The Corner Booth

A small group of us in the Indy area got together recently for an Adult Diabetes Meetup. About 8 of us came out, including my good friend Cherise Shockley who also lives nearby in the Indy area. We had some great conversation, ranging from the crazy winter weather, jobs, our dogs, health insurance adventures, insulin pumps v. injections, the wonders of CGMs and of course some other random points during the course of two hours. Of course, the big question we analyzed: " What is a Hoosier ?" This is a question that apparently has no rock-solid answer, and in the decade I've been living in Indy there's been no consensus. I remember a local museum exhibit years ago exploring that, without anything be settled. As always, no matter what we were talking about, it was good conversation. And there was plenty of coffee to go around! Here's a photo of the group, which sadly doesn't include Cherise as she had to scoot before this was taken. It also doesn'...

The Diabetes Community got quite worked up recently about a Miss Manners advice column appearing in newspapers all over the country, in which the etiquette expert's advice to a type 1 diabetic seemed to say that he ought to flee to the restroom when doing blood sugar checks on an airplane. You know... because that finger poke might be seen by others as a task more "properly done out of sight." Um... what?! Hundreds from the D-Community responded with letters, emails, newspaper comments, and (at least three dozen) blog posts about how they felt the column slighted people with diabetes. Many dubbed advice-columnist Miss Manners "ignorant" or worse, and some called for an apology to our community. We also spotted forum discussions on Children With Diabetes , Diabetes Daily and TuDiabetes, and the Glu community even posted a survey on the topic to which a majority of people responded that they are NOT embarrassed to check their BG in public. Themes we...

New diabetes tech is always exciting! A clear Minimed Revel 723 (without CGM!) Ah, the box opening... FUN! Out with the old 722, in with the new 723... (sorry, my out-of-warranty friend.) There's now a new D-Device Love Triangle... Yet, there is sadness as someone is always left behind and looking in from the outside. Yes, I see you there, my out-of-warranty friend, all by yourself and peering from behind the new trio. My dear insulin pump Gibbs Corleone, the ole Don of Rage Bolusing . You will be missed, but not forotten. You've been a trusted and reliable companion for the past few years. You were the latest in a line of insulin pumps, and followed loyally in the footsteps of your predecessors Bacon Gibbs and Tony P "Scarface" before him. And even though you were past your prime, you continued your job without complaint. Even when I started flirting with others this past year and considered proposing to that younger touchscree...

It's 2014, and there's no zombie apocalypse playing out in the real world like it is on hit shows like The Walking Dead . The world as we know it hasn't ended, chaos hasn't ensued, and death isn't necessarily right around the corner. At least, not for most of us in developed countries. But for some diabetic children in parts of the world, it's more like an apocalyptic society than we may realize. Life is grim, uncertain and anything but pleasant, and death is right around the corner. No, there's no flesh-eating zombies chasing after them. But they're facing the likelihood of death just the same, because their access to life-sustaining insulin is as challenging or impossible as it might be during a zombie apocalypse. For them, it's a "No Insulin Apocalypse" that is pretty much the same as it would be if there were zombies roaming the earth. Source: Pinterest . Now, hear me out for a minute: I don't mean to make light of t...

There's nothing like the burning sensation on the right sight of your abdomen during a bolus of insulin to signal that it's time to change your infusion set after a few days. And then the burning sensation you feel on the other side of your abdomen during a bolus, to tell you the site you just put a new infusion set on is no good. Even better when this all goes down in the course of 20 minutes. As you are walking out the door trying to make your way to a coffee shop, to tell a local insulin pump rep why you're not interested in their device but prefer the one you're wearing. You do have a sense of humor, diabetes. I'll give you that. And no, I doubt this is what Jane Fonda had in mind when it came to feeling the burn. But hey, you know what they say: No Pain, No Gain . A small price to pay for the privilege of using an insulin pump.

"Where would you like to go to dinner?" The inquiry came from my wife, tossed in my direction non-nonchalantly a few days before that Friday evening we were planning for. Her question seemed innocent enough, but really it was just disguised as one that could've been asked any night of the week. This time, there was a lot more pressure tied to the answer. You see this was no ordinary dinner. It was my birthday dinner, on Feb. 1. My 35th, to be exact. OK, maybe that's all a little dramatic. Really, there was no pressure and we weren't hard-pressed to decide where we wanted to eat. Thirty-five isn't 16, or 21, or 30, or 40, or... you get the point. We actually were planning for Friday night (Jan. 31) rather than my birthday on Saturday, because we had planned to be spending the day and dinner hours with our friends. Their youngest daughter was turning 3 and that was the day they'd chosen for her birthday party. A three-year-old unwrapping gifts, slop...

With 2014 marking the 5th Diabetes Art Day, created by my friend Lee Ann Thill who lives in New Jersey and has been living with type 1 since the late 70s. I'm a huge fan of this, even though I'm someone who isn't artistic by any stretch of the imagination but enjoys tapping into my emotions about how diabetes makes me feel. That's what D-Art Day is all about -- art therapy, something Lee Ann is passionate about and inspires this community to take part in year after year. Taking inspiration from my header up there on The D-Corner Booth itself, I made a sketch about how I sometimes feel when it comes to living with type 1. If diabetes life were a cup of coffee, this may be what it would look like in sketch-form: See that test strip there, floating around? Yep. That's me, just trying to stay afloat and not sink in the never-ending cup of diabetes coffee. With a little help from the Diabetes Online Community (#DOC) when needed, of course! Another D-reality...