Author Archives: StephenS

Hello… I’m Stephen. I live in Baltimore, Maryland, USA with The Great Spousal Unit, Maureen. I’ve been living with Type 1 Diabetes since January 1991. I’ve been a pump user since April 2010, and I’m currently wearing the Animas Vibe pump. Also wearing the Dexcom G5 continuous glucose monitor.

I found the Diabetes Online Community in the summer/fall of 2011, and that discovery has changed my life. I started this blog in April 2012, and since then, my diabetes advocacy has continued to grow. Among other achievements, I’ve attended and spoken up at FDA workshops and participated in clinical trials.

I’ve been thrilled to serve as a facilitator for the Diabetes UnConference. And I’ve been honored to volunteer for Diabetes Patient Advocacy Coalition. You should Google both of those.

I’m currently serving as a member of the State of Maryland’s Advisory Council on Health and Wellness, where I am co-chair of the Diabetes committee. In addition, I’m part of the 2018 Reader Panel at Diabetes Forecast magazine.

I’m always searching for the perfect balance between the highs and lows of my blood glucose level and my life… always searching for the Happy Medium.

Anything you’d like to share? Please let me know… I’d love to hear from you.

The Friday Buzz.

January 18, 2013 – 9:23 am

Three quick things for you on this Friday:

1. JDRFSummit

Registration for the 2013 JDRF Type 1 Diabetes Research Summit is underway. No less than five of the people working on the Artificial Pancreas at the University of Virginia’s Center for Diabetes Technology will be there. Tired of hearing me talk about it (I think I’ve done something like five posts on the subject)? Here’s your chance to get the details straight from the source. I’ve heard all five of them speak, and let me tell you, it’s worth the trip. There will also be a couple of sessions related to islet cell research by representatives from Duke University and MIT.

It promises to be a very informative and inspirational day in Bethesda, Maryland (just outside of Washington, DC). For more information and to register, go to http://www.jdrfsummit.org

2. I’m starting a special series right here beginning this Sunday. I haven’t really done any preparation for it… but that’s part of the plan. I hope you’ll check in next week to find out more.

3. Finally… listen, Boston teams have won enough over the last 15 years or so. So move over New England… Here comes Baltimore. Go Ravens!
 
 
My apologies to those of you who don’t follow American football. Enjoy the weekend…
 
 
 

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48 Things that make me… Me.

January 17, 2013 – 9:43 am

Okay, so Cherise at Diabetes Social Media Advocacy started this thing yesterday, and I was too busy to steal it for a post of my own. Others have done this, and I encourage you to read them and possibly post your own answers somewhere too, including here if you like. So better late than never… here are 48 things you may not know about me:

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
I was not.

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
When was the last time I watched “It’s a Wonderful Life”?

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
I have great penmanship… don’t try to decipher my note-taking, however.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
Is pit beef a lunch meat? Then YES. That’s my favorite.

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?
No kids. Always wanted kids.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
Yes, of course! ‘Cause I need all the friends I can get.

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT?
Oh, you want to talk politics now?

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
No! Tonsils removed when I was four years old… in 1966. In those days, they had you stay in the hospital for like five days after the operation. I still remember it. Creepy.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
I am sooo afraid of heights. But I would bungee jump. I like to confront my fears. And scream my head off through the whole process. The screaming releases the fear.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
Raisin bran. Plain enough for you?

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
Almost always.

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG?
This requires a “body of evidence” answer. If you asked me if I feel strong right now, I would say no. If you asked me if I’ve been strong over the last 22 years with diabetes, the answer is definitely YES.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
From the store: Edy’s rainbow sherbet (monster high carb effect, by the way). And Trader Joe’s pumpkin. So pumpkin-ey.
Specialty brand: Black Cherry from Graeter’s in Cincinnati.

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
Whether they’re open or closed. Will you talk and be nice even if we seem to be different on the surface? I can usually tell within ten seconds.

15. RED OR PINK?
Red, Red, Red.

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
That I’m getting older. Can’t do anything about it, so I don’t think about it much.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?
All of my nieces, nephews, great nieces, and great nephews. Kids are still our future and worth every effort we can make for them. Even if some of them aren’t kids anymore.

18. WHAT IS THE TECHNIQUE THAT YOU NEED TO WORK ON THE MOST?
Remembering. Everything. Everything.

19. WHAT COLOR SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
Simple black dress shoes. Honed to a bright sheen.

20. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE?
Grits and turkey sausage for breakfast this morning.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
Buckwheat Zydeco Radio on Pandora. Didn’t see that one coming, did you?

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
Burnt Orange. Or Indigo.

23. FAVORITE SMELLS?
Bacon, bacon, bacon!

24. HOW IMPORTANT ARE YOUR POLITICAL VIEWS TO YOU?
Important enough that I care deeply, not important enough to hurt someone over… figuratively or literally.

