Good Things

So even if this year is a year of apparently bad diabetes karma as far as clinics and doctors and such go, there is a lot of random stuff going right in my life at the moment, so today I'm going to focus on the good things.

First of all, I just completed my very first full Diabetes 365 project on Flickr!!!!! For those of you who don't know, diabetes 365 is an online community where people post one picture per day for an entire year depicting what it's like to live with diabetes. I started my 365 mostly as an outlet for the frustrations I encounter daily - most of which I've yapped about here as well. Unexplained highs, poorly timed lows, the judgement that constantly surrounds every food choice you make - well, a picture is worth a thousand words, right? And it was great, purging those feelings somewhere. But what was surprising to me was how many of my pictures weren't about diabetes. They were about my husband's graduation, Christmas with our family, a girl's trip to the beach, or endless farmer's market trips. The pictures were reinforcement that while diabetes may encroach on my life in ways that I hate, it isn't my LIFE. I think that's pretty cool. Not to mention that I became friends with some great members of the diabetic online community. These folks get it because they are living it too, and there was no end to their support, suggestions, and humor. I feel like I learned more about diabetes and ways to fight it in one year from them than I have in the 12 years since diagnosis from any doctor or CDE. (PS, if you want to see pics from my Diabetes 365, click here or there are some thumbnails to the right of this page.) I can't wait to start year 2 of 365!

I was in a slight cooking rut until recently as well - not huge, but one of those "why-bother-cooking-for-only-two-people" kinda things. Last week, I was completely blessed to go spend some time with my best friend and her family. I got to have plenty of girl talk, I earned a new nickname, and best of all, I got to chase around and play with her 21 month old son. We even got the chance to cook for a party she had at her home over the weekend! We just did simple things - cooking with a very active 21 month old underfoot can be a bit of a challenge - but it just solidified that cooking with a friend, and for other people to enjoy, is one of the most joyous experiences. Of course, I meant to take pics to post here of all the gorgeous food we made. And yeah.... that never happened. So hopefully some recipes will suffice, along with me promising that they are easy, gorgeous, and tasty.







This little guy is about the cutest thing there is. He calls me "Innie". Being the child novice that I am, I let him pour milk on his head. He wasn't really sure what to think about that - until we started laughing, so he decided to laugh too.









Other things adding to my bright mood today? Temps are in the 80's, and I'm wearing a cute new sundress. What else does a girl need?

And now, for some party recipes:

Roasted Shrimp with Rosemary and Thyme

(from Fine Cooking)

This is super simple and super delicious. I honestly would make this any time I need to impress somebody...Make sure you have a loaf of French bread handy so you don't waste a drop of the herby olive oil.

6 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
6 fresh thyme sprigs
3 large rosemary sprigs, halved
freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 pound extra large shrimp (26-30 count), uncooked but peeled and deveined
1 1/2 tablespoon white wine vinegar
kosher salt, or even better, fleur de sel (my friend swears this makes all the difference)


Preheat oven to 400. Pour the oil into a 9 x 13 baking dish. Add the thyme, rosemary, and 1 tsp pepper and bake until fragrant, about 12 minutes. Add the shrimp to the dish and toss until coated. Bake the shrimp until pink and firm, 8-10 minutes. Add the vinegar and 1/2 tsp salt, toss well, and lest rest about 5 minutes. Discard the herbs and serve.

My note - there is precious little you can do to mess this up. You can accidently just mix the whole thing together at the beginning and bake until the shrimp is done. You can completely forget the white wine, as I have done. And resting? Trust me, this smells so good there is no one willing to let it rest 5 minutes. The only key here is fresh herbs and good ingredients.


Blackberry Sage Water

This is one of those things I ordinarily deem fussy. (Anything I have to bring out the blender for is "fussy".) But this surprised me - it was crazy easy and really refreshing. The sage note was definitely different for a summery drink. If I were to make this again though, I would probably double the amount of blackberries in it.

15 medium fresh sage leaves
2 tablespoons sugar
1 cup boiling water
6 ounces fresh blackberries

Put the sage leaves and sugar in a small pot and crush the leaves with a wooden spoon. Pour in the boiling water and stir until the sugar dissolves. Set aside to steep for 15 minutes.


