Monday Morning Meme.

I've never done a meme on this blog before, but I liked the 30 Days in Photos Project list over at Hey Baby Que Paso. (Thanks for the idea, Erin!) Day One's prompt is A picture of yourself with ten facts, and I'm borrowing that concept for today's post.

A picture of myself:

Hey, look! It's the Empire State Building!

And, ten things about me, exclusive of diabetes.

1. One of my favorite feelings in the world is laughing to the point of crying. If you can make me do that, I will buy you a sandwich.
2. June is easily one of my favorite months - my birthday, my wedding anniversary, my dad's birthday - oh yeah, and Flag Day. 
3. I guess I've established a pattern of having a thing for birds?*
4. When I was a fifth grader, our teacher dressed up for Halloween as Vincent Van Gogh. (She even had a bandage over her ear.) Ever since then, he's been my favorite artist. His work just makes sense to me.
5. My feet are always cold, which seems to bother Aaron more than it bothers me.
6. I'm a bit addicted to lip balm/gloss. I'm not sure how this happened.
7. I have a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. I haven't practiced since high school though, so don't expect me to pull out any wicked-awesome moves if we get mugged in an alley someday.
8. There are a whole mess of movies that I haven't seen. Movies that "everyone" has seen. Movies that, when I claim to not having seen it, people generally react "WHAT???!?! You haven't seen _____??!!!?!?!" Yeah, sorry. I'm probably never going to get around to seeing them, either - but I can totally quote some Billy Madison or Anchorman for you in the meantime.
9. Cardigan sweaters are a wardrobe staple. I must have at least twenty of them.
10. I will listen to just about anything with a good beat. But maybe you already knew that.

*I've noticed recently that I seem to keep collecting decorative things with birds on them. Examples:

Favorite purse ever.

More birds.

Aaaaand... another bird.

Conquering The Plague.

I was feeling a little defiant last night.

Well, really, I was just craving cereal and feeling optimistic. Specifically, I was craving this goodness:

image credit here

As I've mentioned before, cereal tends to do wicked things to my blood sugar. Think of Superman taking flight. Think NASA launch. Think V2 roller coaster.

I'm not afraid to try things a bit out of the ordinary to make diabetes management work for me. And so, in that spirit, I tried something new to combat the post-cereal spikery: yoga.

Granted, it was limited yoga, as I was wearing earbuds that were plugged into my laptop as I tuned into the DSMA Live radio show last night, but it was enough activity to limit my spike to the 160's, instead of the usual 240's. And not only did my blood sugar appreciate it, I felt energized and muscle-tingly afterwards. It's been a while since I've practiced the art of being Gumby. I took a few yoga classes at the gym we used to belong to, and I've also dabbled with the Wii Fit's yoga routines. Yoga has always left me in a feels-like-singing-and-dancing kind of good mood.

So that's my new combo - cereal and yoga. But preferably, not at the same time. (That would be messy...)

I might have also ended my yoga exercise with a triumphant warrior pose.  Maybe.

Oh, Google. You Make Me Giggle.

Blog stats are an entertaining (and slightly addicting) thing to pay attention to. When someone finds this blog through a search engine, I get to see what they typed in that led them to me. Some of it is funny, some of it heartwarming, and some of it is downright weird.  I thought I'd share a few of my recent favorites.

"it looks like i was texting but i was checking my insulin pump".  This made me laugh out loud, for real. Sounds like they found the right blog!

"archery". All because of this post, I presume.

"aaron kowalski". My interest in the Artifical Pancreas Project is no secret - but I do feel badly that traffic gets directed to me, and not to the official APP site. Whoops! Sorry, Dr. K. (Can I call you that?)

"balsamic vinegar pancreas". What? Eww. No. Stop that.

"songs about texting". Sorry to disappoint. None of that here.

"blunt lancet", "bluntlancet", and "blunt lancet merch". YES! This makes me so excited that I kind of don't know how to properly express it. I end up sitting here at work, trying to suppress a smile, which probably makes me look slightly creepy.

Being Resourceful.

I had plans last night for dinner with friends. (Actually, it's a "book club", but seeing as how I hardly ever get around to reading the books anymore, I consider it more of a "dinner date".) As I sat in my parked car outside of the restaurant, I did a quick blood test. The results weren't surprising, as I had been stuck at that number for several hours: 152.

Well, that's annoying.

In the past three hours, I had done four correction boluses - and they seemed to bounce right off of that 152 like it was a trampoline. I hadn't eaten since lunch, either, so I knew there weren't any tricky carbs at play. My infusion site looked fine (and still looked fine when I removed it at home, later that night). I had no answers.

