Have you ever made a colossal misjudgment?

Last night I wanted to get out and run a few miles.  I am getting stressed about this "Hot Potato 15k" coming up the last weekend of October.  It is not every weekend you get to do a trail run for Diabetes support and I want to do good.  There was this storm was off to the south of town and the air was very still.  I figured if the storm came then it would take several hours to get to me and I would have plenty of time to get back home.  How wrong I was.  Don't mind the pictures of my dead back yard.  We are in a severe drought in the Dallas area and I am out camping so much on the weekends that I just let my backyard go to pots this year.  Usually the backyard looks better than the front but just so much heat and little rain has destroyed my yard.  All the green is just weeds.  I am going to have to take some time and do some green thumb work around the house.

http://tylertypeone.org/Endurance%20Challenge%20Flyer.pdf

I set off to just run as far as I felt comfortable run (either the rain or time was the limit).  A little sore from the past two days but I wanted to get alot of miles in this week before we have off the wall weather and my calendar picks up again.  Now all of the pictures you see are just of the clouds that moved in and well I have video of the after affect of the lightning but I am still working on my diabetic tech savyness and forgot to load it on YouTube.  So just imagine lightning everywhere.

I was about 2 miles from the house when a beautiful lightning storm was upon me.  I have rarely felt scared while out running but after a while this turned out to be something other than just a pretty lightning show .  There was this time a few years ago when I was out running and a storm blew in and by the time I got home a tornado hit about a quarter mile from where I was running.  Now last night I underestimated the weather and the amount of lightning hitting in the area I was running.  The lightning was so bad I could feel the electricity in the air and my fingers were tingling even the hair on my arms was standing on ends.  As I got home from sprinting the last mile, my neighbor (type 1 diabetic as well) was pulling in the driveway.  He gets out ands says, "Dave you are pretty stupid running in a lightning storm like this."  I let him know that I understated the weather and he was 100% correct about how smart I was.  Then about an hour later my wife gets home from coaching volleyball and she sees me in my running garb and makes pretty much the same comment of how stupid I am running in a lightning storm.  She told me how bad it was driving the bus and running in it was just pure dumbness.  The moral of this story is: kids don't jar (that is an old Texas Rangers saying).  No I am kidding the real moral is just because you have never been hit by a tornado or lightning does not mean you need to tempt fate at every chance you get.  I sometimes feel ten foot tall and bullet proof.  I need to back off of my stance that god will not punish me any more than he has and just take myself to the rec center and run on a  treadmill.  Maybe I could lift a dumb bell once or twice as well.

It's called your imagination

I must admit, I was a little nervous this past weekend with setting up an obstacle course in less than 2 hours.  In my head I had a half baked plan and about 3 obstacles for sure for the event but nothing elaborate.   I grew up with an older brother and when I was young and before I was in scouts the boy scout troop we grew up in did a fundraiser at a 4th of July event every year, where they set up an obstacle course and charged a quarter to run it.  As a cub scout I got to be around this and learned from the best on obstacle design and implementation.  So I have been around obstacle courses almost forever, set up many of them and have also planned them.  The thing is I need to let go and allow the youth in our troop do this while I just sit back and wait for them to come to me with issues or for advice.

The boys had patrol time in our weekday meetings to brain storm ideas to build and how to implement them.  This planning would have been great if many of those boys did not have conflicts and couldn't make the campout.  So plan B was to figure out what we did have and could do.  So the magic happened.  Have you ever been so nervous about the forest that you were too scared to even enter.  That is how I feel when letting go of things I love but the end result is so much greater.  I talked to the leadership about what we had and where we were supposed to put the course.  I then showed them where I wanted the course and let them go after it.

I went back to my camp, drank some coffee, and ate breakfast.  Then after an hour I checked up on the boys and I was so amazed by what they came up with.  There was an entrance, cargo net crawl, walls to climb, things to balance on, and the course was marked off.

You can see in these pictures that the boys simply took some rope, wood, and their imagination and created neat things to climb through.  They had so much fun that when the groups of webelos came to the event it  always wound up in a scout challenge on if the webelos were faster than the boy scouts.

The boys also were proud of making these events.  They wanted me to do the course with them and they let me know what they built.  Then I had the chance to show them a way to improve the event or how to fix the event.  The above picture is of our moving log balance.  The log is suspended by four ropes but after time the log starts to sag.  I showed them how to tighten up the log and they added the line to give some assistance for those that needed it.