Meanwhile, in a blender, puree the blackberries with 2 cups of cold water. Strain the blackberry liquid and the sage liquid through a fine mesh sieve into a large bowl, discarding the solids. Pour the liquid into a large pitcher and add 5 cups cold water (or seltzer water). Serve over ice.

A Difficult Patient

I realize that this is sort-of a cooking blog, and I haven't posted any recipes lately.

That, unfortunately, is because the other half of both my life and this blog revolves around the horrible diabetes monster.

It's been a rough couple of days in D-land. Really rough. My 3 hour appointment with a certified diabetes educator (and in reference to her, I use the term very loosely) was a wake up call to the absolutely pitiful state of health care in more rural areas. Four days later, and my head is still reeling from the amount of completely outdated information I was given. And my anger at being made to feel like a "difficult" patient still seethes.

I'm angry, and I feel a little helpless. What is my next option for a good, knowledgeable, up-to-date endocrinologist or CDE? As I've mentioned before, I already drive an hour away from my home for appointments. Next on my list - heading to Ann Arbor, a three hour round trip, and HOPE for better luck there.

Through all of this nonsense, I'm beginning to understand the sub group of Type 1's out there who want to differentiate themselves from Type 2's by completely changing the name of the disease. We are honestly such a small section of the diabetes population. When I go to a CDE, I expect her to be knowledgeable in Type 1 diabetes, as well as the technologies, drugs, and diet plans used by type 1 diabetics in the treatment of their disease. I do not want to be lumped with the type 2's. Not because type 2 is better, or worse, or whatever. It is just as difficult to live with every day as type 1. I feel that although the idea of treatment in both is the same - to keep blood sugars as close to normal as possible - the methods can really differ. So I wonder, if I had "Autoimmune Pancreatic Disease", would people, including healthcare professionals, see me differently? Treat me as an individual? Help me to find a plan that works in my own situation?

(Cause let me tell you, this 60 grams of carb a meal "meal plan" isn't working. Really, lady? I'm 5'2, for crying out loud. How many calories do you think I need? Ok, rant over.)


I guess that, once again, I've garnered how essential it is to be your own advocate. Doctors, CDE's, and dietitians should always be able and open to explaining the "whys" of a diabetes program. And sorry, "That's just the way we do it here" isn't explanation enough. Neither is "But we're a nationally recognized program."

(This picture is a perfect example of type 1 and type 2 being lumped together. The fact that a diabetes center would ask me this question, implying that there is something I could do or not do to prevent my child from acquiring a frickin AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE makes me LIVID. Maybe the fact that I wanted to claw out the eyes of the CDE after reading this was what labeled me as a "difficult patient"??)

World Travels and the D

I am finally home from a monthful of travelling. And although exhausting, I loved every minute of it.

First we headed up to Boston for my hubby's hooding and graduation. Can you tell that I'm about bursting with pride?

It was honestly like coming home. We got to hang out with all of our very treasured close friends again - the kind we just haven't had the time or opportunity to make here in the Midwest yet. I miss them horribly every day. I just feel like I fit there, if that makes sense.

Thankfully, I only had one diabetes related snafu. Somehow, after 12 years of carrying crap around with me everywhere, I walked out of the hotel room for an entire day out on the town and forgot my glucometer. Seriously? How do I do stuff like that? I spent the day relying entirely on the Dexcom - which, I suppose, is better than flying completely blind. Except that when I met some friends for dinner at a nice restaurant (read: hard to bolus for on a good day), right after the appetizers, the dexcom started wailing. HIGH! HIGH!! HIGH!! It kept climbing and climbing and climbing. Up into the 400 range - crazy, because I very, very rarely hit those numbers. So, in my panicked, what-the-heck-is-going-on state, I committed the ultimate no-no..... I corrected for it on my pump. Without a meter reading.

Several hours later, back at the hotel at last, a fingerstick revealed a nice little 132...... while the dex blinked at 350. Oops. Needless to say, I swallowed down a whole pack of skittles pretty damn fast.