25. MOUNTAIN HIDEAWAY OR BEACH HOUSE?
Both please.

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
Baseball on a summer day or night. Horse racing on a spring day or night. Both offer long periods of inaction punctuated by amazing moments of thrillage. I read something like that somewhere.

27. HAIR COLOR?
Brown.

28. EYE COLOR?
Blue.

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
Nope. Glasses. When I can find them.

30. FAVORITE FOOD?
Steak please.

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?
Happy endings.

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?
Men in Black 3. First straight-to-video movie I’ve ever watched. Same story… different characters.

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?
Your average plain white dress shirt. With a sensible green tie. Sounds worse than it is.

34. SUMMER OR WINTER?
Unquestionably summer.

35. FAVORITE DESSERT?
Key Lime Pie. Or Cherry Pie. Or just Pie. Or Baklava.

36. STRENGTH TRAINING OR CARDIO?
Cardio, with just enough strength training now and then to keep me honest.

37. COMPUTER OR TELEVISION?
Slowly but surely moving from the television side over to computer.

38. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
One Shot at Forever: A Small Town, an Unlikely Coach, and a Magical Baseball Season by Chris Ballard. I need a “no-thinking” book now and then.

39. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
That question is so 90’s. I don’t need no stinkin’ mouse pad.

40. FAVORITE SOUND?
Anything involving a baseball.

41. FAVORITE GENRE OF MUSIC?
I love all music. When it’s played by actual instruments. And not lip-synched.

42. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME?
Kilkenny, Ireland, 2004. Such wonderful, friendly people.

43. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?
Ahem… Yes. Yes I do.

44. WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
Cincinnati, Ohio USA on April 9, 1962. Reds Opening Day, and my father had to give up his ticket. They lost anyway, Dad.

45. WHERE ARE YOU LIVING NOW?
Baltimore, Maryland USA since September, 1994.

46. WHAT COLOR IS YOUR HOUSE?
Just your average brick Cape Cod.

47. WHAT COLOR IS YOUR CAR?
I have a bright red truck.

48. DO YOU LIKE ANSWERING 48 QUESTIONS?
These 48 questions are fun. I’m not sure I’d like 48 questions about my job.

Thanks Cherise. And Happy Belated Birthday! It’s been a good exercise to help clear my mind. Now I can start working on where I left that #@**%!! meter this time.
 
 
 

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Site Change Musings, Part 2.

January 15, 2013 – 11:21 am

Time for part 2 of our discussion about infusion sites. Lots of super comments after yesterday’s post. Let’s see if we can answer a few more questions today.

If I have trouble with a site, how long do I wait to change it? That depends. Didn’t expect this to be a simple answer, did you? Mostly, how long I wait is in inverse proportion to where my blood glucose readings are. If my BG is hovering in the 200-250 mg/dL range for a while, I’ll try to do my best to get that number down. Drinking lots of water, avoiding almost all carbs, exercising, etc. If I’m still not coming down roughly 18-24 hours later, I’m moving on to a new site. But if I’m stuck in the 300+ range, I’m waiting only about 8 hours tops. I should also mention here that this kind of thing doesn’t happen very often to me, so I don’t have a lot of experience. And I hope I don’t get a lot of experience with this, if you know what I mean.

Do I have a favorite site? Yes… that’s definitely my leg. Never hurts going in. It always feels like it’s out of the way (except I sometimes forget it’s there when I take my pants off… #TMI). In fact, I’ve been known to time my site changes or switch around the order temporarily just so I can have it in my leg for long bike rides. Always seem to get a smooth delivery of insulin, maybe because there’s less fat there. If I had enough space, I think I would have it in my leg all the time. By the way, before finding the Diabetes Online Community, I had never even heard of using any space other than my midsection or my butt. Thanks DOC. My second-favorite site? On either side. It just feels comfy, though it’s much more likely that I’ll rip the thing out from there than from anywhere else.

And a final bonus question… thanks Jen for making me think of it: Will I do a site change anywhere? Only at home? Okay, two questions. I’ve only done site changes at home or in a hotel room (once without an inserter). Never at work. Never on a day trip somewhere. At work I’m just worried about getting a gusher when pulling out the old cannula. Which I suppose I could handle by waiting to pull the cannula until I get home. So maybe I’ll try that in the future. Otherwise, I don’t know. Can’t think of a reason not to do a change somewhere, other than for sanitary reasons. I think my hang-up (and it’s really my hang-up) is the whole my comfort with doing the change versus someone’s discomfort watching me do the change thing. I don’t really have a problem, but I don’t want someone else to feel weird about it. In the greater sense though, I think it would be helpful for people to see things like this that we have to do all the time, so they can be reminded that diabetes is real and it’s not a simple thing to live with.

