It certainly was a VERY HECTIC November! The celebration of World Diabetes Day on November 14th, and the 30 days of Diabetes Awareness Month kept us ALL hoping.  Everyday gave us the wonderful opportunity to actively advocate for Diabetes causes.  Some of the major highlights are:

Over at The Blue Heel Society we successfully participated in the 30 Day, 30 Posts National Health Blog Post challenge.

In response to being named one of the International Diabetes Federation World Diabetes Day Heroes, I wrote and published a blog post over at Insulet's Suite D site about us All Being Diabetes Heroes.  If you have a moment take a look at it here:

http://suited.myomnipod.com/manage-diabetes/we-are-all-diabetes-heroes/

The book by Dr. Beverly Adler, My Sweet Life: Successful Men With Diabetes, that I was so grateful to be asked to contributed a chapter to was published.  

A team of 10 of us raced under the Blue Heel Society banner at an event called Rebel Race in Haverhill, MA.  It was a 5k with 23 obstacles ranging from fire to barbed wire to 25 foot vertical walls.  The event made a donation to a diabetes charity in the name of team.  While there all of the team members met and spoke to a ton of people about diabetes. We will certainly be doing this, and other similar races, again!  Look for a blog entry on Suite D shortly! 

I was fortunate enough to be nominated for the 2012 WEGO Health Activist Hero Award.  To be nominated and supported by members of the Diabetes Online Community is very humbling.  I am SO grateful.  Thank you!

In the middle of the month, I was asked to participate on a WEGO Roundtable discussion about Diabetes.  It involved a few of us on a call-in basis, and a very active Twitter, radio, and online interactive audience. A summary of the discussion can be found here: http://blog.wegohealth.com/2012/11/14/roundtable-recap-diabetes-awareness-month/.

The Blue Heel Society launched its IRL (In Real Life) Luminary Campaign.  The campaign provides free tools, aptly collected in The Shoebox, to people interested in leading advocacy campaigns in their local areas around the globe.  The response has been overwhelming, and The Luminaries have already scheduled events starting now. 

Along the same lines, The Blue Heel Society was also nominated by our friends in the DOC for the 2012 WEGO Health Best Ensemble Cast Award.  All us involved with BHS where simply blown away by this honor.  

From the bottom of our collective hearts, Thank You ALL for being a part of the most globally successful Diabetes Awareness Month ever!!

It is the hard work everyone of you do, the stories and experiences that each share, and the non-judgmental support and encouragement that we give each other that makes the DOC family so incredible.

Thank you.

Keep Choppin' everyone!!  

So, Diane and I went out for brunch today, and when our meal was served, my BG was a 151. I had a single item with carbs in it. Yes, yes. A biscuit.

Sans gravy. But I'm off in a ditch here....

They tell me 28gC, and I bolused for 30g plus the correction.

About 90 minutes later, I test again. I'm in the 280s. Hmmm......

So, I bolus for the correction and run a Temp Basal of 125% for an hour.

60 minutes later, I test again.

I'm still in the 250s.

My guess is that although I ordered a Diet Coke, I was served a non carb free beverage instead.

Fast forward until just a few minutes ago, and someone on Facebook commented on a tweet I made explaining the situation.

Heli explained that they test their drinks whenever they go out to avoid confusion.

I asked if that meant testing the drink just like a drop of blood.

Confirmed.

SAY WHAT??????

Diane overhears me exclaim "WOW!", and gets out a juice box and grabs the Diet Mtn Dew I was drinking. (Apparently this trick is in the D-Mom handbook. Natch).

I grab my meter and we test a drop of the juice.

158.

I test a drop of the diet soft drink:




I am still trying to pick my jaw up off the floor.

I NEVER KNEW THAT.

As is the case, I certainly learn something new about Diabetes everyday.

Even after all these decades.

So cool. I still am in awe.

:)


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I have more things to be thankful and grateful for then I can possibly count.

Honestly, I do.

Two wonderful little boys who are growing each day into thoughtful, smart, considerate, kind, articulate young guys.

A love in a relationship the depth and width of which the world had never know and that spans all of time.

Good health, even after 36 years of battling diabetes.

Even the disease itself, which, along the way, has propelled me to see and try things beyond my wildest imagination. I have had experiences first hand that 99.9% of the world will never have the opportunity to feel or witness.

Diabetes has also brought me an amazing new family. Through the Type1Rider, Blue Heel Society, and Diabetes Monster organizations I have had the good fortune to meet tens of 1000s of strong willed people, with a warrior mentality, that pursue an endless quest to fight diabetes and locate a cure.

