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Diabetes Awareness Month, I am Challenging Jay Cutler’s People – Stand Up, Stand Together

Chris Stocker

In yesterday’s post I brought up the point of not always working together for the same goal.  I think that the way everybody is working together for IDF and World Diabetes Day is phenomenal.  In the month of November can we band together to do one more thing?  Can we work together to get a sport to support diabetes month?  Just like wearing pink for all the games, let’s wear the blue circle on the back of the helmets or on the arm of the jersey’s or on an NBA jersey.  I think this is a huge opportunity for awareness for diabetes.  But where do we start?

We all have a voice online now, so I say we all dedicate a blog post some time this week and Tweet about it all week until people start to listen.  If we can get one celebrity or a bigger voice than myself on board, I think it will be easy.  I know, let’s start with Jay Cutler.  I admire Jay Cutler, as a former quarterback myself, tremendously.  He may be too tough to get to, so how about Jay’s people.  My people can try and get in touch with his people.  Wait, I don’t have people, I have a blog and Twitter account and some other social media accounts.  So, if Jay Cutler’s people are listening, well reading now, I am challenging you.  I am challenging you to get the NFL to support Diabetes the way they support Breast Cancer awareness.

With November 1 coming up which marks the beginning of Diabetes Awareness month, it may be tough, but things happen a lot faster now with the tools that we all have.  By the way, November 1 is my birthday, sorry little side note.  It is also the day the Eagles play the Giants.  But back to the subject.  I know I am not the only one that believes in this and I know for a fact there’s others out there that are more passionate about it as I am, so work with me, let’s all work together.  Think of how big of an accomplishment this can be for diabetes.

Yesterday when JA Happ of the Phillies won the rookie of the year, he announced that the bonus money they receive for winning the award goes to a charity of their choice, he chose the Diabetes Research Institute.  He even talked about type 1 diabetes like he was an educator.  This is what we need, more people like JA Happ.  I would start with reaching out to him, but quite honestly, I want him focusing on sweeping the Yankees, sorry the Philly fan had to come out somewhere in here 🙂

Whether you are type 1, type 2, type whatever, a family member, a friend, a co-worker, if you have even just ever heard of the word diabetes, commit just one post this week, that’s it, just one short post about this and it can be a great start.  I thank you all in advance.

Top 3 Things Diabetes Related That Make Me Mad

Chris Stocker 7 Comments

Recently I started to think about some of the things related to diabetes that really make me mad.  Diabetes in general doesn’t because I have learned to live with it, deal with it and manage it.  It is usually other people that make me mad when it comes to diabetes.  Let’s start with the top 3 things, in no particular order.

Diabetic vs Person with Diabetes

I personally don’t understand all of the hype around this.  If you want to call me a person with diabetes, go ahead.  You want to call me diabetic, which I prefer, then go ahead.  I don’t really care what you call me.  Diabetic is just the term that is used to call somebody who has diabetes.  Why all of a sudden is it such a bad thing?  I think it is a good thing when someone calls me a diabetic, because I have diabetes, so therefore I am diabetic.  I guess if I hear one very good logical reasoning of the PWD thing then I will go with it.  Like I said, I have no problem if that is what you want to be called, I will call you that.  Quite honestly, I would rather call you by your first name and not diabetic or person with diabetes at all.

Supply Switching

Who the hell are you (fill in the blank with your supply company) to tell me what meter, strips, lancets or pen needles I want to use?  Do you think that I care about your bottom line figures and that you make more money off of the generic lancets than the brand name.  I don’t really care about the 200% profit you are making, I care that the lancets that I am using are not damaging and bruising my fingers constantly.  I want a pen needle that is going to penetrate my skin and not hurt when it goes in because its not sharp enough.  A few years ago when I was still using an old supplier, will not mention names, they continued to send me these cheap generic lancets when I wanted the One Touch ones.  They kept sending them every 90 days and I would call and tell them to stop, but they wouldn’t let me return them, I still had to pay for them.  They then went far enough to tell me that the One Touch ones are no longer made, they have been discontinued.  So when I was walking through Wal-Mart one day I saw them there and then went off on the company.  I called 4 times a day every day for like 2 straight weeks to make sure I got every customer service rep there.

Not the same goal in mind

There are a lot of non-profits, organizations, blogs, communities and they do not know how to work together.  What do we all want?  A cure, right?  Of course there are some other things that would be great along the way, but ultimately it is about finding a cure, spreading awarenss and giving people an arena to share and talk about, especially in the online world.  Then why can’t we just all work together and not look at other people in the diabetes world as “competitors”.  I’m not saying that everyone does that, I’m speaking of the minority on this one, but it just irritates the hell out of me.

