Guest Blog: Tales in the Insulin Vial

My name is Steve Beriault. I am 58 years old and have been a Juvenile Diabetic (Type 1) for 56 years. I am happily married to my wife Maria and we have two sons Dan and Nick, whom we love very much. Nick is also a juvenile diabetic diagnosed at 5 years of age, now 22. Dan is studying for his PhD in Biochemistry at McMaster University. He is studying diabetes and heart disease. I have had the privilege to receive academic degrees from University of Waterloo Honors BSc, MA from the University of Ottawa and Business Administration from the University of Calgary.

Website – talesintheinsulinvial.com

Tales in the Insulin Vial
By Steve Beriault

Preview the Book

Tale #1

OPPORTUNITY COST

There isn’t a day that passes that a diabetic child doesn’t dream, deep in his or her heart, that he or she will never have to take insulin injections again. In reality, the child will do this for life or until a cure is found. In my young life, I had to have one injection every morning and I hated it. That later evolved into four injections a day in adulthood. Today, juvenile diabetics begin taking multiple injections—up to four or five per day—plus finger pricks for blood monitoring from the time they are diagnosed.

Blog Week: Awesome Things

 **Again everyone! Sorry for the late post!! -Christina**

Awesome Things. Today let’s put a twist on that topic and focus on the good things diabetes has brought us.  What awesome thing have you (or your child) done BECAUSE of diabetes?  After all, like my blog header says, life with diabetes isn’t all bad!

Three years ago I traveled to Toronto Canada to attend the Diabetes Exercise Sports Association Conference.  This was one of the coolest things ever. This was awesome because it was the first time that I traveled out of the country alone and got to see a really cool city first hand.  It was also awesome because I met a ton of really cool diabetes people.  This was my first interaction with the diabetes community outside of a doctor’s office, and I really enjoyed seeing and hearing all that the conference had to offer. I was amazed and inspired by all of the cool things that the diabetes community does.

-J

Blog Week: 10 Things I Hate About You

**Hi Everyone! Sorry about posting these late!!! I was caught up in graduation festivities! My apologies. - Christina**

Ten things I hate about you, Diabetes (shout out to Julia Stiles)

Sometimes Diabetes, you seem like a bad (Heath Ledger looking) boyfriend….

1.       I hate that you are overly persistent.  No matter how many times I wish you away, you follow me around and pop up to remind me that you are still around

2.       I hate that you are unpredictable.  One day everything is great, the next day the same food/activity will send me crazy high or plummeting low. I mean come on, why can’t I just figure you out?

3.       I hate that you are constantly reminding me to take care of myself. Yes, I know this should come natural, but sometimes a girl just wants to eat some chocolate and have some wine and forget the world…except don’t forget diabetes or it could be a costly mistake

4.       I hate when you wake me up shaking in the night.  No, I really don’t want to get out of bed to feed a low or refill the pump. Really, I don’t.

5.       I hate that you nag me.  Between the dexcom and the pump rings, sometimes it seems like you just like to beep all day, just to remind me that you are around and need some loving.

6.       I hate that you are expensive.  I hate that in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle I have to spend so much.  Especially right now when I’m making my budget. You just seem like a giant black hole sometimes.

7.       I hate it when you make me guilty.  When I get a bad blood sugar, or a whole day of bad sugars, or go and eat something I shouldn’t, I feel guilty for being unhealthy.  If you weren’t in my life, I probably wouldn’t feel so bad about that bad-mood brownie.

Blog Week: You Broke What???

Diabetes Bloopers Day: You broke what???

Alright, this one is only partly diabetes related, but it certainly pertains to a college lifestyle.

On the plane returning to school after Christmas break for my second semester of my Junior year of college I broke my Ipod.  Mildly irritating. 

The first day back at school my computer battery broke and I could no longer use my laptop unless plugged to the wall. More irritating. 

Tuesday I noticed that my Animus insulin pump was acting funny.  Finally at 11 at night I realized the problem, none of the buttons were working. VERY irritating, and scary.   I called the pump rep, she told me it would be mailed the next day. Out of frustration I threw my phone across the room.  It broke the screen.  I called my dad, who conveniently is a doctor and was able to call in a prescription for Lantus.  I called my older brother and him to drive me 20 minutes to another state to find a 24 hour pharmacy. 

Friday was meet day (I ran collegiate track). I had been nursing shin splints, but they didn’t hurt in the morning. So I raced anyways, on Lantus which was scary because I never had run without the pump.  Blood sugars did fine.  My leg broke, two bones at once. (just a partial fracture, so still walked around for 2 weeks).

2 weeks later and still not able to run, and hardly able to walk, they gave me crutches (no Xray mind you), and a bone scan. It snowed 7 inches, and I got carpal tunnel from crutching to class. Awesome.

