Team Type 1 Expands
When I started cycling in 2007 the first thing I did was google for diabetic cyclists. Team Type 1 entered my radar at that point. The thought of one day joining them for the Race Across America (RAAM) got shoved into the back of my brain.
Back in August when I went to the Colorado Tour de Cure I listened to Joe Eldridge and Matt Vogel talk about Team Type 1 and what 2009 held for them. One of their expansions was a triathlon team.
I’m very excited that my friend Laura is one of the Team Type 1 Triathletes. She’s going to do well on Team Type 1.
Thoughts from black friday
Black friday isn’t something I do. I don’t look for the deals, I don’t research which stores are opening when, I don’t pre-locate where all the items I want are, and I’m definitely not up early. Nope, black friday isn’t my thing, it exists for peeps like Markus and his mom and the millions of other people who I consider crazy enough to make up the insane crowds that make leaving the house on black friday miserable.
That being said, I ventured out of my house yesterday. But not until 4 in the afternoon, and I knew where I was going and what I wanted and I was aware that I’d probably not get a deal because it was 4 in the afternoon and not 4 in the morning.
I went to LoveSac, I wanted a Navy Blue GamerSac. And I got just that. I parked at the mall, weaved in and out of internal mall traffic, (which gave me a thought. If the walking spaces of the mall were one way only and the the cross overs were for just that, crossing over to the other side, traffic would move much smoother, because as it is people don’t respect walking on the right side. They walk on every which side and it makes things miserable because if you know where you’re going and what you want you have to weave in and out of human traffic and those stupid slow people and don’t get me started on the families with strollers and kids that insist on all walking side by side.) to find the store I wanted to find.
I went in to the busy store, sat down on a lovesac in front of their TV for a few moments, got up and made my way back to my car. I then drove my car to the nearest department store near LoveSac parked and made my way back in. That was the smartest move I’ve ever made because it was much less crowded when I arrived again.
The sales lady was just finishing up with some peeps and I asked her if she wanted to make a sale. It was the easiest sale she made all day she said because I knew what I wanted. There weren’t any deals on what I wanted and I was prepared to spend the $200, and I told her it was ok that there were no deals and after a moment of thought she said “if you walk out with it now I’ll give you 15% off the total price.” I said “sold”.
That was the least stressful black friday shopping I’ve ever done. I got what I wanted and I got it for cheaper than I had anticipated. The dealing with the human traffic in the mall part was enough to elevate my blood pressure and blood sugar. But it was all worth it, I’ve got a comfy spot now to play video games and there’s room for the dog as well.
Thoughts from Turkey Day
disclaimer: I’m a lotta bit behind on blogging, bear with me
- I was supposed to run the 10k Hobbler Gobbler, but since I was sick all week I didn’t. Made me think of how I lame I am because Erika will go out and run 20 miles with a runny nose and a massive headache.
- My room got cleaned, all my summer clothes are back in my armoire and all my winter clothes are in the hamper. I’m in trouble the next time I do laundry.
- I’m tired of sitting at the kids table and as a result, next year, I’m bringing a strapping young man with me to my family dinner. Then they can’t sit me at the kids table because I’ll have a partner and I’m the oldest of the kids with partners so the younger ones can return to the kids table. (If this backfires I’ll be sad, I’m tired of sitting at the kids table.)
- I found a reason to be thankful for my diabetes: no one touches my home-made sugar-free pumpkin pie that my uncle makes just for me. I get the whole thing all to myself. Finally, a benefit to having diabetes; I’m guaranteed a slice of pumpkin pie on thanksgiving.
- I missed my turkey day movie, which usually I can’t wait to escape for because it gets me out of the house. But this year, as I was playing cards with all the old peeps (parents, grandma, aunt, and uncle), I was actually enjoying it.
- I thought I ate healthy. I had carrots, red bell pepper, green bell pepper, cucumber, brocolli, peas, cream corn, mashed sweet potatoes (ALL KINDS OF VEGGIES!!!), turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, a roll…and then I’m told it wasn’t healthy, it was fattening…stupid butter.
- I watched The Christmas Card (a hallmark movie) with my parents when everyone left and fell in love with Nevada City. It’s so beautiful and green and yes I realize it’s grey and cloudy, but I love it none-the-less.
The Diabetes Training Camp Cruise Ship
Disclaimer: this was a dream.
There’s a bike race track that goes around the ship all oval like, it’s wide enough for 5 cyclists. There’s several olympic size pools. There’s a rock climbing wall. There’s a wave to surf on. I’m in heaven.
We’re walking around the deck chatting, a good friend and I. I lean over the edge of the ship and see that there are people swimming in the ocean and that they’re shooting out of the side of the ship doing cannon balls and whatnot. I get all bright eyed and bushitailed and turn to my friend and before I can even say anything, I get told that I can’t do that until we talk, a serious talk. The look on her face is foreboding.
