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Life of a Diabetic Weekend Recap Vol 4

Chris Stocker

Man did this weekend fly by or what!  I don’t think that I got a single thing accomplished at all.  Friday started out with some high blood sugars during the day and some stress.  That’s why there was no Fired Up Friday last week.  I test drove a Ford Edge on Thursday night and fell in love with it.  I have wanted one of those cars for a long time and finally found the perfect one I was looking for.  It didn’t go so well on Friday when I tried to get the financing for it.  Since I have had a credit score, I guess dating back 7-8 years ago, I have had almost perfect credit, about 730 score ( I don’t mind sharing it when it was that high, ha).  Unfortunately, back in November when I lost my job, my credit score took a little dip.  So, ultimately, I was not able to get the financing needed for the car.

That was very stressful, so my blood sugar spiked like crazy.  I finally got it back under control around 5 o’clock or so when Amanda and I headed out for dinner and to a different casino then last week.  I had a turkey club with some coleslaw and my sugars went high by the end of the night again.  I’m not sure what caused the spike, maybe my diabetes?  I won money at the casino, so that was good.  And if you have been reading my last few weekend recaps, I’m not addicted to gambling, I’ve just been feeling lucky.

Saturday morning was just lying around doing nothing.  My girlfriend’s older brother and I played a little wiffle ball golf in the morning.  Basically we took a basketball and just threw it in the air and wherever it landed, that was the whole and first one to hit their wiffle golf ball into the basketball one the hole.  We played 9-holes and unfortunately, I pulled a Phil Mickelson and choked on the last hole.  We all then went down to the Panthers game last night against the Buffalo Sabres.  Now, let me just say this, if you are from Buffalo, oh well.  I come from Philadelphia, so I know all about being an obnoxious fan, Philly fans are the best in the world, HOWEVER, Buffalo Sabre fans are just annoying!  I can’t stand people that have an excuse for everything, like the refs made that call to keep the game close, that was a lucky shot, but when you’re team scores it was an amazing shot and when the other team gets a penalty it was a great call.  Just shut up ok?

Moving on.  Sunday was another Panthers game, back to backs are rough.  I also wanted to watch the race and some of the Michigan St basketball game as well.  I had so much laundry to do and work to catch up on as well from the weekend and not doing anything.  Sunday is usually my planning day.  I get out my calendar and pen and start outlining the whole week.  Client projects, blog ideas for a few of the blogs I write, to dos, etc.

Well, happy Monday to everybody and have a great day.

Refilling a Reservoir at Work

Chris Stocker

Yesterday I had to refill my insulin cartridge at work and it made me think about a couple of things.  First, what reaction am I going to get from people who walk by? Why do I have two vials of insulin in my laptop bag and both have 2 refills left in them?  Why is this thing so damn loud when it is priming?

Well here were my answers to all of those questions.

Reaction from People

First and foremost, I don’t  really  care what their reaction is to it.  I am doing something that I need to do in order to survive, so get over it.  Do I look at you weird when you breathe or when you drink water or when you eat?  No, didn’t think so, so keep on walking.  But I do find it funny what most people say.  The most common phrase I hear is, “What are you shooting up or something?”  Some people mean it in a sense of am I shooting up insulin, but I think we all know what most others are referring to, obviously a joke.  I usually say, “Well, I’m already high, so I need to shoot up some more.”  That is when the other person doesn’t get the insulin and high blood sugar reference and thinks that I am just making a drug comment back to them.

What kind of reaction do you get?

Two Vials of Insulin

When it comes to insulin, I try to have only one open vial at a time, but that tends to not happen very often.  The reason is usually that I open one and put it in my laptop bag because that thing goes with me to work, home, and travel.  That way the insulin will be with me at all times.  Then there is usually one on my desk at home, maybe it’s empty and I forgot to throw it away, so when I see it, I think that I just finished one and go and open another one.  As soon as I used it to refill the reservoir, I throw it in my laptop bag and now I have two opened in the same location.

Do any of you do this as well, or am I just being a bad diabetic?

Loud Priming

The last part of what was going through my head was why this insulin pump is so damn loud when it is priming.  It beeps so many times, and it is extremely loud, so when my co-workers are working, they hear it beeping and then all the questions start.  Normally I don’t mind the questions, but when I am busy and trying to get work done so I can get home and start working on some other clients work, I’m not usually in the mood to lecture on diabetes.

Do you all refill right at your desk or do you go to restrooms or cars, or somewhere else to take care of it?

Not So Great Life of a Diabetic Lately

Chris Stocker

If you follow The Life of a Diabetic on Twitter, then this post is not going to sound like much of a surprise to most of you.  My blood sugars have been crazy over the past 2 months, even 3.  I haven’t seen my endocrinologist since October, which I was seeing her every month for 6 straight months so I can make changes quite frequently.  There are multiple reasons for these higher blood sugars, but today they come to an end.  Actually, yesterday they did, I didn’t have a blood sugar over 170 all day.  Screw diabetes!  Let’s get into some of the reasons.

