Why is it a Mistake?

Posted on June 6, 2013 by Laddie

On Sunday I went to my grandson’s birthday party. My blood glucose was in the 90’s at the beginning of the party. I had no snacks. For dinner, I had one small roll with cheese along with some celery and other raw veggies. As far as I know, I bolused properly for what I ate. Instead of birthday cake and ice cream, I had a cup of tea.

When I got home, my blood glucose was 186. My typical reaction would be to look in the mirror and say that I made a mistake. I hardly ate. I estimated the carbs and took a bolus. I wasn’t even tempted by cake and ice cream and had none.

So what did I do wrong?

Not a darn thing.

Stop the Guilt Already!

Posted on June 4, 2013 by Sue from New York

Please welcome Sue from New York who will be one of the writers for this blog. Today she is addressing a subject that we all know too much about. To learn more about Sue, click here.

My son was born in 1971, a beautiful, happy, healthy baby. His sister was born in 1974. In 1975, shortly after his fourth birthday, my son began to lose weight, wet the bed, and he developed an unquenchable thirst. We took him to the emergency room of the hospital late one night, and we were told that he was a juvenile onset diabetic. He was admitted, and we learned to give shots of insulin into an orange first, and then to our little boy. When we brought him home, my mother in law expressed guilt because as an adult onset diabetic, she felt she was responsible for her grandson’s diabetes. At that point my mother informed me that her cousin was a juvenile onset diabetic since the age of three. So I was then able to tell my mother in law that it was not her fault that my child was now diabetic, and I could now bear the blame. At one point I told myself that I wished it was me with the diabetes instead of him. I subsequently developed type 1 diabetes when he was 17.

Raising a diabetic child in the 1970’s and 1980’s was a real challenge. Blood sugar testing was nonexistent, and we checked his urine to see how his control was. He was on one shot of insulin a day. We mixed his NPH and regular insulin in the syringe in the morning, and he was on a fairly strict schedule of meals and snacks to coincide with the action of the insulin. We tried to explain to our young daughter why her brother couldn’t eat sugar, but something got lost in the translation. She had a recurring nightmare that her brother would eat sugar and explode. And she felt responsible for this nightmare, because she wasn’t watching her brother carefully enough.

There has been a theory that type 1 diabetes may be caused by mothers giving their babies milk before they are six months old. I’m pretty sure I put milk in his bottle before he was six months old. Oh great.

On July 2, 1999 my son was living and working in New York City, seeking work in the theatre, his passion. One day he stopped to buy a sandwich and was on his way to the subway, where he planned to eat the sandwich. He awoke in Bellevue Hospital with a broken left leg after suffering a hypoglycemic episode. He thinks he was hit by a taxi, but there were no witnesses available when the ambulance arrived. We drove 4 1/2 hours to the hospital, picked him up and brought him back to our home to recover. My husband took him to PT three times a week, and a couple of months later he had surgery again on his leg. When he recovered we returned him to his apartment in Queens. A couple of years later he developed proliferative retinopathy and needed laser surgery, which continues to this day. He had to give up his dream of acting and get a job with health insurance benefits to pay for his laser treatments. Within a month of his accident, my mother had a debilitating stroke which left her paralyzed on her right side. My son told me last week that he was responsible for her stroke because of the stress she suffered when he broke his leg. I did my best to inform him that a stroke is not caused by stress, but by high blood pressure and/or a blood clot. So he lived with guilt for 14 years that was not his doing.

Diabetes is a full time job. It’s not our fault that we developed diabetes. We need to learn to deal with the day to day existence of living with it, and let go of the guilt we associate with it.

Choosing a Blog Name

Posted on May 28, 2013 by Laddie

The hardest part of starting my blog was choosing a name. Every website in the Diabetes Online Community seems to have a perfect name and I was convinced that all of the perfect names had already been taken. Of course that’s silly and I assume that almost everyone struggles to pick a name that captures their personality and attitude towards diabetes along with a bit of whimsy.

The first names I considered were things like Doors Wide Open, One More Day, and A Balancing Act. These are all very relevant to my diabetes. In recent years, I’ve slowly been opening the doors I’ve hidden behind for years in relation to my diabetes. We all know about doing it one day at a time and for one more day. We try to stay balanced on the tightrope of Type 1 by juggling the many tasks required to keep our blood glucose somewhere in the zone between dangerously low and off-the-chart high.

The above names were already taken because they apply to everyone’s life, diabetic or not. Doors Wide Open is a book as well as a jazz band. One More Day refers to a four-part comic storyline about Spider-Man. A Balancing Act is a yoga studio in South Carolina as well as the name of a book.

