Saturday, April 30, 2016

What Makes Me Tick


Literally.

Sometimes you have a handy family and you're home visiting and you just get curious. What IS that thing softly clicking and not-so-softly beeping away on your body day and night? What am I actually carrying with me? Where does that flipping needle come from? 

So.....you bust out some tools and get grabby. Sorry, Insulet, looks like I won't be recycling this one. 

Saturday, April 16, 2016

You Can Go Your Own Way...

Go your own way! Pause for a little respect for a great band and a great album.

And....moving on.

It's hard to get psyched about diabetes, let's be honest. I mean, initially it's kind of fun and crazy, and there's something about being a whirring, clicking, robot/human hybrid that's a little interesting. Although, come on, let's get that artificial pancreas going guys, I'd like to be a little more automated and a little less human when it comes to my diabetes at least.

Regardless, it's definitely more of a wear-and-tear, daily-grind type of disease. So you have to make your own excitement. Which I'm doing, in the form of taking a little bit more charge of things. I wrote a few months ago that I'm afraid of dying in the night, especially when camping/backpacking. It's still true, and while I love being outdoors, diabetes has made me much more cautious about my outdoor experiences. But no more! I'm doing something any self-respecting, gutsy, woodswoman should have done long ago...I have signed myself up for a Wilderness First Aid class next weekend. So I get to spend 16 sweet hours making splints and bandages out of twigs and leaves, and finding out how to resuscitate dummies, staunch bloody noses, create smoke signals (I imagine this is the curriculum at least) and allll of that fun stuff. And maybe, just maybe, I'll leave with some survival tips for myself...


Saturday, April 9, 2016

Ode to a Low Blood Sugar, and Other Poems

An anthology featuring such classics as:

"I didn't eat dinner last night so now I'm eating it at 4 am....covered in sweat."

"Oh look cookies! Those will work: A tragicomedy of errors."

"How much is that juice in the window? [Alternate title: I'm not drunk, sir]"

"Who beeped?"

"Overnight low corrections; or, make sure you turn off your Dexcom's high alert"

"?"

"Instagram: for when the letters in books are swimming on the page"

"Insulin on board, that sticky wicket"

"I fell asleep cuddling my glucose tabs"

"I can't believe I have to wake up and go to work in 3 hours"

And, most importantly--

"Will what I wrote right now make sense in the morning?"