World Diabetes Day- Next Month!

November 14th is World Diabetes Day!

I am going to speak to middle schoolers this year for World Diabetes Day! I'm super excited! I think that kids retain information more successfully than adults (mostly because we grown ups have too much garbage to think about! HA!) so I am super excited about this opportunity! I have some fun things in mind and will be bringing all my fun gadgets, giving myself a glucose test, and letting the students inject saline into oranges! :)

And of course I plan on addressing the BIGGEST misconceptions and common questions. "Do you have the BAD diabetes?" "Are you SURE you should eat that?" "You have diabetes? But you aren't overweight!"

Yipppeeee!

What are YOU planning on doing to help bring awareness of diabetes? If you have any great take aways or resources for me please feel free to link me up!! Thanks!

Eyes Eyes Eyes

Hey folks! I'm still here...... looks like you can expect about a monthly update from me now! Life is just so busy and it doesn't look like it will slow down anytime soon! Life is full of wonderful things however...... teaching music to children, working, playing with my own pre school aged children, tee ball games, ministering to local teenagers, softball games, worship services, BBQ's with friends, new babies (not my own!), weddings, housework, cooking, jogging, walking and shopping! Do you need a nap yet?

On the diabetes front, things are going okay. A few weeks ago I was blessed with the news that my retina's have started to slightly leak fluid. *That was sarcasm kids!!* This is also known as diabetic retinopathy. Don't get too freaked out by that link like I did when I first read it. I'll admit.... the first day after I got this news I was a nervous wreck and bawled my blurry little eyes out for the remainder of the day.

I went to a new eye doctor who was very kind, as was his entire staff. It was the oddest thing, every staff member at this office, including the doctor looked like they stepped out of a Ralph Lauren ad. But when the appointment was over it could kind of be summed up as, "You have retinopathy which means if you don't keep your sugars down you will go blind. Here's a pamphlet to read. See you in four months. Have a great day." Out the door I went with my sexy polorized glasses and waited for my Mom to pick me up, sobbing on the curb. I immediately let the "What-if's" get the best of me fearing thoughts of missing my children's weddings, grandchildren's births, not being able to read music anymore, etc.

After about a day I came to the conclusion that it was time for the pity party to end and worrying about this stuff was doing nothing but robbing me of the joy of TODAY. TODAY I am healthy, and have 20/20 vision, and life is WONDERFUL. Tomorrow I could get hit by a bus. Or drop dead with the swine flu. So today is going to be awesome.... I'm going to continue to keep my A1c down, wear my sunglasses and pray for the best... God will take care of the rest. I've had a peace about it since.... truly. If and when the surgeries come, or the vision starts to go.... I'll worry I'm sure, but not now. Waaaay too much life to live right now. :)

I'm Alive Folks!!!

Hey everyone! I know it's been forever! Blogging just has not been at the top of my priority list these past couple months, unfortunately! The first week of July we moved about 50 miles west of our old home! This was super stressful, but also a HUGE answer to prayer. We are now living VERY close to my side of the family and our church friends. My heart FINALLY feels settled! So I've spent the last two months doing things like securing a job (or 3... more about that later!), deciding where to send my precious kids to pre school, finding new doctors and dentists, unpacking, getting utilities hooked up and transferred, hanging out with new found friends from church, directing a week of Lake Aurora Church Camp.... and several other things I won't bore you with. WHEW!!!
So my favorite part so far? When I walk out my front door I walk about 25-50 feet down my sidewalk and get to see this in the morning.......



I KNOW!!! RIGHT?? Let me tell you, I just bawled my little eyes out the first night we went on a walk and I was able to just enjoy the waves and water at night. Now it's become an almost nightly routine to walk down this path at night!

With all this craziness going on, I have neglected my diabetes quite a bit. I looked at my 30 day average on my Freestyle Lite last night and was a little taken back at the number that scarily stared me in the face. 207. YIKES! Yesterday, yet another wake up call.... I was going to take my son Gabe and my niece and nephew to a movie, but my sugar spiked close to 400 right before we were about to leave and I ended up staying with Zoe to nap, while my sister took them. There is absolutely NOTHING that bugs me more about diabetes than when it gets in the way of making memories with the ones I love. I was really really bummed out. And it was my own fault. I had taken my pump off to swim with the kids for a couple hours and I didn't test properly during this time, thus leading to the high. I immediately just wanted to talk to someone who understood this feeling and it dawned on me how much I missed the dear people of the Diabetes online community. It truly makes a world of difference when you have friends who understand living with a chronic illness on the same level. :)

This morning the first thing I did was test. 104. The magic number!! It must be a good sign. I've got to put diabetes back on the priority map and take care of myself and my numbers before I answer the beckoning calls of everyone else needing sippee cups, Kibbles and Bits, or a clean work shirt. Cause we all know.... "If Mama aint happy, aint nobody happy." :)

More later....

My iphone Can Save Me From Any Dire Situation....

My husband jumped on the iPhone train last year when the 3G was released. I have finally joined him this year with the release of the new 3Gs. After having my iphone for about 2 weeks I am truly amazed at how often I rely on it now in so many situations. I told my husband the other day, "I am convinced that this phone can save me from just about any dire situation, honey!!"

Earlier this year LifeScan announced their cool little iphone app....

And while browsing through one of my favorite diabetes blogs, Diabetes Mine, I viewed this You Tube video of a design idea that I think is freakin brilliant!! I really hope someone picks this up and develops it. And it proved my point.... this phone is awesome, it's saving lives!! HAHA!

Blood Stain Tip

Hey Diabetics and Windy fans. It's been almost a MONTH since I've blogged! We are in the middle of a hectic move and my mind is in a million places!! Anyways, after a quick blood test today I realized I stained my brand new tank top with a little blood from my finger and I was pretty ticked. I got home and googled blood stains and found a nice little tip on eHow if you ever find yourself in the same predicament. I think this only works if you have NOT already washed and dried the clothing. (Fresh stains)

Pour hydrogen peroxide on the stain. Then pour salt on top of that. Wait 30 minutes and then wash! And it's gone! I scratched off the salt before I put it in the washer and I could see that it had turned red and pulled out the stain. A-may-zah-zing!

I will try to give you a more in depth update soon! FYI: The upped Synthroid dosage seems to be helping with my energy levels. =) So hooray for that!

Super Diabetes!

Tonight I was making a Blueberry Pineapple cobbler that is NOT diabetes friendly! HA! It's for the Memorial Day party we are attending tomorrow. Gabe helped me whip it up and as we were sprinkling the final 1/4 cup of sugar on the top he said, "Mom, if you ate this you'd get SUPER DIABETES!"

HA! I love this kid.

Follow Up... Thyroid Issues

I went to the endocrinologist and got a lot of blood work done. Like "holy cow I need a muffin or something after seeing that many tubes" amount of blood work done. The good news is.... my kidneys are perfect, my liver is perfect, I don't have lupus, my A1c is 6.8%. The bad news is my thyroid levels are low... which in a way is good news because now we know and we can start to fix it. My doc upped my Synthroid dosage. And said that'd be step one. If I don't feel better in 3 weeks he said to call him and we'd add a T3 hormone supplement.

I brought up the Armour idea and he wasn't thrilled with that. (I'm not sure if him being Jewish had anything to do with his dislike for a drug made from slaughtered pig thyroids? HAHA) So we'll go his way first and if that doesn't work, then I'll further pursue this idea. I really do like and trust my doctor so I'm okay with this decision for now.

So far, I don't notice much of a difference, but he said it would take a while for everything to adjust and kick in.