Happy World Diabetes Day!

 So today is the day that all diabetics that are on the social media stuff know that the entire world comes together to celebrate diabetes (no one besides diabetics celebrate diabetes day) and how even though there isn't a cure, we don't let it stop us.  I love diabetes day because I get to harass all my coworkers that hound me to wear pink on breast cancer day that I am not American if I don't wear pink on that day that they don't like diabetes because they aren't wearing blue on diabetes day (trust me I let them know that I will be hounding them on diabetes day).  The thing is that diabetes day could be a great day to spread awareness but instead we have the worst marketing campaign on the planet and almost nobody knows that today they are supposed to hug and kiss their favorite diabetic or something and wear blue.  I think you are supposed to also test your blood sugars, go and exercise for thirty minutes and test them again.  I love the picture above, I was playing around the day after Halloween in the 50% off kids costume isle at Walmart and put on the shark thing and my good diabetic buddy Jeff spent hours doctoring up the picture with the inter-global symbol of diabetes.  The awkward looking blue circle.

 

 I think that a lot of our problems is due to the fact that there are so many forms of diabetes that are similar in only one way and that is insulin (all diabetics don't have enough of it).  You have type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, gestational diabetes, and juvenile diabetes.  Then there are no outwardly appearances of having diabetes, I remember as a kid being depressed because everyone made fun of me because I had a disease where I couldn't eat cookies.  Diabetes is the only disease that the entire world makes fun of.  I was listening to the AM radio one late night going home from work and the gentlemen on the radio station were talking about Kim Jong Un the leader of north Korea and I almost got into a wreck when they went over all his illnesses like gout, cyst on his foot, high blood pressure, an addiction to swiss cheese, and the worst of all diabetes.  Then they go into this rant about how diabetes is so bad that no one with it could possibly run a country so there has to be someone in the background doing everything because it is such a dilapidating disease and no ruler of a country could ever have it.  I didn't know if I should be mad because I kinda like to think I could at least rule my house of one with it or happy because they understood how flippin hard it is to always have diabetes on the mind.  Not to mention how much juvenile diabetes I have.

Then there are the countless weight loss commercials about reversing diabetes.  I want to so badly go into these places and pay them to reverse my diabetes.  How do they get away with that crap?  Not to mention the cinnamon, water, aloe vera, noni juice and other crap that grows under rocks that can cure it.  The good thing is that we finally are almost seeing some real progress in the bare minimum of better devices and medicines to help us control it well enough for that infamous five year cure to come around.

Capital to Coast

 Let me tell you something, I have met some amazing people in my life.  I don't know how I have been such a fortunate person (besides the diabetes) to be around and know so many inspirational people and to have them include me in their events.  My friend Don came up with an idea somewhere around last November about wanted to get a gaggle of 12 diabetics to run a race called: Capital 2 Coast. 

 Now Capital 2 coast which is also known as c2c is a 223 mile relay of 12 people in two vans which starts in Austin Texas and goes to Corpus Cristi Texas.  The first hurdle for Don was to get 12 willing and able people much less diabetics that were willing to do this and have the ability to get to the race.  Then there were conference calls, logistics, training runs, gear, medical forms, and so much more.

When the event was finally upon us I was nervous, there were only like 69 teams registered and our time was pushing the cut off and we also had team members with all sorts of ailments from back problems to even me and heart surgery.  The thing is though, Don pushed through and got replacement after replacement along with drivers for each van and also navigators for each van.  He even harassed Medtronic enough to get them to buy us appetizers for our pre-race dinner. 

The event turned out absolutely epic and I had so much fun that I couldn't sleep when I got back Sunday night and finally almost passed out at work the following Monday.  There is something to doing events like this with people that have a common bond and ours was raising awareness about diabetes and what we can do.  We were all laughing and joking along the way and at the last team dinner Saturday night we told story after story of what each van did and everyone couldn't wait until next years event.

I don't know if my friend Don is aware of it or not but he has started something big with this event that is just going to grow the campaign to cure diabetes ignorance.  Don even went so far into harassing the Dallas Morning News to do an article on the team and he sold it to them so good that they did a follow up story on the team after the event.  This was one of those events that I just happen to be in the right place and the right time with a great person in Don to allow me to do 40 hours of juvenile diabetes comedy with a van of unwilling participants I am glad to call my friends afterwards and on a team that I would call a family.

