Tag Archives: diabetes

DSMA Blog Carnival. Doing the best I can.

June 21, 2012 – 11:03 pm

This month’s DSMA Blog Carnival subject has to do with those dreaded (sometimes) visits with the medical professionals that we rely on to help us manage our diabetes. Specifically, the questions are:

Do you get nervous or stressed when you have to go to your endo/doc appointment?
Why or why not? Be honest.

The simple answer is that I don’t stress too much about these visits anymore.

Okay, I stress a little before appointments with my physician. That’s probably because she doesn’t see too many diabetics, and she probably doesn’t have too many male clients. I’ve picked up on that, and I still have trouble talking to her, and that’s partly my fault. I’m working on it. She’s a good doc, and I think we’re both trying.

I don’t really stress at all before visits with my endocrinologist. I try to be as honest as I can, and as diligent at following her plan for me. And if I have trouble with her plan, I tell her why. And then we talk about it. That’s how it should be, I think.

Why do I seem relatively calm about these visits? Mostly that’s due to age, and the fact that I’ve been dealing with the ups and downs of this disease for 21 years. And wow, I can’t count how many of these visits I’ve made over the years, to doctors good and bad. You know what? Whether my numbers are good or bad, I feel like I’m already doing the best I can. At this point, I don’t have to apologize for anything.

But here’s the danger with that kind of logic: It only works if I’m really doing the best I can. If we’re going to expect doctors, nurses, CDEs, etc. to give us the respect we deserve, we need to show that we’re making the effort to manage our care the best we can. That does NOT mean we need to have perfect A1c numbers, that we are meeting our weight loss goals, that we are logging every BG number. It means that we need to show that we’re making the effort to reach our goals. We can’t treat our endos and docs like they’re just the customer service folks who write our prescriptions every 90 days.

However… if YOU ARE making the effort, and your numbers aren’t where you want them, and your doctor’s answer to that is to make you feel guilty for not managing your care better? Then you need to run, not walk away. Find someone who will give you solutions, not shame.

Like a lot of things, these visits are a balancing act. When we’re doing the best we can, really doing it, we can sit with our endos/docs as an equal, with less stress, ready to deal with whatever comes up. And when our medical professionals treat us as individuals, not soulless slags with the standard “how are your sugars” scripted question and answer, call and response routine, we can feel a little less stress about our next visit. Best of luck with your next appointment. Do your best… your very best leading up to it. And don’t take any crap from anyone. I always wanted to say that.

This post is my June entry in the DSMA Blog Carnival. If you’d like to participate too, you can get all of the information at http://diabetessocmed.com/2012/june-dsma-blog-carnival-2/
 
 
 

By StephenS | Posted in DSMA Blog Carnival | Also tagged , , | Comments (3)

Like these links.

June 20, 2012 – 7:04 am

Another Wednesday… more visits with the DOC:

Wil Dubois at LifeAfterDx has a post that generates some emotional responses. I honestly don’t have an opinion about this. I’m happy to be contributing in my own way right now. But Wil’s decision must have been difficult to write about… to say out loud, so to speak:
http://lifeafterdx.blogspot.com/2012/06/founders-lament.html

Cara at Every Day Every Hour Every Minute talks about Stingers and Creepers. I don’t know about Creepers, but I’ve definitely had Stingers:
http://countrygirldiabetic.blogspot.com/2012/06/stingers-and-creepers.html

And Kelly Kunik at Diabetesaliciousness (had to check my spelling twice) has some issues related to calloused fingers and touch screens. Me too!
http://diabetesaliciousness.blogspot.com/2012/06/of-testing-touch-screens.html

It’s all downhill to the weekend! Stay cool…
 
 
 

By StephenS | Posted in Like these links | Also tagged | Comments (0)

Recipe!

June 18, 2012 – 6:13 am

Wow, it was all the way back during D-Blog Week that I last posted a recipe. But we made fish tacos (okay, fish tortillas… you work with what you have) this weekend, so I decided to take a picture and share our recipe. Not much to it, but oh, so good.

Fish Tacos

We used the White Ruffy fillets that come in a frozen package out of the seafood case at Trader Joe’s. But any mild or semi-mild fish will do: tilapia, grouper, even trout. The fresher the better. About a 1/3 to 1/2 pound fillet will do for two people.

Start by preheating your oven to 375 degrees (farenheit).

Then get three bowls together.
One for cornstarch, about 1/2 cup
One containing an egg wash, with about 2 or 3 teaspoons of milk
One with 1/2 to 3/4 cup of corn flakes, 1 teaspoon of salt, and one additional ingredient. You pick. A little chopped dill, or red pepper flakes, or something else. We used a rounded teaspoon of Old Bay seasoning.

So take your fillet and dip it into the cornstarch first. Then shake the fillet until the excess cornstarch falls off. Then dredge the fillet in the egg wash. Once you’ve soaked it in the egg wash, drop it into the corn flake mixture. Be sure to cover it on all sides. If you like, you can spray it with a little butter-flavored cooking spray (which has no cholesterol, by the way).

