Sooo, for the past few months I've been dealing with what I thought was heartburn, an ulcer, one of my meds causing stomach pain or something along those lines, but today I got a phone call from transplant coordinator nurse extraordinaire, and she said in not so many words "surprise! you have gallstones!".
How do they know this?
July I had my annual lets make sure nothing has gone horribly awry with study patient, abdominal ultrasound. Turns out something was awry. I go back to Chicago in a week for an added appointment and I'm sure said stones will be discussed then.
Meanwhile, you can sell your stocks in Tums. Sales will be plummeting. I'm going to stop eating them like they're Skittles.
They never helped anyway.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
Why I Love My Islets
Summertime around here is one crazy whirlwind of a season. Let me explain.
My partner and I have a party rentals / kids entertainment business that for the most part functions April through October every year. In addition to this we both have day jobs that provide steady if somewhat meager wages and medical benefits.
The party business has a bounce house, popcorn poppers, cotton candy machines, and sno cone machines and in addition to that we also do face painting, and balloon twisting for things like birthday parties, church functions and corporate events. This season has been busy to say the very least and this leads me to the reason for the title of today's blog entry.
Today was a perfect example of why I love my islets.
I got up at 3:30am to get ready for my day job.
Worked from 4:30 - 9:00. It was a short day, thank Buddha.
10am we picked up a popcorn popper from a week long rental.
12noon bounce house set up. Now mind you, the bounce house weighs 275lbs, requires four 50lb sand bags to weigh it down, and the only equipment we use to get said items where they need to be are our van and a dolly. (can you say exhausting boys and girls?)
1pm -4pm balloon twisting, and general supervision of 50 kids in and out of the bounce house while their parents take full advantage of an open bar and the crazy lady with the balloons. Meanwhile Moe drove back across town to drop off a sno-cone rental.
4pm tear down, roll up, and load bounce house back into van, while trying to keep curious kids out of the way.
.
5pm drive back across town again to pick up sno cone machine.
6pm get home, unload popper, sno-cone machine, clean and sanitize machines and get supplies ready for tomorrow.
8pm, order a pizza and realize the last thing I ate was a bag of Cheetos at 6:30am.
8:15pm test my blood sugar and its 98.
and that is today's reason for loving my islets. ;)
yaysummer!
My partner and I have a party rentals / kids entertainment business that for the most part functions April through October every year. In addition to this we both have day jobs that provide steady if somewhat meager wages and medical benefits.
The party business has a bounce house, popcorn poppers, cotton candy machines, and sno cone machines and in addition to that we also do face painting, and balloon twisting for things like birthday parties, church functions and corporate events. This season has been busy to say the very least and this leads me to the reason for the title of today's blog entry.
Today was a perfect example of why I love my islets.
I got up at 3:30am to get ready for my day job.
Worked from 4:30 - 9:00. It was a short day, thank Buddha.
10am we picked up a popcorn popper from a week long rental.
12noon bounce house set up. Now mind you, the bounce house weighs 275lbs, requires four 50lb sand bags to weigh it down, and the only equipment we use to get said items where they need to be are our van and a dolly. (can you say exhausting boys and girls?)
1pm -4pm balloon twisting, and general supervision of 50 kids in and out of the bounce house while their parents take full advantage of an open bar and the crazy lady with the balloons. Meanwhile Moe drove back across town to drop off a sno-cone rental.
4pm tear down, roll up, and load bounce house back into van, while trying to keep curious kids out of the way.
.
5pm drive back across town again to pick up sno cone machine.
6pm get home, unload popper, sno-cone machine, clean and sanitize machines and get supplies ready for tomorrow.
8pm, order a pizza and realize the last thing I ate was a bag of Cheetos at 6:30am.
8:15pm test my blood sugar and its 98.
and that is today's reason for loving my islets. ;)
yaysummer!
Monday, July 13, 2009
Labs Labs Labs and Some Irrelevant Stuff too
Ok, I Promised, I shall deliver. Be prepared for boring.