Those are the 3 main things that just make me mad.

What are some others that tick you the wrong way?

MMM….Insulin

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

MMM….Insulin.  That’s what I said to myself today around 10:00 a.m. when a co-worker came up to my desk and said, there’s a package downstairs for you.  I was starting to get extremely nervous because about 20 minutes before that, my pump beeped and said “Low Reservoir” and I was completely out of insulin.  I am supposed to get a phone call when my insulin is shipped, but I never received a phone call, so I was really worried because it was Friday and I knew it wouldn’t be delivered on the weekend.  I finally received that call about 3 hours after the insulin was delivered, what good was that?

Once that new shipment of insulin came I took out 1 vial to let it settle to room temperature because I knew I would need to re-fill it soon.  I think we all know that cold insulin does not feel good at all.  I can remember the first time I took cold insulin, it was through an insulin pen, it burned like crazy.  I felt like somebody took a lighter and just put it up to my skin.  Never did that ever again. Now, into the problem that I have with my insulin company.

I have never seen a company so…ridiculous…for a lack of words.  It is the mail order company that my insurance requires me to use for my mail order services.  Last Friday I filled out the order form and faxed it in and faxed in the prescription that my doctor had just written out for me.  Not good enough for them because the prescription has to come directly from the doctor.  So, I called the doctor’s office and they then faxed it over to them.  Nope, still not good enough.  I have to fill out the order form myself, with my insurance information, billing, shipping, all the good stuff.  Then I have to fax that form to my doctor, who then has to fill out the prescription on that piece of paper, so it can’t be a separate prescription, it has to be hand-written onto that sheet.  Then finally my doctor’s office can fax it over.  So this took up until Monday to finally complete.  Then once they receive it, it takes 24-48 hours to enter the order into the system (I don’t know how it can take that long).  Once the order is in the system it takes 3-5 business to process the order (once again, no idea how it takes that long), but oh don’t worry they ship it overnight for free.  Well you freakin should for taking a damn week to process it!

Well, as you see here, my insulin is in my possession, finally, and I am very happy to see it here.  Time to now put it into the fridge and let it stay there until I need it.  Luckily I won’t have to go through this in December when I re-order because the prescription will be on file.

Well, it’s 8:00 p.m. Friday night, I need to go.  Good news today, my LLC finally went through, official company name is “CSI Marketing Solutions, LLC”

Doctors, Deductibles, Diabetes, Contract Work – OH MY!

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

Doctors and deductibles.  Both have things in common, but also a lot of differences as well.  You don’t want to have a high deductible, just as much as you don’t want to have a high doctor.  Your happy when you meet your deductible, hopefully you are happy after you meet your doctor.  But then comes my discussion and dilemma, which I know a lot of you share with me.  Do you skip or hold off on visits because you have met your deductible and then in two months it sets back to zero and you have to start all over again?

I need to go to the dentist because it has been almost a year and a half since I last saw my old dentist back in PA.  I don’t want to go right now because I haven’t met my calendar year deductible.  So why not just wait until January 1, right?  My endo was fine with that decision except that I said the same thing last year as well, which is exactly why I haven’t seen a dentist for as long as I have.  So then I started to think, is it just a lame excuse to not go and see the doc?  I also need to go get my yearly eye exam.  I do believe, however, that I went for a check-up earlier this year because I needed a new prescription for my contacts and needed new glasses.

Now, some of you may be thinking, how in the world have you not met your deductible this late into the year?  I got a new insulin pump in January, I have infusion sets, reservoirs, transmitter and sensors for my continuous glucose monitor (CGM), but they were all billed from an out-of-network provider, so that ate up my out of network deductible, but didn’t touch my in-network.  All of my doctors are all in network with the type of insurance that I have.  And of course the money that I pay every 90 days for my insulin does not go towards my deductible, why would it?  So that leaves me with only one thing going towards it and that is my doctor’s visits.  So until I meet that deductible, there is no co-pay, it is strictly going towards the deductible.

I started seeing my new endo back in May or June, don’t exactly remember and I have had monthly, well every 4-6 week visits since then.  And since the insurance isn’t covering anything yet, I’m sure you know much it is costing me for these endo appointments.  So I am paying a monthly premium for my insurance, but still paying monthly doctor bills.  I guess it could be worse because I don’t pay anything at all for my pump supplies and testing strips, at least not yet.