Graduation!

So today was cardiac rehab graduation today for myself, which I am happy and also sad.  I am happy that I have learned so much about heart rate zones and where I need to be.  Then I also learned about blood pressure and where I should be and what to do if I have low blood pressure.  They told me a while back to get a blood pressure monitor for my house but I never got one because I couldn't tell you what those numbers meant if it depended on my life.  Now after 12 weeks of rehab and me asking a thousand questions I know my blood pressure limits and what to do if they drop and I feel comfortable that I am not wasting 80 bucks on random medical stuff that means nothing to me when I eventually get one. 

I learned the most from bugging all the other patients in rehab about what procedure they had done, how they knew to seek medical advice, and how they felt in general about what people around them reacted to their diagnosis and how they felt personally about their own heart issues.  This is the part I am most sad about, before rehab it was just me trying to figure out this stuff alone.  Then once in rehab I had a network of professionals and patients that I could use as my support system.  Heck the second time I went to the hospital one of the ladies at rehab was already showing me some interesting things on my EKG while running that eventually led to my pericarditis diagnosis.  It does bother me a little to not have this vast network at my disposal three days a week any longer but they gave me all their contact information to keep bugging them.

One of my favorite movies is "About a Boy" and the theme throughout the movie is Hugh Grant saying: a man is an island.  Then in the end he realizes that man is not an island and we have to create a network of people that will support each other.    Ever since I have found this philosophy with my diabetes and now with my heart stint, I know that my network of people constantly grows and am better prepared for anything else that life throws at me.

one small stumble

 So a couple of weeks ago I came down with a pretty mean sinus cold or so I thought was a sinus cold which turned into worser stuff.  Once I was going to miss my third day off of work I knew that I had to see a doctor.  I go into the random doctor place and they listen to me and tell me I could have two things.  One could be bronchitis and the other is possibly pneumonia.  So they do a chest x-ray which rules out pneumonia and while we are waiting on the blood work to see if it is bronchitis they want to hook me up to the EKG machine to see what my heart is doing since my recent stint I had placed in the old ticker.

Once they hook me up to the EKG machine they come in and have to double check all the connections because they tell me that half of the sensors are elevated.  Then after replacing the sensors the machine is still reading elevated and that is when the good doctor comes in and gives me some nitro to put under my tongue and tells me he has to send me off to the Heart Hospital and once I am there it is under the knife I go so the doctors can have a look for any new blockages and stuff. 

Once the doctors don't find anything it is back to square one on why my EKG reads elevated but I don't have any blockages.  Then after several more doctors, nurses, and random people trying to figure out the issue it comes down to pericarditis.  Which in my non medical terminology is an inflammation of the tissue around your heart.  The moment the hospital gave me the pill to ease the pericarditis I was instantly feeling better.

The entire experience was a bit depressing for me, I was going to have to take it easy for three weeks, answer a million questions of if I am OK, wait three days for the silly puddy filled hole in my leg to heal, and other stuff.  Then the biggest thing hit me about the entire ordeal was what the doctors said to me.  They let me know that going in this second time and looking around that my heart was 100% good and if I ever have chest pains or stuff like that again then they are quite certain that it isn't the heart but maybe my gallbladder or heart burn related and they wont drill another hole in my leg for a very long time.  It's funny how something so depressing (having more heart issues) and dreadful to go through for a second time can have such a positive result on myself and all the medical professionals around me.  Plus my co-workers gave me the funniest balloon in the hospital that disturbed all the doctors.  The balloon said "its a girl" like I just had a baby and they were completely lost, and they gave me a my little pony unicorn because of my obsession with unicorn comedy.  Like my favorite thing to say when something amazing happens to me which is " its like French kissing a unicorn," so funny or Charlie the unicorn on youtube or the unicorn episode on robot chicken.  Unicorn humor is so funny.

I'm Back!

 So I have been gone a while, life sometimes deals us up a bit much to keep a random blog going.  Now I am hopefully back and ready to post all sorts of random diabetes related non-sense stuff that you didn't know that you needed to know.  Or something like that.  Well first things first, I don't know if you remember way back in April 27, 2014 where I was in the Oklahoma City Memorial marathon and I bailed out at mile 16.  I was not feeling good and just couldn't even walk the last ten miles to collect my finishers medal.  I did some allergy testing which nothing came back saying much was wrong.