Glucose (fasting) - 98
A1C - 6.0
Fructosamine 243
A1C and fructosamine are a little higher then I'd like them to be, but considering what I've eaten in the past month. yeah, I'll take it.
I don't have c-peptides yet and everything else is normal with the exception of hemoglobin (low at 10.9) and Platelets (High at 515). Neither of there are particularly concerning so yeah. good times.
In other not so interesting irrelevant news, chipmunks keep pulling up the radishes in my garden. I'd be all fine with sharing if they actually ate them, but no, they're like toddlers that want something and then decide its nasty after they try it. I got home from work today and there was a little pile of dried out roots on the ground.
Little buggers! It's a good thing chipmunks are cute.
Glucose (fasting) - 98
A1C - 6.0
Fructosamine 243
A1C and fructosamine are a little higher then I'd like them to be, but considering what I've eaten in the past month. yeah, I'll take it.
I don't have c-peptides yet and everything else is normal with the exception of hemoglobin (low at 10.9) and Platelets (High at 515). Neither of there are particularly concerning so yeah. good times.
In other not so interesting irrelevant news, chipmunks keep pulling up the radishes in my garden. I'd be all fine with sharing if they actually ate them, but no, they're like toddlers that want something and then decide its nasty after they try it. I got home from work today and there was a little pile of dried out roots on the ground.
Little buggers! It's a good thing chipmunks are cute.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Keyword Analysis
Yeah, I have no life.
It's been awhile since I last checked to see which keywords were getting people to my blog. Today, I was curious, so here are a few of my favorites this time around.
1. nakid beaches. - sadly, none here.
2. one that included the phrase "hot nakid lady" with another phrase that together even I wouldn't post on my blog and I'm not easily offended. (all I'm saying here is ick)
keyword analysis makes me think that most people are really bad at searching the interwebby thingummy cause porn and nakidness, like savoire-faire, are everywhere and google searching for said items shouldn't be difficult or bring you here. It's mind boggling. Sometimes I just stare at such phrase and think "uuhhh??wuh??".
3. islet transplant abuse - none of that here either.
4. my friend mr. green - I hope, if you are still searching for your friend that you find him soon.
and my favorite
5. diabeticalness - I thought I made the word up!
gmta.
It's been awhile since I last checked to see which keywords were getting people to my blog. Today, I was curious, so here are a few of my favorites this time around.
1. nakid beaches. - sadly, none here.
2. one that included the phrase "hot nakid lady" with another phrase that together even I wouldn't post on my blog and I'm not easily offended. (all I'm saying here is ick)
keyword analysis makes me think that most people are really bad at searching the interwebby thingummy cause porn and nakidness, like savoire-faire, are everywhere and google searching for said items shouldn't be difficult or bring you here. It's mind boggling. Sometimes I just stare at such phrase and think "uuhhh??wuh??".
3. islet transplant abuse - none of that here either.
4. my friend mr. green - I hope, if you are still searching for your friend that you find him soon.
and my favorite
5. diabeticalness - I thought I made the word up!
gmta.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Millennium Park Chicago
When I go to Chicago for my quarterly follow ups with UIC's islet transplant team I usually stay downtown at Hostel International Chicago. HI Chicago is on Congress at Wabash, which is about five blocks from Millennium Park. If you live in the Chicago area and have never been there I recommend and if you happen to be touristing in Chicago, skip Navy Pier and see the park. You won't be disappointed.
While I was there I took some photos with my junky camera phone. I'd have used a real camera but well, I failed to bring mine with. Such is life.
Crown Fountain consists of two towers facing each other with a shallow reflecting pool between them that people wade in. The towers are made of glass bricks. Each tower has video of various faces staring out smiling, not smiling. you get the picture.
The fountain spits. Cool beans!
Flowers in Lurie Garden, Millennium Park. There are flowers everywhere in Chicago. Millennium Park has a lot of flowers that grow wild where I live. It's odd to see them in the middle of the city.