Now, getting a little off of the deductible topic and into a more general insurance topic, private insurance.  For those of you who have been reading my blog for a while, you know who I work for, and that has been disclosed before the FTC crack down on it.  Any who, I receive insurance from them as a full time employee.  I have also created a company within the last 60 days as well.  This wasn’t really a planned thing so I will explain it briefly.  I had friends and relatives that knew I was really into geeky, cool, tech things like website design, blogging, and social media.  A few people needed help getting started on Facebook and Twitter etc.  So then I said well why not start getting paid for doing this stuff.  Then it started to evolve and had people asking me to do their PPC campaigns, (Google Adwords primarily) and also some organic SEO stuff.  Now I definitely have to charge for that type of stuff because it is not the easiest and quickest stuff to do.  Do I have to disclose when I am talking about my own company?  Well, just in case, I own Chris Stocker Inc, with 10% of all profits being donated to JDRF.  Now you know the story, here is the question.

Since I am diabetic, I feel restricted that I have to work for a corporation that will offer me insurance.  Is this new PPC / SEO business paying the bills?  No, not really, so I’m not looking for this to be a full-time gig or expand it into something large with several employees, then in which I would be able to get some group insurance.  This is just something that I am extremely passionate about and love to do, so I do it on the side and would love for my career path to follow this way.  The only problem with that is a lot of work in this industry is done on a contract basis, and there’s no insurance in contracted jobs.

So what am I to do?  Are there any of you out there now that do this type of thing or any contracted work?  Or own your own business?  Like I said before, at this time there are no plans to expand to the level needed for insurance.  I would really appreciate all of your help on this.

Took a Little Break, Except from Diabetes

Chris Stocker

Last week I decided to take some time off from Twitter, Facebook, blogging and every other online outlet for 4-5 days.  I had a lot of things coming up and just needed a break.  It’s now time to get back to work however and catch back up, which is harder than actually doing the work in the first place.  I needed to get some offline things done, it’s crazy that theirs actually an offline life out there.  You know, all the fun stuff plus the diabetes stuff.  The life of a diabetic always consists of making sure you have the essentials.  Since I am type 1, I had to make sure that I had enough insulin in my pump before I went to do all of the fun events thisweekend because there is nothing worse than going out somewhere and not having enough insulin.

Friday night after work I headed down to the Panthers game for their exciting win over the Flyers.  It was a stressful event for me.  The Phillies started at 4:00 p.m on Friday, so I was wearing my Chase Utley jersey all day long and had Amanda drive down to the BankAtlantic Center so I could pay attention to the game on my phone.  When I got to the arena, I had to take the Phillies shirt off because the Panthers were playing a Philly team (Flyers), so I was in a little predicament.  Ultimately, the Phillies lost and the Panthers won.  During the game I decided to get some nachos, so I bolused for them and chowed down.  After eating them I started to feel a little low in the middle of the period, so Amanda went out and bought me a huge $4.00 chocolate chip cookie.  I didn’t test to see how low my sugar was because of course my meter was out in the car.  Finally, I felt better and my sugar was about 160 after the game.

As soon as the game was over, Amanda and I went to Super Wal-Mart because I had to get all the fixings for pasta salad (my favorite food in the world).  Saturday was my future father in-law’s birthday party for his 60th birthday, which is actually today.  My roommate (my girlfriend’s brother) and I decided to get a keg for the party because there was going to be a good amount of people there.  But that wasn’t the main reason for the keg.  We knew that the Oklahoma – Texas, Gators – Razorbacks, Virginia Tech – Georgia Tech, and the Yankees games were all on Saturday, so we knew there was a lot of beer to go through for the day.  I’m not even going to get into Virginia Tech blowing any chance that they have to play for the national championships.   At the party I didn’t have my meter again, starting to be a not so good recurring theme here.  I was eating a lot of pasta salad, macaroni salad, beer, chicken tenders and mini subs.  So a lot of insulin wasb eing consumed there.  When I went home I tested and I was near the low 200’s, which is where I stayed pretty much all night long.

And to top it off the Eagles barely outscored the Phillies on Sunday.  The Eagles game did have my stress levels at a high so far this season because they have been playing well so it hasn’t affected me too much.  Since my meter was left in my car, surprise surprise, I had no idea what my sugar was.  All I knew was that I didn’t feel dizzy and I didn’t have to pee a lot so I knew I wasn’t at either extreme.  I know this isn’t good because sometimes I am just dehydrated and drinking a lot because I was sweating so much.  Sometimes I will take some insulin because of that, which is not a good idea, so don’t try that at home kids.  But at the end of the night the Phils win at least made it a little better.

Last night after work I had to coach a game which was the best game all season so far.  It was a 12-6 loss for my kids that have been averaging about 21-0 losses.  Then at night, Mr. Jimmy Rollins rocked Philly with a walk-off double, which sent me running and screaming around my house at about midnight, waking up my roommate who is cheering for the Dodgers.

