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WDD Sneaking Up Fast

Chris Stocker

Wow, I can’t believe that it is already November 10 and World Diabetes Day is just a few days away.  Why does it seem like every year WDD just sneaks up on me and I haven’t done half of the things that I wanted to do for it.  One thing that I wanted to do for the month of November was to post every single day and continue to try and spread awareness of diabetes and how you can live a normal, happy, positive life with diabetes.  It is hard at times to pull others in the community together to celebrate World Diabetes Day, and we all are making decisions to honor this day our own way.

I have decided that I am going to spend my day a little different.  I believe that I present my voice and my opinion and advocacy for diabetes pretty much everyday.  So I’ve decided that I am going to relax on this day and celebrate with my loved ones with the disease that I have.  I support all the different activities that are going on and would love to participate in a lot of them, but this year it is just going to be a time of reflecting the good things that diabetes has brought me in my life.  Basically, I would have never moved to Florida if it wasn’t for diabetes and I wouldn’t have ever met my future wife for that matter.

What are you doing in your area for WDD?

Too Many High Blood Sugars for my Liking

Chris Stocker

Every so often I have a period of 2-3 weeks where my blood sugars pretty much hover around 200-250 all day, everyday for that time period and it seems that no matter what I do, I can’t get it down.  Once I eventually get it down, I drink something or eat something to fix the low and then I end up high again.  Recently, this has began to bother me a lot.  Normally I don’t allow myself to get upset with my blood sugars because I have the mentality, that it is just a number and I can correct it.  But when that number is there consistently for a long period of time, it goes from “just a number” to “it’s a problem.”  But just like with any other problem, there is a way to solve it.

I believe that by going back on a CGM will definitely help me out.  It will allow me to monitor when my sugar is beginning to spike again before it is too late and catch it and correct it.  Right now all of my sensors have expired, and I never really used the Medtronic CGM when I had good sensors anyway.  There were multiple reasons, the main two were that the damn thing hurt to insert and it was just a pain in the ass to get calibrated and started. If I do switch to the OmniPod, then I will most likely switch to the Dexcom.  I have heard more good things about the Dexcom than I have heard good things about the Medtronic CGM system.  But once again, does it really matter what I want or does it matter what the insurance company wants to cover?  I would think that if something would help you manage your disease a lot better, than it would be a no-brainer to clear that particular product, but not with insurances, it’s all about what fattens their wallet the most.

Well, I have some things that I need to get working on, so enough of this rant.  Point of this post is that, don’t get down on yourself when you are having low blood sugar episodes.  With hard work and proper management, you will be right back to where you need to be.

Insurance and Insulin – Not a Fun Combo

Chris Stocker

A lot of words don’t really scare me, but these two words when used in the same sentence definitely scare the hell out of me, insulin and insurance.  My life depends on both of them.  Basically, I can’t live without either one.  Without insulin, my blood sugar shoots up sky high and good things are not bound to happen.  Without insurance, I am not going to be able to continue to afford the amount of insulin that I use.  (Yes, I know technically I can get insulin without insurance, but I use a lot of insulin, so there is no way that I could afford it).

It is coming up on my time to re-order my insulin.  The last time that I re-ordered was back in September, and I was using my Aetna insurance that I had for almost a year, so I was comfortable with their mail order and knew exactly how long it would take before the insulin was actually in my hands.  This time, I am going to have to use Medco for the first time.  I have heard good things, and I have heard bad things about them, just like any insurance company.

My biggest concern is just the first order.  There is always something that seems to go wrong with the first order.  Whether it is that that RX was not faxed in time, it was faxed to the wrong number or department, it wasn’t filled out properly, it was received after hours, or it takes 7-10 business days to process the RX (which is just ridiculous because there is no way nor reason why it should take that long).  And yes, these are all responses from insurance companies that I have received over the years.

I will be attempting to re-order my insulin some time this week.  I have to get only a one month prescription from the doctor because I have another appointment on December 3, so she wants to see me to see what kind of changes need to be made before giving 3 month prescriptions for strips, infusion sets, strips, and the whole works.  I’m still striving to cut weight to get myself that OmniPod I want!

Well have a great week everybody.

Sunday Funday

Chris Stocker

I normally don’t blog on Sundays because it is a day that I just like to relax and do nothing at all and not even really open up my laptop except at night to start preparing for the week.  However, I am trying to post every day this month, so I am taking time to post today.

I am leaving in a little while to head down south to the Parrot Bar in Fort Lauderdale, which is an all Philadelphia Eagles fan bar.  If you’re not an Eagles fan, then you don’t belong there.  My Sundays do not typically end up in good blood sugars because I eat extremely unhealthy on these days.

