The Corner Booth

When Anthony Di Franco was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in his early 20s, he never dreamed that a decade later he’d be teamed up with a group of biohackers working to homebrew their own insulin. That’s what he is doing now in Berkeley, California, as a part of the Open Insulin project that aims to create a blueprint for insulin, an open-source protocol that would be universally created and shared so that others could actually make a generic version of insulin.  This project is a part of Counter Culture Labs , which sprung up from hacking community projects in the Bay Area and became a stand-alone non-profit organization. The goal: to develop an open insulin roadmap within the next decade. Along with Anthony, the Open Insulin project team began with roughly 50 self-described “hackers and tinkerers” who proudly point out they are all “bio-curious" -- with a mix of genetic engineering, software, biochemistry and biotech experience. Just as other tech-savvy and gadget-connected ha...

Confession time. Sometimes, I lie about my diabetes data. Just like I did back in my teen years, I tell fibs when it comes to my blood sugars. But unlike those days back in the 90s, this is real-time D-lying and it's mostly during the middle-of-the-night hours. The reason: To shut my D-tech up when it's getting on my nerves. When it's late at night, and all I want to do is sleep, my Dexcom CGM sometimes decides that the sky is falling and my blood sugar is Low. So, it decides to start vibrating incessantly and then beeping just to make sure I haven't missed the alerts. Of course, I am connected to CGM in the Cloud and thanks to the trio of Dexcom SHARE/Nightscout/xDrip my real-time data is streamed to my wife and she's able to know where my BGs are hovering at that given time. She gets alerts on her Pebble Watch, just as I do simultaneously on my 4 CGM-connected devices (G4 receiver, regular Android phone that has Dexcom SHARE app, secondary Android phone...

My watch said 10:56p, and as I walked toward the glass gas station door, the time written on the glass told me closing time was in roughly 4 minutes. Though the glass, I could see the gas station attendant mopping up around the counter. The shiny wetness told me he'd already cleaned the floor in the two food aisles where I planned to beeline toward once going inside. As I pulled the door open, he tossed a semi-annoyed look at me and the black dress shoes I was tracking inside. "Did I make it?!" I asked, glancing at my watch for no reason except to show him how concerned I was with the time. He didn't respond, but I really didn't care because this wasn't a pleasure visit to the gas station. No, I had a mission. And the vibrating Dexcom G4 on my belt reminded me that there was a more critical point to all of this. The 48 on my Dex receiver and CGM in the Cloud connected Pebble watch reminded me of the more critical point to all of this, the nightcap ...

This month is a big milestone in my world with diabetes, as it's the 10-year anniversary of when I first found the Diabetes Online Community (DOC), and my discovery of the mantra, "I am not alone." At the time, I was in my mid 20s, newly-married, and had just started experiencing mild neuropathy in my feet. I was in desperate need of finding others who could share similar real-world experiences, rather than textbook medical advice or horror stories about how bad things can get. Turning to the Internet (which we did even in 2005!), I found a woman on the East Coast who was about my age and telling her own diabetes story online. That was Kerri (Morone) Sparling at SixUntilMe , and for the first time when reading her personal posts, I felt a connection to someone who truly knew what I was going through -- maybe not neuropathy specifically, but just real life with diabetes. Thanks to Kerri, I soon came across another longtime type 1 named Scott Johnson in Minnesota, who was t...

Photo credit: Tim Mosenfelder/Getty images Being a huge classic rock fan, one of my all-time favorite groups is the legendary Foreigner, that’s brought us incredible tunes like Cold As Ice, Hot Blooded, Urgent, and I Want To Know What Love Is (to name a few). I’m a big classic rock geek and huge fan especially of Foreigner’s music from the 80s, and I’ve even been known to put my own diabetes spin on their music — changing up their classic rock hit Jukebox Hero to humming “Juicebox Hero.” So, imagine my excitement when learning that Foreigner was not only coming to my local Metro Detroit for a two-week tour with Michigan native rocker Kid Rock in August 2015, but also playing a private charity event benefiting the JDRF that would feature a live acoustic mix of its classic song favorites. OMG…! That’s about as cool as it gets, right?! I’ve been lucky to chat with pop singer Nick Jonas before, and a few years ago met 80s rocker Bret Michaels at a diabetes event, but this feels like ...

I don't remember the first cup of coffee that ever crossed my lips. But I do remember when coffee first became "a thing" for me, something I craved and wanted to drink up. Simply put: It was all about Coffee & Conversation, and the two went hand-in-hand. Everything came together at a local open-all-night diner dubbed Linda's Place, in my hometown of St. Clair Shores. That was the spot that became a second home of sorts back in the mid-90s, especially during my latter years of high school. A good friend and I would make a plan to go there at all hours -- whether it was in the not-so-late evening hours, the after-midnight hours when our writing pens would magically come alive, or even during the morning or afternoon hours when we were supposed to be stationed at school. Sure, I may have tried coffee before then and tasted it every so often, but never did I enjoy it the way that I started to in high school. Coffee was an acquired love, one more about the experi...

For those who weren't aware, I just made a move from Indiana back to Southeast Michigan. It's been an adventure packing everything up for the move, which just happened this past week. And I wrote about some of that fun over at DiabetesMine the other day. Photo made by me, so I'm posting it here. Since it's my Moving Day, D-Stuff, and Dog. When Moving Day arrived, I had my trusty Dexcom G4 connected along with my data-sharing CGM in the Cloud setup. You know, to keep tabs on where my blood sugars were at during this move between states. As is typically the case, the low blood sugars came at the most inconvenient time. The first was just as we were getting on the road for the 5+ hour drive (more like 7, thanks to the 20' moving truck slowing things down). Everything looked fine as we were leaving the house, as my G4 happily told me that I was part of the 100 Club with a 100 mg/dL at that moment. Like, the move was meant to be! We were all good ...

 Nick Jonas is no longer the teenage boy band star with a squeaky clean image. Enter the new Nick, now in his early 20s with a grittier edge , and a lot is changing for him and his fans. In the past year or so, Nick's branched out on his own as an artist, added more adult-oriented TV and movie appearances to his acting resume, and just recently announced he's partnering with singer friend Demi Lovato to start a new record label called Safehouse Recordings . Not to mention that the twenty something is of course one of us PWDs (people with diabetes), who's been living with type 1 for almost a decade now since age 13. Amy Tenderich at DiabetesMine first chatted with Nick back in 2007 and then again in 2010, delving into his then budding music career and how he hoped to use his voice to advocate and serve as a role model for the diabetes community. Fast forward to 2015 when the celeb marked his 10 year anniversary of life with T1D: Nick announced that he's beco...

A friend posted a question online the other day that got me thinking. Certainly not a new question, as it's been going around online for years. My answer: Well, it depends... Mostly, on the rules. Just how exactly am I going to be trapped in TV? Will this be like the movie Pleasantville , where I'm basically tossed into an existing story line but am really myself (except everyone seems to think I'm a particular character)? Maybe Quantum Leap , where I basically "leap" into other people's bodies and am confined to that reality and whatever limitations they may have (if they are a minority, or in a wheelchair, or a man or woman -- that's me for the time I'm in there)? Or is it like Back to the Future , where I'm just plopped into some point and am just living my life as myself, except in the context of whatever show and time period we happen to be in. These are important considerations in deciding on the show, I think. Because reall...