Did you know?

# More than 100,000 men, women and children currently need life-saving organ transplants.

# Every 11 minutes another name is added to the national organ transplant waiting list.

# An average of 18 people die each day from the lack of available organs for transplant.

# In 2008, there were 7,984 deceased organ donors and 6,218 living organ donors resulting in 27,961 organ transplants.

# In 2007, approximately 30,000 grafts were made available for transplant by eye banks within the United States.

# According to research, 98% of all adults have heard about organ donation and 86% have heard of tissue donation.

# 90% of Americans say they support donation, but only 30% know the essential steps to take to be a donor.

Find your state's organ donor registrey here.

Thank you from the bottom of my liver.

World Diabetes Day 2009

I made this as part of a project that I'm doing for work this month.

Vaccinations and Small County Livin'.

I live in a small county right next to a much more populated county, and by "right next to" I mean quite literally, across the street. The kids from the schools that are closed due to H1N1 in my county could throw stones at the kids from schools closed due to H1N1 in the county next door. Oh wait. the majority of them go to the same schools. but guess what? (I bet you've already guessed where I'm going) The peoples in the more densely populated county right across the street, working in the same offices. going to the same public places and the same schools, have access to H1N1 vaccinations, and the peoples in my county? Not so much.


Big county next door got H1N1 vaccinations almost two weeks ago. Podunk county? Three days. I called both counties offices. Big? available to the highest risk group, kids, people working with kids, pregnant peoples and people with compromised immune systems. Podunk county? They've got them but not for the chronically ill and immuno compromised unless you happen to be under 19.

So what's a paranoid girl to do?

Travel 10 hours round trip to Chicago to the clinical research center at UIC on Monday. They've got vaccinations for all of the patients in the study, and I oh so appreciate that they do, but Monday's going to be a long long day for one silly shot that IMO should be available right next door.

I was never paranoid about germs before immuno suppression.

Really.

I wasn't.

Things I learned from my mother about Diabetes,.

My mother lived with type 1 diabetes for 52 years.

She taught me everything I need to know about it.

Read. Educate yourself. Never stop learning.

and never ever quit trying.













Good lesson for a lot things in life.

Have I Ever Mentioned?

Just how much I appreciate those of you that register as organ donors?

I do!

Yayyou!

p.s if you haven't signed up yet, find your state's registry here

Cellmates On The Run in New York!

Some of the fine folks that ran for CellmatesOnTheRun in the Chicago marathon will also be running in the New York marathon on November 1st.

They'll be listed as a partnering charity.

It's not too late to give some love and donate!

yay!

Appointments and Marathons

I had my quarterly appointment at UIC's clinical research center last Tuesday. My A1C was 6.3 for the second time in a row so I've been put back on Januvia. My fasting blood sugars are good. My blood sugar is staying up longer then it s should and while 6.3 isn't a horrible number I agree with Dr. Transplant that Januvia is a good idea.

My gallbladder will most likely be coming out in January. Unless I have symptoms again, then it will come out sooner.

I also have an angiomyolipoma on my kidney. It's a benign tumor. 2003 is the first time I can remember it showing up on any kind of scan or ultrasound and nothing has ever been done about it. I was told once it was benign but I've never had any follow up so UIC wants it checked out as a precaution. That will be happening sometime in January too. yay

on funner notes

We went to the Chicago Marathon on Sunday. We got there at 7:30. There was a high school race (I think 3miles?) then the wheelchair racers started, professional runners started and then everyone else. It was really cool to be able to be down there to cheer everyone on. I finally lost my voice from yelling around 1pm and we decided to head out even though there were still a lot of people running.

Now, I appreciate even more the runners that raised money for the Chicago Diabetes Project and diabetes research in general. CellmatesOnTheRun wasn't the only Diabetes related charity represented. We saw a few different organizations' shirts run by.

So to everyone that ran for a charity. Thanks!

To CellmatesOnTheRun, especially Dr. Oberholzer for encouraging people to run, and Amber, nurse extraordinaire, for raising more the twice her original goal and for being awesome in general, Thank you!

Yaycrazypeoplethatrunforacause!