"In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitchhiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.…

My older D-free son Nathaniel was home "sick" yesterday. "Sick" in quotes, because though he'd puked prodigiously the night before, I pegged that as being a predictable outcome of his having eaten, (against my caring-parental advice) 12 chicken nuggets, two donuts, a 12-ounce glass of milk, and if my reading of the output was accurate, at least three chocolate chip cookies, the latter explicitly forbidden. One can only say so often, "Don't eat so much or you'll get a tummyache" before one…

Eric's endo visit today gave me a bit of a shock. His a1c had gone up substantially, from 7.4 to 7.9. I knew his numbers hadn't been great, but that bad??

The CDE and I assessed his numbers, and while we agreed that we needed to do an overnight basal check, she also said that perhaps a basal check for the afternoon would be valuable too. I'd noted a strange pattern... not daily, but certainly fairly frequent... in which he got on the school bus in range and was sky high when he…

Four years after Eric's diagnosis, some of the initial events seem dreamlike. They come back to me in flashes sometimes, intense snippets of memory that contain all the audio, visual, emotional, and sometimes tactile content of the moment. Most commonly, these are the ones I get:

*flash*

I am seated in the exam room of my kids' pediatrician's office. It is October 7, and it occurs to me that it's my partner's 46th birthday. Bummer of a birthday if he spends it at home wondering…

With a new school year and a new teacher comes the ever popular "back to school" essay. My youngest son never ceases to frustrate me when it comes to such things. Two classes and four days later, his essay on introducing himself consisted of four sentences--his name, his age and where he had lived in his life. Getting more out of him was going to be torture...and it was! Thankfully, after hearing that he could write pages on the importance of the advent of a toaster to heat his Eggo's each…

I get crazed sometimes. Hard to believe, I know. But every so often I get into a tizzy and run around herding children this way and that, and... things go missing. Important things. Like, Eric's diabetes bag. Lemme tell y'all about the most recent dance: the Missing Meter Mambo.

Last night was jukado night, which usually goes like this:

1. Children are brought home by Dad.

2. Nate runs into the bathroom to change into his uniform while

3. I gather up Eric's bag &…

Hello 2012, and my fellow diabetic world of friends on here!! I hope and pray that 2012 is a great year for everyone, including myself! I have had type 1 for several years, i believe I was 16 when I was diagnosed?? I am now, 36, so that would be almost 20 years of having this wonderful disease! When I was first diagnosed, I did what I was suppose to do, followed diet, took medicine, and checked my blood sugars faithfully. And as time went on, I decided that I didn't need the medicine, nor to…

Having been away from my YouTube account for a while, I had not seen the reply I got from one "JigglesJingle", who apparently objected to my comment on last year's Big Blue Test video. Here's what he (I assume this is a guy, but it could just as easily be a woman) had to say:

Reply to your comment on: 2010 BiG Blue Test: World Diabetes Day

@PlattHamb Platt - It's because you get a generation of lazy uneducated parents who eat all this crap .. divulge…

We went to the clinic yesterday, and because Eric was due for his labs (and we wanted to make sure we got them in before his insurance runs out), instead of making an appointment for a later blood draw, we went right upstairs to NorDx from the clinic. Now, obviously Eric has had blood draws before, but at 4 1/2 he's getting savvy to the whole "someone's gonna poke you" thing and wants no part of it. We put EMLA cream on his arm in advance to smooth the way, but it really didn't make much…

Three years ago today, I took Eric to his pediatrician and told him I thought Eric had diabetes.



I was right. And for a long time afterward, I grieved that my instinct was correct.



But today, I'm going to celebrate all the ways I was wrong that day.



I thought I would never be able to get past my needle-phobia to be able to dose my son with insulin. (I was wrong.)

I thought I would never again have the happy-go-lucky child I'd adored before diabetes…

Tonight Manny shared with me a note about a report that estimated the possible costs of diabetes care in 2025. And the numbers are scary. Have a look at my animation of how the incidence of diabetes changes from 2010 to 2015 to 2025, these are based on image from the report website. Watch it through a few times and notice how some how some of the states in 2025 are a dark red (lots of diabetes estimated) that doesn't even appear in last year's map. Those represent states where close to 20%…

So there's a group on facebook who are trying to get type 1 diabetes renamed, i've heard this many times, and yes it does annoy me, although i understand these people have a right to their opinion. What really frustrates me is that these people are causing problems between the ranks and making those with type 2 to feel like utter crap! I've tried expressing my views and sticking up for type 2's and all ive had in response is being blocked from the group and made out to be a nasty person and…