Just like me.

With that though in mind, I am especially thankful to the mainstays at those organizations, Thomas Moore & Jen Loving, for the immeasurable amount of work you do, the inspiration and motivation you provide me with, and for the countless smiles we have shared along the way.

I am going to put my Choppin' axe down for a short while today, look around at the people I love, enjoy some joyfulness, and give thanks for all.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.




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Advocate today. It's easy... just wear blue.

Rebel Race.... conquered.

Rock ON Team Blue Heel Society!!





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One of the most challenging things I have ever done..... FACT.

Thank you so much Dr. Adler for letting me contribute with the other amazing authors in this book.

I have been fortunate to have been given the opportunity to speak to 1000s of people over the past few years about training, racing, and living with Diabetes.

To tell you the truth, I always walk away learning more and taking more from those in attendance than I ever come close to giving.

It truly is a blessing.

One of the questions I get asked asked almost everywhere I go is " Did Diabetes make you who your are, or were you already you and you just so happened to get Diabetes".

Damn hard question to answer.

The truthful answer is just a simple "Yes."

The sheer blunt force impact of the diagnosis of Diabetes will shift your way of thinking. Your entire mindset. Your way of life.

There is just no way around that.

The new patient, with this new, as of now, life long companion, is faced with an altered reality. A world of carb counting, sliding scales, insulin therapy, endless finger sticks, hypers, BG readings, 504s, ketones, countless doctor appointments, hypos, and, primarily and overwhelmingly an abyss of unknowns and fear.

It's a simply overpowering litany of details of the utmost importance to keep us, or a loved one, alive and healthy.

The disease, over the course of my life, has made me want to prove - primarily to myself - that I can do anything. The sheer unabridged fear of in some way having a limitation forced on me due to diabetes makes me try extraordinarily hard to not be.




I have picked the biggest races & most ludicrously trying events on the entire planet to test myself with.

The more I hear "It cannot be done" or "No one with T1 Diabetes has ever attempted that before" the greater the fuel to go do it.

It's all completely driven by unbridled fear. Just fear.

I'm more afraid of finding a Diabetes forced limitation than I am of being of being injured.

Or worse.

After dealing with all the aspects of Type 1 for 35 years, and completing the vast majority of goals I set for myself, I believe, at the absolute core of my being, I can, indeed, do anything.

Each and everyone of us with diabetes can.


We. Can. Do. Anything.

Believe it.


So yes, in some very major ways, Diabetes has indeed forged who I am.

On the other hand, the disease simply forces the hidden inner strengths and talents in all of us touched by it to rise to the surface.

All people who have been affected by Diabetes, whether themselves or a loved one or child, find their soul does indeed contain a ferocious warrior, wizard, mathematician, writer, engineer, teacher, field General, and medical professional.

We ALL find our complete compliment of full armor plating.

Our unbound courage.
Our unyielding resilience.
Our razor sharp scimitar.
Our endurance athlete.
Our never ending compassion and understanding.

All of those amazing characteristics were shackled in our souls, mostly sitting idol the entire time.

We are just lucky enough to have found them & let them loose.

Yup. Lucky.

Not that we have to deal with Diabetes each and everyday, but we have found those specific traits that enable us to just that.

And these properties spill over into the non-diabetes related parts of our lives.

So, on the flip side no. I was indeed this same person all along.

Hence, I will always just continue to answer that complex question with a smile, and a simple "Yes."



Keep Choppin.



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I was doing some tabulations about my history with Type 1 tonight as Facebook posts for Diabetes Month. After posting about my having diabetes for more than 13,100 days I got a few great questions that needed answers. I thought I should put them here....

61500: The number of units of inulin ranging from Beef & Pork R, to Lantus, to Novolog I have injected into my body over those years.

Sometimes too much.

Other times not enough.

Hoping & working towards not needing a 1/2 million more.

10400: Approximate number of times (give or take a 1000 or two) that I have tested my BG using one technology or another.

2555: Number of days I have been on pump therapy. Also, the number of days I have celebrated no longer needing to take shots to deliver insulin.

2: High School track coaches I had that also had Type 1.

1: The number of times a guy told me "I can smell someone who has diabetes. You don't have it".

0: The number of times I felt like these disease would beat me.

Unfortunately, also the exact number of cures for Diabetes.



Still here.


Still choppin'.


;)


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