One more week until WDD, I’m excited. This is a quick post because I have to change my reservoir, my batter in my insulin pump and get a new box of strips ready to go for my meter. Fun, Fun Fun.

Restarting Sugar Free Saturday

Chris Stocker 3 Comments

A long time I came up with an idea to start something called “Sugar-Free Saturday.”  It wasn’t a completely sugar-free Saturday, but I was not going to eat things with a lot of sugar like ice cream, desserts, or any other extremely sugary items.  I will still eat bread and some chips (which I don’t eat much of anyway), but it was just a way to eliminate a day of high sugar intake that way I can cut down slowly on the amount of insulin that I am using.  I also wrote recently about wanting to switch to an OmniPod, but I am too fat because I use on average 150-180 units of insulin a day (yes, it’s a lot, I know).  I am doing everything possible to cut back consistently so maybe I can switch at the beginning of next year.  But that will depend on the insurance because they are the ones that decide how we live our lives right?

I have been perfectly fine with using my MiniMed Paradigm 722 for several years, zero problems with it.  So that is not the reason that I want to switch, I just have found myself with a lot of highs when I go to the beach or I go to the pool because I am in the water and I am not connected to my pump.  Then when I come back to the towel or whatever, I have to test every single time to see how high it went up or down or whatever, then re-connect, and hopefully not have to insert a new infusion site because the one that I am wearing fell off from the saltwater.  Whoa, that was a lot longer of a rant than I had expected.

Back to the point that I was getting to at the beginning of the post.  I am declaring Saturdays, Sugar-Free Saturdays again.  Eventually this will hopefully become the norm and I will have to declare just one day a week an actual sugar Saturday.

Have a great rest of the weekend everybody, Monday will be here before you know it unfortunately.

Another Weekend Approaches, Another Monday Here Fast

Chris Stocker

Ahh, another Friday, another short weekend and then back to work on Monday. It seems that my weekends lately have just gone by so fast and I don’t get anything accomplished that I want to. I have been trying to work on like 10 different things at once, and am not getting anywhere on any of them. Which leads me to believe that I should just work on one or two things at a time and get them finished and then move onto the next thing. I was looking to release the beta version of the #bgnow app soon, but there have been big delays unfortunately.

As I talked about in my post yesterday, I have been dieting and exercising a little differently, and it is still going well.  The weekend is what I am worried about because that is when I start to really to eat unhealthy because I have access to more time and food to make a decision on where I want to go eat, plus I get bored and then just eat.  This weekend I do plan to get a lot done however.  Theres still a lot to do for World Diabetes Day, and I feel that I just haven’t had the time to get the things done that I want to get done.  Do you ever get that feeling that there is always something that comes up that just completely throws everything else off?  I always get that feeling.  It just seems that I have time planned to do something and then bam, something comes up that just totally changes everything and I can’t do it anymore.

Anyway, on another, good note.  Amanda is taking me somewhere on Sunday for the Eagles game as an extended birthday gift, mainly because the Eagles didn’t play last week during my birthday weekend, well pre-birthday weekend.  It should be fun.  Also, I have to re-order my insulin soon through my new insurance, so I am a little nervous on having to do this, because I don’t have much left and there are always problems when trying to re-order insulin.  I will let you all know how that goes.  I should be re-ordering it on Monday, so we shall see.

Have a wonderful weekend everybody.

Easier Exercise Plan

Chris Stocker

A new diet and goal planning was in dire need because I was not meeting any of my goals for dieting and weight loss so it was very disappointing. My new plan will start right away and it will make my goals a little easier to obtain which will eventually get me to my long term goals.


My new way of dieting is very simple. Eat a high fiber breakfast bar, salad for lunch, and some type of meat for dinner with a green veggie and rice. I will treat myself to a little snack at night, Frosted Flakes. This is my motivation to get myself to eat healthy during the day. This is easier for me to do as opposed to writing down everything that I eat and counting my calories because I know that I won’t do that on a daily basis.


For my exercise I have come to the conclusion that I will not have the motivation to go to the gym every day. Just in case that at night I don’t feel like going to the gym, I will be doing 10 push-ups and 10 sit ups every morning as soon as I wake up. Everyday I will add one additional push up and sit-up.

This is not as intense and doesn’t take as much of an effort so I feel that I will do a lot better with it. My goal is to lose 3-5 pounds a week for the first 3 weeks just because there is so much excessive fat that it can be burned so quickly, then a steady 1-2 pounds a week thereafter until I lose 60 pounds. Little goals add up to big goals. Living with type 1 diabetes is just an excuse to not lose weight, it’s more of a must to do it. Especially since I want to go on the OmniPod.

