Diabetes | Test Guess and Go

Laddie: In tomorrow’s blog post, I will write about my 6-month journey through the archives of DSMA Live. DSMA Live is a weekly interview show hosted by Cherise Shockley, George Simmons, and Scott Johnson. DSMA stands for Diabetes Social Media Advocacy and more information can be found at the DSMA website. Today my dog Abby is giving you a preview of the important details.

Most dogs don’t know about DSMA Live. I do because on January 1st of this year, my owner Laddie decided that she was going to listen to all of the archived DSMA Live shows. Since that decision involved neither dog biscuits nor tennis balls, I totally dismissed it and curled up by a sunny window to take a nap.

Hearing the rattle of my harness and leash, I jumped at the opportunity for a walk. Laddie grabbed her pink iPod Nano and thus began our winter and spring of listening to DSMA Live. Well, actually I didn’t listen. My head is not properly shaped for ear phones. I just walked, stalked rabbits, and sniffed dog “Tweets” on mailboxes and fire hydrants.

Now you may not know what DSMA Live is. Neither do I. All I know is that because of this series of podcasts, I was the beneficiary of multiple long walks that far surpassed our normal dog walk frequency and length.

From January 1 until May 16, 2013, Laddie listened to 149 DSMA shows. According to her Fitbit pedometer, our normal pace was a 20-minute mile. Or as I prefer to think of it, we walked 3 miles per DSMA show. We could have gone faster, but this pace included dog potty breaks and socialization with other canine/human combos.

My favorite stat is that in 5-1/2 months, we walked approximately 447 miles accompanied by DSMA Live. That’s an average of 3.3 miles per day. I am indeed a lucky dog and my ever svelte figure is a result of my daily exercise.

Now that we are only listening to current episodes, I realize that the number of my DSMA walks will be reduced. But the addition of spin-offs such as the ‘Rents show and the en Vivo! show is a reminder that there will be a growing number of podcasts to inspire dog walks.

So to other dogs, I say: “I am a DSMA Dog. Are you?”

(By the way, I do not like Wednesday night DSMA TweetChats. All humans with diabetes totally ignore their dogs during that hour and focus on their iPads instead.)

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.