We walk indoors and sit down on a couch in the parlor. I won’t even look at her because I have this feeling that I’m in trouble. And then it comes “you’re being reckless. you don’t even think about what you’re doing anymore, you just go do it without thinking of the consequences. you’re going to almost kill yourself again if you don’t succeed in killing yourself this time because of your stupidity.” At that, I look at her. I can’t say anything because she’s right, so i squint my eyes together, get up, and head towards where peeps are putting wetsuits on.
Celeste the swim coach is there telling them that swimming in the ocean is very different from the pool. There are waves, big waves, and so not only do you have to compete with the peeps, but you’re competing with the waves too. I’m listening to this as I put on a wetsuit. It fits perfectly everywhere except for the legs which are too long. So, being the smart person I am, I grab some scissors and some wetsuit glue sealant stuff and I make the legs the proper size. As I finish the right leg, the second one, Celeste comes over and tells me that since I just customized the suit to fit me that I have to swim 100 extra laps in the pool. I look up at her, raise my eyebrow, get up and head towards the tube that shoots us down into the ocean. She’s hot on my tail yelling at me about how I’m not getting out of those laps.
I shoot out of the ship, do several somersaults in the air and hit the water, which for the ocean, was suprisingly warm. Celeste lands within a couple yards of me and I start swimming for my life except compared to her, I’m like a shark fighting with it’s food when I swim, she’s like an eel that moves with no trace. There’s no competition, she had me before I started. In no time she’s got me over at the ladder and again tells me I owe 100 laps. I roll my eyes and start doing the math. 50m x 100 laps = 5000m 1600m=1mile (cause i’m too lazy to use 1609) 1600…3200…4800…I look down, I HAVE TO SWIM 3 MILES???
When I heard the word “cure”
I’ve been sitting on a thought for a few days now. It’s difficult to not sit on a thought when someone says “cure” and meaningful human results within a year.
Actually, I had several thoughts.
The first thing that came to my mind is, these are cancer drugs, and I have thought for a long long long time that if I ever got cancer I wouldn’t do anything about it because the drugs they put me on would kill me long before the cancer did. That’s my thought on cancer and it’s “cures”. But now, there’s the thought of cancer drugs that would kill me before cancer would, curing diabetes.
Ever since I got diabetes, I’ve hoped for a cure. I’ve believed that there will be a cure in my lifetime. It is the hope for a cure for diabetes that drives me. It is the hope for a cure for diabetes that gives me reason to live. It is the thought that one day I won’t have this disease anymore that keeps me going.
By the same token, I have to be cautious of the word cure. The word cure makes me happy and giddy but thus far I don’t have a cure, I just have hopes of a cure. I hear things, things like “possible cure” and then it dies…and it’s a while before I think about it, and when I do think about I discover that it didn’t make it to human trials or it died in human trials. That word cure, it’s a dangerous word.
But then I thought of something bigger.
Say this possible cure, is a cure, the cure. Say, that regardless of the massive risks one of these drugs has, I get cured. That’s good, I’m cured. I’ll be happier than one can imagine, I’ll be rejoicing. But what about all the peeps in 3rd world countries with Type 1 diabetes. Will they have access to the cure? They don’t even have access to the normal stuff we diabetics need to survive, like insulin, will a cure just become another novelty item they can’t afford?
And then I started wondering about why they started testing cancer drugs in mice as a cure for diabetes. But I haven’t done anything with that thought. Although, it does seem strange to me that cancer drugs that block receptors of a tyrosine kinase which is not known to be involved in diabetes can possibly cure diabetes. It doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t compute. It’s like someone just woke up one morning and said, “hey! let’s try this.”
This is something that I’ll be researching, because I’m very curious now. Most cures I just kind of wave off and say when it happens it happens, but this time, I want to know why. I want to know what led them down this path. I want to know what made them think to try a cancer drug on a diabetic mouse.
Need Insulin? Jabba the Hutt will deliver
My spaceship crashed on this floating island thing. Looking over the edge revealed that there might be ground millions of feet below. It was difficult to tell if my island was connected to the ground beneath it.
As I stood up and turned around I discovered that I wasn’t alone, there was a guy here on the island with me. It wasn’t but a moment before we were dueling. Grappling was more like it. There were no weapons, it was more like hand to hand combat…so yeah, grappling, not dueling.
The grappling stopped as quickly as it started. A box fell out of the sky and I caught it. Opening it revealed boxes of insulin. I looked at the guy I was fighting with and looked back at the box and looked back at him and he says “what? Jabba delivers insulin when you need it”
Low Blood Sugars and Stormtroopers
So, today, I was driving along, and I decide that I’m feeling low. Not to just say that I’m low, but because I was actually feeling that way. For someone who 99.9% of the time feel symptoms, that feeling may have been a good thing. I say may have, because I didn’t actually check my blood to see if I was truly low. That was mistake numero uno.
