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Office Thanksgiving Pot Luck

Chris Stocker

Ohhh man. Today was the office potluck lunch for Thanksgiving and I thought at first it was going to be bad news because i am trying to eat healthy until Thanksgiving actually comes. Luckily by the time that i got up ther to eat there was not a lot of food left so i did not each much. Potlucks are always difficult because you have people like me thAt are diabetic then you have vegetarians, or vegans, or those that have a gluten free diet, or allergies. I don’t really care too much because if i want to eat something then i will eat it and just take insulin for it.

This is a short post because I have a lot of stuff to get done tonight. But what is your signature pot luck dish?

Is is some sort of diabetes friendly dish or a sugar free dessert?

Have a good weekend.

Diabetes on a Plane

Chris Stocker

So as I was discussing in my post yesterday i am flying up north for Thanksgiving. I also talked about having meetings with diabetes recently as well. These two posts are similar because im both cases you are kinda stuck somewhere and if your blood sugar goes low them it could be very scary. And on the other side, if my sugar is too high hen i could have to get up and go to the bathroom about 100 times during the flight.

Before flying I try not to drink a lot of water or eat something that can possibly raise my blood sugar within the next 3 hours. I test my sugar about an hour before the flight to make sure i don’t have to make any changes and then i will test it again quickly when they make the announcement that they are getting ready to board. This is my chance to make any last minute changes before getting on the flight. Once on board I make sure that I have plenty of candy, usually 2 bags of skittles and some other little things like pretzels.

Once on the plane I don’t usually test my sugar at all. Its too much of a hassle usually to try and get the meter out and test.

Agh, the more that I blog about flying and going home, I jut want that time to come for me to get home and see my family. I haven’t been up there since July and that was for only one day. I haven’t spent more than a day there since last Christmas. I I’ll only be there for a few days this time and then its flying right back to Fort Lauderdale right afterwards.

Well have a great week everyone

Airport Security

Chris Stocker

I know there has been a lot of discussion lately about airport security and the new guidelines and the new types of screenings that show images of your body and what not.  I was first going to post about the issues that I already have to go through, as well as other diabetics when going through security.

As is right now, when I get to the security gate, it’s not just taking off a jacket and worrying about taking my shoes off, but I take my computer out of the bag, take out the bag of insulin and supplies and put that in it’s own separate bin that way I don’t have to get an individual search, even though that still happens most of the time.  I also disconnect my pump and put it through the x-ray machine as well because my clip sets off the metal detector, so it’s easy to just disconnect for 10 seconds then it is to unclip it and then re-clip it.

After that, it’s over.  I dont have as many issues with my security checks as I did when I was using insulin pens and needles and syringes.  At that time my bags were checked a lot.  I’ll be taking a lot of insulin with me for this trip since it is for Thanksgiving, so I already know there will be a lot of carb intake, ha.

Well have a great day ya’ll

Holiday Planning

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

Planning for the holidays used to be easy when I was in high school.  Eat as much food as I possibly can, go to basketball practice the next morning and work it all off and then have the first basketball game of the season with a tournament on Black Friday night and then a Saturday night game as well.  This is how my life was back then.  Now it is totally different, in more than just one way.  I’ll save the diabetes part of it for later.

First, I live in south Florida now, but my whole family still lives back up north in Pennsylvania.  Amanda and I try to make it even by spending one Thanksgiving down here and then the next Thanksgiving up there.  My niece just turned 1 on November 3, and my birthday is November 1, so I would like to try and start going up there on the years that I am spending Thanksgiving down here because then I will be able to celebrate the birthdays when they actually occur and not almost a month later.  This is the first part of my planning process is when I am going to fly home for the holidays, and what days of the week because I need to worry about cheap flight tickets because I will be flying back home again for Christmas as well, so that is another expense and also planning event that needs to occur.  Once all that planning is done, it then comes time to the diabetes part of the planning.

I have talked before about what goes into my packing for a diabetes trip, but this time around it was more than just the packing.  I had to make sure that I had enough insulin ordered and testing strips ordered for my trip so that I can pack it.  If you read my post about the joke of a Target’s pharmacy then you will know that I just recently ordered a one month supply of insulin to get me through the holidays.  And sorry to get off point here, but it just popped into my mind that I have to get blood work done before my next doctor’s appointment on December 3, so I have to do that on Monday or Tuesday the week before, ahhh more planning that I need to take care of.

Things were so much easier as a kid.  I never flew before I was diabetic, so I don’t know anything other than how to fly with diabetes.  Although, the first few times that I flew I was not using an insulin pump and I only had to carry a few pens and needles with me, so there were not as many supplies that I had to pack and make sure that I had with me.