I had some fence panels in my garage that were used as obstacles to run around.  This is one easy way to turn junk into something useful.  Now they didn't exactly blend into the surroundings but gave the event a rustic look.

The last event above was what I call the spider web.  The boys turned it into what they say were laser beams and you had to maneuver through them and not get hit.  Back to that imagination at work.

I teach knots and lashings about a thousand times a year it feels like.  Boys never really want to sit with me and learn these things by themselves.  The motivation is building something.  When you turn knots and lashings into obstacle courses, towers, and military things the boys instantly want to know how to build it.  Now that I have showed them how through the years and given them the opportunities to try and fail.  I now can sit back and enjoy what they come up with when given a challenge.  I still have hope of building that ewok village someday!  I also had the odd challenge from a rock climbing and rappelling teacher that scouts could not build a 20 foot tower that could sustain a person on it.  Please, give us a real challenge.

This is also why I love to camp.  No cell phones, no video games, and no TV and the boys could not be happier.  Then there are the stories and the adventures.  Probably the funniest thing I have ever heard was when Dustin and I were discussing cast iron care and somebody asked why we were so passionate about this subject.  If I remember right Dustin said, "Cast Iron has never hung up on me."  I have never laughed so hard in my life.  Like that needs to be a bumper sticker or something.  Maybe a T-shirt.

Simple Dinner

Last Saturday night we had only 5 adults camping so Dustin came up with something easy, good, and quick.  As you can see above and like most of the time our meals start with a couple of jalapeno peppers.  These guys had a good bit of bite to them.  I have been getting jalapeno peppers that taste more like bell peppers and have less bite to them.

Dustin went through our dry goods box and found this family size box of Zatarain's red beans and rice mix.  This stuff is great by itself but when you add some fresh peppers and some meatthat makes it pop even more.  If you are a hardcore cajun person then maybe you are better off making it from scratch.  My mother is from New Orleans so I like the fresh homemade stuff but seeing her over that stove for hours cooking then letting it rest for another hour just is not easy to do when camping.

 

Above is the sausage beeing cooked up in Dustins Ikea cast flat iron skillet.  He and I have fun arguing over cast iron care.  I use hard metal spatula's and spoons and he is more of the don't scratch the seasoning off of the pan.  Being around scouts all you see is build up of carbon so I like to nip it in the but right away.  Dustin uses milk (not fat free milk) to season his pan once he is done cooking.  He says it puts the fats back into the pores.

Look at that Red beans and rice being cooked up in a nice 12 inch skillet and the sausage simmering next to it.  The meal was ready in about 45 minutes and it was great.  Dustin was looking for more rice but I feel the rice to beans ratio was perfect.  I guess if you want more rice you can put about half a cup of instant rice with the mixture and add a cup of water with it.

I have to give it to Dustin for trying this one.  Above you see a dutch oven on a turkey fryer.  We use the turkey fryer for our giant Wok.  We have had very little rain in north Texas so we did not feel safe having charcoal around with the chance of fire danger.  Dustin made a chocolate cake/brownie mixture on the fryer by keeping the heat on low and letting it cook for about two hours.  It wasn't perfect but did make for a genious way around not having coals.

Good Surprise

I have been looking for an EDC (every day carry) knife for over a year now.  I have though long and hard about what manufacturer I wanted to get it from.  They type of blade, the handle material, and the action of the lock.  Then there is always the cool factor of the knife.  I like to have it a little on the intimidating side and very sturdy and practical. 

My multitool is the Gerber suspension and I use Gerber for my large axe and I have a Kershaw hatchet.  I am working on replacing my current machete with the Gerber Gator.  So I use lots of brands for various reasons.  Now Gerber is probably one of my top choices for cutting tools but from a few of the EDC's I have seen from them I have not been wowed or impressed by them.  I wanted to search outside the box and not break the bank as well.  One company that I have been seeing more often now is the CRKT brand.

