Diabetes

type 1, insulin pump, blood glucose

Trainer trials and tribulations

Good golly I can’t believe I used to do this for up to an hour, even an hour and a half, at a time! Little Ring: “Tall person with boobies, why are you riding your contraption inside???“ After more than 9 months off the bike, Big Ring pulled Zing out of storage, dusted off the cobwebs, polished her up a bit, and pumped up her tires in preparation for our long-awaited reunion. I’d love to say it was a good one, but as has always been the case, when Zing’s shackled to the bike trainer, it’s more a chore than anything. The bike trainer is nothing like those spring/summer/warm fall days spent in the elements, pedalling hard up the Camosunburg (which isn’t so burg anymore since its repaving this summer), feeling the warm wind whip at my face as I zoom down to Spanish Banks, taking in the scenic views […]

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Unlocking the T-1 shackles

A Cure… It would mean I could live freely without people looking at me with pity in their eyes, or telling me tales about their grandma who had her foot amputated because of diabetes, or of a friend of a friend whose blood sugars went so low while in the shower, he passed out and drowned, or of an acquaintance who had a heart attack while pregnant because of her diabetes… It would mean I could eat freely without others telling me how to eat, that I could reach for a piece of chocolate, or a cookie, or a scoop of ice cream without family members, friends and strangers – all with outdated information – questioning, and or admonishing, whether it wise I ingest such sweet treats… It would mean I could run freely without worrying about my blood sugars crashing, or having to calculate how much to reduce my

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New kid on the block

For someone who doesn’t like change, my gawd, I sure did make a HUGE one this week. After nearly three years, and two identical replacements, there’s a new pump in town my friends. Gone is the tried-and-true, goes-with-everything, boring black beauty (which really isn’t so beautylicious these days), and in her place, an in-your-face, eye-popping, green hornet of a new insulin pump. That’s right, GREEN! A pump with pizazz. A couple weeks ago I noticed that the rubber covering over the arrow buttons on my pump was peeling back, and given that we’re going into the rainy season here on the West Coast, and that I typically wear my pump on my pant pockets, I thought uh oh, probably not the best thing to have the mechanics of the pump fully exposed. That just will not do. I emailed Animas last weekend and within 45 minutes I had a customer

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Don’t kill Shelby, kill the movie

Steel Magnolias? A remake? Are you freaking kidding me? Who in their right mind would go out of their way to remake that gawd awful flick? I mean, unless they were bullied by a diabetic, or had a nasty run-in with a gang of diabetics, or just have a plain ol hate on for us T-1s, there’s no plausible reason for putting this movie out on the shelves again. Strong opinion on something seemingly small to the majority, you bet I do! When Steel Magnolias was released in 1989, I was a young, impressionable, fairly newly diagnosed type 1. And let’s just say, it probably wasn’t the best film for me to be viewing at the time. Thanks to this movie, I spent a good part of my adolescence thinking I would be punished with kidney dialysis if I made one screw up with my disease (and believe me, I

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Nightmare on T-1 street

It’s not like it should have come as a surprise, but it did, and my gawd, it scared the freaking bejesus out of me. Last night I woke up in a panic. I couldn’t find Little Ring, I thought I’d fallen asleep with him on my chest, but he wasn’t there. I started frantically overturning my fortress of pillows, so sure I was suffocating my boy underneath. I shook Big Ring awake, I needed help, but I couldn’t get the words out, my tongue was twisted, my body was shaking, I had a fountain of sweat coming down from my forehead. On the verge of tears, I lifted my dead weight of a body up, and desperately shot my eyes over to the bassinet – where my sweet boy was sleeping ever so peacefully. I hadn’t yet clued into what was going on, but Big Ring had. Not showing an

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