Thursday, August 25, 2016

My first Diabetes Camp!

As a kid I remember my mother once asking me if I wanted to attend a summer camp program for just diabetics.  I was diagnosed with the juvenile diabetes at age 13 and I had been to all sorts of cub scout day camps, webelos over night camps, and two boy scout camps by this ripe age of my life.  I had lots of camp experiences and really loved going to summer camp but the thought of going to a diabetes summer camp only brought thoughts of those black and white video's of Nazi concentration camps from world war 2.  You know the ones where they are all just standing along the fence and just look like they want to be anywhere else in the world at that moment.  So my response to my mother was not just no, but H E double hockey sticks no!  I lived the diabetes hermit life till my mid 20's and didn't want much of anything to do with diabetes or anyone to know that I had it until I found a support group that changed my life and converted me to be a way outspoken person about my diabetes to any random stranger that will listen to me.

I am now a full grown adult juvenile diabetic and I was able to find a diabetes camp that would let me be an instructor.  The experience was so much fun to talk to kids about diabetes and to let them know that it doesn't go away after you turn 18, and to discuss favorite treatments for lows and favorite meters and all sorts of stuff.  If you have the diabetes or know of anyone with the diabetes.  I strongly suggest that you attend a camp or volunteer with a camp.  Think about little me and how I was so alone all my life not knowing that I wasn't a bad person or not taking care of myself properly because I was scared to be around others with diabetes for so long.  I can't wait till next year and see all the friends I made at diabetes camp.  It's so much fun to be able to speak native diabetes language with others and not have to decipher it to English for the non-diabetes people in the world.

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

What is diabetes freedom?


My buddy Don and myself recently completed the JDRF mentor training program.  The mentor training is for people who have diabetes for some time to be matched with newbies that have been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and we mentor them on the things medical professionals can't help out with like integrating life and diabetes together. If I have one thing that I advocate for the most is, to get as many people with diabetes together or to communicate in any possible way and to allow them to discuss any and every part of diabetes that affects their life.  It can be such an isolation disease and growing up and hearing all the horror stories of peoples relatives and grandparents who didn't take care of themselves and had fingers and toes cut off.  Then the diabetes police monitoring every move I make or the people who have read the inquirer and heard about how eating something random like cheese, aloe vera juice, and cinnamon cures diabetes in dead mice or something.  That only makes us be that much more isolated because if we don't tell anyone that we have diabetes then no one will know and sometimes that is a good thing, and sometimes it is a bad thing.  Like when I was thought to be shoplifting but I just walked out of the store with my stuff I didn't buy and laid on the concrete in front of the store till the police showed up and they realized that I was either the worst thief or had something wrong with me.  So they had the fire people show up and give me some of that D50 stuff and all was good.  For some reason the couldn't see the massive silver medical alert bracelet on my arm, or the card in my wallet, or not even the funny insulin pump on my hip. 
So Back to mentor training class, we learned a lot but were kind of sad when they let us know that since about half the people there were random adults with Type 1 diabetes that we probably will never get to be a mentor because they like to match random moms with other random moms that have kids of the same age together as a match and they just don't get many newly diagnosed adults so they appreciate us coming but really didn't need us.  Which then that got an interesting discussion started.  As kids with type 1 diabetes we are constantly assisted by our parents and family members with it all.  Schools help us out by teachers being pissed off that we are low during a test and about to die but sure Dave just go get some juice from the nurse to live.  Which they have to tell use once we come back that we really need to take better care of ourselves and not have that happen again during their class time, sorry that might accidentally be something that happened to me in 9th grade.  Anyways back to my interesting thought on life and diabetes.  When we graduate from school and go off into our lives for work, vocational training, or college it seems that all this support stuff and everything just goes away. 

I went through a lot of diabetes depression after high school and really just said "F this" and stopped caring about my blood sugars or anything like that.  Then I just started going to the doctor once every six months to get prescriptions updated and I basically just forgot that I had diabetes but to test like once or twice a day and to shoot up enough insulin to keep me from getting sick.  I then had a hot diabetes educator that I loved seeing (for all the obvious reasons) and she was a type 1 as well (she was married but heck maybe she could help out a fellow diabetic with a friend or something) and she started a diabetes support group.  I was a bit scared about it at first because I had this fear of being in the same place with someone with the same disease and they are judging me or what I thought diabetes camp would be like when my mom asked me if I wanted to go as a kid.  All I could imagine are those Nazi war camps that all the people were starving at.  That is what I thought diabetes camp would be like.  So I finally went to the meeting and turns out it was a life changing experience.  I learned that I was not the only one with diabetes that have ever been high or had issues controlling it.  I then wanted to always know diabetics and have them in my life as people I can turn to and get advice, help or good comedy from.

The mentor class started this discussion as to how can we visit people with diabetes who haven't seen a doctor in a while or are having withdraw and loneliness feelings.  The sad thing is that we can't intrude into peoples lives and force them to be kick ass like myself or all my buddies and to make non diabetics jealous because we look like we are having the times of our lives.  I once had a coworker who couldn't stand the smell of smoke or the act of smoking, but they wanted every smoker to take their smoke brakes and to enjoy smoking.  I thought this was so odd but they told me something that I will never forget and which I actually put into my own life.  They said to me that freedom isn't standing up for your own rights and beliefs, it's standing up for the rights and beliefs of those that you don't believe in.  He told me that if they take smoking away then what is going to stop them from taking something away that he enjoys doing.  That really hit something in me and I guess that is why I am glad gay people can get married, why should we have divorce to only straight people?  They should get the right to enjoy it as well, same thing with medical drugs or alcohol and that vapor stuff.  I don't want any part of it but I do enjoy that it is a choice for me not to do.  That is the same thing with adult type 1 diabetics, its sad that we all aren't in cool kid diabetes groups and stuff but it is our freedom to be three toed sloth looking or bitter at the world.  I just want every type 1 diabetic on the planet to have the knowledge and opportunity to live half the diabetes life I live or to be around half the diabetic people I have been around in my life.  So I will keep spreading the word that there is always a group for you if you have type 1 diabetes, you just have to be receptive to it all.