We finished our travels with both of our families at Corolla Beach, North Carolina for a week. It was both a relaxing and a busy week, chock full of hiking and 20 mile bike rides and hang gliding and boogie boarding in the ocean. (On a random side note, did you know that companies won't let you hang glide if you are diabetic? I call shenanigans. That's simply ridiculous. And yes, I lied, signed the paper, and hid my pump in my shirt. Then I went hang gliding and had a fabulous time.) We were renting a beach house complete with a pool and a hot tub. Now I know that you can never truly have a "diabetes free" week. I know that it's with you every.single.day. But I chose to give myself as much of a D-vacation as safely possible. (Who am I kidding? I really just wanted to revel in the hot tub, and that of course meant that I had to pull the dexcom sensor.)

Honestly, I don't know if I achieved what I was going for. Sure, I didn't have to worry about one more contraption stuck to my body. And I let myself eat an absurd amount of junk. But I think I actually caused myself MORE anxiety than normal. I realized how attached I am to the dexcom. It's reassuring to know what your blood sugar is running at any given time (oddly, even after the mishap the week before, I still trust the thing.). I was extremely active during the week, and my blood sugar drops like a rock during exercise. I found myself in the ocean thinking, "I wonder what I am now?" And during a long bike ride. And while playing laser tag. And even at night before I went to bed, staring at a 130 on the meter, (a number that should have been calming pre-sleep), I was thinking, "But where am I headed? Am I sky rocketing? Am I starting to crash?" It just goes to show you what that little bit of reassurance does for your metal health every day. And that mental health plays such a big role in this disease.

Tonight I'm preparing for another huge three hour doctor's appointment tomorrow. Nutritionist, diabetes educator - the works. Which means I've spent the night writing down numbers and downloading the dexcom information - which I can only pray that they actually look at this time. Sometimes the sheer amount of time this disease takes up in my life is mind boggling.

(Some of the wild horses that roam Corolla Beach. They were absolutely breathtaking.)

The Flying Pig

This is a long over due post. (It's funny how sometimes you can think of absolutely nothing to blog about, and then suddenly - BAM! You have too many topics for one post. Like a random latex allergy popping up - thank you once again, crazy autoimmune system. And piles upon piles of caramelized onions. But more on that later.) Did you follow all that? Yeah, me neither.

Anyhoo, every year on the first weekend in May my hometown hosts a big race weekend. They have it all - from the whole shebang 26.2 mile marathon, a half, a team relay, a 10 k, a 5 k, and even kids runs. Now, I've run quite a few races, but this, my friends, is really the MOST FUN race out there. First of all, it's called The Flying Pig. Enough said right there, right? You cross "the finish swine" where folks dressed in pig costumes are calling out your name and cheering for you. Maybe I'm easily amused, but I find the whole thing a blast. I usually run this race with my dad every year, but this year a couple of my awesome girlfriends laced up their sneaks and ardently trained for their first 10K EVER! (I AM SO PROUD OF THEM!)

I'm not sure how in the world I convinced them to run with me. People always say to me, "The only way I'm running anywhere is if there is a bear behind me about to eat me." I'll admit, I feel pretty much the same way. I'm lazy. I like sitting on my couch. I HATE the gym. But I go - we'll say somewhat consistently. :) How in the world did I end up a "runner?" (I have to put that in quotes to differentiate me from REAL runners. Like, people who jog the race route to warm up for the race. People who know what their pace time is. People who do more than a fast shuffle step.)

This is the one thing in my life I can thank diabetes for.

I don't run because I love it. Some days it's all I can do just to take one slow step in front of the other. Some days I get fed up with all the planning that has to go into it. Did I start my temp basal rate on my pump 2 hours before I planned to run? Is my blood sugar high enough to start running? (I drop like a rock when I run, so for safety I have to start in the realm of 200.) Do I have my meter? And my glucose tabs? And my Dexcom? And my awesometastic early 90's fanny pack in which to carry it all? Can I juggle a finger stick without slowing down and without dropping everything?

But then you get to race day. If you're lucky like we were this year, the sun is shining and it's absolutely beautiful out. You are pounding the pavement with 2,442 of your newest friends.

And that's when it really hits me. Some call it a runner's high, I guess. But right in the middle of the race when I get my rhythm and my stride down, I feel - spiritual, as odd as that sounds. I feel close to God. Maybe because I'm free of all the everyday stuff? I don't really know. I think that some of the folks I was running near probably thought I was mental because I was so genuinely happy I actually started to cry. (I'm a loser. I already know, thanks. :) )

I run simply because I can.