So onward to more names. I considered A Toast to Type 1 because many of my blogging ideas surface during my second glass of wine. But that wasn’t the best idea because drinking and diabetes can be a very serious subject and it would be bad form to make light of it.

Then I really got inspired by Diabetes in Counterpoint. I am a former pianist who enjoys contrapuntal music where diverse melody lines merge into one harmonious composition. Counterpoint has tons of rules, five species, and even a dissonant type. What could have more types and dissonance than diabetes?! But this was way too esoteric and I didn’t want “Diabetes” in my blog title. Am I still hiding, or do I just want a little more flexibility for my blog? I vote for the latter.

The next titles are where I started to get into trouble. I thought about the over-under in sports betting. I am almost always over or under on my BG readings, so this seemed a good fit. I will provide no links here, but over-under has some strong sexual overtones that I had never heard of and I am lucky not to have gotten far with this idea.

And then I jumped at No Sissies Allowed. We plus-60 year olds always say that growing old is not for sissies. Well, I would say the same thing for diabetes. I couldn’t believe that this domain was still available. Fortunately I Googled this phrase and found out it has morphed into a very anti-Gay phrase. Or maybe it always was and I just didn’t know it.

On another track of perfect blog names, I played with Guess and Go. A nice ring, but I really do test often. I didn’t want to introduce my endo to social media with that idea. Then there was Test and Guess followed by Test and Go.

Finally I decided on Test Guess and Go. I test a lot. I guess a lot because no matter how much I follow the diabetes rules, it’s always a crapshoot as to what the day will be. But through 36 years of Type 1 Diabetes, I always go. It has never dawned on me to stop my life for diabetes. Surely I’m more neurotic than I would have been without diabetes, but maybe not. So I went yesterday. I go today. And gosh darn it, I’m going to go tomorrow!

Test Guess and Go.

Why Now?

Posted on May 25, 2013 by Laddie

I’ve thought about starting a diabetes blog for a long time, but I never got very far. Once or twice I’ve looked at blogging sites and several times I’ve jotted down potential blog names. What has stopped me? Laziness maybe, but more likely fear. Fear of doing something I don’t know how to do. Fear of starting something that would be a continuing responsibility. But mostly fear of exposing myself to the world, to my friends, to my family, and I suppose to myself.

I used to be a pianist and accompanist. I found it easier to play for crowds of 100 to 500 people than I did for 1 or 2 people. I’m very good at anonymous. I’m not so good at one-to-one and face-to-face.

The DOC (Diabetes Online Community) has become a family to me. Most of the blogs I read are written by Type 1 diabetics who are in their 20’s, 30’s, and maybe inching into their 40’s. A few are older, but most are my children. They’re the mobile generation. They blog, they vlog, they friend on Facebook, they Tweet. Boy, do they Tweet. They welcome and embrace me, but maybe it’s time for me to step out of their shadow. I think there is room for my voice in the DOC and I hope that I can help and inspire others in the way that I have been helped and inspired by others.

I would like to thank Scott Johnson who posted my first guest-post at his website in April of this year. The positive responses that I received from Scott, my family, friends, and the DOC gave me confidence to continue on this journey to start a blog. I certainly know how to debut at the top by writing what is probably the best post I’ll ever write and by being featured on one of the most popular and long-lived diabetes blogs. You can find that post here: http://scottsdiabetes.com/2013/04/safe/

I’m 61 years old and have had Type 1 diabetes since age 24 in 1976. I’ve always had good insurance and have never had to worry about the availability of insulin and test strips. Insulin pumps and CGM’s have been readily approved. I have worked hard to live a healthy life with diabetes, but there are days that it is very difficult to do that. Although I have lots of autoimmune issues and some of the comorbidities that go along with Type 1, I’ve been spared the major complications of eye, nerve, and kidney damage that can occur with long-term diabetes.

The medical system in the United States is changing and I really wonder what the next years will bring for those of us with diabetes. My current insurance is through the high-risk program in Minnesota and that will change in 2014 when insurance pools with no pre-existing condition clauses become effective under the Affordable Care Act. Although my premiums may be reduced, I think that I will end up with poorer insurance with this change. And before I know it, I will be on Medicare with a new set of rules that will save me lots of money in some areas, but will try to dictate that I live with 3 test strips a day and throw away my CGM because it is not proven technology.

I hope to use my blog to chronicle my journey through life with diabetes. Many of my posts will be reflections on the last 36 years as well as my opinions on current issues. I have invited several online friends who are about my age to regularly write posts on this blog. These are women whom I’ve bonded with in the DOC and they have been an inspiration to me as I’m sure they will be to you.

Thanks for visiting my website and please come back!