Author: kathleen

Flight is at 12:15 – left the house after 9:00. I like to leave early for the last minute panic of something I’ve left. So far, so good, everything I have to have for workshop is here with me.

By the way, husband isn’t traveling, dogs are still home and very loud beagles, still have security system, neighbor that works nights, and cops that go by the house every 10 minutes.

Made it through TSA but it was a bit of a screw up.  Didn’t have to be personally screened but had to go back with several bags and unpack them.  I wish they would quit changing rules <sigh> but no insulin breakage this time.

Right now I’m eating an early lunch — Friday’s petite sirloin and mashed potatos.  Seems a bit lapband friendly.

When I finish, I’ll check in with the gate as I am going to ask for mobility assistance.  Usually helps.

I’ve had my lap band now since May 21st, a good two months.  I’ve lost between 20 and 25 pounds depending on the scale I look at.

I am slowly and steadily losing weight — but it’s still a bit frustrating since we’re talking about a pound a week.  I’d rather lose more, and the initial weight loss makes it more frustrating.

Here’s how I am trying to wrap my head around this.

I went for about a year maintaining my weight within 5 pounds (and yes that was frustrating too, but at least I was maintaining.  Then last year, about August, I started gaining about 10 pounds a month.  That was not only frustrating but physically hard on my body. 

It was November when I finally realized I needed help and went to TLC Edge.  At that point I stopped gaining weight, and started maintaining again.  It was still physically hard on my body along with the psychological problems that went with that.

So then I lost between 20 and 25 pounds when I actually had the surgery.  At first it felt better, but now I am back to a lot of physical pain.  Going to the chiropractor is helping that, and I’m doing both Celebrix and Tylenol.

I am still learning how to eat, and I often ignore the stop eating signs.  Can’t ignore them for long, and I am stopping long before I used to.  So yes, the lap band is helping with portion sizes.  I am still having trouble picking the right food sometimes and the lap band isn’t going to help that.

I’m "working" this week, staff development for a possible camp on Monday, then traveling and going to a workshop in Missouri.  I’m going to see the fit tech at TLC Edge when I get back and decide what to do then.

It isn’t easy, but it is working.

I’m getting the girls ready for the fall season. They are entered in two trials (Fort Worth), email me or twitter me if you want to come watch. Both trials are in August, indoors at Wyatt Arena (part of the Will Rogers complex). It’s a real nice set of two trials. Our next trial will be in October, in a not as nice place and not climate controlled.

Last week we went to a fun match and it was pretty disappointing, we made many of our typical mistakes — Maggie pooped in the ring, which is an elimination and Macy wasn’t interested in playing.

Tonight was totally different. Macy’s first time in the ring was disappointing, but our second standard run was great.  I worked her two worst obstacles, the teeter and the chute, which were in a circle and alternated them with jumps and other easier obstacles. The crowd was cheering her and she really got off on that.

She also did well in Jumpers, traveling in the same path and again got cheered by the crowd.

Maggie is worrying me, she is not recovering from the storms and near storms we’ve been having lately — I twittered this — she and Macy were loose in the dog room and she got out of the dog run, and out the fence. Macy followed through the dog run but stayed in the fence.  I checked the voice mail to see if we had a message about her, then grabbed some food to look for her in the park.  She actually came when she was called and came off Josey Lane (a six lane road), and so she’s back.

Oddly enough she hasn’t been interested in food, and didn’t want any at the trial but was happy to run agility.  It’s weird, but as long as she isn’t in a complete panic she likes agility — until she has to stop at the table.  I am really pretty sure that she’s not going to be with us much longer as she has a pretty poor quality of life.  If we could only have a few weeks without storming she might snap out of it, but right now, she’s miserable.

I am more than a bit miffed that I was not invited to the Roche summit.  At the same time, over a month ago, I had already decided I’ve lost some patience with some of the diabetes bloggers. 

To begin with I am the oldest diabetes blogger on the web.  David Mendosa has written articles about diabetes on the internet longer than I have, but he hasn’t blogged as long as I have.  By the way, his writing is really good and informative, especially for the Type 2.

First, let me define what I think a diabetes blog is all about.  I believe a blog, is an online journal.  The blogs that I find most interesting is about the bloggers’ life and has original material written by the blogger.  That’s what both of my blogs, especially this one has been about.  No one sponsors me and if I blog about a product, I found them first and sought them out.  That goes for both this blog and the CS blog.

Unfortunately that cuts out a few of the diabetes blog, and frankly I’m about to unfollow them on tritter and to unsubscribe from my rss feeds.

A lot of the best blogs were NOT represented at Roche.  Some of my absolute favorites is "Ring the Bolus" and "Living in the Fast Lane" .  Both of these are by young men who are extremely active in their sports and are sharing their personal experiences.  Hey, that sounds like someone else I know (yes, dog agility isn’t quite on the level of sport as Indy car racing and Ironmen races, but I do go to class every week and compete every weekend we have a trial in the local area). 

