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Lack of Sleep Catching Up and A Visit to the Clinic

Chris Stocker

My lack of sleep over the past few weeks is finally starting to catch up on me.  I seem to always be dragging and not at full strength.  I am getting a lot of work done and staying focused on my work, but as soon as I step away from my desk, I can’t seem to funcition.  So I guess it is good for business, but not good for personal.  However, I will need to rest up a bit because I am a tad bit sick.

Last week Amanda’s mom was a little sick with a cold and sore throat, guess who caught it?  That’s right I did.  The other night I was starting to feel a little stuffy and like a sinus cold was coming on because there was a big drop in temperature, so that was normal for me.  Then on Sunday night my ear started to feel like it needed to pop, and when I woke up yesterday morning it felt that same way.  I was told to try some Claritin D because it was probably just my sinuses acting up.  When I woke up this morning and felt even worse, throat hurt more, ear felt more clogged, I decided to go to the clinic. This is where the adventure began.

I am without health insurance right now, I am in the process of getting Cobra, but that’s a whole other story by itself, being held up because my former employer isn’t playing very nice with me and my insurance provider to smooth the process, that’s a different story in itself.  So I called around to see how expensive different clinics were and they all averaged about $100-$150.  I then came across the CVS Minute-Clinic.  It was only $65, so why not go there.  Let’s first discuss this name, should be more like CVS 60 minute-clinic to get seen.

After waiting for nearly an hour, I was finally seen by the person, not sure what her credentials were.  I explained the situation, so she checked my throat and my ears.  She then proceeded to open up an operations and procedures binder and started asking me yes / no questions, like she was just going down a checklist of things I could have done on WebMD.  After about 5-10 minutes of that she started to collection some information from me.  Once I told her I was diabetic, she instantly started to freak.  “Well, I have to follow different procedure since your diabetic, I have to refer you out to another clinic, I can’t prescribe anything for you because you have diabetes.”

She made a phone call to ac colleague I guess and they decided to refer me to an MD Now clinic in Boca Raton.  Guess what, I called that place this morning and it was $130, exactly why I didn’t want to go there in the first place.  After about a total of 90 minutes inside CVS I said, I’m not paying for this visit because you’re referring me somewhere else and I didn’t’ get anything out of the visit, and she agreed and said she wouldn’t charge, finally something good out of that place.

I went over to the MD Now and signed in and was asked for my insurance cards.  “I don’t have insurance, I’m paying out of pocket.”  Receptionist replies with, “Ok that will be $130 and additional fees for any services or tests ran during the visit, I can take your payment now, credit or debit.”  Well, ok good day to you too.  So I paid the $130, even though I was trying to avoid that, but no options here.  I only waited about 5 minutes there and was brought back and was speaking with the doctor within minutes.  So this is what I paid $130 for.

Sinus issue going on with your ear, take Mucinex D to loosen it up.  It looks like it could be turning into an infection so here’s a prescription for amoxicillin.  The best part about it was that I got the prescription for free from Publix (grocery store) because they give free generic prescriptions for up to 14 days.  I was able to save money there which helped out, but still out $130.I guess it is worth it to have that piece of mind to know exactly what the issue is.  Still sucks though because I can barely hear out of my right ear and feels like I have been flying for 24 hours without being able to pop my ear.

Blood Sugars Stayed High All Sunday

Chris Stocker

As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, Sunday was just very blah.  Even after I posted the blog, it didn’t get much better.  My blood sugar hit a high of 465, right before I was to go to dinner.  I took almost a 17 unit correction and knew I wouldn’t be eating for about another 30-45 minutes.  Everybody ordered pizza, but I knew that I obviously couldn’t eat that  with a high blood sugar, so I opted out for a Greek salad.  Luckily, the waitress forgot to put my order in and my salad came out 10 minutes after everybody else was eating.  This gave my sugar more time to come down, which it came down to 285 before I ate.  It just felt like crap sitting there not being able to eat the pizza because my sugar was so high.  But this is that’s what goes on sometimes when you’re living a life with diabetes.High Blood Sugar

The salad was good for my diet however, so that was one good thing.  One of the in-laws had asked me, why I was eating salad, was it better for my diabetic diet?  I said, well I’m just on a general diet, nothing special because I am diabetic, I have insulin to take if I eat bad things.  After having a short conversation, I said why don’t you read my diabetes blog on a daily basis, because you can learn a lot about diabetes from it, and from reading one of the other diabetes blogs.  Hopefully you all see your reader base go up by one 🙂

Because of the high blood sugars yesterday, I decided to take a break from my BBQ sauce that I have fell in love with over the past several weeks.  I figured that it would be a good idea to keep that high fructose corn syrup out of my diet for a while.  Somebody sent me an e-mail after I wrote that post about their sauce being the only one approved by the ADA, I’d love to try it, if you are out there listening.