 Then I did a stress test on my heart where you get on a treadmill one day and they get your heart rate up into "The zone" and inject you full of nuclear waste material and see if you live under a echo thingie.  Then the next day you come in and they inject you with more nuclear waste material and tell you to go eat a bunch of fatty foods and come back in an hour and they put you under the same echo thingie.  Once that is done they have a doctor review the results and let you know if you are going to live or eventually die. 

My stress test came back and they said I had a blockage on my heart thingie that was a 70% blockage of 40% of my heart.  They scheduled me for surgery the next day and I came out with a stint in my heart and a clean bill of health after that.  The only bad thing about the whole ordeal was how people treated me different afterwards.  For some reason as soon as you tell someone that you had heart surgery they think you should be in a wheel chair and a nurse with you at all times.

Allergy test

So I told you last week about my adventure in the Oklahoma City memorial marathon in April.  So with all good problems comes the testing to see if this will happen again and what did happen.  My doctor asked me to do a stress test on my heart which I have scheduled (Those heart people are harder to get an appointment with than an endocrinologist).  Then the doctor that performed my internal nose job asked me to come in and do an allergy test.  The photo above is where they poke you over and over with all sorts of needles filled with everything outside that could cause people issues.

The cool thing about the allergy testing is you know right then and there what you are and aren't allergic to.  Turns out I am allergic to diabetes, just kidding.  I am allergic to Bermuda grass, timothy grass, English plantain weeds, marsh elder weeds, mountain cedar trees, mesquite trees, kitty cats, mold, and dust mites.  Now with this information they can inject me with the truth serum that will help my immune system defend myself from these evil things.  The cool thing is the nurse lady told me about putting those wet the bed cover things onto your mattresses and pillows to get rid of the dust bunnies.  who would have know that I can cure my bed wetting issues and allergies with the same mattress trash bag? 

Making the call

I get this "Texas runner and triathlete" magazine because it lists all sorts of cool events that aren't easy to find.  Then the other reason I love getting this magazine is it has absolutely hands down the best running and triathleting articles ever.  I used to get runners world and other runners magazines but the articles sucked.  This sucker absolutely rocks.  Back in February or so they had one article that I read but completely disagreed with.  This guy talked about a run he was going to do but it was raining that day and all sorts of bad mojo was in the air.  He did the event but declared after that near death experience that if he didn't feel right or the weather was not playing nice that he would just skip the race.  I thought that to be the dumbest thing to ever do.  Why would anyone sign up, pay, and not do a race because they knew it was going to be hell?

 

So back in April was the Oklahoma city memorial bombing marathon.  I had ran the inaugural event and I thought it would be fun to do it again this year.  I paid my money back in January and did my half-ass training (I really need to follow a program and not just randomly train) for the event.  Then April gets here and it is the worst allergy season ever on the planet.  Then the weekend of the race is nigh upon us and there is a slight 30mph wind, rain, and all the allergies you could possibly ever stick up any ones nose.  My plan was to survive long enough to cross the finish line.  Then as the miles went by and by, slower and slower, I then hit mile 14 and the wind off the lake was crazy bad and I then started to get light headed, blurred vision, and my legs were wobbling more than grandma's jello mold (sugar free of course because I am diabetic).  I then went to the last backup plan I had which was walk and take it easy but by mile 15 it went downhill and the people passing me all kept asking if I was OK and at that time I knew to find the mile 16 medic tent and call it a day. 

 

I guess life is a full circle and I just kept thinking about that article and now I knew what the writer was talking about.  This was already going to be the worst run ever and throw in a two hour rain and lightning delay and having to time the start and my BG's along with my headphones dying and I lost the 5hour pace setter so I didn't have to think about time and I should have just bailed on this run and never even thought about doing it.  So I went from thinking an article was dumb to now thinking it is right on the money.

Let there be light!

I will tell you something, I hate the dark.  Not that I am scared or anything of the dark, it is I am a klutz and half blind so adding no light to the mixture does not help the situation out.  So when I go camping I bring a variety of flashlights to make my issues with dark and stuff better.  I have a giant flood flashlight that is 500 lumins, then I have a small pocket flashlight that is 100 lumins, and I have a coal miners thing that is 250 lumins, not to mention I have a lantern for my tent and stuff.  In certain situations I don't bring all these flashlights with me at all times, say for instance if I am backpacking then I will just bring the coal miners light and my pocket flashlight.  There is one flashlight that I am obsessed with getting though.

