Diabetes Year of our disease 2013 review!

My self imposed editor-in-chief, Jeff has informed me that I need to do a "year in review."  He is always on my case to do things that he wants to see on my blog.  I take alot of them with a grain of insulin but I think he was right and I should reflect upon the year that was diabetes 2013.

I really couldn't come up with like a top 10 or like a highlights reel but a few things that Jeff reminded me of are listed below:

• We had alot of fun stories from our "Dallas tour de cure" training rides from people throwing up, getting lost, tons of pickle juice, emergency medical crews being called out, and our good buddy Don and his infamous "box of goodies."
• Then there were the actual rides where Jeff and I did 70 miles one day starting at his house and just went all over Dallas, and when Don and I did our first 100 mile ride, then the infamous time when I was hit by a truck.
• I remember the diabetes themed trips I took such as the diabetes life inspiring Montana river float trip, the Philadelphia marathon where I stripped down to my undies to cross the finish line, and the Ragnar 200 mile relay runs with so many friends.
• Then Jeff reminds me how I am always trying to hit on girls during our training rides and I strike out every time.  Not even a single phone number from all my trying.

So that is the beginning of my diabetes year in review 2013.  Please post any comments, questions, or concerns if you want to mention any of your diabetes 2013 year highlights.

A Diabetes Christmas

 So I was decorating for Christmas and I wanted to theme the little amount of cheer I show around the house.  I have a few random things left over from what my Ex left me so I put those things up.  then I decided what fun it would be to do a diabetes themed Christmas.

The Christmas tree seemed the perfect place to start (OK, I didn't get very far).  I realized that there were lots of old meters, test strip bottles, and finger prickers I could put holes in and hang them on my tree.  Well from the picture above you can see I didn't exactly get very far but I have all sorts of ideas for next year.  I was thinking to save old insulin bottles and drilling a hole in them and putting them on a string of lights and wrap my tree in them.  Then I had all sorts of stringing gross dirty test strips and stuff together.  We will see how far I get but so far I had a great time. 

Ice-mageddon 2013

So let me tell all of you that Dallas is an interesting place to be when the temperatures fall below zero and there is snow or ice.  Those of us in Dallas are willing to deal with all the days of 100 plus degree days because a majority of us hate winter.  I am one of those that hate winter.  We get like maybe a day of snow or a day of ice and those few days is where the entire country points their finger at us and laughs themselves silly.  The recent ice-magedon 2013 caused an interesting scare for everyone.  There was a three story building that had ice on the roof and when it defrosted a bit it all came crashing down onto a few cars destroying them.  Luckily there were no people under the falling ice because it would have not been so funny any more but probably tragic. 

 

So once these ice videos hit the inter-web, every Dallas-ite when outside kept their eyes to the sky to make sure were not going to be killed by falling ice.

Diabetes Trash

 The other day was trash day and like most suburbs our trash is almost 100% automated and the trash dude just drives the truck.  I am sure we will have full automation in the near future but the problem with the trash guy only driving the truck is that he could give two flips if any trash doesn't make it into the truck.  I remember as a kid the trash guys would make sure everything got into the truck and they would put your trash can lids back on and everything.  Those were the good old days.  Now on trash days I have to do the cleanup when I get home as to not have plastic bags in my trees and the such.

When I inspected the remnants of trash left by the automated trash arm thing I saw that even the trash man rejects my diabetes and left my diabetes waste on the ground.  This cracked me up because all of us diabetics know one thing, and that is all diabetes stuff has a magnetic field around it and they stick to everything besides trash bags and trash cans.  The usual suspects are test strips on floors, and random places but I seem to find pieces of pump supplies and things in all corners of my diabetes world.

Diabetes potty humor

So I have been coming up with some pretty solid and funny "blue" diabetes humor.  My best one so far is when I tell people that they can't get diabetes from me unless they sit on a toilet after me.  Then when people ask me how I came down with diabetes I tell them I sat on a toilet after a diabetic and that is how I contracted the disease.  Then my buddy Jeff was playing around on the book of faces one day and came across the picture above.  He posted it on my book of faces wall and said that if they had these toilet protectors 25 years ago I would have never come down with diabetes.  That my friends is a quality well crafted diabetes joke.  I have been recently telling people when they ask what my insulin pump is, I just say it is a penis pump and they get embarrassed real quick.  That one is becoming one of my favorite things to tell people.  If you can't embrace this horrible disease we will have for the rest of our lives we might as have at least a small amount of fun with it.

Illegal Underground Diabetes Black Market

Last Sunday my good diabetic buddy Jeff was in a pinch.  He is on the Omnipod system and for anyone who uses an Omnipod knows of the dreaded errors and such.  Jeff's Omnipod was going crazy and he was three days out from getting a replacement.  The thing is Jeff didn't have any long acting insulin on hand so he could go onto shots while he waited by the mailbox for his replacement.  So what do we do in these situations?  Of course we do what all good diabetics do, and that is break the law!  Jeff called me and asked if I had any Lantus on hand, which I had two bottles on hand.  We met up and I also gave him my old Omnipod thingy and one old pod I had left over from when I was on that goofy system that breaks down all the time.  I like to refer to these transactions as "The illegal underground diabetes black market" because, it is against the law to share prescriptions with another person but us highly effective diabetics do it because on a weekend about half of the supplies we use is not found at your local pharmacy so when an issue arises and no matter how much planning you do all the time you will have an issue someday, and that is why we rely on each other to get us through.  This is just the diabetes code!  Recently another diabetic friend of mine was traveling but was going to be gone when his shipment of CGM sensors were to arrive at his house and he was on his last sensor.  He contacted me to see if he could borrow one of mine and give me one of his when he got back.  We didn't have to make this exchange because he found another diabetic that was closer to him (we live like 40 miles apart) and did the same exchange.  This is why I will keep telling each and every one of you, diabetic or not.  You need to have a good network of people around you at all times weather it be car issues, or illegal underground diabetes black market needs.  A solid network of friends, coworkers, and diabetic elves will always get you out of a bind.