In the end I found the folding Razel by CRKT as the best knife that fit my criteria.  I liked the aggressive look, the mikarta handle, and quality steel.  Now I have never seen the Razel in person and I was going by what it looked like on the inter web.  When the knife showed up I was thoroughly disappointed.  It was wider than I thought.  It had two pocket clips?  Why does any knife need two pocket clips?  Then the mikarta handle had the notches cut into them for grip I guess.  Now I did like the cool serration on the blade and the chisel tip is nice.  Also the action opens nicely and the quality is top notch.  So I showed my son and told him my story of how I was disappointed in the knife and that is when he issues the line of "you complain too much."  Thinking about that I decided to keep the knife and see how it did in the real world.

Using the knife for the past three weeks I have slowly been growing warmer on the knife.  Then last weekend it hit me. This knife has the most awesome use in the world!  I was helping the scouts clean some cast iron and whooped out my knife to get some carbon build up off of a skillet.  This knife was the perfect solution for cutting down on cast iron build up.  The knife also felt great in my hand while doing it.  The chissel tip it leaned to the exact angle to be able to clean cast iron all day.  I started with one skillet and wound up working on six pieces and the next morning I did three more.  I now want to go out and buy as much distressed cast iron at steep discounts just so I can sit and clean it.  I am not going to say this knife is the ultimate EDC but it is the perfect cast iron camping knife on the planet.  I also have some gaskets to replace on my sons truck and I bet this knife will knock that out in no time as well.  So maybe this knife is the ultimate EDC scraper, cleaning, and utility knife on the planet.  That might be a little high.  I am going to wait to give it my patented syring rating for a few more weeks.  I have some challenges for it before I rate it.

Having fun at your own expense

This weekend was our WOW campout with scouts.  The WOW stands for Webelos Outdoor Weekend.  The district boy scout troops set up activities for the first and second year webelos to partake in.  This also is a recruiting tool for the troops by letting them set up their promotional items such as chuck boxes and camp equipment alongside each event.  Kind of a win-win situation.  Now I use this event to see how alot of my first year scouts handle leadership.  Since the youngest scouts are closest to webelos they get the opportunity to teach and demonstrate scouting to them.

Our troop signed up to do an obstacle course.  I really like setting up an obstacle course because it gets the boys interested in knots and lashings.  Once they see that they can build anything with the right amount of rope and wood it is easier to teach them how to use the rope and wood.  The district representative also told me that they would love for a troop to also have a sling shot paintball station.  I was instantly amazed by how much fun this sounded so I signed us up for that event as well.  The two events would be great together as well because if we had alot of boys at any certain time the line to the obstacle course gets long and boring.  This way they had enough time at the obstacle course and also time at the sling shot paintball station.

Now me being a diabetic as alot of diabetics we get thick skin.  We take alot of: "you can't eat that" and "what are your blood sugars."  So I did not just want some boring targets for the boys to shoot at.  I came up with an idea to have pictures of girl scouts they could shoot at.  Kind of along the lines of girls have coodies and boy scouts are cool.  A couple of leaders thought that we should not be promoting this kind of girls are bad theme.  They came up with a better plan, to get a picture of me and photocopy it into a girl scout uniform.  Then it is poking fun at me as a leader and that I am kind of girly or something.  Any ways it was fun and the webelos had fun shooting my eyes out and and other appendages. 

The leason here is that if you can't laugh at yourself and have fun then how much are you enjoying life in the first place?  We should all laugh a little more each day and stop stressing over BG's and doctors visits.  Now I am not saying you should just go freely into the world and not think about your diabetes.  Just that it needs to be as positive as possible dealing with life and diabetes.  When I was younger my mother asked me if I wanted to ever go to diabetes camp along with my other summer scout camp and high adventure trip.  The idea of this diabetes camp scared me to death.  I could only imagine that it was like a nazi war camp and the only thing you got to eat was porage and the activities were limited because they never wanted the diabetics to crash on their BG's.  Then at the end of each day we all compared numbers and laughed at the diabetics with the bad numbers.  Looking back and talking to other diabetics it sounds like it is a positive experience and that it gives alot of youth with type 1 motivation for the coming year.  Looking back, I should have been less conscientious about my diabetes care and have attended diabetes camp as a youth.  I would have learned the lessons I know now at a younger age.

Thinking Outside the Box

Last night my son and I were driving to load our scout troops trailer.  We keep the scout bus and three trailers at a local storage facility.  Also our camping gear is stored in a storage unit.  When it comes time for troop campouts we load the necessary gear in the necessary trailer on the Thursday night before our campout.