Even odder were the bunnies we came across eating lilies. Pigeons I expect in cities, Squirrels, sure. The bunnies just caught me off guard and it seemed quite used to being stared at by goofy camera toting tourists. ;)
While I was there I took some photos with my junky camera phone. I'd have used a real camera but well, I failed to bring mine with. Such is life.
Crown Fountain consists of two towers facing each other with a shallow reflecting pool between them that people wade in. The towers are made of glass bricks. Each tower has video of various faces staring out smiling, not smiling. you get the picture.
The fountain spits. Cool beans!
Flowers in Lurie Garden, Millennium Park. There are flowers everywhere in Chicago. Millennium Park has a lot of flowers that grow wild where I live. It's odd to see them in the middle of the city.
Even odder were the bunnies we came across eating lilies. Pigeons I expect in cities, Squirrels, sure. The bunnies just caught me off guard and it seemed quite used to being stared at by goofy camera toting tourists. ;)
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Chicago and Back Again
I just returned from Chicago after my quarterly bit of fun. This visit involved two glucose tolerance tests, a CIMT (ultrasound of the carotid arteries), an abdominal ultrasound and an ekg. I did not however see Dr. Transplant. He is after all a transplant surgeon and can't always plan when organs are going to be available, so he was in surgery.
Going by the accuchecks that were done during the glucose tolerance testing I can pretty much guess that all is well in isletland. The ultrasound on the other hand is one of those things that just can't be judged by the testing itself, cause I know about my situs inversus (backwards innards) and polysplenia syndrome (too many spleens) and the other odd things associated with them (you can look those up yourself if you are so inclined) but the radiology tech didn't so ultrasound took a long time and there was much discussion about said goofiness. That being said I never really can tell if they're discussing new findings or just interesting (only to medical dorks, erm, professionals) findings,
My CIMT was good. This I know, because Paul over at Radiant Research said I have nice open arteries and that's a good thing boys and girls. CIMT is an ultrasound of the carotid arteries. The health of your carotid arteries reflects the health of your coronary arteries so clean carotids = clean coronaries.
When I get other labs back like A1c and such I shall post more. Promise ;)
Last but not least on my agenda tonight before I hit the hay, Amber, one of the awesome nurses over at UIC clinical research center is going to be running in the Chicago marathon with CellmatesOnTheRun. Her goal is to raise $1500 and she's almost there, so pretty please help her out and help diabetes research too!
Amber's fundraising site can be found here.
Thanks!
yayamber!
Going by the accuchecks that were done during the glucose tolerance testing I can pretty much guess that all is well in isletland. The ultrasound on the other hand is one of those things that just can't be judged by the testing itself, cause I know about my situs inversus (backwards innards) and polysplenia syndrome (too many spleens) and the other odd things associated with them (you can look those up yourself if you are so inclined) but the radiology tech didn't so ultrasound took a long time and there was much discussion about said goofiness. That being said I never really can tell if they're discussing new findings or just interesting (only to medical dorks, erm, professionals) findings,
My CIMT was good. This I know, because Paul over at Radiant Research said I have nice open arteries and that's a good thing boys and girls. CIMT is an ultrasound of the carotid arteries. The health of your carotid arteries reflects the health of your coronary arteries so clean carotids = clean coronaries.
When I get other labs back like A1c and such I shall post more. Promise ;)
Last but not least on my agenda tonight before I hit the hay, Amber, one of the awesome nurses over at UIC clinical research center is going to be running in the Chicago marathon with CellmatesOnTheRun. Her goal is to raise $1500 and she's almost there, so pretty please help her out and help diabetes research too!
Amber's fundraising site can be found here.
Thanks!
yayamber!
Friday, July 3, 2009
Happy 4th!
Or in my tiny little Podunk world, happy 3rd cause that's when Podunkville celebrates it. Don't ask me why.
In the spirit of the holiday here's some important guidelines to help you get through the weekend.
enjoy
In the spirit of the holiday here's some important guidelines to help you get through the weekend.
enjoy
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