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Diabetes First Responders

Chris Stocker 4 Comments

As I talked about in yesterday’s post I had a lot go on within a few days and there was so much to blog about, but as you know from reading my blog, I don’t like writing long blog posts, so I’ve decided to break it up into several of them.  Today’s post I want to talk about Diabetes First Responders.  I do not mean in the sense of an emergency or medical team, but in the DOC.

For example, the other night when I first tweeted about my Medtronic insulin pump issue, the first responder that night was Jen, @jenloves2travel.  It was then followed up by Stacey, @StaceyDivone.  It is so comforting to know that when you tweet something, you are going to have somebody there for you almost instantly.  Another first responder that I can pretty much count on is Mike Hoskins.  If you look at my comments on my blog, Mike’s name is usually the first one there, and I’ve noticed this on other blogs as well.  Don’t worry, I’m not saying these are the only people I appreciate, don’t get upset DOC, ha.  I’m sure you all understand what I am talking about and all have multiple stories about the same instances.

I have thanked the DOC so many times, and I will continue to thank you all.  I was very freaked out knowing that my only source of insulin was not working, and you were all there to help out with advice on what to do and let me know that some others have gone through this before and it will be ok.

*Quick update, I did receive my new pump. I will post more about that tomorrow*

Have a great night everyone.  Happy #dsma, can’t make it tonight.

 

Medtronic Wins Customer Service Award with Pump Error

Chris Stocker 3 Comments

This has been an incredible 24 hours.  Well, maybe a little more than 24 hours.  Last night at dinner my Medtronic pump starting making that bad beeping noise (any Medtronic user knows the difference between a normal beep, and those bad news beeps).  I thought maybe I hit a button or something.  Nope, “Button Error”. I felt like Michael Bolton in Office Space (PC load letter, F*ck does that mean?”) I was freaking out.  I normally don’t freak out about things, but last night this scared the shit out of me.  I didn’t know what I was going to do, I have no back up supplies.  No syringes, no Lantus, no insulin pens, #screwed!

Amanda saw the concern on my face so I let her know what was going on.  Fortunately, I was able to get about 1.5 – 2.5 units of insulin each time I bolused before the pump would make the error.  Since I was eating pasta, I had to do this about 10 times, (4:1 ration, 100 carbs = 25.0 units).  Wow, good to see that I can still do math.  After I bolused enough to cover my food, I decided not to eat anything else the rest of the night, just in case.  The pump did not make any more noises the rest of the night because I didn’t bolus at all.

I called Medtronic first thing in the morning, explained what happened. “No problem, we’ll get another one overnighted to you”  As simple as that.  The customer service rep was awesome.  He asked me a bunch of questions to make sure that the pump went to he best address since it was going to be overnighted to me.  He asked me if I had the Carelink USB device and I explained to him what happened.  I tossed 3-4 of them away when I moved because they weren’t Mac compatible.  Look who the idiot is now!  “No problem about that either, we’ll get one out with you so you can easily transfer all the data over to your new pump.”

Talk about great customer service, not customer dis-service like I’ve had with others in the past..  Medtronic, I thank you.  I may have said some bad things about you in the past, but I think that you have totally changed your game.  I believe that 5 years ago when I first went on an insulin pump, you had no competition so you can do whatever you wanted.  Now there is some good competition and a customer can change, not easily thanks to insurance, but there is still an option.

So many other things within this 24 hour period, but we will save them for another post.

Tomorrow I am going to talk about diabetes first responders.