Well it is a Monday, so I should probably start working on some projects that I probably slacked off Golf Courseon over the weekend.  I’d so much rather be doing this again (see picture on left, Par 5, second shot)

Share a Story Contests – Too Many or Too Few – Your Thoughts?

Chris Stocker

From here on out, every Friday is going to be an opinionated blog.  Let’s call it, ‘Fired Up Friday’.  During the week I typically blog about things that are going on in my life, hence the Life of a Diabetic blog name.  I try to detail things that can go on while living with diabetes or living normally with diabetes as I call it.  There are a lot of things out in the D world that you may or may not agree with.  In the case of some of my Friday blogs, you may or may not agree with them, if you don’t I would really appreciate your feedback and comments.  The way I look at every situation is this; I may have an opinion on something because I don’t know enough about the other side to form a positive opinion.

Today’s idea came about because of noticing how many different diabetes story contests there are out there.  STOP!

There are enough story submission, share your story, whatever you want to call it contests and sites around, don’t try to create another one.  This is more geared towards companies than it is the d-bloggers.  I am all about d-bloggers sharing their story; in fact I think that part is awesome.  I think guest-blogging is one of the greatest ideas in the world (I am starting a weekly guest blog on February, so don’t be surprised if you get an e-mail from me soon), but all these contests need to stop.  Find a more creative way to engage us diabetics and your “customers”.

The first share your story type of post I saw was on Kerri’s site.  I submitted my story to her when I first started blogging and she published it on her site and I, still to this day, am very grateful and appreciative of that.  These are the type of story submissions that should stay, but I have seen a few companies recently start collecting stories for gifts, and I think it is just one big ploy to get business.

Majority of you know where I used to work, if you don’t e-mail me and we can discuss it on the side, I wouldn’t give them the recognition on my blog.  Bitter?  No, just know the behind the scenes and not legally allowed to speak about it in a public forum like this.  But reason I bring that up is that there was a story submission contest and at the end of it, I didn’t see the corporate benefits of it.  I can definitely see the benefits for the community, because you get to read a lot of people’s stories that you don’t normally see.  Maybe they don’t have a blog, so they aren’t writing about their daily lives, or maybe they have a blog, but you just don’t know about it.

So, I will end this blog with this.  I am all for sharing your story, but with the diabetes OC, not with corporate contests, because you just become an e-mail on a mailing list.

What are your thoughts?  Do you think that there is too many share your story contests out there or do you think that there is not enough?  I am interested to hear your opinions.

Diabetes Makes Me Think A Lot

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

Last night I started to think about some things, usually not good when I do this kind of stuff.  Diabetes makes me think a lot.  Let me exaplain the background of the  story first and why it came about.  Over the last, I’d say 2-3 weeks I have fell in love with this new bbq sauce.  It is the Sweet Baby Ray’s Honey Chipotle.  I am not getting paid by them, nor have I received anything for free, even though, I will admit I wish I did!  This bbq was found randomly because a local grocery store, Albertson’s, is closing down.  I tasted it, and that was the end of that.  I have eaten it on literally everything.  Salad, sandwiches, steak, fries, crackers, bagels, EVERYTHING!

Last night we decided to look at the ingredients and the very first one on there was high fructose corn syrup.  Hmm, probably not the best thing for somebody, especially a diabetic.  So my girlfriend asked, “is it healthy for your to be eating this much of this when you have diabetes?”  My quick reply was no, “no definitely not, but it is amazing!”

About 2 hours later that situation popped into my head and I started to think about it.  Has that ever happened to you?  Somebody says something to you, and it means nothing but then some time passes and you actually think about what they really said.  And on went my brain.

How much are my “live for right now” decisions hurting me in the long run?  When will I get back in to see my doctor?  Can I get private dental insurance as a diabetic?  Why can’t I just stick to my diet?  Why am I asking so many questions? 

Those are just a few of the thoughts that went flying through my mind last night.  Usually it gets me into a little bit of a down mood, but last night I snapped out of it pretty quickly.  They have recently built a new Dollar Tree across the street from where I am living, so I wanted to walk there and get exercise.  Amanda and I also decided to stop into Office Depot because there was a paper shredder there that I wanted last week.  It wasn’t on sale anymore.  This is when my mood changed.

As I was walking out the door to leave I glanced down and just so happened to see a different paper shredder in the ad for even less money.  So I went and asked an employee if they had more because I didn’t initially see them the first time I looked.  They did, but they were all on top of the shelf.  As I was waiting for somebody to climb up and get the shredder for me, Amanda brought my attention to a $200 desk on sale for $45.  It is a large desk, with storage, and lots of room for lots of stuff I have.  SOLD!