I am ready to just be up north and start eating some good food!

Diabetes in a Meeting

Chris Stocker

Earlier today I had to go to a client meeting and knew it was going to be about a 40 minute drive there, an hour meeting and then about another 40 minute drive home.  Whenever I have to sit it on meetings, I get nervous that my blood sugar is going to get low, and I hate pulling out Skittles in the middle of the meeting because people look at you weird, like are you serious, in the middle of a meeting you have to eat?  If they knew I was diabetic, then there would be no problem, but I don’t introduce myself as, Hi Im Chris, nice to meet you and I’m diabetic.  If I feel my blood sugar is low, I will not hesitate to pull the Skittles out and eat some because my life and health is more important than any meeting that I will ever be in.

Before I left for the meeting I tested my sugar and it was at about 155.  At that level and with a small lunch that I ate, I knew that it would go below 100 before the meeting was over.  I took a small bag of Skittles with me and headed to the meeting.  We were a little early so we stopped at Starbucks and I got a regular coffee, but sprinkled some Cinnamon on it, (which is my favorite way to drink coffee from Starbucks.)  I knew that this would also raise my sugar a  little and keep it from going too low during the meeting.  Once we got to the meeting, I realized that I forgot my meter back at the office so I couldn’t test again.  I just ate a few Skittles before we went into the meeting, because I would rather my sugar be around 170-200 during the meeting then it drop to 70-90 and start to get sweaty and start to think less clearly during the meeting.

To sum things up, it was all good.  The meeting went exceptionally well and my blood sugar did not go down at all and by the time I got back to the office, it was not high either, it was right around 160-ish, don’t remember exactly right now what it was.

This leads me to asking you all, how do you deal with having to go into meetings with diabetes?  Do you bring in juice, candy, do you let the people in the meeting know that you are diabetic and may need to excuse yourself? I’d love to hear all of your comments on how you handle.

Week 3 of Dieting

Chris Stocker

So this week is week three of my new form of dieting. I have been doing pretty well with it, but still not as good as i want to do. I am missing some days of my exercise and every so often i am eating foods that I know I shoukdnt be eating, but not as much as before though. My weight is down but still not what i wanted it to be at this time, but i am making headway on dropping this weight and getting to an OmniPod.

I have added a new exercise bike to my condo, so I will be riding that about 5-6 days a week in order to burn more calories.  It is not a regular exercise bike, but more of a spinning bike, so it works muscles a little differently.  And not to mention, it is a lot harder to ride than a regular exercise bike is.

Another week, another few pounds and I will be happy.

World Diabetes Day

Chris Stocker

So today is World Diabetes Day.  Wow.  That is all I can say right now. I can’t believe that it came up on us this freaking fast.  Today I am going to be talking to my grandmother about her diabetes and things that she can do to help control her blood sugar numbers a little better, while wearing a blue shirt all day.  That is what I am going to be doing today to celebrate WDD.  I did a lot leading up to this day, so I take this day as like the celebration and you just sit back and enjoy it and watch it and see the wonderful things that everyone else is doing.  And not to mention try and catch up on the dblogday posts.

Well, today’s post is going to be short because there is too much reading out there to be done.

Happy World Diabetes Day everybody.

Sugar Free Saturday Volume 2

Chris Stocker

Well, last week I decided to go back to trying my Sugar Free Saturday way of cutting back on my insulin intake so I can possibly get that OmniPod I want so bad.  Sorry if you are tired of hearing about how I want the OmniPod, but it is the only way to continue to remind myself what I am fighting for, why I am eating a salad at lunch or a half of sandwich instead of a whole foot long sub or food court chinese food.  It is all because I am losing weight to make lifestyle changes.  There is going to be some sugar in my food intake tonight, unless the wedding that I am going to doesn’t serve the cake until after midnight.

Speaking of which, this post isn’t going to be long because I have to get ready for this wedding that I have to go to tonight.  Going to weddings are not really fun in my mind, but I try to make the best of them.  I have to make sure that I always take an extra infusion set and insulin, and strips and anything else that I may need because there is no going back to get more supplies or leaving the wedding earlier.  Unfortunately, that happened to me one time.  My cousin got married back in 2007 and I flew back home for it because I was in the wedding party.  Well long story short, the reception was at a campgrounds about an hour away and we were to spend the night there.  About 2 hours into the reception, I realized that I only had about 15 units of insulin and forgot to bring more. So I had to go all the way home and miss the whole night of fun and time with the family.

Well, have a great day everybody.  Only one more day until World Diabetes Day.