Once again, feel free to post your answers, or any additional questions, by leaving a comment below. It’s been a great discussion so far.
 
 
 

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Site Change Musings.

January 14, 2013 – 9:47 am

Okay, that title is a little whimsical for such a mundane subject. But I did an infusion set change last night, and it brought up a lot of questions for me:

How often do you change your sites? Where do you place your sites? Do you have a specific trouble spot? If you have trouble with a site, how long do you wait to change it? Do you have a favorite site?

Let me take those one at a time. First, How often do I change my sites? The answer is that I (usually) change them when my reservoir goes dry. How long it is between site changes is then determined by a number of factors: how much insulin was in my reservoir to begin with; how my diet has been since the change, and how that affects my glucose; and how much I exercise between changes. Sometimes that means a site will last four days. Sometimes it will last six. My all-time record is seven days. But let me tell you, a site gets mighty sore after seven days. I try to keep it at four to five days.

An additional question: Why four or five days instead of the suggested three from manufacturers and the FDA? The answer is simple: As I’ve said before, I’m consciously concerned about real estate. How much usable real estate my body has, and how long I’ll be doing this pump thing, and whether I might run out of good infusion sites are all things I think about every time a new site goes in, and I take a look at the previous site. I don’t know if going an extra day or two is really helping to preserve future infusion sites, or if it isn’t. But my gut feeling is that it’s helping. I plan on being around for a lot more years, and I don’t want to have problems when I’m 80 because I ran out of decent places to insert a cannula.

Where do I place my sites? I generally rotate them between six places: My right side, my right leg, my stomach to the right of my navel somewhere, my stomach to the left of my navel, my left leg, and my left side. In that order. That means at four days per site I’m using a given area every 24 days. At five days per site I’m using an area every 30 days. I haven’t tried using my arm yet… I don’t know what I’d do with the tubing, or if I’d have enough. And I haven’t tried the back of my midsection or my bum. Mostly because I can’t see around there, which I realize is a completely ludicrous argument. But there you have it.

Do I have a specific trouble spot? That seems to be my belly. Especially lately. I don’t know why. But I’ve had some stubborn highs the last few times when it’s been in there. Even though I move it around a lot between high, low, a little to the left, a little to the right, etc. It just doesn’t seem to be working great there right now. Maybe it’s the extra baggage I’m carrying around right now.

Since this is getting a little long, let’s stop right here for now. I’ll pick up answering questions about infusion sites later in the week. Until then, feel free to post your answers, or any additional questions, by leaving a comment below.
 
 
 

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You might be interested in this.

January 11, 2013 – 9:46 am

There’s something I left out in Wednesday’s Like These Links post, and I want to include it here today. Plus a couple of extra things you might want to know about.

First, the thing I left out on Wednesday: Lee Ann Thill of The Butter Compartment has started a new project. If you’re a veteran of Diabetes Art Day, you know that Lee Ann has a special gift for inspiring people connected with diabetes to create art as therapy. I’m not particularly gifted (and that’s an understatement), but she even inspired me to do something this past year.

Anyway, Lee Ann’s new thing is related to her Doctoral studies, and it’s called VIAL Project (Voice – Insulin – Art – Life). According to the official website, “The purpose of this research is to explore the experience of having type 1 diabetes and food and body issues, and the experience of using arts-based expression on a social media platform.”

To get a detailed explanation of this very cool project from Lee Ann’s point of view, check out her post from earlier in the week: http://www.thebuttercompartment.com/?p=6863

To read more and sign up to participate, visit the VIAL Project website: http://vialproject.ning.com
 
 
 
Also, the International Diabetes Federation is sponsoring a giveaway of one of their “Show Your Outrage” T-shirts plus some extra blue circle swag. But hurry… the giveaway ends January 14. It’s easy to enter.
Just go to: http://www.idf.org//international-diabetes-federation-giveaway-0

Consider your message shared, IDF.
 
 
 
Finally, if you’re close to Washington, D.C. the first weekend in February, you’ll have the opportunity to attend the Children With Diabetes Focus on Technology Conference in Arlington, Virginia, right across the Potomac river from our nation’s capital. Tom Karlya will be there. And I just found out that Kerri Sparling and Scott Johnson will be there too. Okay, now I’m kinda jazzed about going. There will be lots of talk about diabetes and technology, and a closing keynote from Sebastien Sasseville, Team Type 1 athlete and the first Canadian with Type 1 diabetes to summit Mount Everest. The Great Spousal Unit needs to hear from this guy that I can do anything I set my mind to.
To find out more, register for the conference, and even book your hotel, start here: www.childrenwithdiabetes.com/activities/DC2013/
 
 
 
Enjoy your weekend!
 
 
 

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