Author: kathleen

She has learned an excellent Service Dog Behavior – she will not go up to someone until I say “Say Hello”. It’s not something I’ve explicitly taught her but something that has come from our public education. While I don’t think people petting her in public will bother her—she choose the service dog role, and if she decided she didn’t want to do it one day, I would accept it.

I had the proof this evening at the Nordstrom holiday party – and she’ll snarf up any food she finds on the floor but people usually excuse that. I’m working on trash can behavior, but she just can’t resist one—especially filled with popcorn, which all the ones at Nordstrom was.

I do like the fact that I can choose that. I don’t think that having children hang on is a good idea. She’s only 15 pounds and while beagles are quite sturdy, life is hard enough on a working dog. Also, it’s against our district rules for her to interact with students and I also think if she did interact with our students, it would wear her out.

She does also serve as a therapy dog to the adults on campus who need one. Especially on staff development days.

I went about 20 years with untreated sleep apnea and probably all my life with restless leg syndrome.

As a result it is very difficult for me to REM sleep, the side effect is weight gain, mood swings, and what looks like narcolepsy when it is really bad. Also probably arthritis. It certainly doesn’t make it better. I also don’t dream.

This also makes it hard for me to go to sleep and stay asleep.

CPAP helps. Sleep hygiene helps.

Stress makes it worse, this storm is horrible as I can’t relax at all.

The sleep issues have always affected mood and for a few years, doctors misdiagnosed me as having manic depression. First clue they were wrong, drugs made me worse.

Good news is that I recognize the symptoms in a teenager immediately and have gotten kids treated. Not the specific sleep disorder, but at least head them into a medical diagnosis instead of a futile psychiatric diagnosis.

Bad news, I still can’t sleep.

Those who read me regularly will know that Medco was bought out by Express Scripts and as of January 1, they won’t be paying for Novolog any more. What really bothers me, is that they get to change the rules on January 1^st, but I don’t.

I have talked to two Express Scripts customer reps who claim that “Humalog” is a “safe and effective” replacement and that there is no override and that Novolog was no longer covered. Duh, if you are allergic?

Finally talked with a supervisor this evening who said there was. Wrote my doctor an email to get that in process.

Oh, and the plan I have had for years – TRS Active Care 3 is going away in August.

Yeah, I am keeping my insurance.

Dulce had me up around 2:00 with a blood sugar of 65.  I suspect she tried to wake me up earlier and I couldn't wake up and the husband didn't hear her in his room.

Fortunately had really old nasty glucose tablets and swallowed down a slew.  Blasted things had only 5 crabs a piece in them, what good is that.

Woke up at 120, so all is good.  Have n idea why, CGMS shows a massive drop which I also slept through.

Dulce has issues in a particular room at UTD.  She has fussed every tie she has been here, but has finally settled down after sitting in my lab.

When I said something about it to a neighbor, his response: "I am sorry you have to use a service dog".

No one has every responded that way and it is the best and most appropriate response.

I got no satisfactory answers talking to or email with Express Scripts when discussing the formulary issue.

Our insurance is administered by TRS and I talked with them today. I was told that Express has changed who does the mail order pharmacy, thus the formulary change.

She also said that I still have the option of getting the 90 day prescription filled at the local pharmacy and that they will probably have to go through an override process.

Also said that I should go the DME route on the test strips or go to the local pharmacy on those.

I am trying to not think about it again until January.

Sent from my Windows Phone

Level had a really good promotion so I bought a sample set of it.

Bars: really like the taste and good chew.  That's what I need.

Shakes: Don't satisfy my need to chew.  Taste good.  Stay with me.

Gels:  I like, they work.

I’ve had the Fitbit on all week so far—not sure why I keep forgetting it all last week.

I do want to start upping both my steps and my activity level.

On another front, my sister and mom are coming to Dallas for our birthday. I’ve gotten a special benefit from Nordstrom’s that I am sharing with my sister, and am seeing if I can add some paid services for my mom.

It worked out in the end but I had more access issues yesterday than I have had in ages.

First, my district has found a new way to torture teachers, lock us in a room and show us the district final – 15 seconds per question and then don’t let us talk about it. Oh, and we could only bring in our school ID and our car keys.

We had to preregister, and yesterday morning I went and found the people in charge and told them the dog was coming. They didn’t tell their door keeper.

Second, since I was going to this little exercise at 6:00 I didn’t want to go home first, so I went to a gym on the way, a different LA Fitness. Her presence made THEIR heads explore and they couldn’t figure out what to do but didn’t want to let us in. The operations manager, a nice lady, finally called a boss and got person. I have tweeted LA Fitness to remind their personnel to allow access to service dogs.

That’s happened once my own club, I think I ended up leaving her in the car and then not working out in the mornings to avoid that idiot. That idiot has since learned to leave us alone.

Dulce was a rock star again. Not making a peep during the first test, my CGMS was beeping between tests, and they brought me some left over Halloween candy. I ended up at 110 at the end of the exercise. She did fuss at the end of the second test.

I have two of their devices – a Fitbit and an Aria scale.

And while I have to use an exercise bike rather than walking and running because of my knees.

The Fitbit is a pedometer that clips to your clothing. I have the Fitbit One, and had the Ultra before that. The biggest problem with those devices is that they are easily lost and they are easily washed in the washing machine. They also DO wear out. However, the company is good at replacing the ones that wear out.

The website itself is great and hooks do many other weight loss websites. I use MyFitness Pal because it has an extensive food database with carb counts. Yes, I live by the carb as do most insulin dependent diabetes.

The Fitbit syncs automatically as long as it when about 12 feet of a dongle. It doesn’t have to be YOUR dongle, so occasionally you’ll find that your Fitbit sync when you didn’t realize it was going to. This isn’t a bad thing.

It does sync with some Bluetooth devices without their dongle. I don’t own any of those.

The Aria scale is cool too. It’s WIFI. It keeps track of up to 6 people I believe. It syncs automatically when you weigh. It also syncs to MyFitness and other weight loss sites.

All really cool technologies.