Insulin Usage Up in America

Dateline America: Preliminary figures released today indicated that insulin usage across the country is up 52.9% over the Thanksgiving Holiday. Final figures may be significantly higher as weekend nears end.

I feel like this could have been me this weekend. Thanksgiving is inheritly a high carb meal full of atomic sugar spikers like mashed potatoes, white bread, dressing and cranberry sauce. This is just in the main course let's not even talk about dessert with it's luscious pies: pumpkin, pecan(one of my pre-D favorites), mincemeat(another favorite).

I managed to keep things under pretty good control on Turkey day. The dessert cause was helped by the fact that I made dLife sugar free cheesecake. I personally think this is some of the best cheesecake I've eaten, primarily because of the texture. Nice and light. My youngest son vehemently disagrees with me as he likes the heavier, goo up your mouth kind. Of course, his dislike saves more for me!

Again this year we fried our turkey. This is the second year we've done this While on first thought, it seems this would create a greasey bird, it does not. We are big Alton Brown fans and again we used his recipe. When you fry a turkey safety is of utmost concern. This cannot be emphasized enough when you've got a 4 gallon vat of hot oil you're working with. Alton cautions to use a turkey derrick when frying your bird so last year we made one from a pulley we had here at the house and a step ladder. It is a good investment. Safety over the ER anyday!

My oldest holding the turkey in 'pre-dunk' position.

The Turkey cooking safely in the HOT oil (plywood windbreak in place!).

We had a great meal and we've really enjoyed the leftovers all weekend. The best part has to be spending time with family. It was just the four of us again this year but we enjoyed the relaxed pace of a weekend spent together. Family is one of my biggest blessings and I hope it is your's too.

World Diabetes Day (the weekend edition)

It's World Diabetes Day (plus two) and I've been to several sites on the net reading superbly written blog and vlog posts. Kudos to my friend George for putting his thoughts to song.

My overwhelming thought today concerns the amount of time this disease robs from lives. To borrow an analogy from my programming days, living with diabetes is like a task on your computer, constantly consuming precious, limited resources. Most of the time idling quietly, basically unseen, in the background, other times jumping quickly do the foreground and hogging the CPU.

In the background I take care of things like, how I'm feeling, did I do something because I'm nervous or is my sugar low or do I need a drink (of water) because I'm high or am I just plain thirsty. Throughout the course of the day, D jumps to the foreground: when testing, calculating carbs, bolusing; or when I'm sick, it becomes an all comsuming resource hog while I attempt to drive down a high and stop my system from sliding down the ketone slope.

I also think about where society could be if PWDs weren't consumed with diabetes management tasks or where we could be individually if we didn't have this time commitment. As I look back over the past forty years I fear diabetes has taken a toll on my personal life, especially in the early years. Before blood glucose monitoring, my sugars and probably everyone of that era, our levels were bouncing like a superball dropped off a four story building. How can a PWD possibly maintain focus and make clear decisions with this kind of activity going on in their systems?

Of course this whole thought process is futile, at least in the short term, as we are likely to be dealing with diabetes for the foreseeable future. Diabetes is the hand many of us have been dealt. It's important to play it to the best of our ability, regardless of the time commitment. The time invested will hopefully pay big dividends in the form of a long and healthy life. However, I'd just as soon live a long and healthy life without diabetes. Let's find a cure.

D-Blog Day

I wanted to post today in honor of the 4th annual D-Blog Day. It's my understanding that Gina Copone over at diabetesdaily christened Nov 9th as the official D-Blog Day in order to unite the world of Diabetic bloggers back in 2005. Good idea Gina!

I enjoy blogging, but unfortunately don't make the time to post nearly often enough. There are several that post daily or almost daily and I don't see how they have the time to do it. Regardless of whether or not I post, a day is not complete without checking with several of my favorite bloggers to see what, if anything new is going on in their and/or their family's lives. I got away from this for awhile and missed it, but I'm glad to say I'm back reading regularly.

I am thankful for the OC even though I have never felt particularly alone with diabetes as many seem to do, It's always felt it was my lot in life and I try to handly it wisely and with grace and aplomb. However the DOC has given me a sense of comaraderie that I've come to enjoy. It's great to belong to a community where you can give as well as receive support.

Happy D-Blog Day everyone!