The desk was already assembled, but I had to take it pretty much completely apart once I got it home in order to get it upstairs to my make-shift home office.  And if you are wondering, didn’t you say you walked to the store?  Yes, but we had her brothers come pick us up with the truck.  I am working on-site today, so I won’t get to use the desk until tonight, but a good desk makes you do a lot better work.  Or is that just me?

Sorry about the 2 or 3 different things I was talking about in this post, but that was everything that happened to me yesterday.  Good thing I started a diabetes blog a long time ago to get this stuff off of my mind and know that there are others going through the same crap.

Just another day in the life of a diabetic!

How Diabetes Created My Business

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

Growing up I always had dreams of owning my own business in New York City in a big high rise building. When I was hit with the diagnosis of diabetes when I was 19 those dreams still were there. After a few years of having diabetes and realizing what the insurance side of diabetes was like I started to become discouraged about owning my own business. How would I get insurance if I owned my own company. These are still my biggest concerns.

Diabetes introduced me to blogging which led me to social media. I started blogging everyday, going on social media sites, started working on design, started learning about search engines and how they work and different marketing techniques. I started to think to myself damn this is awesome, I would love to do this for a living. But, how will I pay for insurance.

So while still working for that old company I began to do some consulting, giving advice to people on how to rank better in Google and then teaching them about Twitter and showing then how Facebook = easy money. So then popped up CSI Marketing Solutions, LLC.

Right now I have insurance through Cobra for the next 18 months so the insurance part of owning my own business is not as much of a concern. So this is how diabetes has led to me owning my own business. If it wasn’t for diabetes who knows if I would have created a web design an search marketing consulting company.

It’s times like this that make me thankful to be diabetic.

Have a great weekend everybody.

My Three Words of 2010

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

I have been extremely busy since the end of the year up until just the last couple of days.  I was either sick, spending time with my family up north or just doing regular holiday type things.  During this time I decided to step away from the computer and take a break, just get away if you will.  I have been catching up on e-mails that I have just been flagging that I wanted to go back and read.  I subscribe to Chris Brogan’s blog.  He writes great material if you are into the whole social part of social media.  He came up with his 3 words for 2010, as he has done over the past few years and this has inspired me to do it as well.  In today’s blog on here, you will read about how these words affect my personal life.  On my business blog today as well, I am writing about how these three words affect my business.  If you would like to read that as well, go to my Chris Stocker Inc blog.  Now, onto the three words: growth, dedication, health.

Growth

When I sat down to think about words that could describe what I want to either accomplish or work at this was one of the first ones that popped into my head.  Even though I have been 6′ tall since the 8th grade and haven’t grown since, well not vertically at least, that’s not the growth that I mean.  I want to grow as a person, a human being.  Over the years I have caught myself saying to myself, “how would you feel if somebody did that to you” and I look back at situations and feel horrible.  Whether it is yelling at a customer service rep over the phone, it’s not their fault, they are just doing their job, or getting impatient at an elderly person driving in south Florida (for those of you that live here you know that’s at least once before every stop light!), or even being short or rude with Amanda or family or co-workers.

In 2010, I want to work hard to not be that type of person and to grow into becoming a bigger and better person at heart.  Be more considerate, take others feelings into affect more often.  I don’t want this to sound like I’m some inconsiderate prick right now because that’s not the case, but there is always room for improvement and that is where I want to be.

Dedication

What’s the point of having goals and setting benchmarks if you don’t have the dedication to stick with these things. How are you to lose weight when you can’t dedicate 30 minutes a day to exercise or eating a healthy meal.  In 2010 I plan to work hard at dedicating myself to tasks that I put my mind to, no matter what it is.  Exercising, work, business, relationships, anything.  There is no more laziness in my life.  Sure there will be things that I have to give up, but what I gain from them will help me get back what I am missing.  What do I mean by that?  Here is a perfect situation that usually happens every day.  I have two options, watch tv and spend time with Amanda or work out and be healthy.  If I make the decision to work out then I am losing out on that 45 minutes of spending time with my girlfriend.  Well in the long run, by working out and spending that 45 minutes to exercise, I am saving myself who knows, maybe 1-2 days or even months added onto my life in order to spend more time with her in the future.  Dedication is about being able to see the long term goal and pushing yourself to get to it.  Knowing that what you are missing out on now will come back ten-fold in the future.

Health

I think this word pretty much summarizes the entire thing.  This year I have set some goals for my diabetes, in regards to my weight and A1C.  With plans that I have worked out already, this should be manageable.  Becoming a healthier person will make me happier, feel better about situations and I feel grow as a person.  I will need dedication and growth within myself to get to this healthiness that I am seeking.

As you can see all three of these words fit together in the end.  Do this exercise yourself if you haven’t already.  Also, like I said if you would like to see how these three words relate to the other side of my life and how they all interact with each other than check out my other blog as well.