My Interview with Greater West Palm Beach JDRF

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

Yesterday I was lucky enough to conduct an interview with the events coordinator of my local JDRF, Greater West Palm Beach Chapter.  I have worked with Esther on multiple events over the past two years and have come to have a great working relationship with her.  She also has an amazing story about diabetes and I wanted to share a little of Esther great heart, mind, and efforts with you.  This interview was conducted via e-mail.

1. How long have you been with JDRF?

  • I’ve been with JDRF for 10 years.

2. How did you get started?

  • I’ve worked for another non-profit in the past (St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital) and so I know how important it is to fight for children who are faced with a serious disease.

3. Explain how diabetes struck home?

  • One day after hosting a Walk to Cure Diabetes, I took my daughter to the emergency room because I had notice the warning signs of diabetes for a few weeks, but was in denial that this could indeed happen to me and my family.

4. One word to describe how you felt after your daughter’s diagnosis?

  • After her diagnosis, my head was spinning … literally .. I felt shock, disbelief and bewilderment.

5. One word to describe how you feel now about it?

  • Although one of the most serious diseases anyone can be affected by, I know that diabetes is very manageable and I remind my daughter that she can still to anything she puts her mind to.

6. Best part of working at JDRF?

  • I have the opportunity to meet so many wonderful people, filled with the same passion … to find a cure for diabetes and its complications

7. Scariest diabetes moment?

  • When my daughter first came home from the hospital, her blood sugar had dropped into the forties, so my husband and I gave her glucose tabs and a 15 gram snack.  This didn’t seem to move her blood sugar number up much after 20 minutes, we gave her an additional 15 gram snack and that took her blood sugar to about 350.  Yikes …we were so scared that we would never learn how to properly regulate her numbers.

8. Funniest diabetes moment?

  • Shortly after diagnosis, a little boy at my daughter’s school called her a “diabetic.”  Well my husband and I don’t believe in labeling her, so she knows that we never use that word.  So, in response to this little boy, my daughter said, “I am not a diabetic.  I am a little girl who has diabetes.  Would you call someone with cancer a “canceretic”? No, you’d say that they have cancer.  So, don’t ever call me that again.  To this day, no other student at her school ever uses that term around her.  🙂

9. Favorite movie, book, singer?

  • Favorite Movie:  Mask (with Cher); Favorite Book:  Misery;  Favorite Singer:  Michael Jackson (of course 🙂 )

10. If you could change one thing in the world today, other than the obvious of finding a cure, what would it be?

  • If I could do one thing, I would find a way to keep children and seniors, the most vulnerable people in our society, away from those who would intentionally do them harm, be it physical, emotional or otherwise.  And, I would want to see anyone caught harming them, prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

If you have any questions for Esther, please leave a comment on my blog and I will make sure that they are answered.  If you live in my area, please let me know if you are interested in helping with any local JDRF events.

Busy Day Today, Interview with JDRF Tomorrow

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

Today was so busy that I didn’t even have time to open up my TweetDeck on the laptop or TwitFon on my iPhone.  I only have a few minutes here, I have to get back to work on some other things.  I will be posting an interview tomorrow with my local JDRF events coordinator, Esther Swann.

My blood sugars in the morning were amazing.  I woke up with a 105, 120 after breakfast, 109 right before lunch.  I switched out my infusion set right before lunch because it was almost falling out.  After lunch 225, two hours later, 301.  Ok what the heck is going on.  Around 5 when I left for work I was at about 350.  Before dinner I was 245 and just about 5 minutes ago I was 130.  I don’t know what all that was about, but it was a crazy day of blood sugars as well.

“Liv-abetic” As Opposed to Diabetic

Chris Stocker

I was saying the word diabetic a lot over the past few days.  Well a lot more than normally.  Probably because I was having a few conversations with people about diabetes and my life of a diabetic blog and my insights on diabetes and healthcare.  After saying it a lot I thought, I never realized how much the word “die” is in this word.  And with the ignorance that is out there about diabetes, most people think that it is a death sentence and they are scared of it.  So I started to say I’m not a diabetic, it’s more like a “live”-abetic.  Because that is exactly what I am doing I am living, not dying.  The life of a diabetic is no different than anybody elses, we just have to do a few more things.  I’m just a high maintenance person I guess, my blood sugars require a lot of attention and my supplies are expensive.