  1. Diet – Or should I say lack there of.  I haven’t been following any sort of diet at all.  It’s just been eat whatever is made for dinner, or eat wherever Amanda and I feel like going out to eat.  When I did go out to eat, I wasn’t ordering anything healthy, plus I would eat Amanda’s leftovers instead of taking them home, sometimes.  Well my solution to this has been portion control.  I haven’t been eating too much healthier, but I have been eating less, only one serving.  At night, I then am eating a PB&J and that holds me off and also keeps my blood sugars stable.
  2. Exercise – Once again, lack there of.  The portion control helps some, but added exercise would make things a lot better and also help me lose more weight, which means less insulin, which means the longer I have to wait before I buy more of it.  I have gone back to doing little things to get more exercise, that you may not even think about.  For example, when I did laundry last night, instead of bringing upstairs all of my dress shirts, I walked them up one at a time and walked up and down the stairs about 10-15 times.  I park a little further from the store and make myself walk a further distance.  These little things will add up to big things for me.
  3. Lack of Testing – I know that I am running low on strips, so I have been testing less.  I always told myself that I wouldn’t do that, but I am.  I still test 4-5 times a day, so it’s not that bad, but I don’t catch the guys until it is too late.  I can’t pick up on trends of my blood sugar that way.  I will be getting a full 90 day supply of strips next month, so I have enough to get my by until then.  The only problem is that I’m not so sure how accurate the meter is because I don’t have control solution.  And I must say, I was a big fan of Home Diagnostics products (True2Go, TrueRead etc.), but lately as much as I have been complaining about their product, I haven’t heard a single thing from them.  Where are you on social media and tracking your company brand?  Bad, bad, bad job.  In fact, 3 of their competitors have contacted me because I was tweeting about not liking HDI.  (Being a social media consultant, I tend to prefer businesses that are doing social media right).
  4. Max Bolusing – Well, since I haven’t been testing, and then I haven’t been eating healthy, and I haven’t been counting carbs, what else am I going to do?  Max bolus of 25.0 and then eat to the bolus or if my sugar was high, which I’m assuming it was over the past couple of months, then that would include the correction bolus that I would need.

This is not something that I am proud of at all, in fact, I am quite embarrassed by it.  But, what can I do about it now?  I can’t change the past couple months, but what I can do is continue to get better at doing the right things and keep moving forward.

Life of a Diabetic Weekend Recap

Chris Stocker

First, I want to thank you all for your feedback, RT’s, and comments from the Fired Up Friday post about drink options.  I am glad to hear that I am not just being a drama queen (or would it be king?) and overreacting to something like this.  Anywho, the weekend was great!  It of course went by way too fast, but I accomplished a lot.  Friday night, Amanda and I were going to see that Shutter Island movie but decided to wait a week or two so there is not as many people there when we go to see it.  I hate being in a crowded movie theater, I don’t like tight spaces.  Plus, since I’m diabetic, my blood sugar can get high as we all know and I will need to run to the bathroom a million times during the movie.  Since, we decided not to go that night, we didn’t do anything.  My blood sugars were still a little high all night Friday, in the 175-190 range.

Saturday morning was the WordCamp Miami conference, so I was up at 6:00 a.m.  I got my stuff ready the night before because I knew I would forget either my meter, or extra insulin, or a couple extra infusion sets, etc.  The conference was a lot of fun and I learned a lot more about WordPress then I initially knew going down there, so it was well worth it.  If you are interested in that type of geeky, web stuff as well, then read my other blog as well, Chris Stocker, Inc. because I don’t talk too much about on it here.  Saturday night we headed up to West Palm Beach for the Opening Night of the Waterfront.  It was basically just some streets blocked off and lots of food, beer, live entertainment.  I’m not so sure about the exact history of it, but I gave you a link if you’re interested, but it was fun.  Amanda and I ate at some Mexican place and the insulin didn’t seem to take, so that type 1 diabetes thing I have made the sugars a little high, about 275.

