What Not to Say, Episode 1

Welcome to "What not to say", a brief but compelling new series depicting gaffes, clueless comments, and downright stupidity.

Scene: Casual gathering of friends and family, including two people with diabetes who use insulin pumps, as well as a woman who works for an insurance company.

PWD1: "Have you heard about the new Cozmo upgrades?"

PWD2: "No! What's coming? I'll be looking for a new pump next year!"

Swan Insurance Rep: "I can't listen to this, I get enough of it at work" (exit, living room left)

PWDs (in unison): "allllrighty then!"

Barton Girl Spotted!

Waiting for my flight home yesterday, taking advantage of the free WiFi in the terminal, I stumbled across this AP article about the new insulin pen from Lilly:

http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/apmethods/apstory?urlfeed=D8NF3AM80.xml

Cool news, yes, but I got a huge kick out of the fact that a Barton Girl is quoted.

Seriously, we are everywhere!

Who'll be my Larry Bird?

There is a new gym opening in our area, about 3 miles away from us. It's a Richmond-based operation called "American Family Fitness", and they're putting the finishing touches on it this week. We visited yesterday, during an open house, and decided to take the plunge and sign up the whole family.

I've never belonged to a gym before. I'm a little nervous about it, seeing as it's a decent enough financial commitment.

But here's what motivated me - it's a Family Gym. Truly. Like most gyms, they offer free care for kids. But starting at the toddler age, they offer games, activities, pool time, and sports. Beginning at age 9, the kids can go to "The Zone", where they have a kid-sized circuit (and staff who teach them how to use it), a fitness wall and classes like yoga, karate, cardio box, and more. All the classes are included in the fee. Kids 9 and up are also entitled to a free meeting with a personal trainer!

Add to that the fact that several of the families we hang out with also joined, and it seems like the best possible scenario for getting me to a gym.

Now all that's left is to settle on my own personal Larry Bird. Though I stand by my prior statements that Dr. J is the best player ever, six minutes doesn't seem like much of a workout! Being a Philly girl and long time Flyers fan (and very out of shape), I'll start with a Bobby Clarke 16 for now.

Barton Girls

I'm always looking for ways for us Barton Girls to give back to camp. Whether or not we benefitted directly from campership donations, all those who attended camp benefitted from donations of money, time, and energy (and those of us who worked there but never attended also benefitted from everyone's support).

Kerri at sixuntilme had graciously posted a sixdegrees.com fundraising badge for Barton. I think Kerri has a real shot at winning this contest (and it would be only fitting that one of the SIX winners of the SIX degrees of separation contest be Kerri from SIX until me!). If she does, Barton will receive all those donations PLUS $10,000 from Kevin Bacon's foundation.

Barton Girls who blog: please grab the badge code and place the badge on your blog (it's easy! just click the link). If you don't have a blog, please consider emailing Kerri's blog address to everyone you know, along with a few words about what camp meant (or means) to you.

A few years ago, I sent a simple hand written note to a dozen family members about my camp experiences. It raised over $800 for camp! If you tell people about it, they just might be inspired to donate!

PS: The photo on the badge? That's a picture of a bench at Barton, inscribed with the words of a song written by one of my Barton staff member years ago. I asked the songwriter about it once and she told me that I used that phrase to describe camp to her during her interview.

Thirty Days

Thirty days hath September
April, June, and November,
All the rest have 31
Except February
which messes up the rhyme for me
But really...
On what planet
does 100 strips cover a month's worth of testing??

Random Recovery Remarks

So far, so good. A rather uneventful recovery from a best-case-scenario of a bad situation. I mean, really, if one has to have appendicitis, this was the way to go. Less than 24 hours from ER to discharge, decent blood sugars (only one post-op spike of 286), uncomplicated surgery... really, I'm stretching for something to whine about!

I don't love the percocet so I'm going without today, in hopes of not needing much more than advil. So far, so good. I've been able to get some work done, though I'm starting to hear the tasks piling up. The big challenge is staying focused and, well, awake. Hopefully today's shower won't require a follow up nap.

Of course, what's better than a nice long shower followed by a nap? Maybe only a shower, nap, and a cup of hot cocoa with mini-marshmallows. Yum.

I wonder if there's anyone who'll deliver mini-marshmallows...

On a diabetes note (did you like that? marshmallows to diabetes? nice, huh?), I was scrolling through my pump history and noticed that during or immediately after surgery, someone gave me insulin. Now, I know that the pump is uber-user-friendly, but I give the hospital staff kudos for using the correction wizard to dial up a dose for my 186 blood sugar. In recognition of the stress of illness, they also upped the correction a smidge.

Looking back, one thing I would have done differently would have been to start a temporary basal rate of 110% sooner (or asked the hospital staff to up the basal instead of upping the correction bolus). That would have helped with that one post-op high. Other than that, it was really quite smooth.