That ultimate flashlight would be the Nitecore TM26 with its four, yes count them four CREE (my favorite brand of LED bulbs) XM-L2 bulbs putting out an amazing 3,800 lumins.  I can only think that it would be like holding four suns in your hand that was the size of a diet coke (because I am diabetic that is why I use the diet coke analogy) can.  So you are wondering why I haven't gone out and purchased one of these amazing flashlights yet?  That would be because they retail around 400 bucks and on EBay I see them going for around the 200 dollar mark.  That is alot of money to throw down on just holding four suns in my hand.  Then I think, that is worth the price to hold four suns in the palm of my hand isn't it?  They do make lower but similar models to the TM26 but they are no where close to the 3,800 lumins that the TM26 produces so I will always be longing for this one.  I will be saving all my nickels and pennies and one day I will hold the sun in my hand, and try not to shine it in any ones eyes.

Ride of my life!

This past Saturday we had our second kick off ride for the DFW tour de cure.  I love this season of hopes and dreams that I will be faster than last year and that my butt will never be sore and all sorts of impossible other things.  There is just one thing that always bugs me about the tour de cure.  That is the slogan for the ride.  It is called: "The ride of your life" and that to me means that once you have done it then you can't ride it again because what sense does it make to have a ride of my life every year if the last one was of my life.  Like do I have to jump through burning hoops one year and the next I have to do the Happy Days jumping of the shark and so forth?  A wise person once told me years ago that you are never supposed to describe things as "the best" or "greatest day of my life" and so forth.  That is because it symbolizes that you will never get any better or do something better than that in your life.  Describing things like that puts the rest of your life as a downhill spiral out of control or something.  So my buddy Jeff always bugs me about this because he knows it gets under my diabetes laden skin.  He says stuff to me like: that was the training ride of your life, and this is the next ride of your life and so forth.  Fun stuff but I just wish for a different slogan so I don't have to prepare myself every year for the greatest day ever of my entire life.  That is alot to expect from just pedalling a bike.

The worst diabetic on the planet!

This comic says it perfectly about my eating habits right now.  I will eat well for a while and count my carbs perfectly, then turn around and find myself with a bag of trail mix.  Why do I do this to myself?  I always blame it on allergies because I feel like I am allergic to the planet during the spring and allergies cause my BG's to go up and down, up and down.  so I am constantly low or 200, with little in between.  Friends are very helpful and give me advice on ways to beat my stomach which is attached to my eyes at times.  The good thing is I have kept up exercising and training so that gives me positive mental focus and I know this is just a slump and I will get on the diabetes horse again and improve my eating habits.

It puts the lotion on it's skin!

People say I have an over active imagination.  I wouldn't say it is over active as much as it is fast and descriptive.  I saw this commercial the other day selling gold bond ultimate for diabetics.  That got me thinking about what they put in this stuff or take out of this stuff to make it for diabetics.  Did they remove the high fructose corn syrup found in most bottles of lotion?  did they put some cinnamon in it to cure us?  We will never know what they did to make this lotion for diabetics.

Then I see at the bottom of the bottle that nine out of ten diabetics saw a noticeable skin improvement in one hour.  I then was thinking about that and they are saying that one person didn't even realize they had lotion on their hands?  I am not sure this stuff is that good if one out of every ten diabetics are walking around with globs of lotion on their hands because they can't feel it.

 

Finally I had the perfect image of what this lotion is for.  Remember the movie "Silence of the Lambs?"  This lotion is for the part where Buffalo Bob catches a diabetic and puts them in his pit to shrink them and make a baseball cap out of their right buttock.  So my mind was doing all sorts of things like having the diabetic in the pit yell at Buffalo Bob that they have to get their 10:30am 15 gram snack in before they can take their Lantis, and how the diabetic in the pit asks to see the nutrition label for the chicken he gives them to feed.  OK, so I guess I do have a bit of an imagination but it is so much fun with diabetes on TV all the time.