Target Pharmacy Needs Serious Help

Chris Stocker

Well after yesterday’s post about my RX problems, I thought today was going to be simple and easy and I would just go pick up my insulin and be good for the next month, wow was I wrong.  And I will say this now, and probably several times throughout this post, the pharmacy employees at the Target in Aventura Florida need to be fired, no questions asked.  I understand that people make mistakes at their jobs, but when 4 people make the same mistake and do not admit their mistake and tell me that I am the wrong one when I have been doing this for 7 years almost, then there is a serious problem.  Let’s get into what exactly happened and why I am so damn pissed about this situation and fiasco at the pharmacy today.

I went over at my lunch break for work to go and pick up my insulin.  When I got there they went and grabbed my insulin out of the fridge, but as I looked at the bag, it looked kinda small to be 5 vials of insulin, which is a normal one month supply for me, because of how much insulin I use.  I asked them how much was in there and they said 1 vial and I said, “there’s no way that’s going to last me a month, that’s going to last me about a week at most.”  The pharmacy tech tried to explain to me that they filled the order as how the doctor sent the RX over and that I must be over using insulin and that I am not using the insulin as prescribed to the doctor.  First I said, do you know anything about diabetes?  It’s not a doctor’s orders, I have to take insulin for the amount of food that I am eating.  They still tried to argue with me that this was the proper amount and I said it couldn’t be because I have been getting the same RX from this same doctor for almost 4 years now, so that’s impossible.  They passed me along to their manager.

She had the same story, sorry sir, this is what the doctor prescribed.  I was not taking that for an answer because one vial of insulin would not get me by until the beginning of December, so I was pretty much fighting for my life here.  I asked to see the RX and they told me that they couldn’t show me it.  I don’t know the privacy laws or anything in regards to that so I’m not going to argue that, but I looked at the doctor’s order’s on the vial they were going to give me and it said 160 units per day. So I told the pharmacy manager to grab a calculator.  I said,  that this vial has 1,000 units in it, so when you divide 160 per day into that, how many days is that?  The answer came out to 6.25 days, and that is just on an average, which it is usually more than that.  So, she said, well by that calculation it seems that 5 vials would make sense to give me, but that’s not what the RX said.  By this time I was just flabbergasted, and just in shock that this lady just said this.  I didn’t even know what to respond with, I just said, “are you serious?, do you know how to count, how the hell did you get certified to do this? You are literally going to kill me because of your inability to do your job correctly.” She said, sir I apologize but that’s just the way it is.  Then she said, let me just take a look at the original RX again.

She comes back, and this is the part that pissed me off the most, is giggling and has a smirk on her face and goes, “haha, sorry, the pharmacist read it as 160 units monthly, not daily, lol sorry our apologizes.” WTF ARE YOU KIDDING ME???!!!???  You are going to come back laughing and giggling about this mistake because you can’t read?  What about this old guy that is at the counter also arguing with them about the amount of pills that they gave him, there wasn’t enough in there.  They could be killing him by giving him a monthly amount but telling him to take it daily!  Eventually she admitted their mistake and gave me the correct amount of insulin.

I’m just getting pissed off about this all over again and can’t even talk about it anymore, so this is how I am going to end my post.

Target Pharmacy, you should be ashamed that you hired such incompetent people.

Prescription Issues and Low Insulin Inventory

Chris Stocker

Ok, I posted earlier in the week that I was getting a little nervous because I had to re-order my insulin shortly, but it was with a new insurance company and something always seems to go wrong.  It is only a one month RX, so I didn’t call it into the insurance company and use their mail order because it wouldn’t make sense to do that.  The nearest pharmacy to my work is Target and I wanted to drop it off today and pick it up tomorrow.  So I went through the process today to get the RX filled.

I called my doctor and had them fax a prescription to Target.  I waited a few hours and called Target and they said that the RX didn’t make sense so they called and left a message for my doctor’s office to fax over another RX.  Well that didn’t make sense because the doctor’s phone is always answered, no matter what.  I then called my doctor’s office and they said, “nope, never received a call.”  So now Target is pissing me off by this point by just pushing it to the side.

My doctor’s office re-faxed it over and everything was good.  They told me I could pick it up at 3:00 today, but I couldn’t get out of work in time before they closed so I am just going to pick it up tomorrow and have it before the weekend starts.

I knew that there would be some sort of issue, but this time it wasn’t even involving the insurance company, but with the pharmacy.  Well that was my wonderful day and my insulin story.  To be continued tomorrow I guess to see if it goes smoothly, hopefully it does.  I do not have much insulin left.  I am down to one full vial of insulin which gives me about 5-7 days, depending on how much I eat during that time.

Have a great Friday tomorrow everybody!