I’ve been reading the many “how I got here” posts, and what strikes me the most, and especially on this one …
Is how clueless doctor’s can be when it comes to diabetes.
Pumplandia: Violet’s Diabetes Blog: How I got here, part 2
How I got here, part 2
Congratulations!
Diabetes Mine: Patient Blogs in the Wall Street Journal — Who, Me??
There does seem to be an explosion lately of really good diabetes patient’s blogs, and the neat part, is that we each share a different facet of the disease.
Nice to see more of the word getting out.
Just finished the final on my master’s education class. This means that I have two classes left and will be doing them this summer.
I think this is a fairly new pump, if not brand new. It has a date of 2005-04.
I had some problems — I thought I should be able to just download the old pump, save the settings to a file and then upload those settings to the new pump, but no….
I sent an email to support about it.
Good news, is that I know have their email and can contact them directly. It’s hard sometimes from school, even using their webpage, but I can always do email.
But hopefully I got a point across today.
Regular readers will know that one of my “neighbors” — her door is across the hall and around the corner from mine — sent one of her students to me to talk about diabetes.
The teacher and I were visiting when the student came by, and I asked the girl how she was doing how she was doing. My teacher friend asked her how her diabetes was. My teacher friend asked several pointed questions about testing, etc. which I deflected as much as I could.
After the kiddo left, I told my teacher friend I had specifically asked about HER and not the diabetes, because I wanted the student to realize I cared about HER and that I knew when she was ready to deal with her diabetes, she would come and brag to me. In the meantime I didn’t want to add to any guilt.
Each of us with diabetes knows what we need to do, even if we’re at the beginning stage. We know we need to test more, or even that we need more help from something, but we’re not going to get there until we’re ready. Nagging, friendly or not, just adds to the stress.
More about next year. Right before our Monaco trip, I was called into the principal’s office and told that they needed an experienced math teacher to fix our AYP problems. However, we don’t need an experienced computer science teacher to fix those problems.
Although I haven’t taught math in 5 years, I’m still an experienced teacher and am certified in math. I hope they are right.
Yes, I’m being affected by No Child Left Behind, which I believe in. AYP means that we have a group of students that can’t pass the standardized tests (TAKS).
Thus, next year, I’m going to be teaching a group of 9th graders who have not been successful at math. At first I was told I’d be teaching kids that were supposed to be 10th graders who hadn’t passed the test, which I liked better as I have taught that group before.
Now they are putting me where we can get to the root of the problem. Well, I need to be put in elementary school to really get there, but since I’m high school certified and these kids need to be dealt with now, I’m stuck with this group. I’m told they will be enrolled in both Algebra I and my class.
I’m also told I’ll have my own classroom. Floating bothers me because there is no place to lock up your belongings, and I do need to keep medical and glucose supplies near me.
It promises to be an interesting year. The sad part, is if I am successful, I’m probably stuck doing it. And if I am not, I’ll probably be hung out to dry. Provided I even survive it. You see, I already know these kids, and the first problem is that they don’t know how to sit in a seat and be quiet for a full class period.
Pumplandia: Violet’s Diabetes Blog: In which I am my own guinea pig
Occasionally I have to change sets at “work”.
I work in an urban school, building is about 50 years old, and the restrooms are nasty. Teacher restrooms are slightly better than the girls rooms.
I have been extremely lucky because my room has a closet. When I’ve had to change a set, I duck in, close the door, and half the time my students don’t even know I’ve ducked out. Once, I completely changed clothing and not one kid noticed I was wearing different clothing — okay, that proves high school kids don’t look at their teachers.
They have told me: “it would not be appropriate to make someone with your experience float”. I also did let them know if I had to float we would probably have to look into the ADA (American’s with Disability Act) as I need to carry around medical equipment.
That STILL doesn’t solve the where do I go to change a set as I don’t want to do it in a restroom OR in the nurse’s clinic.
I can however, always leave the old set in place, and put a set in my arm. Haven’t tried it, but may have to.
The injection thing and the nausa thing is really going to turn people off.
Frankly I want to see quite a few people on it before I’d sign up — plus right now, I’m not on the “indicated list”.
Tekakwitha writes about baking bread and about how she has to think about carbs. The ‘betes: Bread and crackers
For me, the worst part is not just thinking about it, but concentrating so hard about it, when someone says the word carbs and I’m around food, I just blurt out what I’m thinking. Sometimes it’s just the number but today the PTA brought us bagels and I had NO idea, but was thinking hard that each was at least 4 USDA servings, so blurted that out.
ARGH!
Part of that is teaching all day — you get bombarded with questions, that you just answer the first thing you think of, especially if it is something you are thinking about.