Greater West Palm JDRF Events

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

Just as a reminder to everybody to help spread the word of two large campaigns going on right now from the Diabetes Research Institute and Diabetes Hands Foundation.  The DRI’s campaign is Be Part of a Cure and the DHF is the Big Blue Test.  Today I would like to let my local readers know about some local events that they may not already know about.

The Greater West Palm Beach chapter of the JDRF is the one that I work the most with and have the best relationship with so I know most about their activities going on.  I encourage you to visit the JDRF website and reach out to your local chapter and find out what events that they have going on that you can help participate in.  There are a lot of different things going on throughout the month, so I will outline them here for you.

  • November 7, 2010 – Complimentary Family Fun Day at the Palm Beach Zoo. Please RSVP today if you would like to attend.  Find out more details at the JDRF website.
  • November 10, 2010 – Celebrity Bartender night at ZED 451 in Mizner Park in Boca Raton. It will be from 5:30-7:30.  100% of all tips will benefit JDRF.  There will also be raffle prizes drawn.
  • October 28 – November 30 – Donate $1 at Walgreens during this month to help benefit the JDRF.
  • For all a list of all JDRF events, please click here.

I also encourage you to check out what your other local diabetes organizations are doing as well and get involved as much as possible.  This is November, which means it’s a month all about diabetes.  The month of October receives a lot of attention for Breast Cancer, and I think that diabetes organizations can learn a lot from that and also spread the word as widely as breast cancer information is spread.

Diabetes Hand Foundation’s Big Blue Test

Chris Stocker

Yesterday I posted about the Diabetes Research Institute’s Be Part of the Cure campaign during the month of November and December.  I also mentioned that there are multiple programs and campaigns all going on at the same time, and this is great because there is a large movement for diabetes going on and I love it.

Today I am going to discuss the campaign from Manny and the Diabetes Hand Foundation.  This project also started yesterday and runs until November 14, 2010.  Manny has described two parts of the event.  The first part is helping spread the word because without all of us getting the word out, it’s just not going to work.  On November 14, you are urged to participate to test your blood sugar, exercise for 14 minutes and then test again and share your results with the diabetes community or Twitter.

How can you help spread the word?  Easily.  E-mail everybody you know and ask them to watch the video and spread it along.  The video can be viewed at the Big Blue Test website.  If you are going to tweet about this project, the official hashtag is #bigbluetest.  Pleas visit the BigBlueTest website for more information and more details on this great event.

Now, why do I think this campaign is important also?  That is a no brainer.  This creates an opportunity for all of us to test our blood sugar and share our experiences with each other.  There are many benefits to this, with one being that some people may not normally test before and after exercise and you may figure something out that you didn’t know about the patterns of your blood sugars.  The viral aspect of this is also going to help spread more information about diabetes and creating an awareness amongst non-diabetics of what we go through on a daily basis.  Only two days in to November and it’s busy, busy, busy.

Diabetes Research Institute’s Be Part of the Cure

Chris Stocker

Today is November 1, so that means a lot of different things.  First, it is my birthday today.  I don’t do much to celebrate my birthday because I don’t see the point of it.  Today is also my nieces birthday as well.  She is 11 now and I can remember the day she was born, so that kinda freaks me out that she is already 11.  Finally, today starts a full month of Diabetes awareness and projects and advocacy and as much other stuff as you can possible think of.

There are too many projects going on to get into details about every single one of them in one post, so I will start out with just one today and get through as many of them as possible.

Today is the start of the Diabetes Research Institute’s Be Part of the Cure campaign.  This campaign runs from today to December 31, 2010.  Basically what this campaign is all about is with a minimum donation of $10.00, you can upload your photo and submit your story about diabetes and your image will appear in a collage of images from others spelling out the word “CURE”.

With a donation of $50 you will be able to receive a mousepad with the CURE final image on it.  With any donation that you make you will also be entered into a raffle to win two tickets to a concert in your area of your choose.  This campaign needs all of our help to go social and spread across to as many people as possible.

Now, why am I blogging this and why do I think this is important?  Easy.  The DRI does so much for diabetes advancements that they need all the help that they can get.  I have been lucky enough to visit and tour their facilities in south Florida and it is one of the most amazing places I have ever been to.  The DRI is always on the front end of new diabetes developments and research.

For more information on this campaign, please go to BePartoftheCure.org or DiabetesResearch.org