Comfort in a bowl

I realized while looking over my blog today that the last several entries haven't been exactly.... well, positive and uplifting. I do apologize for that.

The truth is that for many, many different reasons I have been a small mess of anxiety, stress, and depression for the last little while. (Oddly, none of those reasons are even related to diabetes. Interesting digression...)

Anyway, I am not going to subject you to any of my sad little tirades. I am going to ask for some help.

I was sitting here this morning thinking about things that may help me feel a little bit better, and of course I thought of cooking. Cooking always makes me feel better. (Unless I'm making cookies. That's entirely different story.) The truth is, even though I have gone to my part-time schedule now, the schedule that was supposed to give me nearly unlimited time for cooking new and exciting things - I really haven't done much cooking at all. I guess that's a classic example of the tendency I have to allow things to snowball - why cook something if there's no one around to enjoy it or share it with? Also, I noticed that when you're generally feeling bad, your thoughts are neither quick, nor sharp. So while I know that the answer to "What will make me feel a little better today?" is "Make something really comforting and homey and delicious!" I can't quite come up with anything that fits the bill.

That's where you come in, my friends! If you have a tried and true, I'm-a-little-down-in-the- dumps-and-this-is-a-sure-way-to-pull-me-out recipe, please (!!) email it to me or post it in the comments! Or maybe you have a secret family recipe that makes you feel like a kid again. Or something warm you eat on cold, stormy days. A dish that is like staying in your jammies all day and curling up in a blanket on the couch. And I could really use that blanket! Thanks for helping a girl out. :)

Eyeballs and Chicken

I know, an odd title. The wording gods are apparently not with me today.

So this post is about eyeballs. And a delicious chicken dish. But not together. Thank God, right? No, I have not finally jumped in a pile of crazy.

I went to my yearly opthamologist appointment today. (Are you guys tired of hearing about my myriad of doctor's appointments yet? I am, too.)

I gotta tell ya, this appointment was depressing. Not because of a bad physician - this guy actually knew what he was doing!! And talked to me like I was a human being!! And not because there is anything wrong with my eyes whatsoever. Actually, Dr. NiceGuy, who had a resident with him, commented, "Hey! You want to see normal eyes??!! Check these out!" Sadly, in his line of work, "normal" doesn't happen much.

It was depressing because the good doctor, being an actual good doctor, felt the need to do the typical diabetic warnings. Which, include:

Doctor: "You've been diabetic how long?"

Me: "12 years."

Doctor: "Ok. Well, by 15 years, 90-95% of diabetics have some form of retinopathy. And by 17-18 years, that goes up to about 100%. Just so you know what to expect. That's normal."

Um. Oh. Ok.

So basically, even under the best circumstances possible, I have about 8 years left before my eyes begin to deteriorate. (I sort of get this picture in my head of my eyes melting out of my skull. Nice, I know.) Mr. NiceDoctor, I know you are probably legally bound to tell me such things, but let me let you in on something. When you tell a young diabetic that - even one that spends her days watching laser procedures for diabetic retinopathy at work - you completely KILL any motivation that person has to take care of herself. I mean, what's the point??? It's gonna happen anyway, right?

Funnily enough, as I got in my car with my mondo sunglasses and burning eyes, I thought,"I'll show YOU. Eight years my ASS, buddy!"

So maybe I was wrong about that motivation thing. :)

So I used my motivation a la Rachael Ray. I made a somewhat fru-fru (to me) chicken dish involving something I've never done before - making my own tortellini. With the lemons and the peas, it ended up being a great spring dish, fresh tasting and bright - if a tad tedious. (I'm usually a throw it all together, one pot dish kinda girl.) I have a current love affair with fresh ricotta - the real, fresh, whole milk stuff - so this, of course, was perfect. The chicken, however, ended up moist, flavorful, and absolutely delicious, thanks to leaving the skin on during baking. You can, of course, remove the skin before eating, if you are health conscious. Or, you can, like I did, sneak one little bite of that irresistibly crunchy, crackly goodness.

Aren't they cute?

I actually dug this recipe out of a very thick binder I have labelled, "TO TRY"... I very seldom ever make it over to the "to try" notebook - obviously a mistake, as I learned after making this... I must dig some more recipes out of here very soon!