It is times like this where a rage bolus starts to sound really, really attractive - much like ice cream after a bad day, or Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man. (Am I the only one that thinks he's stupid-hot in that movie? Aaron thinks it's a weird crush to have. Maybe I just like the fact that his glowy chest thing looks a lot like a backlit insulin pump through his shirt. End digression.) I knew that bolusing from the pump wouldn't work, so I retrieved the back-up Humalog pen I always carry in my purse. I dialed up two units.

Then I thought, "Wait - where the hell am I going to inject this?" Like so many other parts of the country, mid-January is darn cold in Nebraska, and I was bundled up in several layers. Layers that weren't at all conducive to a tummy injection site.

My solution, as it has been many times before, is to use whatever body part is most easily accessible, which meant that last night I shunked that pen needle into the side of my calf.

These are not my legs.

My legs were the least-layered body part at the time, and due to upper body layers, going in from the top wasn't an option. Lift pant leg; insert needle. The funniest thing? I didn't even feel it!

I've also been known to use the top of my forearms. Hey - it's prime, untouched real estate, and I'm using however much of it I think I can get away with.

Googly Eyes and French Toast.

For all the times in life that I'll have to explain and re-explain, then re-word, or just give up and nod about diabetes to others (others = people with fully functioning pancreases), there are probably just as many times that someone close to me gets it totally right. I'm lucky to have a few people like that in my life. My husband, Aaron (yep, that's who "A" is - the secret's out!), has become one of those people.

It wasn't always like that, though. Not through any fault of his own - he just didn't have any experience around someone with type 1 diabetes. When we first started dating back in 2005 (We didn't even have Facebook back then! And we had to walk uphill both ways to get anywhere!), diabetes wasn't center-stage in my life, like it tends to be now.  The idea of wearing an insulin pump was something I scoffed at, a bit. I was on injections of Lantus and Humalog, didn't test a whole lot, and the subject of diabetes never really came up until I had to take a shot for something.

Here's the part where I border on bragging: Aaron has picked up on a lot over the last six years. He doesn't always know where I am BG-wise or anything like that, but he's been through enough to know what to do (and what not to say). He's a good listener, a quick study, and possibly the most patient person I've ever met. He knows how to fill a pump cartridge, tape down the Dexcom sensors I can't reach, and use glucagon (though he's never had to use it, yet). If I need to have my blood sugar checked while I'm driving, he's all over it. Out of pockets when we go for a walk? He's happy to stash glucose tabs, Jim, or whatever else in his.

Sometimes, his awesomeness leaves me with nothing else to do but grin and stare at him with admiring, googly eyes.

For example, this past Sunday morning found him up and around a little while before me. When I awoke to the smell of cinnamon-y goodness, he greeted me with: "Wake up and bolus!" It was endearingly cute - and so accurate - because he knows I have to bolus well ahead of stuff like french toast to minimize the otherwise ridiculous BG spike.

Friday night found us at a bar downtown with some friends. At some point in the evening, I noticed what the cheese quesadilla I had downed earlier was doing to Jim, (It was reminiscent of a NASA launch) and Aaron heard me react. He leaned over to look at the screen.

"Wow. I haven't seen you go that high in a long time."

"I know, right? I have no idea why, either. I was 75 and trending down before we ate."

One of our friends overheard the conversation, and asked, "So, wait...   that thing's in you?" I was all ready to launch into the normal "here's what a CGM is" program, but something pretty cool happened instead.

For the first time I can recall, Aaron took charge of explaining to someone else how Jim works, while I just sat there and kinda marveled at him. He expertly clicked through the different graphs, and explained where "normal" fell on the scale. He knew how often a new reading showed up, and how to describe what the sensor looks like. He was telling our friend things I never knew he paid attention to.

If living with diabetes is supposed to be a marathon, we can think of these kinds of people - our "type 3's" - as part of our relay team. Aaron takes a turn carrying the baton once in a while, without me ever asking him to.

I love him for a million reasons, and this is another to add to the pile.

An Unnecessary Quest.

Today's post will be classified under "other shenanigans".

I have a thing for lists, and for organization. Due to these two character traits, I felt compelled to follow through on an idea I had last week: What if I listened to a band on my iPod for every letter of the alphabet, in order?

The only letters I couldn't cover were X and Z. (Which, by the way, bothers me. But that's how this went down.) There's really no good reason to share this list, but I'm a blogger with need of a topic today, so here we are.