 



Good Advice

My good buddy Vic told me a while back that he likes to take his bike in every now and then when he feels like he lost some speed or that it just doesn't feel right.  You know that feeling when you sit on the smallest seat you can stand for seven hours and it starts to kind of hurt?  Cyclists are so weird, but it is true that once you are comfortable with cycling you start trying to get everything as small as possible.  I bought my recent bike like six months or so ago and it felt great except I kept having funny soreness in my legs, back, and arms.  So I moved my seat a little up and down and all around but it just moved the discomfort from one place to another and after three hours on my bike I felt like it was the last thing I wanted to be on because I was bored and just didn't feel good on it.  These are not good things to be feeling with a new bike so I took Vic's advice and went into my local tri shop and had them do an eyeball adjustment (tri shops charge alot for everything so I was hoping to pay the least and get the most from them).  The before picture is on top and you can see that I was sitting like a complete dork on my bike.  Putting all sorts of weight on my arms, my back was compensating for my handlebars being in the wrong spot and my legs were not extending properly.  The bottom picture is what I looked like after (yeah still a complete dork but in proper form) flipping the handlebar neck over, the seat being raised, and my seat being shifted slightly rearward and tilted forward.  The bike feels so freakin awesome now and I would recommend this procedure to anyone.  Sure we all know how to twist this, turn that but to have someone else watch you is like night and day.  I now feel like I can sit on that itty-bitty seat forever and still pedal till my hearts content.  Then talking to the tri shop pro, he gave me all sorts of little tips to make my rides even better.  I would have never been willing to pay for this work in the first place and then even to know to get it done if it were for listening to the good advice from Vic.

It happened to me!

I have heard of this happening to other people but never did I think it would happen to me.  The dreaded tubing tear.  I was in my truck the other day and unbuckled my seat belt when in a thrust of me trying to get out to stand in line at Subway for some eat fresh dinner I heard my insulin pump hit the floor of the truck.  I looked down and was quite perplexed by this because I have a long tube (not that tube, my tubing from my site to my pump is like a 30 inch length or something) but not long enough for my pump to hit the floor.  I looked down and saw that the tubing had torn right out of the connection to the top of the thing-a-ma-bob.  You are all impressed with my technical lingo aren't you?

 

The good thing with modern science and stuff is that we have a way to combat issues like this.  Now when I get my pump supplies each part is individually wrapped like the infusion site, the tubing, and the cartridge.  So I did what my buddy Steve taught me over the summer to do, and that was not to waste my primed cartridge and pump site but to just replace the tubing and go along my merry way.  With that knowledge in hand I fixed my issue and was munching of a fresh sub in no time.  Now for the legal mumbo jumbo: do not ever do this, if you read a recommendation from my website that saves time, money, or anything do not do it because you can sue me if it does not cure your diabetes.  I am not a professional of any medical designation, heck I couldn't even pull off dressing like a wizard if I had too.  So this is for entertainment purposes only and the blog is intended to show you cool stuff I do because I don't sue people.

Saturday night Diabetes!

 

Even though Saturday Night Live is just a shell of it's former glory days they do still have some pretty funny skits.  A while back they did a spoof on the Walking Dead AMC TV show that was really good.  I love the back and forth with the zombie racist bits and at the end they throw in some quality diabetes comedy that kills me every time I see it.  I don't know if it is bad of me to enjoy diabetes humor or not, but I do.  Is that bad for me to admit?  Should I be more straight faced and professional with my disease or is enjoying the few things we get to enjoy because of this disease good enough?  Have a look at the SNL skit in the link above and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Winter

So I must apologize for being gone for a bit.  I had some computer issues plus my job had me tied up, but here I am and still diabetic as ever.  People say I am like an old man that has bad jokes, passes alot of gas, and complains alot.  They are probably right on all those points but those aren't all my downsides.  Living in the Dallas area is great for those of us that do not like much of a winter and summers that are blasting hot.  This year was much different though as all of you are probably familiar with the Siamese polar vortex winter bears or whatever that thing is.  All I know is winter was rough for me (yes that is a complaint not a fact).  The winter brings massive dry skin, sickness, and the dark.  I would say the winter is my reminder (I like our short one week winters the best in Dallas) that in late August when we are counting the days of 100 plus degree hot days that I need to enjoy how my tanned moist skin feels, how I haven't been sick in a long time, and how the days are light all the time.  You wake up with light, get off work in light, and heck even go to bed and the sun sometimes is still up.

