On the Islet front.

My trip to Chicago for the most part went well. My islet cells are still producing huge amounts of insulin while by blood sugars are running a little higher then they should. Why I'm having issues with insulin resistance is a puzzle since I'm not over weight and didn't have resistance before my transplant. The game plan now is to increase aerobic exercise in order to increase insulin receptors in my muscles.

I have since started walking minimum of 3 miles a day and I'm seeing some results already in my fasting blood sugars. Now we just need my post meal numbers to start coming down a little faster!

While in Chicago I had a test called CIMT done. CIMT is an ultrasound of the walls of the carotid (neck) arteries, the thickness of which can be reflective of the health of coronary (heart) arteries. I also accidentally had C-reactive protein (a marker for heart disease) tested instead of c-peptides. Both the carotid artery u/s and c-reactive protein results were excellent. Which makes me happy since I've had diabetes for 30 years, been on cholesterol lowering meds for 20, and both of my parents had heart disease at a young age.

Kinda makes me feel like I'm doing something right. It's either my snack obsession with popcorn or celery. I can't think of anything else I do all that consistently, but eat those. ;)

I'm guessing its the celery.

or else the popcorn.

It is a whole grain after all...



Green Bean. Caught in the midst of mischief. Naughty bird likes wires.

Haiku And

So much depends on
the singing of a bird on
a cold winter's day.


Green Bean two days after my last trip to Chicago.

He gets upset every time I leave him for more then a night and chews his feathers until he's naked.

His feathers are finally starting to come back in.



After my transplant the only feathers he had left were the ones he couldn't reach on his head.

So sad.

It's rough being little and green.

The poem is something I wrote soon after I got my first bird 20 years ago.

More bird news.

My birds are still all sick. Well, two out of three are sick and the fourth one is dead. Dr. Vet man says what ever they have they got from me (or more likely, from Moe since she was the one with the sinusy gunk last month), cause birds don't get gram positive type bacterias unless they get them from humans. Anyway, I feel bad that they're sick and angry with me for torturing them with antibiotics. Green Bean seems to like Cipro but judging from their reactions, the Budgies think it tastes something akin to ass. Butter quite literally spit it in my eye tonight, and while I stumbled around trying to get the sticky stingy pink gunk out of my eyeball, he flew around the house bitching at me like, well, the angry, crazed parakeet that he was. I can't blame him. I'd be angry too and quite frankly if he's healthy enough to put up that much of a fight. Go him!
Hopefully, when I take the birds back to the vet next week for a recheck they'll be all good. I hope so, cause at $165 a visit I can't afford to keep taking them every other week.

*sigh*

I love my avain vet. He's awesome, and worth every penny.

Can I add the birds onto my work benefits?

"Really Dr Vet man, they're on my family plan, prescriptions covered too..."

heh

dream on.

oh and since I haven't said it in ages

Yayislets!

my blood sugars are still all normal like.

Poor Birdies

Not only is it cold season for us poor human folks but for our feathered friends as well. The number one phase in my blogs keyword activity this month is "bird won't stop sneezing".

Poor little doods.

Folks if your bird is sneezing continuously, that's a sign of respiratory infection and/or cold. Take them to a qualified avian vet for a check up and antibiotics. The over the counter versions don't work and can make your bird worse.

Find an avian vet here.

If you can't find a certified avian vet in your area listed on that site call you local pet store, or bird breeder and ask for a recommendation.

Birds don't generally show signs of illness until they are very sick and need medical attention. soo yeah, don't wait.

danke.

The Bird and I Can't Stop Sneezing.

We have colds.

I picked up this virus at work and the bird got it too. We've both been sneezing like, like what? My dad walking by a department store perfume counter. We're talking marathon sneezing here! I feel so bad for the little guy. All night long. *tthit,tthit! tthit!* from the little green guy. It sounds so pathetic and sad. He's miserable. He's wheezy and what he wants most is to camp out in my shirt and sleep with me. He can't do that because I don't want him getting anything worse from me, and I really don't want anything he's cultivating either.

Birds and humans can do that. Pass colds back and forth like toddlers in Kindercare if we're not careful. Hence the whole "omg! bird flu!" freak out that happens on occasion. That being said, passing colds from pet birds to humans is far less common then from human to pet bird, mostly because pet birds rarely have contact with the outside world. Green Bean hasn't had contact with anyone but Moe and I since summer and the only person in his face is me, so, yeah, we pretty much know how he got sick. I feel like a heel. I gave the bird cooties!