Lemon Chicken and Sweet Pea Tortellini

(From Everyday With Rachael Ray)

1 lemon, 1/2 thinly sliced crosswise, 1/2 squeezed in to juice

(I ended up using close to 1 whole lemon sliced, partially because I had some humongous chicken legs, and partially because I can't seem to slice anything super thin.)

4 skin on chicken leg quarters
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

salt and pepper

1/2 cup frozen peas, thawed

1/4 cup ricotta cheese

1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon

24 wonton wrappers

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Arrange the lemon slices in a single layer down the center of a roasting pan. Rub the chicken with the oil and season with salt and pepper. Place the chicken skin side up on the lemon slices and bake for 35 minutes. Transfer to the broiler and cook until the skin is crisp, about 3 minutes. Drizzle the chicken with the lemon juice.

2. Meanwhile, using a food processor, mix together the peas, ricotta, 1/2 teaspoon of tarragon, and 1/4 teaspoon salt.

3. On a work surface, working with 2 wonton wrappers at a time, spoon a teaspoon of the pea mixture onto the center of each wrapper. (I found that I first had to moisten the edges of the 2 wonton wrappers and press the edges together to get them to stick.) Moisten the edges with water and fold the wrapper in half diagonally to for a triangle, pushing out any air pockets and pressing the edges firmly to seal. With the long side of the triangle facing you, fold the top point back toward you, then fold the right and left points to meet it and press all 3 points together firmly, securing with more water. (I also pressed the upper corners at this point. I was pretty petrified that they would come apart while they were boiling!)

4. In a large pot of boiling, salted water, cook the tortellini until they float to the top, about 5 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the tortellini to 4 plates. Divide the chicken and the roasted lemon among the plates and top with the pan juices. Sprinkle with the remaining tarragon.

I calculated this out a little sloppily - but for about 4 pieces of tortellini and the chicken I came to about 37 grams of carbohydrate. (Note - I didn't actually eat the roasted lemon, so I didn't included that in the calculation.)

And sorry about the pictures. One of these days, I will manage either to use a real camera other than my iphone, or I may actually take a good picture with the iphone. Someday. :)

Now what?

In an attempt to never, ever, ever have to go back to the first endo I tried out last month, I decided to look a little closer to home. It's a small town, yes, but there is a resonably sized hospital and a network of specialists affiliated with it. So when I noticed that the hospital diabetes center was having an insulin pump support group, I jumped right on the band wagon - for a couple of reasons.

Now, I've been on a pump for the entire 12 years I've been diabetic. So I can't say that I really need a "pump support group". (In reality, I DO need an insulin pen support group, or a MDI support group - if I ever had to go off my pump for ANY reason, I'd be flippin clueless.) But I figured I could use this group to kinda weasel my in and garner some information about the local endos - who's good? Who's not? Who includes the patient in care planning?

Devious? Maybe. But I can't handle going through another appointment like my last one.

Besides playing the spy, I wanted to hit this meeting, well, sadly, to meet people. People my own age. People who, like me, fight this thing every day. Having that kind of support makes such a huge difference. Moving to a new town is unbelievably hard, and diabetes puts another little wrench in the system, to say the least.

Unfortunately, after arriving at the meeting I must admit that I started to wonder if anyone in this town is under the age of 50. Kudos to these folks for learning the ropes on a pump for sure - but where are my 25-35 year old D girls?

The session itself was actually great - a nutritionist spoke about several different issues. I learned a few things I actually want to work into my meal planning, like carb factors. The most entertaining part, however, was when a "low reservoir" alarm went off somewhere. I kid you not, the entire room (me included) looked down at their waistbands. :)

At the end of the session, the floor was opened for questions and I started poking around about doctors in the area. Then the bomb dropped:

"Oh, yeah - there are two endocrinologists at the hospital. They are both very good. But they are BOTH retiring at the end of July. And there is NO REPLACEMENT for them yet."

Such it is in small town America. It is almost impossible to compete with the big cities for doctors, so often we get the rejects or it takes years to fill the hole. Not to mention the fact that I was also told that with 2 endos in town, it still took 6 months to get an appointment with one. What now?

Looks like I'm headed back to Dr. Sucktastic in May.