Is Butter a Carb?

And now for an edition of "No such thing as stupid questions" with your favorite blogger (all 12 of you that is).

I have this expired glucagon. And I'm wondering....how expired is expired? Like....considering that one of these things costs $200-$300 and studies show that they are rarely deployed effectively even by trained caretakers...how expired is really expired?

Anyone have any advice?

A Whole New World....

It's a new school year, folks.

A whole new year in a whole new school in a whole new grade (kindergarten).

Buckle up because something tells me there's gonna be some great kid quotes coming your way...

A Pat on the Back

I saw my endo a few weeks ago when I got back from India. We chatted about the new school year, about my trip, about my A1C. I regaled her with gnarly tales of my 2 week long stomach flu episode and she said something really surprising to me.

She said, "Wow! The stomach flu and all that traveling...and your A1C stayed pretty consistent and you didn't go into DKA? Good job."

I was warned that diabetes would be like a part time job that no one every pays you for and that you never get a vacation from and that's honestly a pretty decent analysis. But I forgot that someone could still compliment me. Two little words and it brightened my whole week.

I'm used to interacting in a world where, while people are often impressed and/or interested and/or proud of me, they don't really understand what exactly it is that they are impressed with/interested in/proud of. Not in the way my doctor does.

I am doing a good job. I know because I'm still alive and (mostly) optimally functioning. But dang it feels good to hear someone say it. 

Mischief Managed ;)

It's rare that having diabetes is actually fun. It's mostly just, not bad, often it's frustrating, but I would rarely, okay never, actually consider it amusing.

But the shocked look on the Indian TSA agent's face when I shamelessly yanked up my skirt to show her the Dexcom sensor lodged there that set off her magical-wand-terrorist-threat-detector? Yeah that gave me a few giggles, I won't lie.

"Diabetes," I said, nodding gravely and proffering my doctor's note.

"Oh, diabetes," she said, her head bobbing from side to side in the distinctly Indian gesture of acknowledgement.

She gave me the tentative smile you give to a crazy person you wish to avoid on the sidewalk, asked no further questions, and ushered me through.

And I continued on my merry way, a smile on my cyborg face. 

Live from just outside Bangalore India...

...It's your host, me! And when I say host, I really mean host. Because I have won (without any competition it's true) the definitive title of Diabetes Ambassador to Shanti Bhavan School (which, side note, is the *amazing* school I've been teaching at this summer and I highly recommend you check out their website and get involved with their mission). If I thought my students back home were curious, well, curious has a new meaning here, that's for sure.

It all started when the students caught sight of my OmniPod ticking away on my upper arm. Cries of "Miss, what is that?!" and "Miss, is it paining?!" followed me for the duration of my stay. Teachers, staff, students, everyone wanted to find out more information, share tips and tricks (eat chappati, not rice, for example), and generally just discuss diabetes with me pretty much all the time.

Result? I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed, so I think posting on here might be light for a while...

Tomorrow, tomorrow....

I love ya, tomorrow...

Things have been frustrating here in diabetesland lately. Although I consider Afrezza to be a gamechanging tool for me, essential to making me feel like an actual human who can eat actual meals rather than a slave to my blood sugars, insurance companies across the board beg to differ. Meaning access is getting trickier and trickier for me, which is scarier and scarier. What will they decide to take away next?

However, that's not what I want to focus on today. Today I want to talk about this and my hopes for the technological tomorrow. I want to talk about citizen science and the amazing advances that people are making because they want to and they can and they are willing to work hard.

It's easy to feel disillusioned with people, when dealing with insurance companies and bills and access.

Sometimes I just need a reminder that there's a flip side, a glimmer of hope. That people are marching fearlessly into the cyborg future and they're generous enough to take others along with them. 

Another Quote

"Why was she dancing? No reason. Just alive, I guess"

--George Saunders


Why do we diabetics do all the things we do? Why do I work so hard when I could also just float along the surface in denial? All the math, the brainpower, the eating, the counting, the endless dancing? No reason in particular, yet also every single reason equally. It's the best way to be alive, I guess.