 

Blood Sugars – Some Good Some Bad

Chris Stocker

Yesterday was combined with some good blood sugars and some not so good ones, but in the overall game of diabetes, I was happy with them, not satisfied, but happy.  In the middle of the night I could just tell that my blood sugar was high so I blind bolused and guestimated that my blood sugar was about 350-400, I took the recommended amount of insulin from the pump.  When I woke up in the morning, my blood sugar was about 125, so I guessed right and my morning blood sugar was awesome.  For breakfast I had 3 mini pancakes and a few sausage patties.  When I tested before lunch, I had gone up to about 225.  I was having one of those Healthy Choice lunches that were about 250 calories and 35 grams of carbs.  I don’t know why, but my blood sugar dropped after lunch and I tested out with a 65.  Time for the Skittles!  But, they are Skittles, so who can seriously only eat enough Skittles or candy to fix their low.  With that being said, I was about 230 the next time that I tested.

Neither Amanda or myself felt like cooking last night, so we decided it would be a good idea to go to Chili’s.  I always seem to over eat there, even though I tell myself not to.  But when that chips and queso comes to the table, it’s just unstoppable, you can’t stop until the whole thing is gone.  I did bring some of both of our meals home though, normally I finish mine and then attempt to finish hers.  Chili’s usually messes with my blood sugar, so I made sure to test every hour until I went to bed to look for any reasons to think that it may go up really high in the middle of the night.  It went pretty well.

I am typing this bright and early in the morning as I prepare for my day.  Today is the day that I take my car to the auto shop to see what kind of damages were done in the accident.  I’m assuming that they are not going to fix the car today because they are going to need to order parts or something.  I am getting a rental car, hopefully, so I should be able to make it to work.  I sure hope so, because there’s too much work to be done to take off today, especially for the fact that my parents are coming down next week for a few days to visit, so I am taking off for those days.  Not to mention, I will have to miss some time from work to get my blood work done. AHHHH, all these things to do, it is never ending!

Well, I just finished my first cup of coffee, so if I don’t get another one soon, then I am really going to get angry.

Have a great day, ya’ll.

Car Accidents and Diabetes Emergency Kits

Chris Stocker 5 Comments

Some of you may know from yesterday that I got into a car accident.  Let’s start out first, that I am ok and I, nor the other person involved in the accident were injured, that is always the most important part whenever anybody is involved in a crash.  Long story short, the guy was at a stop sign and he tried to cut across 6 lanes of traffic, except I just so happened to be driving through the second lane and he hit the back door of my car.  There was no spinning out cutting into the other lane, luckily.  The long part was after I called 911 and was waiting for the police to come to the scene of the accident.  That is when I started getting nervous, anxious and felt like my sugar was going to be dropping.  I didn’t bring breakfast with me yesterday because I was going to stop and get breakfast on the way there, so I was hoping that my sugar didn’t go low.

I also didn’t have any Skittles or any candy because I was going to be stopping at the gas station to get some at lunch time.  This is another reason why you should always something on you because you don’t know when some sort of emergency is going to happen, you could be stuck on the side of the interstate or the Turnpike, or even at a golf course and not have any access to candy or juice.  Time to make a new emergency diabetes kit because I haven’t carried one around for several years (I usually always have candy in my laptop bag that goes most places with me, except for on the weekends).

This leads me to know what all of you have in your diabetes emergency kit?  Glucose tabs, juice, candy, Glucagon kit, whatever.  What kind of bag do you carry it in?  Do you take a larger kit for different situations such as in the car for a road trip, and then a smaller one when you go into the mall or store?

Love to hear your thoughts.

Diabetes Police…Thank You

Chris Stocker

Thank You Diabetes Police

So we all know what the diabetes police are and we have all had our experiences with the diabetes police.  I had an experience last week with some of my co-workers when talking about what I just ate for lunch.  It’s funny because it was on Thursday, the day after dsma last week when we were discussing what and how we react to these circumstances.  We were walking back from lunch and I said that I was stuffed and the one co-worker asked what I ate and I said that I just ate a bunch of pasta, and helaughed and said, you must be the worst diabetic ever.  He was joking and mentioning that I eat a lot of pizza, pasta, donuts, coffee, energy drinks, etc.  I took this time to educate them on insulin pumps, and taking insulin and I can eat anything that I want to, except that I have to take insulin because my body doesn’t make it and yours does.