While we were driving to the storage facility I see a gentleman alongside the road.  Now this road is one of those roads that are called a highway but it is more like the old style of 2 lane highway with stop lights and signs.  Kind of like the old route 66.  As we passed the gentleman he looked like someone I knew and so I proceeded to stop.  This really upset my son.  He was basically yelling at me telling me that first no it was not who I thought it was and second why am I picking up a hitchhiker.  I calmed him down while the gentleman run to the truck.  When he got to the truck he thanked us for stopping and that his truck is broken down and was walking to a gas station about 4 miles up the road to get a soda.  I told him to climb in and we could get him there.  We had small talk and he informed us that he helped with the salvation army three days a week and that he is a little down on his luck and asked us what we were doing and I let him know about us getting the scout trailer loaded.  Once at the gas station he let us know he will be walking back and if we needed help loading that he was willing.  I let him know that the boys had it covered and thanked him for the offer.

We headed to the storage and I mentioned to my son that look not every hitch hiker is a serial killer and that helping someone out is good.  He agreed with me and that the gentleman was real nice.  The hitch hikers story was kind of interesting that he was going to a gas station to get a soda over four miles away on foot so we just to be safe took a quick inventory of the truck and evaluated how it all went down.  Then we evaluated the "what if" scenerio if it did go wrong what would we have done.  First we noticed that all our protection gear was in the back seat where the hitchhiker was sitting.  My son had his Gerber knife on him and that if something went wrong he could stop or slow down something serious.  Then my son said something that really took me by suprise.  He says: "Next time, when we pick up a hitch hiker I will offer them my seat and I can be in the back with the adavantage if we have a situation."  I was so proud at that moment, he evaluated the situation and came up with a solution that would protect both of us.  Now that is critical thinking and also shows me the fact that he is willing to help others but knows that you should always be prepared for things to go wrong.  That kind of thinking will take him far in life.  We often don't help others because that is someone else's job, we are too busy, or don't feel safe about it.  Being a diabetic I have needed the services of others and understand what it is like to be in a situation.  Knowing this helps me always try to find a way to help others.  The world we live in today is sad at times because we are so busy trying to punish the good samaratins that we no longer offer help because you are then labeled  a "wierdo" that helps others.  Dont let this happen to you and take time in life to give back or assist others when they need help.

That is my feel good blog post of the month or something.

Victory

So my wife's Volleyball team had a big tournament last weekend while our son and I did the Diabetes outdoor day in Tyler, Texas.  She was real nervous about this tournament but, her team came together and won first place in the tournament.

She came home all excited and I wanted to get photos of her and the trophy but she let me know that she would just send me the tournament picture.  I noticed after she was settled down that they gave her a complimentary water bottle.  Now if you have ever met my wife she never uses water bottles.  Not that, that is a bad thing.  It is a good thing because I get a new water bottle to use.  This made me even more excited about her winning the tournament.

Check out this bottle.  It is tall, medium in girth and has a fancy nipple top.   I have never used a bottle like this but have seen many people who love this design.  I have been using it for four days now and must admit this thing is great.  I can put ice in it unlike my http://www.insulindependence.org/ bottle and it has my favorite feature the nipple top.  

Now this nipple top is a little awkward.  It is kind of small like a straw and makes you feel a little girly but, hay I am as girly as it gets at times.  I do like this flip up style and the plastic feels solid and of some quality.  My old nipple top bottle (god rests is soul) was of a lesser quality and now is six feet under in that great recycling bin in the sky.

I could not have received this bottle at a better time.  With my new "S" biner clips from Nite Ize I am ready to camp this weekend and have my water bottle by my side all weekend and for months and months to come.  I go through water bottles like nothing.  See the big loop on top of the water bottle, it gives you ease of clipping to anything from backpacks, briefcases, and shorts.  Sometimes god just looks down and says "Hey you diabetes guy, here is a gift" and that gift was the greatness of a free water bottle.

S biner clip review

So above is my: murse, man-bag, european shouldber bag, briefcase, or whatever you want to call it but it is mine.  I keep my everyday stuff in here from lunch, papers, survival gear, and diabetes supplies.  I used to do the backpack but being a professional I wanted to reflect that and my wife had this briefcase (that is what I call it) laying around so I converted to it.  Don't get me wrong having a briefcase on a camping trip is not exactly useful so the backpack is used for camping.  Now I put everything in this bag from pocket knives to glucose tablets and even my car insurance.

