Coming Soon!

I can never find random things to buy that have photos of parrotlets on them so I went to zazzle and made some postage stamps with a photo of green bean on them. I shall post a link if any other birdly type folks want stamps with a parrotlet on it.

Yeah, I realize the remoteness of it all in the diabetes blogsphere but what can I say? He's my favorite fuzzy butted bird and I'm a big dork.


its on the right. check it out ;)

The Last Lecture

I'm not going to embed it because it's over an hour long, but If you get a chance check out Randy Pausch's (Oct. 23, 1960 - July 25, 2008) "The Last Lecture".

Random Entertainment For The Week 7/25

It was pointed out that my bits of Random Entertainment have been overly artsy fartsy as of late. So this is for the non so arty farty types.

Be forewarned. There be language that might offend your mother.

You ask and I answer.

I got this email.

Can you tell me good book about diabetes?

um, ok, sure. Why random strange person felt the need to emai me and ask me which Diabetes related books I enjoy, I have no clue but I shall oblige.

Here goes:

Cheating Destiny, by James S. Hirsch

Using Insulin, Everything You Need to Know For Success With Insulin, by John Walsh, et al. check out his website too, tis goodly. www.diabetesnet.com

Think Like a Pancreas, by Gary Scheiner, and Barry Goldstein

and of course the ever popular

Mr Hypo Is Your Friend. by unknown, if you know the author let me know I'll give due credit, however it matters little since it is no longer in print. see my post about it.

Have any recommended reading you'd like me to add to the list? Let me know.

(yes, tis a direct quote from email I received)

Labs. Labs, Labs

I got my most recent labs. woot!

A1c: 5.9
urine protein; negative
and pretty much everything else was normal too except I'm still anemic and that I can deal with.

Who needs red blood cells anyway?

Bonus Video For The Artly Inclined 7/19

Random Entertainment for the Week 7/18

Truly, truly amazing. It's longer then my usual Random Entertainment type posts but 'tis worth the 13 minutes of your day.

Enjoy!

Fire Alarms and Nakid Birds, Good Times.

Last night I was good. I went to bed fairly early for me at 10:30 and awoke about 40 minutes later with a godawful buzzing in my head. I live in an apartment building, It's a walk out. We have a courtyard. It's next to a park. I have quiet neighbors. I like it. However, I live on the first floor and had no idea just how horrible the people on the 2nd and 3rd floors have it when the temperatures get hot outside. Until last night at about 11:10 pm when the buzzing started.

It was loud. Really loud. Did I mention that the buzzing was loud?

Cause it was.

It had apparently rained in the 40 minute that I was pleasantly asleep and the humidity in the building was high. That, along with the ungodly heat outside and even higher temps inside on the upper floors, set off the fire alarms in the building. I got up, woke up M. checked the hallway door to see if it were hot and then checked my neighbors door to see if they were hot. Nope. I went back inside, put the birds in their travel cages and sat outside with them whining the whole time until we decided what to do.

Eventually, the fire department showed up. Nothing was wrong other then it was just hellish and steamy upstairs, so we went back in. The birds spent the night in their travel cages and today when I got home from work. Green Bean was nakid.

Poor bird didn't like the noise and interruption of his sleep and decided that pulling out all of his belly feathers was a good stress releasing activity.

I need batteries for my camera. Maybe tomorrow I'll buy some and post a picture of his pathetic little butt.

Random Entertainment For The Week 7/12

Enjoy the fine fine dancing.

And people think cinema is pervy today.

Kidney functions and Metabolic Testing

Prior to my islet transplant my kidneys were spilling protein into my urine. Two years later there is improvement and the protein in my urine is less. I don't have numbers because I didn't ask for them. Bad me, but I was just happy about the improvement and not worried so much about the technicalities of it all.

The results of my metabolic testing were goodly. All normal like so I'm still non-diabetical.

I'd like to line up all of the islet researchers in the world and give out hugs and stickers and all that happy crap!

yay!

I heart islets, really, I do!

Islet Transplant Article in ScienceDaily

A friend gave me the heads up on an article about UIC's islet transplant study on Science Daily's website. It's from June 10, 2008 but still, cool beans. check out the full article. Here's an excerpt.

ScienceDaily (2008-06-10) -- Researchers have modified the procedure for islet cell transplantation and achieved insulin independence in diabetes patients with fewer but better-functioning pancreatic islet cells.

It's kind of odd reading about the study in professional journals and such cause I read them and think.. "oooo cool! oh hey! that's me!"

I'm a dork, what can I say?

Non-diabeticalness.

I haven't been testing so much lately. I've gone from 5-7 tests a day to once or twice a day and it's kind of nice. I haven't let myself get all guilt ridden over it either, which is a new experience for me. Over the past three weeks my low was 44 and my high after a meal was 129. I go back to Chicago on the 10th and we'll see what my a1c is then. If it has gone up I'll resume testing more often again but for now, I'm enjoying the break.

Have I mentioned how much I love my borrowed islets recently? I lurve them, I really do! And Januvia is the bomb diggity!

I feel to non-diabetical.

Yayislets!

Random Entertainment For The Week 7/4

Happy 4th! Yesterday was our annual "4th of July on the 3rd" party, complete with fireworks and too much food. I'll be eating leftover hot dogs for a year. We way over bought. The kids all went home with oodles of loot and balloons. We have more beer then we started out with. The beer bucket was like a drunkard's magic wishing well, the more people showed up the fuller it became. We only had one person fall asleep on our living room floor, the yard is a muddy mess and at one point someone brought out a video camera. Fun was had by all. If I can get a hold of any video footage, I'll post it but right now I have a head ache and my hair is a huge snarled mess. I need to find a brush and some nsaids. So watch this and I hope you have a happy and safe fourth.

Yayfireworks!

Crayzee has visted!

I got this email. I think crayzee has done visited someone and stayed.

Hi there,

Don't worry, be happy. Soon we will have visitors from a far away
Galaxy.

These visitors from a highly advanced civilation are scientist, and
they will
have a cure for Diabetes, before you can
say, "God Bless You".

Oh thank the celestial powers that be!

At least it wasn't another advertisement for Noni juice.