-J

Blog Week: Dear Dexcom

Letter writing day - Tuesday 5/10: "In February the Wego Blog Carnival asked participants to write letters to their condition.  You can write a letter to diabetes if you’d like, but we can also take it one step further.  How about writing a letter to a fictional (or not so fictional) endocrinologist telling the doctor what you love (or not) about them.  How about a letter to a pretend (or again, not so pretend) meter or pump company telling them of the device of your dreams?  Maybe you’d like to write a letter to your child with diabetes.  Or a letter from your adult self to the d-child you were.  Whomever you choose as a recipient today is the day to tell them what you are feeling."

Dear Dexcom:

I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to throw that transmitter in the trash.  Really, I didn’t.  It’s just that I was busy living the rest of my life and mindlessly tossed it out. I’m sorry I didn’t have time or energy to put the new sensor in right then so I would realize my mistake. And I’m really sorry that I took your sensor out with the trash, into the dumpster and that you are now out there somewhere among the coffee grinds and rotten banana peels. 

I really did appreciate you sticking through me in the highs and the lows.  I kinda miss your really loud vibration and persistent beeping. I miss being able to know what my sugar was when I wanted, and the secure feeling I had knowing you were beside me at night.

I’m sorry ok??? Isn’t a sincere apology enough to get you back? Nope. Instead I have to go through insurance all over again in order to get cleared for a brand new system.  Doesn’t that seem like a little bit of a waste? The rest of the system is totally fine.  But a replacement transmitter is way more expensive than a whole system. I guess you are a one and done kind of guy after all.

 So I guess this is the end to this breakup letter.  I’ll be sure to be more careful with my next Dex, and not neglect him and treat him like trash… Until then I’ll go back to managing with single blood sticks…

J.

Blog Week: Admiring Our Differences

This week the CDN is participating in diabetes blog week.  This is a chance to join forces with the diabetes online community to talk about common themes and learn more about each other.  You can check out the list of participants and their thoughts at http://www.bittersweetdiabetes.com/p/blog-week-posts.html

Admiring Our Differences.

Today is a day of celebrating those who are different than us that we admire in our diabetes life.  I’d like to shout out to all of those who navigate the insurance world for a living.  Today, for example, I had to go meet with the insurance lady at student health.  During our 10 minute meeting she had 3 calls about other student’s health coverage, which she was able to answer easily.  She very patiently explained the billing issues I’m having (distributor company was not providing tax codes), and called the company while I was there to ensure the bill go paid.  I was impressed by her knowledge and patience.  I usually start sweating as soon as insurance comes up, and immediately want to just run away.  But this interaction today left me with some hope about our crazy confusing health care system, and also left me very thankful for those who are experienced at navigating its winding roads.

-J

Airport Security

I hate it.

I hated it long before I had to deal with diabetes supplies, liquid restrictions and taking shoes off (athlete’s foot anyone???).  Now I really hate it, to the point that I stand back and watch the ridiculous ceremony that is getting on a flight and reflect on what this means about humanity today. I mean really, did you see the video of the 6 year old getting a pat down???

Ok I swear this rant has a point.

This weekend I flew home for Easter.  Getting there was no big deal; I’ve learned that if I take off all pieces of metal (earrings, necklace, zippers, pump clip) that I can walk through most metal detectors safely with my pump. One kind security person told me that those machines measure cumulative metal, so the less you have the more likely a pump can go through.  Luckily there were two lines, one sending people through the Xray machine thingy (I’m scared to take my pump through), and one through the old metal detectors. So I just kept myself to the Left and passed through with no problems.  Coming back, however, the metal detector was set on very sensitive, and I didn’t make it through.

“Female assist in line 1”

Bummer.  I tried to be nice, warning the lady that my bag was heavy, and explaining that I had an insulin pump in my bra.

“Can’t you move it to your hip or something?”

At the time the pump was in my bra and inset was in my thigh.  It was conveniently wrapped twice around my bra strap and once through my underwear, and the inset was taped down securely cuz it was my last one and I had already almost pulled it out.  

“Not without taking my clothes off.”

“Well you need to wear those on your hip next time”

Struggle Bus

This last week or two has been a challenge. Between final papers, oral presentations and looming final examinations, I’ve been catching up with my friends before we go our separate ways and travelling to job interview.  What’s missing in this description of life??? Three major things: 1) exercise 2) food 3) diabetes.  Result??? Bad diet, no exercise, ear infection = bad blood sugar.

Struggle bus.

Ever remember Ms Frizzle and the magic school bus??? My absolute favorite is when the kid eats the bus like a Cheeto and the class learns about inside the body.  Well, along the same lines, when on the stressed out, sleep and exercise deprived and carb loaded struggle bus, there are lots of bodily changes too. Lets take a look.

1)      Stress: increased cortico steroids in your system (adrenaline) cause your body to increase glycogen production from your liver to help your body survive the stress. Result? Higher blood sugar.

2)      Sleep deprivation: leads to more time to eat, as well as increased stress hormones. Also puts me in a bad mood and takes me straight to the nearest coffeepot.  Caffeine= higher blood sugar.

3)      Lack of exercise:  I try and get out regularly, so not getting out and working out makes my body less sensitive to insulin and increases my insulin need, or if I don’t increase that it just raises blood sugars.