 

 

Then this week my bulbs came up (it is still cold in this town) and reminded me that the end of the Siamese polar vortex winter bears is near.  The time change is around the corner and all the runners, cyclists, and dogs are gearing up to have some fun.  So the next time something brings you down like what a cold Siamese polar vortex winter bears does to me don't think about the downside to it all.  Think about how there is so much upside in the other three seasons.  I think that is like glass half full stuff but proper winter work brings excellent summer results as my fitness instructors tell me.  This year has been bad but that just gave me more reason to do more workouts and focus on how awesome I am going to be once I can stop wearing a huge yak haired coat and Eskimo mittens all the time.





Adjusting your game plan

 So last Sunday I ran the Cowtown Marathon in crazy Fort Worth.  The week before I did my last long run to prepare for the marathon and it was a horrible, slow, and bad 20 miles.  I couldn't keep my heart rate down and I was sweating crazy and my stomach kept turning.  My post run recap made me thing that I had some sort of cold or sinus issue that was keeping me under the weather.  So I just worked out on Monday and decided to rest the last of the week to hopefully feel as close to 100% as possible for the marathon.

The morning of the run I woke up in my hotel room in a pool of sweat.  With diabetes we all know what the pool of sweat means, I must be low.  I checked my numbers but I was a constant 140 something the entire night.  That made me realize either I just sweated out my bug or it was blowing up into something big.  So with that in mind the game plan for the marathon was to run slow, don't push myself too early and listen to what my body was telling me to and act at that moment to it.  The pace I started at was about a tick slower than a slug going through salt but I was feeling OK.  Then at mile 22 it hit me like a rock.  When I tried to run I got extremely dizzy and my heart rate would jump to 159 which causes me to waste energy.  So I changed the game plan one more time and decided to just walk the final four miles to the finish line.  I could have pushed it and came in with a respectable Dave time but I have a thing about issues like this.  I would rather have a bad time and finish the event than to wake up with blood all over my body in a hospital room.  Then the final blow to my pride was when I crossed the finish line and they give you your finisher medal.  they put this little ribbon over my head with a piece of paper attached to it.  I looked at it and thought it was like some sort of participation ribbon for doing a 1k fun run.  Then the guy explained to me that they ran out of finisher medals and everyone else past a certain point got these lovely IOU pictures of a finisher medal on a ribbon.  So to say it was a disappointment on many levels could be made but I look at it as a success that I was willing to not let pride almost kill me and I changed my game plan to wrap up another marathon.  The next day I felt so amazing that maybe it was the marathon with all that sun, sweating, and running that finally got this bug out of my system and in three weeks I should be getting my finisher medal in the mail.  Diabetes is exactly like this, we have a game plan for something but life always throws us for a loop and you have to put your pride to the side and do the right thing to live and enjoy another awesome day with diabetes.

Friends with benefits!

So a couple of weeks ago I had Peter and Blair with www.insulindependence.org stop by Dallas to hang out with me and my diabetes for a few days.  They are on a cross-country adventure to visit members and also to recruit new members.  So if you are not a member of www.insulindependence.org you need to log on right now and sign up.  Then Peter and Blair were on a mission to find out what diabetics are looking for in an inter-web page that can work with the exercising diabetics.  I gave them the few things I would like to see such as a calendar of events and daily discussion items.

So one day while they hung out at my house while I was at work they decided to treat me to a home cooked diabetes meal.  I was expecting some sort of salad, baked chicken breast, steamed veggies, and a nice glass of water to wash it all down.  Instead they made me this awesome stir-fry chicken with vegetables and couscous all mixed together.  I for the life of me can't ever remember having couscous and with a single bite I was hooked.  I made them show me exactly how they did it and also to leave the box so I could get the right kind and everything.  The other great thing was how flippin easy it was to make this meal.  The couscous takes about five minutes at the most to make and the rest is just stir frying up some veggies.  I think this is the best way to learn new things to prepare that are out of your normal meal routine.  This is why I am a big person on saying "yes" to any invitation that I am invited for, you get the benefit of trying something new or a twist on something from a friend.  To keep an open mind about life and foods you can occasionally find something that is easy and tastes great.  I have now made this couscous meal two more times and have several more boxes ready for me to experiment with different veggies and heck even throwing an egg or two in it and make it like stir fry rice.  I am not sure if couscous is healthy or not but for right now it is good stuff.