Put it into the oven for about 15-18 minutes, give or take a few. Just make sure it’s cooked through. While it’s baking, get your filling together for your tacos. For us, that included:

Romaine and leaf lettuce from the garden (it does NOT get fresher than that)
Chopped green onions (where I grew up, we don’t know from scallions)
Diced tomatoes (these were kumato tomatoes, which taste a little more like a tomato at this time of year, if you know what I mean)
Diced avocado– put some lime juice on it after dicing. It will keep the avocado from turning brown, and add some fresh zing to your taco
Salsa
Sour Cream
Shredded Cheese

Once everything is complete, just dice up your fish and add your favorite ingredients. Hope your fish taco night is this good!

Total estimated carb count: 28 grams (21 grams in the tortilla– the rest is tomato and the breading)

Carb counts are estimates only. Check with a registered dietician to find out what a healthy carb count is for you.
 
 
 

By StephenS | Posted in Recipes! | Also tagged , | Comments (0)

The ride– final thoughts.

June 15, 2012 – 10:46 pm

I’ve already talked too much about last Saturday’s ride. So, sorry in advance for this long post. Sometimes you just have to get things off your chest before you can move on, you know? So here are some final thoughts on the 100 mile ride.

I can’t tell you how much fear I was feeling at the start. It was a combination of too little sleep and unfamiliar surroundings.

And this: Last year, while I was training for a triathlon, I had a bad fall off of my bike. No broken bones, but a concussion that put me out of work for a week. Honestly, I don’t know how football players do it. My head didn’t stop hurting for six days. I couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t focus. As you can imagine, it scared me. Before the crash, I rode without a care. I wanted to go fast, turn hard, push my limits. After the crash, I was afraid of every downhill, every little bump in the road. Always on the brakes.

I related this fear to my nephew while he was tuning up my bike a few days ahead of the ride. He paused for a moment, then said “A hundred miles oughta take care of that”. He was right.

The longer I rode, the better, the stronger, the more in control I felt. I probably went fastest when I was on my own on the course. I learned a long time ago that the only way for me to overcome my fear was to confront it. Either it would best me or I would best it. And I usually emerged victorious. That’s exactly what this ride did for me. No more worries. I’m ready to train hard again.

By the way, it’s ridiculous how many new elements there were to this ride for me. A new seat (a little wider, a little softer, very comfy too). An extra water bottle. Carrying extra carbs with me. It must have been comical watching Maureen stuff granola bars into the pockets of my jersey, and then watching me take them out. This must happen for parents of CWD all the time.

“Here, take these with you”.

“Honey, the rest stops are close together and I’m already carrying all this other stuff”.

“I just want you to be safe”.

This was the first event with my feet clipped in, instead of going with running shoes and toe cages on my pedals. And let’s not forget that this was the 1st event ever where I wore my pump instead of disconnecting.

All of that is a lot to process. So I didn’t. I just had to trust that everything would work as designed. And it did, until I fell apart after the finish.

And the thing is: I really felt pretty good up to that point. Tired, yes. I felt like I had ridden 100 miles, but as I crossed the finish line, I remember thinking I could probably just ride my bike up to where I was staying, about 1/2 mile away.

I like to think I’m a spiritual man, but not religious. The Holy Trinity and I don’t stand on ceremony. I want to have a relationship with my God and Savior, but doctrine and dogma aren’t my thing. Just before the start of the ride, I said the same prayer I always say, asking Him to keep us all safe from incident and injury as long as we ride. And He did. Of course, once I finished the ride, I collapsed. Lord, why do you interpret things so literally sometimes? Of course, He delivered me into the hands of capable people who were able to help me when I needed them. So there is that.

In the end, after worrying the most about how to manage my diabetes during this event, my diabetes was really a non-issue. Great BGs all day. So while I have some work to do to keep from suffering the dehydration I suffered, I guess there’s a message there that I did accomplish something big for me, and I did it in spite of my diabetes. And my fear. Excuse me, but I really get a charge out of something like that.
 
 
 

By StephenS | Posted in Additional Inspiration, Exercise | Also tagged , | Comments (1)

Finally… photos from the ride.

June 14, 2012 – 9:23 pm

It’s been an extremely busy week. I haven’t had a chance to get much posted this week, and I have a lot to get off of my chest, and it’s frustrating me. And I’m still busy. So I only have time right now to post those photos I’ve been promising since Monday. Have a great (and restful) weekend!

All photos are courtesy of The Great Spousal Unit.

Before the race. See that look on my face? That’s 50% sleep deprivation, 50% abject fear. Can I make it 100 miles?


 
 

Looking everything over one more time. I didn’t know then that this bike would be an absolute gem all day long. Smooth as silk.


 
 

The crowd at the start of the Century (ride). Smaller than I remember.


 
 

At the start… I’m trying simultaneously to get clipped into my pedals and keep from getting run over.


 
 

The next time someone with a camera caught me, at the mile 80 rest stop. If you look closely, you can see the Chesapeake Bay in the reflection off of my sunglasses. Obviously, I had no idea of the hell that was to come.


 
 

This is the hell that was to come. Only 20 miles later, I collapsed just past the finish line. This photo was taken about 10 minutes before I was taken to the ER. I can’t believe how pale I look here.


 
 
 
 

By StephenS | Posted in Exercise | Also tagged , | Comments (0)