Bad mom!

*sigh*, He's on antibiotics.

He'll get better soon.

Still. it's makes me sad.

It's rough being little and green.

Lost meter and Chicago

I lost my meter.

"Which meter", you ask, "good dog woman, you have like 50 of them!"

Yeah, I have many many meter, but I lost the one I use every day. You know, the one that's become part of me because it has more blood on it and in the pockets of it's case then I have in my veins. It has my numbers from the last three months, unlogged because I'm a slacker and I always wait until two nights before an appointment to write them down. I used it as my wallet. It had my debit card, my credit cards, my insurance cards, my pictures of my girls!! gah.

I canceled my cards, that was a minor inconvenience, I had a spare insurance card, but I'm totally totally sad about losing the girls photos and the note that Kate mailed me when she was four. I shall be sad until I find it or well, always, even if I have every line, every scribble, every X and O memorized. You just can't replace that. *sigh*

On the Chicago note. I was nauseous and pukey the morning of my appointment (as I have been on and off for months) so they're trying to figure out why. My blood sugar was a little high for fasting and that might be the problem but so far I think we're leaning towards "you're on meds that make you nauseous and pukey". hrm, yay. I said I'd be willing to switch meds if they felt it was necessary but I wasn't asking for them to be changed. (make sense)

My a1c was up to 6.4 from 5.9 and they lowered one of my med doses because I keep getting mouth ulcers. Dr. Transplant was out of town and he returns this week so I'll know more later on in the week what they decide to do with my goofy self.

Meanwhine i'm whiney.

I shouldn't be I haven't really had huge issues with the immuno supresssion meds, just a lot of minor annoyances which add up to be a big pain in the booty.

Maybe, just maybe, if we get the nausea and mouth ulcers under control I won't feel so rollercoasterish and pessimistic about the whole islet transplant experience, because over all it really has been good. My online friends just get to hear the ass end of it all.

So hats off to those of you that keep coming back for more! I appreciate it.

Thanks for listening.

Yayyou!

oh hey! new picture of the bird sitting on my head. He likes my new hat! Me too.

When There's Nothing To Say

Sing.



Green Bean likes this song (me too). It's by Julia Nunes.

Bean is still nakid because he's a neurotic little bugger. His head looks huge, his belly is nakid, he only has one tail feather left and I used my cell phone to record the video. So yeah, its crap,

enjoy.

Still Crabby

"Still?" you say.

"Why, yes that be what I said", say I.

and then the little guy in the other room yells,

"LOVEYOU!", because he only knows three phrases.

And all is well.

I love you too. little green bird. You make me happy.




its romaine, he thinks it be something to hide im, not eat.

btw. "loveyou", "yeah", and "night".

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 ;)

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.

Beware! Skunks and other critters.

I live near a park, said park is nicely wooded. has a pond, trails. and plenty of play space for man and other animals.

This evening I took the bird for a walk. More specifically, I walked. He rode on my shoulder and made comments loudly in my ear. We saw the usual geese (they're still scary), and dogs (no reaction what so ever to any dog bird-boy has ever met) and tonight we stumbled across a skunk.

I almost stepped on it, the furry bugger was that close. At first I thought it was a cat and then I smelled it. I froze, it looked at me, the bird wisely chose that moment to hide in my hair and the skunk went on its merry way.

It scared the bejezus out of me. I think almost as much as the time I stepped (literally) on a mouse in the woods and it didn't die, just ran around in circles until it flopped over and twitched. At least the skunk survived and green bean and I didn't get sprayed.

So tonight Green Bean and I are counting our blessings and thankful that we don't stink like a ten year old craptastic skunked beer and weasel ass.

No offense to the smelly ones, but I think Beanie and I will stick to afternoon walks when the skunks are sleeping even if there are more scary geese around. At least they warn you before you're close...

Fat Bird.

I found this old ratty falling apart photo of Earl Grea. Grea was a fat bird. He weighed more then twice what my heaviest parakeet since has weighed. He was happy, and beautiful and squishy and I loved all 72 grams of him.

Saturday In The Park

The bird and I went for a walk today. We saw geese galore, and kids with Frisbees and Green Bean's very first encounter with a dog. I think he was more afraid of the giant goose then he was of the lab. I can't blame him, the goose's head was bigger then Green Bean and I think it was looking for a hand out, so it was interested in us. The lab on the other hand didn't seem to notice the little pile of green fuzz in my hand at all.