Adele:  19
Black Eyed Peas:  The E.N.D.  (I know; I'm not sure why, either.)
The Chemical Brothers:  Singles 93 - 03
The Decemberists:  Castaways and Cutouts
Eagles of Death Metal:  Death by Sexy
The Faint:  Fasciinatiion
Girl Talk:  Night Ripper (Girl Talk has ruined so, so many songs for me - but I can't stop listening. Sooo catchy!)
The Hold Steady:  The Hold Steady Almost Killed Me
Imogen Heap:  Speak For Yourself
Jay-Z:  The Black Album
Kenna:  Make Sure They See My Face
La Roux: self-titled
Muse:  Absolution
Neon Trees:  Habits
Operation Ivy:  Energy
Placebo:  self-titled
Queen:  Greatest Hits 1
Radiohead:  OK Computer (This album reminds me of college. That is all.)
Shiny Toy Guns:  We Are Pilots
Tenacious D: self-titled
U2:  The Joshua Tree
Vampire Weekend:  self-titled (Not even Tommy Hilfiger commercials can keep me away...)
The White Stripes:  De Stijl
Yeah Yeah Yeahs:  Show Your Bones

Why I Love My Teeth.

There aren't many of us who can say we look forward to a trip to the dentist. The promise of a free toothbrush doesn't quite balance the uncomfortable feeling of someone sticking their fingers under your tongue, scratching your teeth with miniature ice picks, and vacuuming the spit out of your mouth. And then, having to pay for it.

For some, this attitude can be applied to seeing doctors in general - it's not the most pleasant way to spend your time.  Those of us who live with diabetes see more than our fair share of healthcare people, and "one more appointment" can feel like that proverbial straw, threatening our motivation camel. (See also: my inner six-year-old, crying and yelling I don't waaaaant toooooooo!) In other words, we'd rather be doing something else.

And here comes the part where I reveal another layer of my weird: I'm not one of those people.

I love going to the dentist.

It's partly because the receptionist starts greeting me, by name and with a smile, before I've even finished passing through the doorway. It's partly because on days like this, where the flakes won't stop whizzing by the window, they let me escape via the super-secret FIRE DOOR: DO NOT ENTER UNLESS DURING EMERGENCY door, because it will let me out mere steps from the mound of snow my car is under. But, mostly, it's because this is the one doctor I can count on getting a gleamingly perfect review from.

I was blessed with very healthy teeth. Looking at some of the dental history in my family, I'm not sure how I drew this lucky card - but I've sometimes wondered if this is that one golden ticket life gave me.

"Your pancreas and thyroid will slack off, and I'm going to call some other things too - but teeth?  Teeth you can have."

When I sit in that plastic-covered lounge chair, I don't have to talk about fasting numbers, or how often I'm testing, or how I gained 3 lbs. since my last appointment. I don't have to get blood drawn. I don't even have to think about anything, really, except for the neat-o pattern on the ceiling, and how fun the hygienist's purple gloves are.

This is the one place where I consistently get to hear things like, "Beeyoooootiful."  "Everything looks GREAT!" and "You really didn't leave me much to work on!  Keep up the great work."  It's a blissful change of pace from "We need to work on these post-prandial spikes", or the dreaded "You need to do basal testing".

My dental office is my health oasis.  (Which, as my friend put it, is "pretty floss-some".)

Blunt Lancet: Got Merch?

Holy shots of insulin, guys.  I had heard rumors about Blunt Lancet's comeback, but I had no idea it would progress to anything this awesome. 

Have you checked out Diabetes Mine today?

They've featured my favorite "band" today, and announced that there is an actual merch store you can buy real things from.  Kudos to Kelly Rawlings of Diabetic Living magazine for pulling that all together, and finding a way to support the Diabetes Hands Foundation in the process.

I'm totally wearing a Blunt Lancet t-shirt to my next endo appointment.

Hanging Out At The Corner Booth.

Today, you'll find me over at The Diabetic's Corner Booth.  Mike was one of the first people who found me when I started this whole blogging thing (and one of my first commenters), and I've always appreciated his passion for diabetes advocacy, truthiness, humor and coffee.  (Is it any wonder we get along so well?)

I'm honored to have a guest post on his site today - head on over and read it here.

Thanks for the opportunity, Mike!  :)

Focus, Kim.

When I removed my two-day-old insulin pump infusion site last night, I received the surprise of my biggest "gusher" to date. I bled through six paper towels, people.  (SIX!) After several minutes, I ended up with a big gauze-reinforced band-aid over it, as I was tired of holding paper to my stomach.

I couldn't believe how much blood I'd lost. And like any good diabetes blogger, my first thoughts were, "Where's my camera?", "I should Tweet about this", and "This is what I'm blogging about tomorrow".

"Dude.  I'm right here."

But while I was busy being "excited" about this, I forgot something very important. Something I wear all of the time, that feels as much a part of me as a robot pancreas can.

I forgot to reconnect myself! My lonely Ping just sat there, right next to my laptop and unattached to anything, for the next 45 minutes.

How do I even do that?