I also explained the diabetes police to them and that it doesn’t bother me when it happens because I like the opportunity to explain things and educate people on this disease, the more people that know the better we all are.  We also talked about how they would answer the question.  I mentioned that I may just start answering those questions on whether or not I can eat something, “Should you really be eating that also?”  If it’s something that I shouldn’t eat, then it is probably something that you shouldn’t eat either. And vice-versa.

But, as you see in the title of today’s post, I am saying Thank You to the Diabetes Police.  Why such an absurd thing may you ask?  Because they are making me realize how bad of a diabetic I really am!  Why am I eating 2 donuts every Friday when people bring them in, on top of the breakfast that I already ate, then going and eating a slice or two of pizza at lunch, and then maybe another donut in the afternoon.  I shouldn’t be eating like that, and when they question me, it’s almost like, ya know what, you are right, I shouldn’t be doing this and I am going stop eating this food.

Yesterday was a great day of living this new lifestyle.  High fiber breakfast, a salad for lunch, a small little high fiber snack, a small sub with some mac and cheese for dinner, a 2-mile walk and then strawberries and kiwi for dessert.  This is the start of hopefully a long-term lifestyle change.  I definitely need to do more exercise than just walking, but it is better than nothing at all. A good Monday and I am hoping that it leads to a good day today and tomorrow, and so forth.

Have a great day ya’ll.

How does Food Affect My Daily Routine

Chris Stocker

Last night I made it through my first, entire #dsma chat.  I have participated before, but have never been able to make it all the way through.  It was fun, but it definitely hurt my eyes really bad afterwards because there was just way too much to read and try to respond to.  I mentioned that this chat gave me a lot of blog ideas because at certain times, when you live just a normal life, except you have diabetes, you don’t have much to blog about.  I know that this whole food thing is something that people feel very strongly about.  I read a lot of blog posts and tweets about food and how it affects some of your daily lifes, but to me, it doesn’t affect me much at all.  This is also one reason that I am about 60 pounds overweight and haven’t had the best blood sugars lately.

Once I went on the pump, that is when all of my weight gain began, because I never thought twice about eating something in particular again.  When I was on MDI, I thought about if I really wanted to eat something quick because I knew I had to take a shot.  However, with the pump, I know there is nothing to it, but a few buttons and that’s it, now I can have that quick snack or extra serving if I wanted to.  At times I think about going back to MDI because of how much less I ate and the more that I took care of myself.

I want food to be more of a hassle in my life and other diabetes related things.  I want to be hassled and bothered by them for some time because for the past few years, I haven’t let diabetes get in my way, and I think my health and my care has gone down because of that.  I have two weeks before my next endo appointment, and they will be looking at my weight very carefully, if it is not down some, they are going to take action because it’s been about 2 years that I kept saying I would lose weight on my own.

Starting today, I am going to act like I am still on MDI, however, I’m on a pump.  I will calculate my own bolus and match it up with the pump to make sure that I still know how to do it.  I will not eat anything unless I test my sugar.  I will not have a snack just because all I have to do is hit a few buttons.  For the next few weeks, I am going to live different.  I am different because I have diabetes, I have to eat a different way…….. not because I have diabetes, but because I need to lose weight!

Living Normally With Diabetes

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

I have been living with diabetes for over 6 years now, my 7th diaversary is coming up on April 3, right around the corner.  I try not to celebrate or give this day any special attention because it’s not a fun day to remember.  Remembering being rushed to the hospital with a blood sugar of over 850 is not something that I like to remember.  It definitely was the first day of a new life, and a new beginning for me.  Unfortunately, the life hasn’t been so great lately.

We all handle our diabetes situations differently, believe in different methods of management and believe in different advocacy struggles.  The tagline of my blog is, “Living Normally with Diabetes”.  So what exactly does that mean?