By the way, I’ve seen some snarky comments about Charlie Kimball’s new blog and new twitter account, and I think that the person who made them is being extremely unfair.  I think it is super cool that Charlie is following his dream and I think it is absolutely fine that Novo Nordisk is making it possible. I also think that he and Novo Nordisk is using Twitter right, posting some interesting feeds.  And yes, one of my goals is to meet Charlie — that means he has to come race at TMS, or I have to call in some family favors and go to Indy again.  (Gee, it’s only one ticket, unless I can get the husband to go too).

By the way, I’m still diabetic, still use over 50 units of insulin a day, even through I did the lapband surgery.  And besides according to the medical definition of diabetes, I’ll still be diabetic even if I CAN go off of insulin, and will have to still watch things — I’ll just be an extremely well controlled diabetic.

In addition to seeing the Shrink and Endo on Tuesday, I also saw my gynecologist on Wednesday (and Macy’s saw her vet that day), and I saw my chiropractor and my sleep doctor today.

So far, everything is either coming out normal or the same as last year.

I hate the gynecologist because frankly, he tears me up during the exam and it is still bothering me today. However, he threatens not to give depot provera shots if I don’t cooperate. Argh! Got that done too.

The chiropractor worked on both knees and my hip/lower back too. I have a lot of tenderness there, partly because of the shot and partly because last weeks’ walking tore everything up. I have been working hard to recover from that.

The sleep doctor said everything looked good on the CPAP machine and that nothing new was out yet, but would be next year.

I still need to see my cardiologist and I’m a bit worried as I’m hoping to be teaching enrichment classes that day. I’m waiting to reschedule until the last minute.

There are some businesses I don’t “get”, and Discount Tires is one of them.  I have a Ford Escape and it has those cool tire sensors that tell you that your tire is flat.  Mine keeps going off and yes, one of the tires is consistently flat.  I go to Discount Tires near the house most of the time, because it’s convenient and free and they kept telling me don’t worry about the tire, it looked fine and filling it up periodically was okay.  So now it is going flat once a week and I have to park my car at the airport for four days and don’t want to deal with it, so I went and had it repaired.

NO CHARGE!  Seriously.  Is that weird or what?

I was even prepared to be told that I needed a new tire.  Gee, at 46,000 miles you would expect that I needed at least 4 new tires wouldn’t you?  Nope.

And got scolded because I hadn’t been rotating my tires AND THEY DO IT FOR FREE!  And also got told to check my tires once a month (yes, that’s free too).

Isn’t that all weird?

I’ve never bought a tire from them, but my husband has. 

And guess where I’m buying my next set of tires (though at the rate I’m going I’ll be getting a new car first).

It’s very slow, but I am finally losing weight. I’m consistently seeing tenths of a pound disappearing – hint: get a scale that weighs in tenths.

The slow is a little frustrating after the initial weight loss but it is happening.

Clothing size has definitely changed, and my psychiatrist who saw me before my trip also thought I had lost weight.

So the last fill is working!

I am going to see the fill technician when I get back from my next trip as she is in the same building with my cardiologist and I might as well do both at once.

This is my first endo appointment since my lap band surgery.  My weight is down 17 pounds from my last visit, my A1C is down from 8.1 to 7.9 but my lipids are bad.  We expected that as I can’t take my Vitorian, it’s too big.  But the endo looked and there is a formula of Vitorian that is lower dose and smaller so I’m on it.  I’ll be back there on October 19th.

I got home last night after 11:00 pm  — Yes, I drove hard to get here.

The workshop was over at 3:00 pm there time and I dropped my suite mate (a really nice lady) off at the airport and headed for home.  Made lots of short little stops — gas, restroom, picking up dinner, etc. but decided to drive until I couldn’t.

Ended up stopping i Athens, Tennessee at a Motel 6.  Wasn’t bad, but that meant that I wouldn’t be spending the night at my mother’s. 

Got up at 6:00 pm, did drive through breakfast, and again, lots of little stops.  Lunch was in Tuscaloosa and was really good.  Grilled snapper and fried crab legs (little crabs, not Alaskan crabs, probably gulf coast).

Stoppped at mom’s for about 1/2 hour and visited her.

Headed out, and drove most of the evening.  Even sat down at a restaurant in Monroe for dinner.

Really glad I went.

Saw lots of cool things, lots of the country I hadn’t.  Learned what I can and can’t eat, lost a little weight, and generally had a good time.

Good workshop too.

Day 8 sucked.  I got into a really bad mood when I was “moved” yesterday.  Part of that was my suitemates’ fault, I was following along with her and we ended up at the workshop place later that I wanted.

No major problems but I really hate to sit and listen to people talk.  I want a hands on workshop.  Food was difficult all day after breakfast.

Was away from my car pretty much all day, but could at least see it. 

I got really pissed off when a lady said "she saw me testing".  First, I thought she said, "texting", and I thought that was really rude.  But she was so f’ing ignorant about diabetes I saw that there was no hope in talking to her.  Finally just said, I am really offended you got into my medical space.

I’m happier today, but more about that later.