All of this is not boding well for my next A1c draw.  Besides that, increased blood sugars has been tied to decreased memory and cognition, making all that hard work you are doing less relevant.

Thank you Ms Frizzle.  How is this going to change what I’m doing??

So in order to turn around the last two weeks of my semester, I’m going to focus on getting at least 30 minutes of exercise every day, try to eat identifiable meals (and count the carbs) instead of mindlessly grazing on whatever is sitting around (or being handed out for free). And try to limit the caffeine and drink more water.

I challenge all of you out there to take a second and evaluate how stress affects your blood sugar control and come up with 2 or 3 concrete ways to manage your diabetes in the midst of the end of semester stress…

 -J

Job Interviews & Diabetes

Alright…so last week I talked about highlighting people with diabetes…but I was sitting in a lecture for class this week about interviewing and employment laws. This really made me think about my life with diabetes and how I’m going to find a job that works with me.  I strongly believe that diabetes shouldn’t stop me (or anyone for that matter) from doing whatever I want to do.  Being well educated, thinking things through and having a backup plan is the key to succeeding at just about anything. So if I know I can make anything work, why am I a bit anxious about mentioning the ‘D’ in an interview??? My guess is I’m not alone in these thoughts, so this week I’m going to highlight issues about getting a job with diabetes and provide some answers I’ve found.

1.       Things that are protected by law from discrimination, firing and harassment: Age, race, color, sex, religion, veterans status, national origin, citizenship, disability (physical or mental), genetic identity, sexual orientation (in some states, not federally) and marital status (by state). 

a.       Employers are not allowed to ask about these things in an interview.  If you bring up the topic, they can only ask about it as to if it will affect your ability to perform essential job skills.

b.      These characteristics are protected under separate laws, each is a little different, but the majority apply to companies that employ more than 6-15 employees.

2.       The Americans with Disability Act of 1990:

a.       Disability = “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of major life activities, or has a rcord of such impairment or is regarded as having such an impairment.

b.      The million dollar question: Does diabetes apply?? I don’t have a copy of the actual law, but the summary handout I have lists applicable diagnoses as: blind, deaf, cancer, ADIS, DIABETES, epilepsy, cerebral palsy, downs syndrome etc. things that don’t apply: hair color, sexual orientation, lefthandedness, current use of illegal drugs, gambling, temporary impairments.

c.        so yes… it does apply to me, even though I don’t consider myself disabled, there are some things in the workplace that I need to perform as well as everyone else (like a lunch break) (don’t laugh, I was on a 10 week clinical without one. Totally illegal).  

d.      So what does this mean?? Employers are responsible for providing reasonable

Welcome to "J" & WILD

First off- a little bit about myself:  My name is “J” and I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes July 1, 2005 at 19 years old.  It was the summer between freshman and sophomore year of college, quite the shock to me and my family.  At the time I was running collegiate cross country and track, and didn’t know if I would be able to continue.  Thankfully I got hooked up with an awesome endocrinologist who told me “ this is not going to stop you from doing whatever you want”. He didn’t even flinch when I told him I was a distance runner.  With his guidance and my new animas pump, I headed back to school and completed 3 more years of competitive running and college classes. Currently I am a graduate student and almost finished with my doctorate in physical therapy. 

I was super excited to hear about the college diabetes network, I think that the positive and pro-active attitude that the organization is portraying is critical to successful life with diabetes. My vision for this blog is to open discussion about living a healthy and active life with diabetes.  To start this off we will be highlighting people who are out in the world doing amazing things either because of or in spite of their ‘D’.  Tune in every week for a new interview or guest blog of someone out there doing their thing. Also we will try and introduce some awesome opportunities out there especially for people with diabetes.  If you have any ideas or requests of who to talk to, please let us know!!

For this first week I interviewed (via email, not sure if there is a name for that) Mari Ruddy, founder of team WILD.  This is a super cool organization that I have just joined. They train women with diabetes online for a variety of sports endeavors.  They have coaches, nutritionists and CDEs (certified diabetes educators) on staff to help you out!!  I managed to convince my parents to sponsor me as my Christmas gift (the gift of health ya know…). If you are interested, follow the link.  Training starts April 1!!

CDN and Mari Ruddy:

1.       Tell me a little bit about team WILD. Team WILD is Women Inspiring Life with Diabetes and we are a wellness, fitness and endurance athletics resource for women living with diabetes. We combine expert coaching in fitness, expert diabetes nutrition education and peer support for women to reach their wellness and fitness goals. For 2011, we have 4 teams, something for every fitness level, from the very basics of fitness up to a team of women all with diabetes, doing Ironman Wisconsin in September 2011!

2.       What inspired the formation of this team? I started the Red Rider Recognition program now used by the

Welcome!

Hi Everyone! With all of the new developments with CDN, and the many exciting things going on in the diabetes community, we at CDN decided to start a blog to keep all of you in the loop! We are excited to be able to share everything with you, and to get you involved and give you the opportunity to share your opinions!