The Corner Booth

A ninja stands on the mountain top, peering out over the California countryside and singing songs of hope for all those who may need it. His mad ninja skills are always sharp and he advocates for the cause. Same goes for others, who use their lives and powers for a greater good. From Boston to California, Canada to Mexico. In the United Kingdom, Germany, and Australia. (Most recently, breaking news told us of a sighting in Minneapolis!) However, there are villians out there trying to thwart those heroic plans. Like the strategically schemeful Siah and Shadow Cats, who are bent on world domination and plot to conquer the galaxy. The Diabolical Doctor and Wicked Witch of Chicago, who spread fear and misinformation to trick the general population into believing they're the saviors. Or the Diabetes Police who appear to be nice and well-meaning but really strive to oppress and control lives. This is the reality happening in public and behind the scenes e...

At the end of March, I started a Pump Hiatus that was my first break from insulin pumping since I'd began it nine years earlier. This was a chance to help my war-torn body and infusion sites heal some. This in no way signalled any unhappiness with the concept of pumping, which was a life-changing experience in June 2001 and has allowed flexibility and better health in the near-decade since then. Now, it's the end of April. I've been doing at least two shots a day in that time, sometimes as many as six depending on how many times I eat or correct in a day. I've written some in the first month, such as a post about my Raspberry Jammed Diabetes trending without a pump. Overall, my verdict after a month: I miss my pump and all the benefits brought into my world. Life just hasn't been the same. My definition of "normal" has changed, and it's not a change I'm too enthused about on reflection. The Minimed 722 (who we'll fondly refer to by the pro...

We had a wild two-part weekend, all to support Type 1 diabetes research and the Indianapolis Humane Society. First, it was the annual JDRF Indiana Promise Gala in downtown Indy. I'd helped setup on Friday morning, one of about a dozen people who helped unload auction items from the truck and arrange in numerical order so they could be easily handed out to winning bidders on Saturday. Being black tie optional, we put on our Sunday Best and headed to the Marriott hotel in downtown Indy for the Saturday evening event, where the second floor was decorated in jungle and wildlife theory on point for the Wild For a Cure theme. More than 600 people attended, organizers said. Being that my company the Indianapolis Business Journal was one of the event sponsors, so the company got some free tickets for us and three other couples - otherwise the costly $200 per person event would probably be off limits. President of Pacers Sports & Entertainment, Jim Morris, was th...

This weekend brings much fun and festivity, all in the name of good causes. Mostly significantly, the annual JDRF Indiana Promise Gala happens Saturday night in Indianapolis. We attended for the first time in 2009, as my company is one of the third-highest level sponsors (Eli Lilly and Roche are two of the highest level sponsors, for the record). Being Type 1 for 26 years, I'd never had a chance to attend a Gala before and it was awesome. We lost out on some of the fun silent auction items before the dinner and ceremonies began, but managed to buy a charitable drink for a good cause. This year presented another opportunity through my employer to attend this annual event and I jumped at the chance. Since I've become more involved in the JDRF, it has even more meaning. The theme: Wild For The Cure. Many auction items that will surely draw some charitable giving, including a 5-month old Golden Retreiver male puppy! (V alue: A Bonding Experience... Priceless! ). La...

Disclosure: This blog post was originally written by Scott Strange (@Strangely_T1) who writes Strangely Diabetic . Seeing what a great work it was, I decided to personalize it to spread the "Understanding." So enjoy, but realize that most of this isn't my original work. Here is your glimpse inside my Life With Diabetes. Read at your own risk, realizing I'm a 31-year husband who's had Type 1 diabetes since age 5, is by no means in good control, and doesn't pretend in any way to say anything that could possibly be construed as advice to be applied to your life. As a PWD (person with diabetes) there are certain things that I do everyday without really even thinking about them. Having been diabetic since 1984, diabetes is like having brown eyes and brown hair. It's a way of life. Something I've lived with since age 5 and will probably live with every day until I die. There is no cure. No treatment that can make it go away. This is something that must ...

Life is so often about attitude. We all must have Heart. That's a given for those of us who are human beings. We need a Functional one to pump our blood, while we also need to have an Emotional Organ that spurs Spirit, Passion, Laughter & Love. Necessities for a full, quality life. The same can be said about our mouth. We must have the functional aspects of healthy teeth to chomp down our food and simply be able to talk and smile. But an important half of that same equation is the ability to use our mouth for spreading smiles, and being a voice in whatever we chose to be advocate for. I like to think I've got both the functionality and emotional aspects covered for both my heart and mouth. But that may not be the case. Though I'm only 31, I'm worried about already losing a part of that essential equation made up of Functionality and Emotions. Without one part of each equation, you can't have a Healthy Heart or Stellar...

Crashing. Into the shivering waters of uncertainty Where Low is the only height to achieve. Trickery tricks me into thinking. Comprehension Exists. Crashing beyond. Common it becomes. 57. 36. 43. Fearful figures. Cloudy vision casts into sight. Warped memories invade my mind. Crazy conversation steals confidence. Can't escape Clouds of Uncertainty. Lower than they should be. Craving-carbs, but cashless. Quick surge needed. Until I can soar higher Toward safety, sanity. Comprehension. For now Causes completely unknown. A combo of two, maybe one. Mixtures soaring too high. Catapulting me downward. Into a wave of uncertainty. Change is needed. Now. Certainly. That's the only certainty.

