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Re-Ordering Pump Supplies is Stressful

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

There are a lot of things that I don’t like about diabetes, but none of them really stress me out.  The only thing that stresses me out every single time is re-ordering pump supplies.  It is also the most rewarding thing to me when I open up that fresh new box from UPS and open up all the goodies.  Why is this the most stressful?  Because I re-ordered them in February, when my deductible was nice and fresh, so I owe the entire deductible when I order them.  It is now August and of course I have not paid off that deductible yet.  But guess what?  I can’t re-order these supplies until I pay up what is currently due.  Well that kind of money is not just laying around in my pocket where I can just easily pay that bill.

So, this is where it becomes stressful.  The good thing is that I have made some decisions in my life recently that will save me some money.  First and foremost, no more eating out at restaurants or fast food.  Fast food doesn’t hurt me too much in the wallet, but going to dinner and spending $30-$50 every time I go was hurting me, and that was once a week.  By cutting out those dinners, I am able to save myself almost $200 a month, so I will be good when I have to re-order my supplies.

I also want to order them soon so I can get another order in before the end of the year before my deductible restarts.  Ahh, the life of a diabetic, figuring out exactly what day you have to re-order your supplies so you can re-order just in time before a deductible starts over and also get the maximum length and time out of that re-order.

Well, anyway, I know that I just re-designed the site a few months ago, I am not happy with it and I am going to re-do it.  Should be up and running soon, maybe even a first draft of it tomorrow.

Keeping it Real with Diabetes

Chris Stocker 7 Comments

How many times have you all come to this blog and read that I was going to make changes in my life and lose weight and create a lifestyle change and stop eating unhealthy, and begin exercising and get healthy again?  I recently looked back and did some site searches to try to find those kinds of posts and I was able to find about 20 different times that I said I was going to do this.  Well, guess what I am going to be writing about in this post?  You guessed it, I am going to be making lifestyle changes.

What makes me think that this time it is going to work?  Because I have had some harsh realties lately, and I am not afraid to talk about them.  The more I deny and hide them the longer this is going to happen.  So, here is my confessional post.

I have blood sugars that are consistently high.  When I test my sugar and it is under 200, I am happy.  I count my carbs in my food and take a true bolus only about 30% of the time.  I guess the other 70%.  I have gained 60 pounds since I was diagnosed 7 years ago.  At the time of diagnosis I was a size 34-36 waist for pants and shorts.  I have recently been buying size 42 waist pants and shorts…. this weekend, none of those fit, I had to wear my size 46 shorts that I wear to golf in.  When I walk up one flight of stairs, yes just one flight of stairs, I am out of breathe.  Let’s remember, I used to be play college football (Quarterback).

I spend way too much money on fast food because I am too lazy to cook and clean up the kitchen after I get home from work.  I make excuses not to walk the garbage down to the dumpster because I am too lazy, so sometimes I put it on the hood of my car and drive it to the dumpster.  When I have a stressful day I eat Pei Wei, plus Amanda’s leftovers.  Then usually follow that up with some ice cream.

Who is this hurting?  This is hurting myself.  Me being lazy is not doing me any good at all.  I am making myself live a shorter life by doing all of this stuff or lack of doing these things if you want to look at it this way.  And you know what?  I am tired of it!  I am tired of not fitting into clothes.  I am tired of spending hundreds of dollars a month on fast food.  I am tired of buying coffee in the morning instead of making it, and then eating a breakfast sandwich along with it.  I am tired of eating a huge, carb filled lunch with fatty foods and then drinking 4 cups of coffee in the afternoon to keep myself awake.

Starting tomorrow, there will be a new me.  I will be motivated.  I will be driven for success.  Things are not going to stop me.  I will lose weight.  I will stop spending dumb money.  I will get more done in the diabetes world.

This is me, keeping it real!

Please Help My Co Worker’s Cousin – Diagnosed at Age 7

Chris Stocker

I wrote last week how my company was nice enough to give my blog a shot out in the company newsletter that goes out every Friday. If people didn’t know I was diabetic, then they do now. It is great to hear so many people telling me that they were inspired by the blog and that they didn’t know these things about diabetes. I respond with thanks and thats why I do this.

Yesterday I was having a conversation with one of my co workers and diabetes got brought and she said, “My 7 year old cousin just found out he is diabetic 🙁 “. Of course there is going to be that sad face at first, but I know that we can all help turn that frown upside down and help out his family.