What it means to me is going to be completely different than what it means to you.  What I mean by this is that I have diabetes, but I still live a normal life.  I have some additional things that I have to do on a daily, hourly, basis that others may not have to do, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t live a life just like everyone else.  I eat whatever foods I want, I can go on whatever rides I want, I can go to places I want, I can do the same “normal” things that you can do, except I have diabetes.

I’ve been talking lately about lifestyle changes, because without a full-blown change of the way that I live, I am not going to be healthy in older ages.  I can’t just say that I’m going to lose weight, and then not do it, because that has been going on for way too long.  I need to make a change in my lifestyle, as in, not wanting to eat a second portion, or not wanting to go out to dinner every other night, or buy lunch everyday at work.  These lifestyle changes are not easy to make, but I am making strides in doing this.

Anybody else that is trying to make lifestyle changes, best of luck to you, because it’s not easy!

Following Up on My Lifestyle Changes

Chris Stocker

So it’s been a week since my last post when I discussed my new lifestyle changes to lose weight and be a “better diabetic”. Over the week, I did a lot better with what I ate and did overeat. Until tonight. Tonight it was rainy and ugly and stormy and I just wanted to grab some takeout and bring it home and relax and not have to worry about cleaning anything up.

My blood sugars have also been doing a lot better over this time period. I have been testing a little more often but still not as often as I should be. I was disappointed that I couldn’t get to the pool tonight to exercise. The exercise bike that I have is a spinning bike, so it is a pretty intense workout and I am just not ready to do that yet, I know another excuse.

Well, I just wanted to check in and let you all know that I am still doing well on my diet, I’m down about 2-3 pounds since last week, so I am getting there.

Have a great week

Lifestyle Changes – Day One

Chris Stocker

Diabetes Lifestyle ChangesToday started day one of my true beginning of a new diet.  As I told you yesterday, I am going on a pizza strike.  Not only a pizza strike, but all bad foods strike.  I had a lot of time to think about life things this weekend and my health was what on my mind a lot.  I realized that the way I am living, I won’t be living as long as I want to, unless I make some serious lifestyle changes.  I was able to do this a few years back and lost a lot of weight and had my A1C under 6.5 for a year straight.  I haven’t done that since, about 2-3 years.  The number one goal of mine for the rest of this month and then April as well is to pack a lunch everyday.  This part is easy because I create 5 inividual lunches every Sunday for the week, but I don’t always bring them, or when I do, I decide that I don’t feel like eating it.  Too bad, I’m eating it!

This is also a way to save money because I am not getting any younger.  There are plenty of things that I need in life that are more important than going out and buying a slice of pizza or a sub for lunch.  I am 100% totally dedicated to the diet and lifestyle changes this time.  Previous times that I did this, I was not as dedicated and it was just a half-ass effort, not anymore.

Today is day one, and tomorrow will be day two and that is exactly how I have to look at it.  Eventually it will be day 365 and I will have lost about 40 pounds.

Have a great Monday everybody.

My Strike Against Pizza

Chris Stocker

On Friday at work I had a quick discussion with one of my co-workers about diabetes.  He knew enough about it, but not everything there was to know.  We had a quick chat about how I need to lose weight in order to get my diabetes under better control.  Him and I both eat at this pizza place near the office, which has the best pizza and meatball subs I’ve ever had!  He came up with the idea that we should both try and lose 10 pounds in the month of April.  I said Deal!

The way we are going to do it, which we may not make the 10 pounds, but we made a deal that we won’t eat pizza for a whole month.  It is going to be tough for me to do, especially on days that I forget to pack a lunch, but then I did some quick calculating.  Not only will I lose 10-15 pounds by bringing my own lunch, I will save approximately $100-$150 a month on not paying for lunch.  The costs of the lunch ranges from $5-12 and I usually eat out 3 days a week.

So, that is my plan for the month of April, but why not start today?  Today I start my strike against pizza.