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Artistic Family Members

 
 
 I am about the least skilled person with my hands.  That doesn't bother me since I am freakin awesome with the comedy but I do always wish I could do anything besides comb my hair, wipe my butt, and feed myself with my hands.  On the other hand, I have family members that are amazing with what they can do with their hands and one of them is my Uncle Jack who grew up in New Orleans and went to school for pottery.  I have always loved my uncle's pots, bowls, and mugs.  Not because he is family but the earthy colors he uses in the glazes are just exactly my favorite colors.  He and I have similar tastes in art so that is probably why he does so much stuff that I really enjoy.  The only part of his work that I am not the biggest fan of is probably the gargoyles he does, but faces and stuff like that always scare me.  I don't like dolls either, I think it was the movie Poltergeist that scared me out of that stuff.  Above is a picture I took of my Uncle while visiting the family in Richmond, VA.  He is standing in front of his local art exhibition.
 
 
One think my Uncle and my entire family are horrible at is marketing and promoting ourselves and talents.  He makes the most amazing coffee mugs and beer steins ever and has recently started selling them at the local coffee shop where he offers a free cup of coffee with every coffee cup purchased for a limited time.  The owner of the shop loves his coffee cups so much that my Uncle has been asked to do more at the store and they share in the proceeds, like a win-win situation.  Over the Christmas season he sent me the awesome covered pot you see in the picture above with a batch of home made pralines (I freakin love pralines).  I loved the covered pot so much that I want my diabetes laden ashes put in it when I die it is so cool.  I love the greens, tan and touch of blue mixed in on the pot.  I told him that he really needs to find a person who can do the marketing of his pottery and promote his work so that he can get more of this amazing stuff into peoples hands.  Everyone who has coffee at my place asks me where I got my coffee cups from because they are not only beautiful but also comfortable in your hands.  So this week I got a surprise email from my Uncle that had a link to his first website where he is selling his ware and showcasing his works. 

So if you all don't mind please visit my Uncle's website https://jackgoolsbyclay.carbonmade.com/ and maybe even shoot him an email: jackgoolsby@me.com because he didn't put a lot of his famous coffee mugs and steins on the website and mention that you want one of his secret diabetes friendly coffee mugs that were featured on the diabetic campers blog and he told me that you would also get 1 dollar off a 10 dollar coffee mug for a limited time.

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

2015 year of diabetes review

 
So here we are another year where I have let you down by barely posting on my blog.  I am probably a little late to do a year in review but hey, its my blog right?  I had the best year of my life so far as I can remember.  It all started with the Little Rock marathon in March with one of my best buddies, then The Oklahoma city memorial marathon in April (which the year before I kinda had like heart issues and had to quit around mile 16 due to how much I enjoyed life over death).  There was the tour de cure in June.  August I rode in the hotter than hell 100 mile bike ride.  September I participated in the Plano balloon festival half marathon and  my first 70.3 distance triathlon.  We did the capital to coast 226 relay run in October with a great gaggle of fellow diabetics.  Then I visited my uncle and his family in Richmond, VA during the month of November and did the Richmond marathon and did a sprint triathlon with a coworker.

I think the year wasn't so great because I participated in so many events but because I felt so great and so many people helped me to accomplish these things.  It's like my good buddies Don and Jeff and their little bit of poking each other all the time.  Don three years ago or so was harassing Jeff that even though Jeff is a great cyclist he couldn't keep up with Don when it came to running.  So after years of harassing, Jeff started running to prove to Don that he could run as well.  So now Jeff runs and runs like the wind.  Then Don started to harass Jeff that he couldn't swim as good as he can.  Then you can guess it, Jeff started swimming last month with Don.  Now they are harassing me to join them in the 2017 Houston full distance iron man.  There is something about pushing someone with positive timely support.  Don never gave up on trying to get Jeff to run with us over the years and Jeff finally gave in and we took him out with us and showed him the joy of running.  Not the negative leaving someone or making fun of them way.  Plus there is not the "we have to get ready by this date for this specific event" we know that life starts at the beginning and lasts until we are worm food so getting in shape just for a moment of our lives is the wrong way to look at it.  We should think about keeping our goals: fun, realistic, attainable, measurable, and timely.  Then it is something that is embedded into your life and you want to do it not because you have diabetes and you have to do it.  So getting so many participation medals for traveling to see family and running a marathon, or being with one of your best friends as they complete their first marathon or calming a coworker as they rock their first sprint triathlon, and hanging out in the middle of the night in a random Texas gas station talking about life with one of my favorite diabetic buddies Mason while waiting for our next leg of the capital to coast relay are the things that made last year great.  I like getting so many participation medals because it means that I am staying healthy, training with some of the greatest people in my life, and pushing myself to do things I never thought I could ever do.