Many newly diagnosed type 1 diabetics that I have met and spoke to are scared that they are on a clear path to living a shorter life.  Absolutely not is my first reaction.  I suggest that they be careful where they read their information on the web.  Too many articles, newsletter, and diabetes information or dis-information as I feel, have a negative tone to them.  They may or may not be done purposely like that, but they still are.  For instance, there could be two articles about diabetes and heart disease.  One will talk about how diabetes increases the rate of heart disease and risk of death.  Or you can have the same issue talked about in a way that explains, watching your diet, managing your blood sugars and exercising will decrease your risks.

Now these two things sound almost exactly the same, and to you maybe they are, but to me they are not.  I am a firm believer that you can control your diabetes, your diabetes doesn’t control you.  So, for this exact reason, I believe information should be written in the fashion that the author should explain what you can do to lower risks (you controlling your diabetes) as opposed to explaining what diabetes will do to you if you don’t do these things (diabetes controlling you).  I hope this all makes sense, because it makes great sense in my head, but it doesn’t always come out correctly.

I hope you all have an amazing day and wish you all the best in keeping your blood sugars at good numbers.

Monday Ramblings, Pink in the NFL, New Basal Rates, No Stress

Chris Stocker

First weekend with the new basal rates and carb to insulin ratio, not bad.  I didn’t see much of a difference, but the after meal highs have come down a little.  There were still highs, but they were about 170-180 insteado f the 230-240 I was having.  It could have also been the food that I ate this weekend because I must admit, it wasn’t the best choices.  Friday night I went to Chile’s.  Saturday night was food court chinese food (my favorite food in the world)  Sunday was a chicken sandwich at the bar watching the Eagles.

This weekend also didn’t really have any stress involved at all.  Saturday Virginia Tech took care of business easily, and so did the Eagles yesterday.  Nothing to stress about sports wise.  My Panthers got beat, but oh well, what are you going to do.  Anyway, onto other things.  I am working on finishing up an interview with my local JDRF person.  She pretty much does everything for the JDRF in this area, so I’ll be posting that later this week.  I have some plans that I’ve been putting together to work with the local office of JDRF and do some more volunteering and working to get more donations.  Hopefully it will all work out, mainly when I actually have some time to.

Seeing all this pink in the NFL again this weekend is pissing me off, because I know that there is not going to be a single thing done for diabetes month.  And there are a few NFL players with diabetes, one of them being a Pro Bowler (Cutler).  Diabetes gets no respect.  Diabetes is the Rodney Dangerfield of comedians, no respect I tell ya.  But all I can do is use my resources that I have to try and get a voice out there and work with you all that have voices as well so maybe one day somebody will hear us.

Well, it’s Monday and Monday’s are always my shortest posts, so I hope you all have an amazing day.

Results From Endo Appointment

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

Today’s post, although later is about the results from my endo appointment today.  I just came home from football practice a little bit ago, so that is why it is such a late post tonight.  But anywho, onto the appointment.  A diabetic’s mandatory meeting.

I was actually on time so that started out well.  I handed my pump and my meter to the receptionist so they could pull the numbers off of the two.  For some reason, my meter decided that it didn’t want to work anymore and wouldn’t give the readings so they were going to give me a new Freestyle Lite meter.  I told them to just keep it because I have plenty of meters at home, leave it for somebody that needs one.  [Plus didn’t know if I’d have to report that to the FTC also 🙂 ]

Next up was the blood pressure.  If you recall from my last endo appointment, my blood pressure was a little high, 140/80.  I was very stressed out that day and was running around like crazy before the appointment.  Today I wasn’t stressed at all, it was a perfectly fine day.  My blood pressure was 122/70, perfect.  So there was nothing to worry about with that.  For some reason they weighed me after the blood pressure.  The scale at their office is always about a 10 pound difference then any other scale I step on.  Their scale last time said 254 when mine at home said about 244.  Today, their scale said 246.  So even though I’m not that heavy, I am obviously losing some weight.

As I explained recently, I have had a month full of highs and was trying to figure out why that was happening.  I discussed it with the doc today and we both agreed on all the possible reasons that I mentioned.  Probably a site issue.  We eliminated those highs so we could see patterns in normal days.  Overall, the sugars were pretty damn good.  Just those few high days did it to me.  Like usual my sugars overnight are killing me, literally!  We increased my basal rate during the late night / early morning hours to 1.8 and kept the rest of them at 2.2 – 2.4 depending on the time of day.  We also increased my carb ratio to 1 unit of insulin for every 4 carbs at night time and kept it at 5 carbs the rest of the day.

I felt very good after leaving today’s visit.  Things are going good and somethings are getting even better.  My goal for next month’s A1C is to have it below 7.  I have busted my butt exercising and eating better to do this, but I can’t stop now I have to continue.  Well, next appointment isn’t until end of November, so I’ll update you again after that appointment.