About a month or so ago I saw one of my friends Charles Meachum with a pair of shorts on that had these biner clips built right into the waistband.  Now, since I began on my pumping in 1999 I have converted every pair of pants and shorts into belt looped products (OK so my running shorts do not have belt loops).  So I basically am a dorky batman dude with everything on my belt from cell phone, pump, pocket knife and flashlight if needed.  The only thing is I still use a backpack on camping events for my pump backup supplies, meter, and glucose tablets.  When I saw Charles with these handy clips on his shorts that got me the idea to maybe get on and try it out.

I will tell you what.  These S biner clips by Nite Ize are amazing.  I think at first they were going to be like those flimsy D-rings that come on water bottles and small first aid kits.  Not these things, they are heavy duty and what makes them great is the ergonomics of them.  They slightly bent the metal clip part so that it is easy to open and remove items.  Now I was wondering what good is the "S" design (back to comparing it to a D-ring).  The "S" designn is what also makes this little gadget user friendly because you clip it onto what you want with the tip clip then on the bottom portion you can dangle everything your hearts desire.  Two weeks ago I had my coffee cup on my belt and in my bag as seen above I keep my compass and magnessium fire starter attached to it.  I also keep my keys on it while at work.

Above is a picture of my compass and magnessium fire starter hooked onto the S biner.  Why do I keep these things on me at all times?  Maybe it is the "a scout is always prepared" or in my head I think the end of our current world is going to happen while I am away from home and need to be prepared for marshal law or something.

In the end I give the Nite Ize S biner clip 5 out of 5 syringes.  These things are great for diabetics to hook your meter bag to your belt or a bottle of water.  If you are a diabetic I seriously think you need to look into adding these things into your arsenal of things for daily care.  If you look on the Nite Ize website they have alot of off the wall crazy items.  I am not that adventuresome to try some of this stuff until I see others using it and recomending it to me, but that is just me.  I am slow at times when it comes to change.  Now I am not saying my belt is not full of gadgets or I don't cary my backpack out camping.  I am just saying the S biner clip adds too the McGrubber approach to life.

Free Stuff!

Around noon-thirty I pulled my son away from fishing to get some food in us.  This was hard for me to do as well because we were really in a groove and pulling them in at a good rate.  Hunger was very high and BG's were on their way down so fish had to wait till after lunch to get a few more holes in their lips.

I knew my boy had to be hungry when he asked me to get him another sandwich.  He eats two things, salt and sugar.  As we sat at the table eating our free lunch at the Family Fun day provided by www.tylertypeone.org.  I started the rounds of visiting with the local sales reps.

My first stop was to the "All Home Infusion" table where I talked about meters, pumps, and tubing.  All Home Infusion is a mail order pharmacy company that specializes in providing flexible products that patients request.  The sales lady tells me she is willing to get the products that my doctor and I want and she deals with the insurance company on what they want you to have.  I really like that philosophy.  One time I had a prescription for testing my BG's and it was written as "test 4 to 6 times a day," well the insurance company read it as only 4 times a day and they only ship out boxes of 100 strips so my order came up as 360 strips and they sent out 300.  I called them and asked where at least my other 60 strips were and they said I can just order 5 times a year for my 90 day prescription.  That was the last time I was fooled on getting a prescription filled out by my doctor.  She now writes them for 10 times a day.  That was a lesson learned the hard way.

Look at all the diabetes supplies.  From pods, infusion sets, to meters and strips.  They gave me a free glucose meter, pen, fridge magnet, and a cool bag to keep them in.  When I got home my wife said "Did you take enough free stuff?"  I told her you can never have enough free diabetes stuff.

Above is Debby Kilby with "lifescan" and she had a table with the "Animas" since they are both Johnson and Johnson companies and the One touch system works with the ping pump.  Debby was trying to push a one touch lancet device that has a smaller needle than my accu check mulitclix lancet device.  I love the multiclix system.  I finally gave in and told her I will do a test and see which device is better.  I think of lancet devices like a bow and arrow.  You want what works for you and diabetics are weird and picky on what device works for them.