 



What my friend Vic must have been going through.

My good friend Vic lives in Atlanta and recently they had the ice storm to end all ice storms.  Now Vic is a type 1 diabetic like many other people that peruse through this blog every now and then and like most type 1 diabetics he has a plan of attack for anything and is prepared for any emergency.  So with this in mind during the Atlanta ice storm to end all ice storms I didn't worry one bit about Vic, because I knew he was good.  The thing I did worry about Vic and also what I was tired of hearing about were the other 99% of this country that thinks they are not responsible for themselves and the government is their backup.  I watch the national news every night with Brian Williams, and during the ice storm that was to end all ice storms they interviewed all sorts of people that were stuck on the roads for several hours and I kept hearing the same theme over and over.  They kept saying how they had to survive with like only a single bottle of water, or how they only had a quarter tank of gas, and the best was how the government didn't know and couldn't come out and de-ice the roads for them or bring them a cup of coffee and donut.  This is so annoying for people like you and I that plan, prepare, and protect ourselves by keeping snacks on us or plenty of water.  I can't believe that all these people can't throw two cans of tuna in their trunk, a couple of old blankets, and a gallon of water in their trunk.  Not to say a first aid kit, fire starter, and some rope doesn't go along way as well.  Think about it, like twenty bucks worth of random rations in your vehicle can turn this sitting on the highway stuck in the ice from a near death experience to a funny story about doing some quality white trash camping on the highway or something.  I felt so sorry for Vic because I am sure the random people of Atlanta are still blaming the city for not packing their cars for them in the morning or forcing them to stay home and stuff.  What I have is a winter kit for my truck and a summer kit for my truck.  The winter kit has sleeping bag, hand warmers, spare clothes, and other stuff I can't exactly remember now.  Then the summer kit has sunscreen, bug spray, and other things in it.  Then I keep standard in the car water, flashlights, batteries, fire starter, backup medical gear (not insulin), candy, tool kit, MRE's and much more.  So go out tonight and check your cars trunk and if you are low on any supplies just toss them in and be ready for the next ice storm to end all ice storms.

Taking food from a Diabetic!

So I do what I can do to be as healthy as I possibly can.  During work days I enjoy bringing a microwave TV dinner for lunch and a couple of months ago I found these awesome Healthy Choice steamer meal things.  The picture on the box above cracks me up because if you have ever had these, you would know that what comes in the box and what is pictured on the box are two different things.  The contents of the box would never fill that bowl up like that.  You would have to put like three of these meals in that bowl to get that much.  Anyways, back to the story at hand.  Yesterday I brought in my usual one of three different Healthy Choice steamer meals for lunch and put it in our companies refrigerator.  Now, we don't have like thousands of employees where I work, it is like 40'ish or so and the only thing anybody brings that gets confusing is the Yoplait yogurts, usually there are three or so people that bring those and I could see someone eating the wrong one on accident.  So lunch time came and I go to the break room to heat up my delicious and healthy lunch only to find out that someone had eaten it.  I was completely perplexed by this situation because we used to have an employee at our office that I called "The Atlantic Raccoon" because he would accidentally eat peoples left overs.  See our IT department all bring in random groceries to make sandwiches and stuff from and they all share their fixins and sometimes the Atlantic Raccoon would accidentally eat someones leftover spaghetti or in my case leftover chili.  I forgive him since he has type 2 diabetes and at least he does it on accident.  The thing is after I realized my microwave dinner was gone I turned into survival mode since I am a diabetic and I had timed my meal, insulin, and BG's to all coincide with each other and now one of those parts of the equation was missing had to find a replacement.  I quickly went to our free food vending machine and popped out a bag of sun chips and a candy bar to replace the 300 calories that I was now deprived of.  So as I was leaving the break room with my sub-par lunch replacement I look at a table of auditors we currently have doing our fourth quarter audit and see my lunch in front of one.  How even more disappointed I was than before that an outside random auditor is feasting on our lunches not to mention she is taking food from a nutrient deprived diabetic.  As I left and saw the evidence clearly in front of her I couldn't say anything because of the intense blow to my BG's and the shock.  All my coworkers couldn't believe I didn't say anything but like I said it was so shocking that I just froze up.  Now going forward as I see the auditors in our break room I will make definite comments on the subject.  This all is a good reminder that no matter what I need to keep an emergency meal at my desk, which I normally do but I just got lazy and haven't replaced the canned soup I usually keep.  The funny thing is after a while I was starving so I was joking with everyone about what I would like to have at my funeral if I didn't make it through the day like I needed someone to sing that Britney Spears song "oops I did it again" in the slutty school girl outfit and another lady to use the stripper pole that will be installed on my casket to sing and perform the Miley Cyrus "party in the USA" song.  When I go I definitely want to put the "fun" back in funeral.   It is always important to keep good positive attitude when someone starves a poor helpless nutrient deprived diabetic.