Sunday morning was another little community thing that Amanda, her brother, and myself went to.  It was in Lake Worth, FL and it was some outdoor thing where artists and kids were drawing on the street with chalk, it was actually pretty damn cool.  I’m having trouble with my camera uploading things, so I will post some of the pictures tomorrow from it.  Other than that, it was time to go home and get to work.  I have a few blogs that I am almost finished designing for clients and a couple of other websites that are still in process.  I’m getting a little stressed from the work, but after these couple projects are finished it will slow down because there aren’t any other large projects lined up right now, but I prefer to be extremely busy like that.  The busier I am, the more of these I drink.Rip It Sugar Free Energy Drink - Diabetes

Finally, for the bad news.  My ear is still clogged up pretty bad, so I am going back to the doctor on Tuesday to just make sure that I don’t have an infection or something else worse going on.  I found a place that will accept the insurance, so it won’t be as much money to pay for this visit.  I really appreciate all your help and suggestions.  The Neti Pot worked miracles, but it doesn’t keep it un-clogged, it always seems to clog back up after I use it, or sometimes it doesn’t even work.  It’s just becoming frustrating right now.  But, just another obstacle to overcome when you have a life of a diabetic

Fired Up Friday – Limited Drink Options at Restaurants

Chris Stocker 6 Comments

Every time I go to a restaurant, I tend to get a little mad.  There may be a few reasons why, but primarily it is because I may not be in the mood to drink water, diet Coke / Pepsi or un-sweetened iced tea.  But, guess what, those are the only options.  With so many diabetics in this country don’t you think we deserve to have just as many options of beverages than people who are not living with diabetes have?  Not only people with diabetes, but all the people who are trying to diet and make the right choices when eating out have minimal choices.

I have always wanted to start a petition to force restaurants to have more options.  I’ve been told by people that if I want diet soda then I probably shouldn’t be eating there anyway.  Let’s take an example of this.  If I walk into a fast food joint because I’m in the mood for it, and order some unhealthy greasy burger and fries, ok let’s be realistic, 2 burgers, but I order a diet coke.  Should I be looked at weird because I’m getting a diet coke to go along with my 1,500 calorie meal?  No, not at all because I am choosing to take about 10 units less of insulin by drinking the diet coke.  Therefore, I should have a few more options of drinks.

Let’s take a look at some of the people who are doing it right and why I will choose their place to eat over others.

  • Chick-Fil-A – I will spend more money for a chicken sandwich here than other places because they offer sugar free lemonade and diet Dr. Pepper.  I love diet Dr. Pepper, it is the only diet soda that I used to drink before I was even diabetic, because I can’t taste the difference in the two.
  • Quiznos (some) – Why would I rather pay an extra dollar for my footlong?  Easily, they offer un-sweetened, Sprite Zero, diet Mtn. Dew, and various bottled beverages that are zero carb or diet.
  • Pei-Wei – There is more than one reason why I enjoy this place, but I spend more money on their food, for one the quality of food is better, but also because they have two different flavors on un-sweetened tea, they also have Fresca, which is a great alternative to diet Sprite all the time.

These are just a few of the places that have won my customer loyalty all because they offer drinks other than diet coke and un-sweetened iced tea.  If there are any restaurant owners / managers out there reading this right now, did you just read that?  I have been won over by places because of their beverage options, not because your burger is a ¼ larger, or you have extra sauce or your foot long is only $5.00(even though you charge almost $3.00 for a combo which ends up being more expensive than your competition, I see your trick).  I understand that I am in the minority here and you have to make business decisions based upon the majority.  Put, are you really going to spend that much extra money by eliminating 1 flavor or regular soda and switching it out with diet?  I doubt not.

I have gone as far as bringing in my own drink into a restaurant because they don’t have a type of drink that I like.  They didn’t have a problem with it, they just charged me for the cost of purchasing a drink of theirs.

How do you all feel about this?  Am I just over-reacting to this situation?

Eating Healthy for Diabetes Doesn’t Have to Be Expensive

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

Being diabetic, we all know that we need to eat healthy and exercise.  Well why is it so difficult to actually follow through on this?  I have said plenty of times that this is the time that I am going to cut back on my bad eating habits and increase the good eating habits.  I can’t just stop eating bad one day and then switch to eating good, it just doesn’t happen.  The easiest way for me to get back into eating habits is to eat the things I have been eating, but cut down on the portion control.  Eventually, I will not require as much food to move away from the table and I can begin eating healthier things.  The other bad part of eating unhealthy is the amount of money that I spend eating out.  I eat out for lunch on average 3 days a week.  One day, I will eat bad and spend about $10 and the other 2 days are split between Subway and Quiznos, which are both about $5 each.  That right there is $20 a week, $80 a month, almost $1,000 a year.  I could pay off a credit card in a year with that amount of money!

So, yesterday was the tipping point for me.  I went to the store and bought stuff to make my own Sammie’s and oven roasted chicken breast subs and flat bread salads.  I paid about the same amount of money, but will have enough food to last me about 2 weeks worth of lunches.  I used to always say that it costs so much more to eat healthier, well not exactly.  If you do it properly, then it doesn’t.  Living with type 1 diabetes brings a lot of expensive situations, but eating does not have to be one of them.  I bought a package of pork tenderloins (6) for $5.50, a box of boil in a bag brown rice $2.50, package of steamable veggies $1.99 and made 5 days worth of lunch for under $10!  When I go out for lunch and buy stir-fry it costs me $10 for one meal.

