Living with Diabetes

Blog

  • I’ve lived both sides of this

    Diabetes-Dot-Blog-Dot-Com :: Doctors for Diabetes

    I’ve had both kinds of doctors, and am seeing an endo now, so I have lived this. I can probably tell you more than most.

    I’ve also had both HMO and PPO insurance. If you can afford PPO, go for it!

    I’ve had primary care physicians keep treating me when they should have referred me. One that even denied I had a problem warranting a specialist, when I clearly did. That almost killed me — I really needed a sleep doctor, was on HMO, and while the allergist kept insisting on it, the primary care wouldn’t go for it.

    I have had a primary care physician with an HMO that referred me to a specialist the minute I needed it, which was very good!

    The primary care physician I have now is sort of in the middle. I know there are things he’d rather deal with, but acknowledges that seeing an endo with a good CDE who both have good pump knowledge is good.

    I really do believe in the specialist. My endo is fabulous — both he and his CDE can look at a log and tell you what to do, and you don’t have to go through basal testing (which I think the stress of itself defeats the purpose). It really saves time and energy when the doctor can do that.

    I also see a sleep specialist who is much better at treating sleep problems that any primary care physician I’ve seen.

  • How we got here posts

    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!

    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.

  • Whew!

    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.

  • An Endo’s blog

    Wish he had RSS turned on.

    Endocrinology WebLog – Dr. T. Steven Roosevelt MD, Ph D

  • IR1250 has been replaced

    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.

  • Sometimes my fellow teachers irk me…

    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.

  • Next Year

    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.

  • This is what scares me about next year…

    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.

  • Lizard Spit

    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”.

    Diabetes In Control – Can Lizard Spit Treat Diabetes???