Diabetes Art Day: Humalog Lights.
Today is Diabetes Art Day, 2013 edition! To check out the art that's being created and submitted to the Diabetes Art Day website, click on the link and spin through the 2013 gallery. There's already some fun stuff up there.For my arty attempt, I used insulin bottles as my "medium." Someone had mentioned you could make Christmas lights out of empty insulin bottles, so i wanted to take a stab at it. (Hang on ... there are even more horrible phrasing moments coming.)All I needed:Empty insulin bottlesA good, long screw Christmas lightsPatienceOkay, so first off, you need to drain all the insul...
Source: Six Until Me. - February 4, 2013 Category: Diabetes Tags: Diabetes Advocacy Source Type: blogs
From Abby: Larry Bird at Yoga.
Larry Bird is great, but only as a basketball player. We don't need to see him on our meters after exercise. Abby shares her brush with Larry in today's post.* * * "Time for your final rest. Savasana. Let it all go."This is usually the time of a yoga class where you lay down, meditate, and lose all contact with your body. (I also call it nap time.) Generally it's very relaxing, and most of the time I DO forget that my hands and feet are attached to me (which is awesome).Except for this time. As I'm laying there trying to cool down, I'm getting warmer by the second. I can't let my mind wa...
Source: Six Until Me. - February 1, 2013 Category: Diabetes Tags: From Abby Source Type: blogs
An Exercise in Short Letters.
Dear Blood Sugars,You are behaving too well these days. You're like a cat, waiting underneath the bed to grab my ankles. Feel free to remain so dormant, but just know that I'm watching you. With my face.- Kerri. * * * Dear Lancet,I changed you last week. What else do you want from me? - Kerri.* * * Dear Pump Tubing,Leave the doorknobs alone. Seriously. You don't have hands, and you can't turn the knob, so what is this? The best you can do is double as a belt, after you're done doubling as insulin-delivery.- Kerri.* * * Dear Logbook,You...
Source: Six Until Me. - January 31, 2013 Category: Diabetes Source Type: blogs
Scrabbled.
Diabetes management is a delicate balance between "I'm fine" and "How sick am I?" Between feeling awesome and feeling like garbage. Between being knocked down by a low blood sugar to finding your footing again a few minutes later. A balance of insulin and exercise, food choices and blood sugars, rinse and repeat.A balance of try, fail, try, succeed, and try again, damn it! On some days, it can be exhausting. And if someone leaves you alone with a Scrabble board and too much coffee for too long, you might take your aggressions out on the tiles. Hope is on there twice because it ne...
Source: Six Until Me. - January 30, 2013 Category: Diabetes Tags: Diabetes and Emotions Source Type: blogs
Diabetes Art Day: February 4th!
FYI: Diabetes Art Day is taking place on Monday, February 4th, and you can find out all the details on how to participate, how to share your work, and why it's an awesome initiative on the Diabetes Art Day website.For now, I'm still scheming about how to work in my army of empty Humalog vials ... (Source: Six Until Me.)
Source: Six Until Me. - January 30, 2013 Category: Diabetes Source Type: blogs
Back It Up.
(Title sounds more like a rappy-type song than I had intended, but I promise, this is safe for work.) It's 9 am - do you know what your pump settings are? I'm diligent about backing up my laptop and all of the silly content therein, and I religiously take the little, red external hard drive and make sure my computers are backed up. But I'm far less fastidious about backing up other important things in my life, like my insulin pump settings. While I never anticipate an insulin pump malfunction (stealing verbiage from the airline flight attendants who make me squirm while they explain the oxygen masks on planes), in th...
Source: Six Until Me. - January 28, 2013 Category: Diabetes Tags: Insulin Pumping Source Type: blogs
Dexcom G4: Finally, a Case.
When Donna from Tallygear reached out a few weeks ago and offered to send one of her Dexcom G4 cases for me to try out, I was all about it because I almost drop the receiver onto the tile bathroom floor, the hardwoods in the living room, the icy driveway, and the concrete sidewalks going into the gym at least once a day ... for all of these surfaces. I'm not very graceful, and when you add gloves to the mix (necessary in this arctic weather that my daughter accurately described as "a snowman's breath"), I'll fumble even my most precious of possessions. (Note: Birdy holds hands with me and walks ...
Source: Six Until Me. - January 25, 2013 Category: Diabetes Tags: CGMS Source Type: blogs
Guest Post: Going Beyond 140 Characters.
I'm very honored to be hosting a guest post from Matt Cameron, who I met at the Australia Social Media Summit back in November. Over several (read: six dozen) cups of excellent Melbourne coffee, I had a chance to chat with Matt and get to know this fellow over-caffeinated kindred spirit. Today, he's writing about his new diabetes blog, Insulin Pumps Need Tetris.* * *Hi, I’m Matt from Melbourne.Long time blog reader, short time blog writer. Before attending Australia’s first Diabetes Social Media Summit (#OzDSMS), organised by Renza and Kim at Diabetes Australia – Victor...