I asked her to share my blog and email with them so they can get introduced to the DOC and learn all the great information and support that is online. I am going to ask my co worker to share this post with her family so I would greatly appreciate if you could please leave some words of encouragement and share and have others leave comments as well. I want to make sure that they get all the infomation they need. I was diagnosed at 19 and I dont have a child with diabetes so I would appreciate if would leave comments.

Thanks again everybody.

JDRF Promise to Remember Me Campaign

Chris Stocker

Next month I will be visiting and touring the Diabetes Research Institute for the first time.  I have been wanting to do this for so damn long, but haven’t had much of an opportunity to do so until now.  My parents are coming down to visit next month so I thought that it would be a perfect opportunity to finally take the tour and take my parents along with me.  They will enjoy it a lot.  Amanda will also be going to.

I can’t wait to take pictures and videos and report back on everything that I see in there.  I have heard nothing but awesome things about this tour and I am so excited!  Did I mention before that I am excited?

On to some other news.  I received an e-mail from the JDRF Promise to Remember campaign today because I had signed up to volunteer to be a campaign coordinator, but unfortunately, well maybe not unfortunately, but somebody else has already taken this position.  They also sent over a list of events that our local Members of Congress will be at during their August recess.  This is awesome, I can’t wait to try and get to some of these events and attempt to get 5-10 minutes worth of of the Congress person’s time.

If you would like to see this list also and see find out where your Congress reps will be during their recess send me an e-mail or just send me a note in a comment or on the contact me page.

Way to go JDRF, thumbs up on this one.  Way to help.

Demand for Diabetes Educator Increases – Now What?

Chris Stocker

I recently read this article posted on Endocrine Today, Demand for Diabetes Educators Projected to Increase Sharply.  My first question when I read this is if the demand is going up, then is the supply going to increase as much?  I am not going to give an economics class here because most of you all know this, but when the demand increases, the supply tends to go down.  But the supply for diabetes educators is already low, so, I’m not a genius but this doesn’t sound look a good situation.  I think that we already knew that the demand for diabetes educators is going to increase sharply because the disease itself is increasing, so this article does not really tell me much or help the situation.

One question that was some-what answered in this article that I was interested in is how Medicare and insurance companies would reimburse for these diabetes education classes.  Would they cover only one a year, or 50% of each visit, or not cover any of them at all?  I think that it is important for diabetes education to be covered by insurance because people just don’t have the money to spend on education.  So if they don’t have the money to show up to a physical classroom setting or one-on-one lesson, or even a group diabetes education session, where else are they going to turn to?  Pick me, pick me, I know, I know.  The Diabetes Online Community, the DOC.  I mentioned this briefly in a post the other day also.

I think that it is essential to take diabetes education online.  There may not be live sessions on the internet, but quality recorded videos may be able to provide essential answers to some of the top diabetes questions.  One way to do this may be to submit your questions before hand and the diabetes educator can answer all the questions in one sitting and provide answers to all of the questions.

I know you are asking…. who’s going to pay for this?  Well, the answer is, I don’t know yet.  Who is going to produce the videos, edit them, finalize them, distribute them, what CDE is going to do this, how are we going to collect the e-mail questions?  I don’t know the answers to all of these questions, but I truly feel that the more I ask these questions, the more people are going to step up and answer these questions.

We all have specialties in the DOC, it is about damn time that we start pulling all of our personal resources together and start putting them together and start kicking ass with our skills.

Beginning today, Diabetes Education has now been put on my top todo list.  It was always on there, but it wasn’t as high as it is now.

Appreciation is Nice

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

What are the rewards for the things that we do?  There are a lot of rewards  that come with blogging and helping other diabetics out.  That is one of the main reasons that I continue to do this.  It also helps me cope with any issues that I may have, but I know that it is helping others too.  From time to time it is great to see physical examples of the appreciation of the work that you do.

So, now let me get to the point of this post.  Every Friday at my job they send out a company newsletter highlighting some of the work that we have been doing for clients as well as spotlighting several other fun things.  The other day in the cafeteria I was talking to the head of our Marketing and Communications team who supervises the weekly newsletter about diabetes and my blog and some of the goals and initiatives that I have with my blog.  He was very excited about it and told me to send him the links to the blog and Facebook page.