I got my exercise in. We walked about a mile and Bird went right to his sleeping spot for a nap when he got home. I'm telling you it's just rough being little and green...

Bean!

Green Bean sitting on my finger.

Updates on my trip to Chicago and transplanty type stuff coming soon...

Sexy Sexy!

Butter is my male normal budgie. I say normal in that he's the color of budgies in the wild. All of the other birds love him and the girls in particular are smitten. I never knew why.

Apparently being well endowed with blue cheek spots and blue tail feathers is the reason.

He's just a sexy sexy bird!

btw, we're still waiting for eggs. Girl bird is busy nesting.

I love PBS and youtube. yay!

Pooooor little green bird!

Because my living room is flipping freezing 24/7 no matter how warm the rest of my home is and I really really wanted to hang out and just watch tv today, I dragged out my sleeping bag. grabbed the bird and set up camp.

Tv was boring as usual and the bird was warm and fuzzy and we both fell asleep like morons in the middle of the floor. I woke up a short while later, couldn't find the bird, which usually means he's headed back to his cage.

but no, he wasn't there.

he wasn't on his play gym.

or hanging out in my pot of chives.

or any of his usual spots. so I started to get worried. I looked and looked and looked and then I heard it. Grrrrrrrrrr, rrrrrrrrrrrr, rrrrrr. little bird growlings in the bottom of the sleeping bag.

He was trapped, squashed by heavy blankets, ruffled, nippy and totally annoyed with me when I finally dragged his little bird butt out of the bottom of the bag.

*sigh*

I'm a bad bad parent and its rough being a little green bird.

The Birds and the birds., and some diabetes musings too...

Not only do I have a parrotlet but I also have three bugdies. Butter, Sky, Marble. Butter and Sky are smitten. They have been since day one. They've never shared a cage mostly for that reason and because Butter and Green Bean get along really well so the boys share a cage and the girls have their own cages. Until today.

I usually let the budgies play together every few day. Socialization is a good thing right? Well, today it was a budgie porn fest! (not their usual behavior, I guess spring is in the air) and I've decided to let the girl bird nest and see what happens. Last spring she nested but none of the eggs hatched. They probably won't this year either, but I'm looking forward to seeing what happens. Mean while Green Bean is jealous and mad that his friend is with THAT girl bird!

On the diabetes front, I have mouth ulcers from the immunosupression meds. Eight of them! They hurt, everything I eat hurts, thinking about eating hurts, so I'm not eating much and as a result my blood sugars have been most excellent. Honestly, the mouth ulcers are bad enough some days that I wonder if its worth it, but then I think about the long term and about how things were before the transplant and I know I'd still do it again.

So I'm going to quit whining and go watch my birds now that the nookie is over :) and think about eating something, maybe.

Traitor!

Green Bean has a new friend!

Since I brought him home from the bird store Green Bean has been my buddie, my best friend. He loves me most! This I knew with every bit of my soul. until today! Well really until Wednesday.

Friends of ours came over for dinner. One them asked to see the birds and since Green Bean is the only one tame enough to come out when I know I might need to just reach over and grab him to put him back in his cage he's the one I brought out. He liked J. immediately and flew to her. He never does that! I was surprised. No biggie. After a short visit it was bed time and I put him to bed. The next day we're all back to normal. And then today happened!

Once again the same couple came over for dinner/super bowl and she asked to see Green Bean again and as soon as he saw her he was off! He sat on her shoulder the entire evening, gave kisses, preened her hair and when it was time go to back to his cage and go to bed he bit me! I think I'm jealous!

The little bugger!

How I managed to get my medical insurance to pay for bird toys!

Green Bean is my parrotlet. If you're not already familiar with them parrotlets are related to amazons. They look just like them only they're minime verison with all of the personality and about 1/10th of the bite.

Green Bean thinks he's full sized. Don't tell him otherwise or you'll see that little giant temper of his. He's very vocal about his opinions!

Today, he was on the floor of the living room running around (literally) in circles until he found, you guessed it, a used test strip! He thinks they're the coolest toy around and the bottles??? wooo! fun! When empty they're light weight enough to kick around, and stable enough to balance on if he decides he needs a perch.

I tried to get a picture but he wouldn't sit still.

silly boy!

Crazy Birds!

There are geese flying north already! What's up with that? Crazy birds.

I handed out bread at the pond behind my home and counted carbs.

Sad for me. I still see every food item as a number, even if I'm not the one eating.