On a side note, here are some pictures from Daytona and a few videos, hope you enjoy.

Daytona 500 National Guard Jimmie Johnson CarNational Guard Car

Diabetes in Daytona

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

This past weekend I went up to Daytona Beach, FL for the Daytona 500 race.  This was my second consecutive year going.  I met a guy up there who said that he has gone to 42 straight, this year’s was the 52nd so he only missed the first 10 races.  That sounded like a great idea to me, and I think I am going to do it.  Amanda, her brother, friend and myself all packed up Friday morning / afternoon and made sure we had everything ready to go for about a 3:00 departure for the 3 hour drive.  Everyone was packed to go and I of course was doing the diabetic thing and triple checking.  Having type 1 diabetes isn’t always the easiest thing to pack for.  I made sure that I had everything that I would need and we were set to leave.  I tested before I got in the car, 345, not a good start.

I had eaten two bagels for breakfast that morning, I know probably not the best idea.  It was about 3:30 and I didn’t eat lunch and there was some Little Ceasar’s pizza, so of course I ate some.  I bolused enough for the correction and then again for the pizza and I felt like I was going to be just fine.  About two hours later I tested again and I was down to 180, not bad at all since I ate pizza.  We finally arrived in Daytona and were going to get Subway for dinner.  Blood sugars didn’t go so well Friday night.  At one point it was up to 425.  This high blood sugar gave me the opportunity to educate some body on diabetes however.  The kid we were staying with didn’t really know anything about diabetes, he just knew that his grandmother had it and that his mom had told him that it skips generations.  Let the lecture begin.

I was explaining to him that it is difficult for anybody with type 1 diabetes to drink because when you get low, you feel light headed and woozy and when your blood sugar goes high, you pee a lot.  So, since we were heading out to a bar, he realized the difficulties and the confusions that can come of this and the dangers behind it.  Throughout the night, the blood sugars came down and I was ready to go Saturday morning (except for the little headache I had from the night before.)

Saturday night led to another conversation with this same kid about diabetes, but not about drinking this time.  It was just diabetes in general.  I explained how I became diabetic [or how I was born with it, according to Dr. DipShit(OZ)].  I took him through the whole night, the 858 blood sugar, the issues, the problems, ways to avoid problems, and discussed with him about the skipping a generation issue.  I am not a scientist or doctor, but I didn’t think that was true because there is plenty of people that I know whose parents are diabetic and so are they, but I don’t know, correct me if I’m wrong please.  After the conversations with him, it felt great!  I love teaching people about diabetes or eliminating their ignorance or mis-understandings about it.  Explaining the insulin pump is always the best and then asking them if they want to test their sugar is funny.

The answer is always the same, “Hell no, get out of here”

How Many Hours in a Lifetime Wasted On Hold with Insurance Companies?

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

You know how there are all these studies out there and all these dumb little facts?  Well I have one for somebody to figure out.  The average amount of time in a lifetime that a diabetic waits on hold with an insurance company.  I’m guessing I can save pretty much half of my life this way.  Today was worth the wait however.  I had to first call my insurance company and find out the phone number to my mail order pharmacy.  My insurance had switched in November, the day before I was fired, and I still have coverage through them, so I wanted to get an insulin re-order before that time.  It took the guy on the phone 20 minutes to basically just give me the phone number to the mail order pharmacy.

Once I called them it became better.  I spoke to a lady who walked me through the whole process.  She recommended that I have my doctor call in my prescription because she said, “in all honesty, the fax will get tied up in an incoming box until probably tomorrow.”  For once, somebody at an insurance company told me the truth about something.  She will probably lose her job for saying such a thing.  She gave me a phone number, fax number, what exactly to have the nurse say to the person on the phone, everything.  After having a nice discussion with her, I then called my doctor’s office.  I explained the situation to her and explained why I missed my last visit and why I don’t know the exact date of my next visit.  I will explain that here tomorrow, it’s kind of interesting believe it or not.  Anywho, I asked my doctor’s office to call and leave me a voicemail once this was all completed, well I received the voicemail, so I am happy.

The only scary part is that I am going to PA next week, so I asked for the insulin to be delivered there.  Which now I regret because I have enough insulin for about a month, so I could have just had it shipped here and stored in the fridge.  Now I have to have it shipped into the freezing cold weather, and then bring it back with my on the plane.  It goes into my carry on, so it is going to take up a pretty fair amount of space on there, so we shall see how that turns out next Sunday.  Well, time to sign off for the night again.  I need to try and get my posts done in the morning again instead of 10:00 p.m.

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.