It was real neat to see young girls coming up to Debby and asking for different onetouch meters of different colors so they coordinate their outfits with their meters.  It is like diabetes has a trendy accessory line.  I also met Jon Adams with Animas and we kicked the tires on a new Ping meter for myself someday.  He was nice as well and is even willing to mail me a skin for my IR1200 pump until I get my new one.

I am always amazed with people that can create art.  I just throw away all my old needles and strips and someone made beautiful art out of it.  How cool is this.  There even is a web page devoted to diabetes art.

The picture above amazes me about how people put things together to do the real world approach to diabetes rather than the scientific approach.  Tylertypeone puts together these baskets of foods and teaches newly diagnosed type 1's about how to count the carbs and shows them what it is like in the real world.  How many of us have been in the dieticians office and they pull out some rubber chicken, rubber green beans, and a rubber piece of bread and tells us plate ratios and things like that.  I have never had a dinner that looked like what the diatician shows me in her office.  She needs to get out a large pizza and have lunch with me and show me the carbs and how to account for that kind of fat.  Now that is real world vs science.  You teach a diabetic from day one on how to do that and you will see them come in every time with an A1C under 7,5 every time.

Diabetes Outdoor Day

Saturday was Tyler Type One's "Free Family Day" at "Pine Cove" ranch camps.  I was a little worried I would not be able to make the event at first.  Thursday I was starting to feel under the weather and my BG's started to show the ups and downs.  I acted fast and drank as much water I could get into me.  Then on Friday I did the same thing with my BG's up and down and this time it was extremely random.  Have you ever tested yourself 25 times in a day?  That was my Friday.  Then Friday night my wife and I had dinner plans with a couple she teaches with at their house and I was feeling even more under the weather.  Finaly friday night around midnight and after a stern talking to from my wife, and some great food and dessert I felt like Saturday was dooable.

Look at the size of that sign.  I look like a small figurine standing next to this sucker.  Pine cove is a beautiful camp with tons of pine trees, swimming pool, cabins, dining hall, zip lines, sand volleyball, skate park, basketball courts and of course a boating and fishing lake.

My son was crazy excited to get our poles and tackle out and hit the lake for some fishing.  You can see above when we finally got everything set up he was pulling in the crappie.  Lots of vegetation had grown in the lake and was hard for my son to manuver his new rattle trap lure.  I am always big on just set a line with a worm and bobber on it or put some catfish bait on a trebble and wait for them to bite.

The crappie would jump on your line like nothing using the bobber and worm method.  Above is one of my several fish I caught.  You get tired after an hour or so pulling these little guys out one after another.  My son and I have one trait in common when it comes to fishing, and that is first of all just catch something then work on catching the big one.

Look at that fish Zaine caught.  He was bugging me that after lunch he wanted to get out in a canoe and see if he could use his crank bait.  I told him he was wasting his time and he should stick to the shores with me and fish.  Wow was I wrong.

He was so proud of this one he paddled from one side of the lake to the other just to prove how wrong I was.

At the end of the day we were tired, smelled like fish, and full of sories.  I keep singing the praises of http://www.tylertypeone.org/ and how awesome they are.  This was a fantastic day and one for the memories.  Everyone was so nice and the event was laid back and do as you please.  The best thing was that it did not cost a dime.  During lunch my son saw this little girl with an OmniPod on her arm and it looked about twice the size wide as her arm was.  Zaine said to me, "Dad, if you thought you had problems knocking pods off on doors, imagine what she has to go through."  I then made the comment to him that I was with my people!  We laughed and laughed and laughed.  I am such a dork, but one that is accepted by most.

I have never laughed so hard!

All I can say is WOW this is the funniest video on the Diabetic planet!  My wife last night was doing some surfing on her facebook and she turned up the speakers on the PC and played this funny video for me.  Now if you are diabetic everything in this video is so true that you laugh and laugh and laugh.  Then you cry because you know your mother has been in these situations.