Have a great day everybody.

My Diabetes Has Been Easy As To Manage As Of Late

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

Controlling my diabetes over the last few days has been…. easy.  I don’t think that I have ever said that before, but it has been.  I’ve been eating not that great, but have been counting carbs almost dead on because I have had only 1 or 2 sugars over 200 this whole week.  I did this before and as soon as I made a comment about it my sugars went off the charts for about a week straight, so I have contemplated writing this or not because I don’t want it to happen again.

On the other hand, it feels so damn good to be able to say that it has been easy.  I test, I eat, I test and it’s still normal.  No infusion set mess ups, no low reservoirs when I am not at home, no running out of test strips, no low battery warnings on the pump, I can’t complain at all!  In fact, it even let me meet a new diabetic today. I was at Starbucks (since I’ve been unemployed the last week I go to coffee shops and do work) and someone saw my insulin pump and told me that their wife was diabetic and was thinking about switching to an insulin pump and he hasn’t talked to a pumper face-to-face yet, so it was a great help to him.  Thank you diabetes for giving me this opportunity to help somebody out.

I have not won the so-called war against diabetes yet, but I am sure kicking the $&!# out of it right now.

Diabetes Aside, What Do You Do?

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

What do you do?  I know that the number one thing that majority of us have in common is that we all have diabetes, or know somebody with diabetes.  But I want to know a little more.  What do you do, what is your passion?  What do you do for a living?  How many children do you have?  What do you do for fun, what are your hobbies?  I know some of this stuff about some of you, but I’d like to know more about more of you.  So, if you feel comfortable, please comment what it is that you, or what your passion is.  Put diabetes to the side and let’s know the rest of us.

Here’s a little about me.  I am an internet marketer.  I love the internet and geeky computer things.  I love social media, I love SEO.  I love blogging.  Currently I also coach a pop warner (12-14 yr old) football team in East Boca.  We are having a rough season.  The kids are 0-8, a real life version of the Little Giants, especially since our name is the Giants.  I have a girlfriend, Amanda, that I have been with for 4 years.  I do plan on marrying her, just isn’t the right time to make that move yet.  I moved down to south Florida from PA, where the rest of my family still lives.  My direct family consists of my mother and father who both turned 50 this year.  And one brother who turned 29 in September.  His wife is expecting their first child in just a few weeks.  I am extremely excited to become an uncle.

I enjoy watching football, Philadelphia Eagles, baseball, Philadelphia Phillies, hockey, Florida Panthers, basketball, Orlando Magic, and NCAA football, Virginia Tech and NCAA basketball, Michigan State.  Yes, I know my sports teams are all over the place, but there is a reason for each of them.  If you’re curious, here we go.  I like Orlando Magic because I became a fan when they signed Shaq back in 1992-93 and stayed a fan since then.  Virginia Tech became my team when a local high school QB went there in 1995 to play there.  Phillies and Eagles, I’m from the Philly area.  Michigan State came from their freshman point guard in 1996, Mateen Cleaves.

That is about it.  That sums up most of my life.  If you have other questions, I am open to answer them.  I look forward to seeing your stories as well.

Diabetes Doesn’t Make Sense Sometimes

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

Sometimes diabetes just doesn’t make any sense.  As soon as you think you are understanding it, there it goes again.  Most recent example was last night.  Throughout most of the day my sugar was low, I was eating glucose tabs and Skittles all day at work because it just kept going back down.  When I got home at about 5:30 and went to the gym my blood sugar was right around 110 or so.  I ate, then worked out at the gym for 45 minutes went to Wal-Mart and Target and then came home and checked my sugar and it was up to 230 – something.  Unbelievable.  I didn’t even eat anything that would have caused it to go high like that.  Like I said, it confuses me at times.

Then there are times like Sunday when I went to Olive Garden.  It has been well documented on what happens to my body and sugars when I go to Olive Garden.  I overeat and then next thing you know my sugar is soaring over 350 just about everytime.  So I took just a little more insulin than usual but spaced it out a little more this time with a wave bolus.  Well, instead of my sugar getting up to 350, it was about 300 points lower, about 67 when I tested 3 hours later.  What the heck is that all about?  I have no idea.  Once again, diabetes confusing me.

I guess if I was wearing my CGM I would be able to catch these things a little easier.  But I’m not wearing it.  The sensors that I have are expired, even though I think that they would still work, I have just been too lazy.  I’m not going to get more sensors until next year because of the whole deductible thing.  There was a span in there that I didn’t test for close to 4 hours, so that is my own fault.  Especially when at work I test once an hour, so it’s almost like I am wearing a CGM.

Please remember to dedicate at least one blog post to getting diabetes awareness into the faces of professional athletes so we can have even a bigger voice.

Thank you all.

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.