The Corner Booth

We took to sorting through old insulin pump supplies and prepping them for donation. In the month since switching from Minimed to the Cozmo, we haven't gone through the old pump supplies to make way for the new. Seperate cardboard boxes with new and old have occupied space in the bedroom, and others remained unsifted through in a plastic storage bin under the bed. So, today was the day of inventory. It's amazing how much can accumulate over time. Found two plastic Paradigm holsters. Multiple cases. Box after box of reservoir (the push-kind and newer, non-push kind), and piles of varying blood meters. Once, I'd used the Freestyle palm pilot version that was so cool at the time... Of course, eventually, having two Palm Pilots, a cell phone, and PDA just didn't make sense. So it began collecting dust like meters of the past. Now, the work is done. Two full boxes of supplies and a single bag of blood meter items - all neatly listed on a piece of white legal pad paper and re...

It all makes sense after reading this news story today. CHICAGO — Diabetic children who spent the most time glued to the TV had a tougher time controlling their blood sugar, according to a Norwegian study that illustrates yet another downside of too much television. The findings, based on a study of children with Type 1 diabetes, lend support to the American Academy of Pediatrics’ advice that children watch no more than two hours of TV daily, said lead author Dr. Hanna Margeirsdottir of the University of Oslo. Type 1 diabetes is the less common form of the disease and used to be called juvenile diabetes. It is not related to obesity and is caused when the body cannot make insulin, which converts sugar from food into energy. People with Type 1 must take insulin daily and regulate their blood-sugar levels. Snacking and overeating can increase blood-sugar levels; physical activity can lower them. While TV-viewing is often accompanied by snacking, the researchers didn’t examine diet or phy...

This was the scene in our garage Wednesday. What an adventure the day was. It began with me working from home for a few hours in the morning to attend to matters on the homestead. Leaving late morning to the office in downtown Indy, I ventured outside to see this duo sniffing through our curbside trash. Calling to them, the doggies ran off. Following in my car, they led me through the neighborhood on a similar trash investigating pursuit and almost once got mowed down by a speeding construction van. That made my decision - they can't be left alone. At one point, I cornered the dalmation on a lawn with a trusty banana I'd grabbed on the way out the door. Petting her as she laid down to sniff it, I examined her pink and rainbow-colored collar and the dogbone-shaped tag that listed her name "Dot" and a local phone number. A call yielded no results. Using the banana, I pursuaded the dalmation to get into my car. But she wouldn't leave without the Beagle, who wouldn...

A month of using the Cozmo after trading in my long-used Minimed 512 - verdict: I'm still not convinced. The Cozmo has some worthwhile and coveted features, don't get me wrong. But it's almost a flashback to an earlier age. Trading in the 21st Century for the early 80s, let's say. Ok fine -early 90s. But you get the point. Blood testing is the fuel for our tight management of this disease. But my desire for that testing and management seems to have drifted off as a result of the inpractical design of the Cozmo. Engineers and sales reps, please take note. You shouldn't have to be familiar with the pump to be able to use it. In other words, the only practicality comes from knowing it well enough to not have to glance at the pump face or buttons to be able to use it without irritation. Sitting through a movie this past weekend, several alarms kept disrupting my movie-viewing. One button has a snooze feature, while the other cancels the alert out. Not knowing which was ...