The night hour was late. I suspect it must have been bedtime. Earlier that night, I had eaten an easy carb-counted meal and dosed appropriately for it. That followed a Blood Glucose of 120 mg/dL. Certainly, a bedtime BG in the mid-100s wasn't an unreasonable expectation. A 457 mg/dL flashed across the screen of my One Touch UltraLink. "What the...?!?!?!" I backtracked, not believing it. All food calculations had been right, enough time had passed, no extra stress, no tea or coffee, etc... My mind flashed to the recent debate about Blood Glucose Meter Accuracy and the existing error margin rate of 20%+/-, and how "patient error" is so often blamed for the inaccurate results rather than some device inadequacy. This must be a more inaccurate reading, I concluded. Convinced, I became determined to get an accurate reading. Enough blood. Correct coding from test strips. Hands washed and dry. Then, another thought came to my mind: What if "higher" ...

A Morning Low this past Friday turned me into a wrestler. A D-Wrestler. The opponent: Suzi, my D-Wife. We were forced to wrestle against diabetes. Stories are that it was quiet the competitive match, and it wasn't pretty at times. But we pulled through, and it's taught some lessons. That night before, I'd gone to bed on Thursday night, still on newspaper deadline and prepped for a pretty active Friday morning trying to finish what needed to be done. Bedtime BG was 495, a consequence of Date Night that yielded great wine and dining in downtown Indy. Though I'd done a slight SWAG (Scientific Wild-Axx Guessing) for dinner, the result was still somewhat surprising. Took my night-time Lantus Pen shot, an hour or so earlier than the night before. Calculated the bolus, realizing that it might be worthwhile to check at 3 a.m. just to be safe. Headed off to bed and throughout the night all appeared well. Suzi got up for work early, and all a...

You may know that I'm a fan of 80s movies. Particularly comedies such as Caddyshack, Weird Science, the Breakfast Club and Others that offered humor as an outlet. These helped shape my earlier years, and now they offer some mindless release and laughs into an often sobering adult life. Another favorite is Spaceballs, a 1987 sci fi parody that mocks movies like Star Wars and Star Trek and has become a cult classic. This movie goes beyond greatness and is simply a stellar creation of the highest form, fitting right into the Hoskins Hall of Movie AWEsomeNess. So on that movie homage note, I honor Spaceballs with my analysis of some recent D-Life happenings as it relates to the first 10 days or so of my continuing Pump Hiatus . You may recall my most recent post on Good Friday about My Burning Bush Toe , or the neuropathy-impacted body part that's become a radar-like tool in my D-Management. Over time, I've noticed that when my ...

This is a story about sports, but at its heart it speaks to the passion that we all strive to pursue in our own daily lives. To those of us in the Diabetes Community, an Indiana man named Brad Stevens could have been a piece of the larger puzzle we experience in Living with Diabetes. We should be thankful that he didn't, but we should also take a lesson from his playbook. Out of college with an economics degree, he found a place at pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly here in Indianapolis. He scored a gig as a marketing associate, with his job description including metrics and incentives for a sales group. While it may not have been directly tied to anything related to diabetes, that could have been a part of his career or future role in marketing the Big Pharma's involvement in the Diabetes Community. But it wasn't meant to be. While living a comfortable life as a recent college grad, the Lilly spot didn't entice him as much as his lifelong passion for baske...

The Easter weekend presented the chance for a new opportunity: my first time meetup with a member of the Diabetes Online Community. Four of us plugged in DOC'ers (via Twitter and D-blogs) are based here in the Hoosier State, which some may know to be the Crossroads of America. While my abode is on the southside of Indianapolis, two others are on the northside of the city while another is based up in Fort Wayne. Two of us 4 found a chance to meetup on Saturday. It was a Meeting of the Mike's from Indiana. Mr. Mike Durbin (a.k.a #mydiabeticheart ), who hosts the  MyDiabeticHeart  blog, was returning from a vacation visiting family in Louisville, KY and was driving back through central Indiana. We'd decided to avoid downtown Indianapolis thanks to the craziness of Final Four Weekend, so we met up at a cafeteria-restaurant about a mile from my house, right off his interstate route home to the northern part of the...

In honor of Good Friday & Easter, I offer a Bible-themed post as it relates to my own D-Life. Even if religion isn't necessarily your cup of tea, I invite you to read on for a little insight from my own perspective at the D-Corner Booth. Those who've been churched likely know the story of Moses & the Burning Bush, which precedes the Red Sea Parting and can be found in the Book of Exodus (3:1-15) . The Bible story goes that Moses is called on by God from within the flames, instructed to confront the Egyptians and save the Hebrews by leading them out of Egypt. Basically, I see this as a story of confronting what's tough and doing what's needed, obeying a higher power that may be sending out warning signs to guide you along the way. That's my interpretation, mind you - as someone who grew up mostly "unchurched" but in recent years has embraced the Methodist School of Thought through Grace Church . As it relates to my own Diabetes...

No time for my chatty-typing fingers to engage you today. I'm off to the dentist's office for a dreaded appointment. Thanks to the wonders of D-enduced periodontal disease, this should be a visit full of poking, prodding, pain, and likely some bleeding. Great times. Not looking forward to this visit. Or the next more painful one. I see soup in my future. Maybe Easy Mac. But, I digress. That's all fodder for a future blog post. In the meantime today, talk amongst yourselves. Flap those online gums in the blogging world. And remember to brush and floss.