Yesterday when I read the newsletter, this is what was included (please click to view larger):

Quote – ” We know that we all work with amazing people, but this is just awesome. Did you know that Chris Stocker is a national leader when it comes to advocating for people with diabetes? He has an informative and motivating blog and Facebook page, so please check them out and give him some “like” and re-tweeting support. Great work Chris – you’re an inspiration to us all!”

Diabetic Blog

 

This is just awesome.  It doesn’t matter that it was spotlighting me, but the fact that it was spotlighting diabetes and how diabetes awareness was spread to over 150 people instantly with an e-mail.  This makes you feel that what you are doing is well worth it and that you are accomplishing things.

By the way, #dsma got some face time too with the banner.

 

What We Can Do About Diabetes Education

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

The other day I wrote a post about who is certified to be a diabetes educator and I received a lot of great feedback from the DOC and also some great comments on the post.  I appreciated those that commented with their information about the certification process.  Also, good luck to Lauren if she decides to become a CDE.  Today I wanted to touch on a different subject related to diabetes education, and that is the lack of it.  I had wrote about this a long time ago, maybe two years ago, not sure?  The lack of diabetes education is scary.  I have attended sessions where a doctor will sit down with 10 patients and go over their charts in front of everybody and try and give education and advice that way.  That is way too difficult and is not fair to the individual because their diabetes is not being individually treated, but just the disease as a whole.

Every single person that is newly diagnosed must have access to diabetes education.  They may only get a limited amount of time with a certified diabetes educator because there just are not enough in this country.  So how are they going to get answers to their questions at 2:30 a.m. on a Saturday night?  I know, I know, pick me, pick me.

The DOC

No, not this one…..

This one…. (not the entire DOC just the only pic I have from San Diego Roche Social Summit.

Roche Social Media Summit 2011

This is why it is so important for the online DOC to become just the DC.  I can already see a lot of you beginning to take the “O” of out DOC.  I think that the presentation that was just given at AADE is going to be huge.  I don’t know how well it went, I haven’t had much of a chance to read up on any posts or any feedback on it, I’m sure it made an impact.  If it didn’t at that exact time, then it definitely will begin to.

So how do we make sure that newly diagnosed and those that just don’t really know much about diabetes or want to know more about their diabetes get the education that they need?  There are several things that we can do:

  1. Get to a point whre CDE’s and HCPs are willing to give their patients information about the DOC.
  2. Online diabetes sessions with CDE’s (would require an hour or so of CDE time to do an online training session with as many people as possible)
  3. Get additional funding and aide for those that cannot afford to go see a CDE

Those are just a few ideas that pop into my head quickly.  I do not have the answers, but I sure don’t mind trying to be part of the solution to the problem however.  We have a lot of intelligent people in this community so I am sure among all of us, it can be done.  Who wants in and trying to get something done?

Have an awesome Saturday and rest of weekend everybody.

I’m Taking My Diabetes Talents to Tallahassee

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

First, for those that don’t know, I live in Florida. For those that do know, Tallahassee is the state capital. This is where the state capitol is and also where our Governor lives. Now that I have schooled you all on some crazy Florida social studies, let me tell you what I am talking about. I have been working closely with some local government representatives here and they have been able to get me in front of some “importnat people” up in the state capitol. I am very excited and have a long list of things that I want to talk about and open up the dialogue about. If you live in Florida and have some concerns, please let me know what they are and I will try my best and get those covered as well.

This is very gratifying and shows that if you work hard at something, it will pay off. You have to be persistent as well. I literlly have been sending 1,000’s of e-mails a month to different representatives, hell ones in areas that I don’t even live in. I’m hoping that these meetings go well, and that we can use this as some momentum for DC and if so, I will be marching proudly up the national Capitol building.

Well folks, it is Friday, so this is going to be a short post, but, since it is Friday I must leave you with this clip.

Who is Certified to Give Diabetes Education?

Chris Stocker 7 Comments

So with the AADE annual conference going on right now, it got me to thinking about diabetes education.  Who is qualified to give diabetes education, who shouldn’t be giving diabetes education, and should people who do not have a certification be able to give diabetes education?  Well, why wait, let’s get into all three of them now.

Who is qualified to give diabetes education?