Project 365!

There were so many fun things that happened on my recent trip to Carlsbad, CA.  One of them was on my first night there we got to see the Project 365 documentary by Steve Richert of www.LivingVertical.org in which he took his diabetes out on the road and climbed 365 days consecutively while living out of his car.  This documentary was amazing, and the things he had to overcome to achieve the consecutive days of climbing were amazing.  His car was attacked by a bear, then later the car died, and then throw in all the weather and not to mention diabetes.  The documentary really engages your inner diabetic child and gives you this feeling to not just live with this disease but to push it to the limits.  I was definitely inspired to do more with my diabetes after seeing some of the awesome places he dangles his diabetes off of.  Normal slacker diabetics like myself often see people like Steve and think they are super duper diabetes avengers and stuff but after the showing of the documentary he took questions and in the end Steve is just another diabetic like you or I.  He has just channeled that inner diabetic child to motivate him to live better.  I would definitely tell every one of you to go out and see his documentary on: www.LivingVertical.org

Carlsbad Marathon Weekend

This past weekend I participated in the www.insulindependence.org Carlsbad Marathon event, and it probably was one of the greatest diabetes filled weekends to date.  I think mainly because I didn't offend too many people too much and that I met alot of people that allowed me to be a juvenile like I am because of my juvenile diabetes.  Then hanging out and catching up with old friends with diabetes and that always leads into us working on our diabetes comedy routines, which then leads us to coming up with some wacky diabetes inventions that would rock the world but would and could never be a reality.  The entire weekend was capped off with a simple marathon at the end in southern California.  I always tell people I meet with diabetes that to overcome all these millions and millions of issues we deal with in the diabetes community you have to increase your network of friends, family and people with diabetes.  There are no doctors, lawyers, or scientists that don't have diabetes that can help you as much as a group of misfit odd people that have diabetes.  Then you always have to keep an open mind about anything and everything.  Heck even the cinnamon might actually come out to be a real cure one day or something but to say "oh I only eat this or do that" in any certain situation is being closed minded and limits your possibilities.  When you get a gaggle of weirdo diabetics in the same room we teach each other how to cheat the system, how to deal with the "others" (non-diabetics that want to preach to us), and alternative forms of diabetes management like nutrition, medical devices, and treatments.  I even learned what they call non-diabetics in Canada, they call them 5.5's.  Then I learned that type ones are not called loonies and type twos are not called toonies in Canada.  Who would have thought I would have learned so much?

It's Diabetes Cold outside!

 

So recently I had serious viruses and diabetes and all sorts of non-sense going on so I am way, way, way behind on blogging.  Then last week was the great 2014 freeze and if you didn't know it but I am located in the warm state of Texas and we had it cold down here as well.  So I do an organized outdoor group workout after work Monday's through Thursday's.  When I workout I just take my pump and CGM off so they don't get in the way of squats, jumping jacks, and all sorts of stuff.  Then last Tuesday with the 2014 polar vortex bear sitting on us when I went back to put my pump on after the workout, the little guy was buzzing and beeping like crazy with a low battery issue.  So I get in my truck, replace the battery (because all of us diabetics keep a stash of batteries on us at all times) and the pump instantly goes into low battery mode again.  Then I changed the battery again, and the pump has low battery issues all over.  Then I put my diabetes detective hat on and remember way back in the day when I was camping in Paulo Duro canyon and it was freakin cold as can be and all my meters wouldn't work.  So I put my pump where the sun doesn't shine for a few minutes and put the battery in my hands and blew on it to warm everything up and sure enough I was back in business.  This also reminds me of a diabetic friend that lives north of US and she has written about having to put meters and pumps down bras and stuff to try and keep her diabetes stuff working.  Here is Scully's awesome blog:  http://canadiandgal.blogspot.com/