Mistake numero dos was when I decided that the cure for my low would be a venti chai tea and an orange cranberry scone from Starbucks. This was only a mistake because I was using it to treat a low that I never verified was there and so I didn’t take insulin for any of it because I thought I was low. And so then, 2 hrs later, I was worshipping the porcelain god because I was high. REAL HIGH! 500 to be exact. Nice high number. That number, tells me I wasn’t low when I thought I was low because had I been low, I wouldn’t have gone that high (at least, I don’t think I would’ve, you really never can tell, there’s too many factors to be sure what will happen at any given moment)
And because I was high, I was dehydrated, but because I was vomiting, no water was staying in me. And yet somehow, I was constantly having to pee. Where was that fluid coming from, there was nothing in my belly, and my bladder had to have emptied out the first time I peed. I really don’t understand how that works.
In other news, I was driving home tonight from getting some new running pants which are strangely like spandex but they’re not really spandex that I’m not sure I’ll like them, and it was dark, and I’m sitting on the east side of the street staring at a guy who’s on the west side of the street, well, not a guy, but his car, and it looked like a storm trooper, well, the head of a stormtrooper, which translates to the helmet of a stormtrooper.
I know why TK-421 wasn’t at his post. It’s because he was across the street staring at me. Stormtroopers sure do look larger in real life.
My thoughts on the 2nd World Diabetes Day
Last year, my idea of telling peeps about World Diabetes Day was to say that diabetes doesn’t just effect us one day a year, but every day of the year. I’m looking at that meager post about the inaugural World Diabetes Day wondering what the heck I was thinking. To be honest, I have no clue.
Up until a few days ago, my world of diabetes didn’t extend far beyond me, and when it did extend beyond me, it didn’t extend beyond the boundaries of the US. My world of diabetes was basically me, and the crap we deal with when it comes to insurance companies and trying to get pumps and continuous glucose monitoring systems.
Somehow, what I didn’t realize, was that there was a world of people with diabetes outside of my “world” that are lucky if they even have access to insulin, they’re lucky if they can check their blood, they’re lucky if they can get to the doctor.
Here are some of the staggering statistics that hit me the hardest that I’ve recently become aware of. On this World Diabetes Day, to me, it truly is about the world.
- Diabetes is increasing faster in the world’s developing economies than in developed countries. Seven out of ten countries with the highest number of people living with diabetes are in the developing world. With an estimated 35 million people with diabetes, India has the world’s largest diabetes population.
- In developing countries, less than half of people with diabetes are diagnosed.
- A person requiring insulin for survival in Zambia will live an average of 11 years; a person in Mali can expect to live for 30 months; in Mozambique a person requiring insulin will be dead within 12 months
I’d like to share a few sites that I’ve become aware of that tell a lot more than I can put here about diabetes in different countries:
World Diabetes Foundation
International Diabetes Federation (who has an awesome documentary entitled “Life for a child” that will help open eyes to what’s going on in 3rd world countries)
World Health Organization
did you know
that today is thursday, which means tomorrow is friday, which means that saturday is my last training ride before El Tour de Tucson.
Thinking Towards A Diabetes Service Dog
One of the things I enjoy about housesitting is the variety of dogs I get to hang out with and go running with. My favorite is a goldendoodle named Brooklyn. She is the most precious dog. She’s lovable and loving, she just wants to be in the presence of people, she’s calm if you take her out and run with her or play with her, and in the backyard she’s as active as can be. And as a bonus, because she’s got poodle in her, she doesn’t bother my allergies and she really doesn’t shed.
She is the kind of dog that I hope I get when I get a service dog that can identify low blood sugars. In the past couple years, I’ve been doing a good deal of research to find out where I can get a service dog for a diabetic for when I move out. Being that I have no idea when my blood sugar is low and it is because of that reason that I have seizures in the middle of the night, a dog that is trained to identify low blood sugars would be a great benefit to me.
While I’ve not had a dog that’s trained to identify low blood sugars, I have had the experience of knowing how obnoxious dogs can be when I am low and they know it. I will never forget the time when I couldn’t get rid of my toy poodle dominic, he refused to leave my side, he was sitting right at my feet when I was sitting and he was right under my feet when I’d get up to walk somewhere. When I deposited him in the other room, he came and scratched at my door. It was annoying. But he knew that my blood sugar was low. And after a good 30 minutes of telling my parents to do something with him, my mom finally told me to check my blood because maybe he was trying to tell me something.
Many people have asked me if I’ve ever thought of a service dog, mainly because it’s having a dog that can detect my lows that will most likely get me over the fear that I’m going to die in the middle of the night because my blood sugar goes low and I don’t wake up and then I have a seizure at which point, I die if no ones there to give me glucagon.
I’ve done some surfing around, and every 6 months or so I do some more surfing around to see if these special dogs are becoming more readily available. I wouldn’t say that they are, but there is one site that always draws me in, and when it becomes time for me to get a diabetes service dog, I’ll most likely go with Heaven Scent Paws