Currently, if you are a CDE (Certified Diabetes Educator) you are qualified to give diabetes education.  Because you are certified!  What if you aren’t certified, does that mean that you are not qualified to give somebody some education about diabetes?  I do not think so.  I think that there are many things that I can give better education about than even a CDE can.  I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on tv, but I am a diabetic, so I may know a thing or two about diabetes.  I don’t claim to be a diabetes guru, but if somebody comes to me with a simple diabetes question, I feel that I am qualified to give an answer.  There are items, such as diet or very scientific items that I will not give education on.  Maybe some advice, but would definitely refer them to somebody who is more certified.  I have always felt that I learned more from the diabetes community than I do from a CDE.  I look at it as the difference between a class at college or an internship during college.  During a class you learn everything in the book, but you don’t actually learn how to apply or adapt to these items in the real world until you actually do them, like during an internship.

Who shouldn’t be qualified to give diabetes education?

Diabetes Douchebags like Dr. Oz and Wendell Fowler. Enough said, moving on.

People without a “Certification”

I am not going to pretend like I know what are the rules and regulations are for this.  I do not know the legal, financial, medicare, insurance billing, or accountability factors (if somebody does, please comment). To me, it seems that the knowledge is there for a diabetes educator, they just haven’t taken the test.  I once spoke with several CDE’s who were encouraging me to go back to school and become a CDE, but I couldn’t afford it.  They joked and said that I probably knew more than most CDE’s, but I don’t know any “technical” terms and would fail the test miserably.  So this becomes a very tricky question and one with an answer in a gray area.  Do we allow diabetes educators without a certification to give education about insulin and diet without having the backing of an accreditation?  Or is the accreditation just a piece of paper with a few signatures?

Now I’ve gotten to the end of this post and now I confused myself and I’m not sure where I stand anymore.

What are your thoughts?

How to Take the Online to the Offline

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

Last week during DSMA a question was asked about how we can do more to create more offline efforts and offline communications.  My biggest efforts for the offline world are communicating with JDRF and ADA local chapters and trying to get them to communicate together and work together for a larger goal of getting people with diabetes the information that they need.  One piece of that information being access to the DOC.  How do we go about this?  It sounds all fun and dandy to have the JDRF tell every single person they talk to about the DOC, but how do we do it?

 

Unfortunately, these local chapters have national “rules” that they have to follow and they can’t just add something into their newsletter that is “endorsing” something unless they have approval.  So the first part that I would recommend is to reach out and just simply explain what it is that you are trying to accomplish and see how they react.  If they don’t respond via e-mail or letter or phone call, then try again.  These offices are under-resourced and sometimes it may take a while to get back to something because they just don’t have the manpower to get things done in a timely manner (which is why volunteers are such a huge deal to them).  If after a few attempts, they are not responsive then you have to take it to the next level.

Call them out…… politely….. on Twitter or Facebook and just ask them to participate themselves a few times in DSMA or just comment on some blog posts and lurk around on Twitter.  Once they see for themselves how amazing this community is, then they will be more responsive to your ideas.  Do not make enemies with them, they are some of the few friends that you have on your side, if you work it the right way.  Be friendly and be willing to work with them.  See if there are events that you can volunteer at and be able to speak with some of the attendees.  This is a way to get your foot in the door and help build a larger relationship.

Once you have established relationships with both, it is now time to try and get the parties together and start having them communicate a little bit.  I know that this is like asking a Democrat and Republican to agree with each other during an election year, but at the end of the day there is a common goal, to what is best for the majority.  The majority in this situation is the people with diabetes that are directly affected by the decisions that these organizations make.

The best advice that I can give is to not give up.  Do not give up on the local chapters.  That is where you are going to make the biggest impact.  National change comes from local outrage.  Do not settle for something that doesn’t work.  Strive for the best.  You must be willing compromise however, because not everything is going to turn out exactly the way that you want, but keep at it!

Another thing that you can do is constantly remind your endo or any other HCP about the DOC and how beneficial it is.  Doctors usually care about their patients enough that they want them to have access to support.  I know there are some legal issues that may arise with this having to do with a doctor referring a patient somewhere and then something going wrong.  However, it doesn’t hurt to try.  I am lucky enough to have an endo that is type 1 diabetic myself, so I am excited for the next time that I see her to try and get her involved.  Unfortunately, due to scheduling conflicts I haven’t seen my doctor in almost 6-7 months and I won’t see her again until November because of how booked the both of us are.  Not good, I know it sucks, but that’s for another blog post.