I tell people all the time that diabetes is the one disease where everyone harasses you or makes fun of you for having.  No one goes into the cancer ward of the hospital and says they should have taken better care of themselves.  How many times have we heard "you shouldn't be eating that" or "my cousin has diabetes but he doesn't take care of himself and he lost a toe."  Now don't get me wrong, I am king diabetes joke maker.  I say if I have this disease than I get the jokes.  It is sad to read stories of diabetics that have low self esteem or are going through depression because of this.  I had alot of internal depression in high school and into my 20's.  I had to learn how to balance life, diabetes, job, and exercise.  The best thing I ever did was join a "type 1" support group that met once a month.  That was alot of fun because 90% of diabetes support groups are for type 2 and don't get me wrong but that is just one huge bitch sesion.  They are mad at the entire world and it becomes depressing to be in a room of people like that.  Once I accepted diabetes into my life (get the church and jesus angle of that statement) there was a relief and a new found goal.  That goal was to educate those around my life such as teachers, friends, and family.  Then I had to create a game plan for life.  What was I going to be when I grew up (I was in my early 20's at this time and taking college courses just to meet girls), and how I was going to get there.  I knew a career in the military or being a firefighter were not out of the question (ok military is out of the question) but I knew they were lower on my scale of potential jobs.  I needed health insurance and a job where I was in air conditioning and was stable.  I figured an accounting degree was a perfect fit.  There are never enough accountants in the world and every company needs one and it is stable, reliable work.  Then it was exercising and eating right'ish.  Now that experience has helped me forge the person that I am today and the best husband and father I can be.  The last thing was finding the girl that was right for a diabetic.  I used to read all those statistics that diabetics were like in the 87% percentile of getting a devorce.  Then I did not want a person that was going to treat me like a diseased person or like they were my parent. So finding the right lady was a challenge and I love my wife so much even if she is half as crazy as I am.  In my game plan for life, there was no option for divorce.  The money it costs and stress is just another nail in the coughin.  Also I have a great son that accepts me for who I am and also loves to camp every chance we get.  This diabetic is in a win-win situation with diabetes!

Single Servings

Neosporin is one of the greatest health inventions ever!  If you are diabetic you put this fairy pixie goo on everything that bleeds.  I probably would put it on my gums if they were bleeding.  You heal so fast with this stuff.  The only thing is keeping this stuff around.  Now a tube runs in the neighborhood of six bucks and comes in half ounce and one ounce sizes.  I keep one of the half ounce tubes in my briefcase and a couple around the house. 

They also make single serving sizes and travel styles.  They call this line the "Neo to Go" line.  It consists of .26 fluid ounce spray and also they have single serve packets that are 1/32 ounce or 9 grams. The neo to go spray runs in the five buck range and the single serve packs come in a package of 10 for around five bucks as well.

Remember my buddy Ken?  Well he is working on becoming an ultra light backpacker but at the same time he is not out to break the bank on this new hobby.  He has found a blog that cronicles ways to minimize weight without the added cost.  This is known as ultralight backpacking.   Which reminds me as a boy groing up in Oklahoma there were a couple of adult leaders that were some funny characters.  They would take a Louis Lamour book and tear it in half.  One gentleman would read the first half and the other would start on the second half.  In the middle of the high adventure 8 day trip they would switch and read the other half of the book.

Back to the point of the post.  Ken has been hard at work finding ways to reduce weight.  He even has put holes in his spoon to make it ligher (just kidding).  When it comes to neosporin it costs .50 cents for the single serve size but they give you like a months worth and to cary an entire tube takes up space and adds weight.  So Ken has taken straws, cut them down and filled the tubes with neosporin.  The above picture is of the neosporin creme with pain medicine in it.  Now he has exactly what he needs in a single serving, it weighs like nothing, and it is the size of well, a cut down straw.  Ken game me one (since we are friends) to hang on to and well I must say this would work for any situation especially for diabetics.  Now you can carry neosporin and it not take up space in your diabetes bag.  Now my mind is exploding like what else can you put in a straw?  Toothpaste, deodorant, pixie sticks (oh those already come in a straw), and so much more.  Then think of the cost savings.  I have been posting on this blog about how not to just be prepared for emergencies or just life in general but to also be smart about the cost of preparedness.  Any one can go out and spend thousands of dollars buying MRE's but to get the same thing and spend next to nothing is the fun and rewarding challenge.

The above photo is of a dog I was sitting next to at a red light this morning.  I looked over and thought of that dog from the Bushs baked bean commercials.  I think I scared the owner when he looked over and I was talking to the dog and taking its picture.  No one ever said diabetics were normal.