Category: Blog

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.

I went to a regional staff development and Dulce was an absolute rock star.

First, the people who organized the conference were stellar. I presented and I could have walked in with a purse and presented – I had my presentation on Skydrive. Of course, I also had it on my surface and a laptop and had them with me. And a thumbdrive.

I presented off the Skydrive and tweeted the presentation later.

This is the longest day that Dulce had out of a cage. At school she hangs out in a cage while I am working. When we do staff development I usually take in a smaller cage.

However, this staff development was shorter sessions, and we were traveling around quite a bit, so I took just one bag with me – an awesome bag I picked up at the Microsoft Store in Austin which holds a bunch of stuff, is light weight itself, and isn't bulky packed.

Here it is from Amazon with the affiliate stuff:

I did fine blood sugar wise and she enjoyed the attention.  I know at least one picture was posted to twitter.

She was tired, but ready to go to the gym when we got home.  She sacked out the rest of the day.

We did have one little problem.  We went a little too far, and she ended up using her mat for the bathroom.  Was fine with me.  It washes easily and it didn't go through to the floor at all.  She was a bit upset about that, but it was at the end of the day and I keep a few in the car, so I could have easily swapped it out.  The bad part was that she didn't tell me she needed to go out.

I understand that you are trying to cut costs with your new formulary, but I think you are under the impression that doctors pick medications purely because they are new, different, like the advertising or the drug rep.

Nothing could be further than the truth.

I’m on Novolog. I’ve tried Apidra. I was on Humalog for three years. First insulin I tried. I never mentioned the itching sensation when I injected because I didn’t realize it was abnormal.

Then they put me on an insulin pump because I was having real problems controlling my blood sugar. While I have really good control with the pump, I can’t help but wonder if the insulin allergy is part of the original control issues, but I digress.

We spent three months switching adhesives, and doing all kinds of gyrations trying to figure out why I was having allergic reactions to my insulin sites. It would start out mild, and would get progressively worse as the time went on with that site.

Doctor handed me a vial of Novolog and had me change out everything. Itching installing went away. I have even injected Symlin with that slight stinging sensation (yeah, made by Lilly and bet it’s that same ingredient). Probably get it with some other injectable medications too.

I have issues with other items that I have injected – Dexcom sensors for example.

However, you can’t pay me enough money to put another Lily product in a needle and inject it.

I don’t see Lilly fixing the problem – I’m in that 1% population.

But people – that’s why there are other formulas. Thankfully there are other formulas.

@Expressscripts quit playing with my medications.

So far.

But didn’t really celebrate it.

One of the other teachers was walking around with miniature candy and I grabbed a Kit Kat. Our tech handed me a Milky Way, probably out of the same box.

We didn’t have candy in the house.

Woke up with a 140 today.

I’ve yet to go into a store with Candy clearance.

But so far and done far better than most Halloween’s.

As is usual, when you pit my dogs against my husband in a battle of brain power or determination.

Tuesday night tried to work out after school and Dulce wouldn’t settle, left the gym after 12 minutes of trying and tested, blood sugar was at around 115, way too low for a workout. Tonight took advantage of a special at Sonic and had a corny dog and cheesecake bites plus the siren was already going off from Halloween candy.

She is quite nicely settled.

He claimed she wanted to come home and eat dinner Tuesday.

ExpressScripts took over Medco and pretty much left me alone. A few of my copays went up and a few went down.

Until today, though I had a warning from other diabetics.

Yep, they took Bayer Contour and Novolog off my formulary.

Now I have no idea how accurate their substitute strips are but Bayer Contour is approved to work with my CGMS.

Oh, and I am allergic to whatever Lilly adds to their injectables and I itch something fierce when I use them. Probably something similar to what is in the Dexcom sensors.

Refills ordered, emails off to doctor and battle lines drawn.

Sent from my Windows Phone

I’ve been using the Medtronics Minimed Sof-Sensors since this summer. It’s gone well.

Years ago, I’d tried the Dexcom Seven system and found that I was allergic to something in the system, and I would end up rejecting them. I haven’ had that problem with these. I’ve had some placement issues, but as I use them I get better at it and hadn’t had an issue in quite a while.

The biggest side effect is that I’m getting better at checking my blood sugar and my A1C continues to go down. Weight has also continued to go down.

For many years, we used a food service. I didn’t cook. It was nice, because we picked up food twice a week, and it had full nutritional information.

They changed how they were doing things and was no longer convenient for us. We tried a different service, but they didn’t have our food half the time and it was even less convenient.

So I started cooking. First, we were wasting a lot of food. Part of the problem is that I grew up cooking for a family of four, and I’m still used to cooking those amounts. Also buying supplies was hard. We weren’t using a full ½ gallon of milk, dozen eggs, or loaf of bread before it spoiled.

Problem solved – was on ham radio one evening when one of my ham radio buddies mentioned he had a freezer that needed a home. I bought the freezer from him along with some meat, and he delivered it to the house. It’s a chest freezer, but by adding some freezer crates from the Container Store it’s very easy to organize.

So I still cook for four, but I freeze the extra portions individually. When it comes time to use the extra portions, I tweak the results – adding fresh ingredients, and making a new meal.

I freeze portions of bread, and plan to start freezing milk. I don’t freeze eggs, but I boil my eggs when they get old and have them for lunch.

For lunch, I take a lot of small portions of lots of individual things – a boiled egg or two, fruit, sweet bread, peanut butter, etc and a couple of snack packs. That way, I can eat a little at a time – something I need with my lap band.

I managed to do a few strength exercises both Saturday and today. Not a full strength workout, but a few. It’s a bit harder with Dulce, and I probably need to take a different bag with me. I don’t need to buy a different bag, just need to find one that allows me to take everything with I need.

And I’m ready to do it during prime exercise time – to many people though there is a gal who keeps offering to work out with me, and I might take her up on it.

Working out with the dog can be exhausting – it’s the constant questions that wear me out.