Living with Diabetes

Author: kathleen

  • Olympics Dispatch III

    Olympics Dispatch III: Victorious

    My husband doesn’t GET why I care about this, but I do. Of course, he isn’t a diabetic, he isn’t fanatical about having as good as blood sugar as possible, and doesn’t understand how hard it is.

    It is SO cool that this doctor cares so much.

    Sometimes I feel like the little kid in first grade when I’m interacting with my doctors, trying not to be on their nerves and trying hard to have the best blood sugar possible.

    Athens Airport, 5:00 AM, Saturday, August 21, 2004 — Gary won the gold. Unbelievable. He did it. He did it for himself, his family and friends, and for all people with diabetes. He says he’ll give his gold medal to the person who finds the cure. I hope he has to give it away soon. But for now he inspires; he inspires me and all of the people in the world who live every day with the disease that is diabetes.

  • Still looking

    I am still looking for Type 2 diabetes to participate in a research study.

    This is the information from the researcher:

    Several months ago we had exchanged email concerning this research
    project that I am doing with diabetes. We have evaluated 4 groups of
    physicians – housestaff, internal medicine faculty, endocrinologists,
    and private primary care physicians. They each performed a series of
    pairwise comparisons assessing the relative importance of 4 indicators
    of diabetes management.

    While we hope to make the task a bit more complex in the near future, we
    would first like to compare our physician results with a group of
    patients. We are looking for type II diabetics who have computer
    literacy. If you could assemble a group of 10 or so, we would be very
    grateful. We believe that patients may have different priorities than
    physicians, and want to test that hypothesis.

  • This is neat

    Olympics Dispatch II: August 19, 2004

  • Recruiting Type 2 Diabetics!

    I’m looking for 8 diabetics who are Type 2 and are computer savvy for a study for a doctor.

    If you would like to participate, please send me your email address. Send it to kathleenw at gmail . com (spaces inserted on purpose) with the subject line: Diabetic Study and I’ll add you to the list.

  • Animas IR1200

    This is the first time I’ve seen the pump — I’m at an insulin pumper user group meeting and the local rep is showing it off.

    Basically the features are a calculator and it lets you calculate everything (carb, correction, and even combo bolus) and let’s you adjust it on the fly.

    I may yet upgrade….

  • One Month Pump Aniversary!

    52 weeks ago, I was hooked up on my pump today.

    It has been a very good experience. I’ve been posting about this in bits and pieces, so I’m going to try to tie some of the accomplishments together.

    I’ve gone from around 100 units of insulin a day to 40 units.
    I’ve gone from an A1c of 7 with lows, to an A1c of 6.2 without lows. I will not deny eating extra food to avoid lows, but I haven’t had an emergency, treatable low since on the pump.
    I’ve lost around 10% of my body weight.

    But the best thing, is that I feel better. And everyone has noticed.

  • Getting there

    Part of losing weight is to have a mind set that you are ready to lose weight.

    I’ll be honest, I have to work at it. I have to physically make myself get up and do the treadmill thing and exercise. I have to write down all my food, I really do it twice, and I have to remember all day that I am losing weight.

    It DOES get easier. Your mind and your body adjusts to the new calorie level. That’s not to say I don’t prefer NOT doing exercise on my off days. I really do.

    But feeling better is worth it.

    AND be patient!

  • Before and After

    I decided to move my teacher ID to last year’s lanyard, and noticed something really neat between the two pictures. A friend looked and noticed the same thing …

    Thursday is my pump anniversary — it will be 52 weeks then — but the calendar anniversary was yesterday. So what has changed?

    Last’s year ID picture was taken one week before I got my pump. They took this year’s last week. If you look at the two pictures, I am definately more tired, my face is fatter as is my neck, and my hair is actually grayer LAST year. You’d really think that they had been reversed. I actually look younger in this year’s ID badge.

    I know I feel better this week than I did last week at this time. I also know that my blood sugar is definately lower, I’ve been going between 110 and 190 the last two days.

    I definately think the pump was worth it.

  • New basals working

    So far, the reduced, new basal is working fine. I haven’t eaten since 6:30, and the blood sugar is staying in the 120’s, which I can definately live with.

  • Scales

    If you are a scale fanatic — and I am one — get a Tanita scale that measures in .10s. It’s made a huge difference, especially since I am only trying to lose about 1/2 a week. This lets me see the fractions.