Source: Six Until Me. - January 24, 2013 Category: Diabetes Tags: Guest Diabetes Bloggers Source Type: blogs
Natalie Irish: Artist with Diabetes.
Natalie Irish is an artist who paints portraits with her mouth, using lipstick as her "paint" and her lips as the brush. While this is impressive all on its own, she creates her art all while wearing her pink insulin pump on her hip. I heard of Natalie through my friends at Animas, and when I watched her on Conan O'Brien, talking about her artwork with her insulin pump infusion set up on her arm, I knew I wanted to know more. Natalie was kind enough to spend some time chatting with me on the phone, and the girl is an advocacy powerhouse, using her talent and creativity to bring both art, and dia...
Source: Six Until Me. - January 23, 2013 Category: Diabetes Tags: Diabetes Advocacy Source Type: blogs
Avocado Overload.
I hate cooking and I am terrible at it and anyone who tries to sell me the whole, "But anyone can cook!" has clearly never seen me get mad at a frying pan for simply existing. But the trouble is, being human, I tend to get hungry several times a day. Which means I have to deal with food things.Sigh.Thankfully, I've found some very easy (both to make and easy-on-my-blood sugars) food wrangling opportunities to keep me from existing solely on coffee and mental trail mix. You need: Trader Joe's Just Grilled Chicken StripsOne avocadoRaw baby spinachOlive oilPreheat the frying pan. (Do you preheat a...
Source: Six Until Me. - January 22, 2013 Category: Diabetes Tags: Food Source Type: blogs
48 Questions.
Cherise (PYT!) fleshed out a little "getting to know you" meme for #dsma, and as my synapses are not properly firing this evening, I'm grabbing this to get the gears going again. (And while it's not a diabetes-centric meme, this one is.)1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?Not that I know of. But I do know that my father named my brother, my sister, and I. And there isn't any rhyme or symmetry to our names. 2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?I can't remember - I think it was October.3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
I like it enough. It's suffered tremendously since I started using the c...
Source: Six Until Me. - January 22, 2013 Category: Diabetes Tags: Oh, The Memes! Source Type: blogs
Fake Food.
"Here is an orange and a clementine and here is an avocado and some cheese and spinach and a banana and oh, here's a strawberry - two strawberries! - and some gwapes and a potato, some eggies, a carrot nose, and if you want to have a pear I have a pear right here." Birdy verbally rips through her little shopping basket of fake food, offering up her stash of delicious plastic pieces."And if your blood sugar is low, you can have glupose tabs or some of that gwape juice." She furrowed her brow thoughtfully. "Or a croissant. But not this one, because it's just PWETEND and it won't hel...
Source: Six Until Me. - January 21, 2013 Category: Diabetes Tags: Diabetic Mommy Source Type: blogs
In the Trenches.
What was different about yesterday? At first, I thought the Dexcom sensor was quitting. It was Day 8 of this sensor, but even though the adhesive was hanging on by a thread the day prior, the results were so matchy-matchy with my glucose meter that I was reluctant to pull the sensor. (That, and it didn't itch at all, so if it was spot-on and not giving me leg leprosy, I was all in.) I slapped on some Opsite Flexifix tape around the edges, in hopes of grabbing a few more days."GIVE ME YOUR BLOOD" the receiver shouted (or offered up the little blood droplet equivalent of that demand). It wan...
Source: Six Until Me. - January 18, 2013 Category: Diabetes Tags: Blood Sugar Source Type: blogs
My Reluctant Brush ... with the Dentist.
Anyone who says the patient communities on the web don't have a positive influence on health outcomes is out of their mind; the only reason I went to the dentist yesterday is because of Chris Angell's guest post. His admission of being slack when it came to the dental department has been in my head for months, and it was his post that made me finally call my dentist.Because I did NOT want to fall victim to decAY1c ... aka my diabetes eating my teeth beyond recognition.So when December rolled around, and I knew that my new insurance included dental and vision, I set up a bunch of necessary appointments in the new year...
Source: Six Until Me. - January 17, 2013 Category: Diabetes Source Type: blogs
Vitreous Humour.
"Do you want to see your retinas?"Who can resist that question? "Yes. I totally do."They look like giant, back-lit pumpkins on the screen, and for a few seconds, I forget those pumpkins are actually my eyeballs, photographed just seconds prior. "So these are the veins," he traced the photo with the computer's magnifying glass. "And these are the arteries. This part here is the optic nerve. And this is your macula."(The macula looks a lot like a weird eyeball nipple. But this is a thought I kept to myself, for awkwardnesses sake.)"And thi...
Source: Six Until Me. - January 16, 2013 Category: Diabetes Source Type: blogs
