to be asked. We worked on providing recommendations to the parents on how they could ask that question a little better. For example, “What is your blood sugar?” because that at least implies that they trusted in you to have already tested.
Dr. Wendy Satin Rapaport, who is a clinical psychologist, was there, and damn was she great. Having a psychologist at a meeting like this is extremely helpful because people have questions, and some times people may be scared to go and see a psychologist.
Finally, at the end of the event, I was able to speak with some parents and introduce them to DSMA and DSMA Live ‘Rents talk. Hopefully we will see some of them participating on DSMA soon enough.
I’m not going to be covering the BioHub news that was released today from the DRI. Please check out the post Mike did at Diabetes Mine because that covers just about everything you need or want to know.
This post is about some un-related DRI news. Every so often the Diabetes Research Institute Foundation holds PEP (Parents Empowering Parents) Talks, which are a few hour mini conferences that allow parents and other PWD’s to discuss emotions, challenges, managing relationships, etc. There is one at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Fort Lauderdale this Saturday from 1-4 p.m. You can find more information on the DRI’s PEP Talk site.
After I signed up to attend the event, I was asked if I would participate in holding a breakout session with the teens in attendance. I am super excited to be able to do this and help answer any questions that I can. Amanda and I will be there, so if you are in the Fort Lauderdale area, I recommend you stopping by, it is free!
I wrote at the beginning of the new season that I was going to watch the Biggest Loser this year because I never had really watched it, but thought that it might help keep me motivated. It has definitely done it’s job in that area. Seeing some of the contestants reach the 100 pound weight loss mark and seeing others at the beginning of the season and realizing that I now weigh more than them puts a little spark in me.
I am a huge fan of Tijuana Flats. Their food may not be the greatest, but the sauce bar they have can make any food taste amazing. It is definitely one of my weak spots because they have a lot of good deals and specials and it is very easy for me to break my diet by going there.
However, today, Thursday February 21, 2013, they are teaming up with the American Diabetes Association to help raise money for the Tour de Cure.
They are calling it their Tour de Cure Give Back Night. 20% of sales from 5 p.m. – close for today will be donated to the ADA’s Tour de Cure. I believe that this is only in south Florida locations, but I could be mistaken.
Here is the e-mail that was sent out:
So, as you all know I have been without my full coverage for a while now. Which means that I am paying out of pocket for test strips, pump supplies, insulin, etc. It’s now time to purchase some more test strips. I thought that I was good for another two months, but, once again, I left two empty boxes of strips in my inventory cabinet and thought there was strips in the boxes, but there wasn’t.
There are a lot of purchasing decisions in life that can be tough, a car, a home, deciding to buy a new 27″ iMac! However, these type of purchase decisions is not very tough because there is not much of a choice. I have been lucky to have an endo that is so willing to give me anything that I need, but there is only so much that I can take from them without feeling like I am taking from people with smaller incomes that need the samples more than I do. Read More
I don’t usually do a lot to celebrate Valentine’s Day, but when I saw this idea being spread around the DOC, I knew that there was finally something that I wanted to do for this Hallmark Holiday.
A few DOC members, Kelly Close, Manny Hernandez, Bennet Dunlap, Adam Brown, Kerri Sparling and Jeff Hitchcock got together to find a way to use this great tool of social media to benefit the greater good of the diabetes community. It was decided that the Life for a Child program needs some help. Their idea is to take the typical “dozen roses,” so popular on Valentine’s Day, and save just one rose to spare the life of a child. “Spare a Rose, Save a Child” is simple: buy one less rose this Valentine’s Day and share the value of that flower with a child with diabetes in the developing world. Your loved one at home still gets flowers, and you both show some love to someone who needs it.
Here is a link to the Diabetes Advocate site with more detailed information on this great idea – http://diabetesadvocates.org/c/spare-a-rose-save-a-child/
Last week when I was at my endo for a pump training for a trial of an insulin pump that I am starting this week, my doctor gave me a print out for a Driving with Diabetes test / study. The information is below.