Greetings Ken.....
Best Wishes on your Special Day....and on the next 364 days!
How's it all going? Do you have any questions or comments?

Hi there, I hope that you have a super fantastic Happy Birthday today!

Happy,Happy Birthday,Ken. I wish for you a most wonderful day. ENJOY!!!

Hi Ken! I was wondering how you are doing? How's life and D for you.

Ken-
Those suggestions make sense. The delayed effect is very real for sure. The longest activity I've done since starting the pump a year ago has been one 3 hour hilly road bike ride. During that, I dropped the basal 30% an hour into it, and left it that way for 2 hours afterward. That seemed to work out ok. Times when I've not dropped the basal, I've seen lows about 6 hours after getting off the bike.

Hi Ken-
Thinking about taking a multi-day backpack trip this summer in the Colorado Rockies. Have not attempted such a thing since becoming Type-1 at age 37 ( or so ). Wonder if you have any suggestions on pump adjusting, basal tweaks, or what-not that would apply to multi-day, loaded hiking.
Cheers!
Tom

Sounds good! I could make it to Kaoshiung if your travels don't take you through Taipei. That'd be cool! :)

My husband really wants to teach in China for a couple of years. Like you, I am very hesitant about the possibility of landing in a Chinese hospital! I have been there 3 times now, but a short visit is not the same.

Do you know Chris Little? She lives in Pt. Townsend and has 10 or 11 adopted kids. I think at least 2 are from Ethiopia. She helped us file our readoption papers. Did you travel to Ethiopia?

Hey Ken, I thought I would say hello since you're basically just across the water from me. I also notice that we are both adoptive parents. I have 4 kids, with the last two being 3 year olds from China.

Ken:
Thanks for inquiring! I must have been too busy reading about what kind of tapes diabetics on the Yahoo forum think they should be using today or tomorrow. I am doing swimmingly with my DxSeven -- getting an average of 13-15 days out of each sensor, I did find I should reset my low alert to 70 -- I had it at 60 and probably because it is not all that precise, when I was at 60 one morning I stumbled into a fairly serious hypoglycemic episode, broke two ribs (ouch!) and wound up in the hospital for a few days. But time is a wonderful medicine, and I am back home enjoying life to the fullest.'How are you doing these days?
-Olaf

I agree Ken, health has to take precedence over everything else. Were you insured back in '76? I've talked to T1s who've had it for a long time and they remember the days when a vial of insulin was $15 and so on. The costs are WAY more expensive now but the insulins and delivery methods are also much better. Through the '60s and '70s I don't think the medical field put a lot into diabetes research. Here's the insulins we have, take it in the morning and evening and see us every few months. Good luck. I think they just thought it was hopeless.

Key Ken, hope all is well. Let me throw something else at you which has been nagging at me. I am a musician but I have a day job and pretty much always have. But I have many friends who are musicians that haven't now or in many cases EVER worked a day job and get by teaching lessons and playing gigs. Many artists, musicians, creative people don't settle for working at the post office or the meat department or the real estate office. It stifles the creative mind and I know many of these people haven't (if ever) worked in so long they wouldn't know how to cope. Where I'm going with this is that most of them have no health insurance. Which is fine if you're healthy. I thought I was until June, then everything changed. Now I do have insurance now thank God but I no longer have the privilege of being very footloose and fancyfree and I've read some of the downfalls in having to stay in miserable jobs because you need the health coverage. Obviously people like ourselves after diagnosis become tainted goods and are uninsurable, the only plan I could get was like $400 a month and the deductibles were so high and covered virtually no supplies it would be impossible. I know a guy I used to work with who's type 1 and has a job with no medical now and reuses the syringes for like a month and hasn't seen a doctor in like 2 years. Scary stuff. Delete Comment

Hey Ken thanks for the encouraging comment. As you can tell I'm a newbie to this world and am trying to digest everything (no pun intendede) about this disease. As for the medical part I feel like I've read enough to open my own private practice. No book or website has any more info on the basics that I don't now already know. It's nice to know that the complications can be avoided with proper maintenance. I've heard otherwise and you don't know who to believe but I would think that it makes sense that if you keep your numbers in check you should be able to avoid the compications. I've heard "Oh the complications are a lottery, you just hope for the best". That's pretty discouraging. I'll start loosening up gradually as I get more used to this. Right now cutting down the carbs to almost nil has been the easiest way for me keep the numbers in check. The carb guessing for insulin dosage right now is too daunting. Seems like a recipe for mistake.I do agree with Bernstein's law of small numbers. Makes sense. As for the people you read about that are in their 80s or 90s that have had type 1 diabetes for 60-70 years it's really amazing. Now THEY definitely have some luck on their side. Must have been impossible to keep steady healthy numbers back then. I am thankful in a roundabout way that I got this disease now and not years ago. They've actually made great strides just in the past ten years compared to the decades before that (with the insulins we now use and delivery methods). Seems that for decades through the 60s and 70s and most of the 80s it just kind of flatlined. They didn't seem like they focused much on the disease, here's the insulin we have, take your shot in the morning and evening and good luck. I'm glad I'm not having to use an old shool NPH, sounds like it would induce bad lows not to mention that it dictated your eating schedule. Thanks for the advice Ken, keep in touch.

Don

Hi Ken,
Thanks for commenting! We love Bellingham. Of course, all of Washington State is gorgeous.
We also have plans to adopt in a couple years. I'm adopted and am looking forward to implementing adoption in my own life.
Congrats on starting the pump and your awesome A1C! :)

Thanks for your advice! It's great to communicate with people like you who having been living with this for so long. You give me great hope for the future!! THANKS!

Thanks for your comment on my Symlin bolg.. Have a GREAT Day! :} :}

LOL hehehe ::turning a bright shade of pink:: & arrrghhh!!!!!!!! That is suppose to be 09/15/2007. :) Thanks for pointing out my "clerical" error. You remind me of my brother!!! I need someone to give me a pleasantly hard time. No excuse for why that happened except for being absent mindedly sloppy and not reading things back through. If you like them apples read through my blogs. I have very imaginative spelling too!