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.

Happy Birthday

Today is my brother's birthday. He's the big five-o.

Happy birthday Brother! I hope you have a fine one.

Your Sister's here!!!....

My sister arrived today via USPS. Actually, she arrived at my brother's house and he called to tell me that he was driving around with her in the backseat because the mail lady didn't leave the package and he had to chase her down.

He and I are the only ones that seem to think this is hilarious. It's so like her to show up when it's inconvenient and make us run around town to get her and do her bidding! I loved my sister but that's just how she was. And Brother and I had a good laugh joking that she's being forced to ride around Podunkvile, in his pick up truck.

Lisa hated Michigan, even though we grew up in Detroit, it was too small-ville, too Midwest, too not New York City. My other sister stayed in suburban Detroit, I moved to Podunk and my brother moved to the even smaller town of Podunkville. Needless to say those of us left in Michigan used to roll our eyes every time she started talking about how great "The City" was and how backwards the rest of us were. As if everyone here wears flannel and ear flaps year round. :)

So, she's here and we're going to actually make Beer Butt Chicken this time. I'm planning on cracking open a can of beer and setting it on her box while we eat and if Mr. Digs the Grave at the cemetery lets me I"m going to throw a can in the hole for her. A fitting final goodbye if you ask me, complete with what ailed her...

10 weird things Meme

I have a friend, real, live, and in person,, that is obsessed with MeMe's. She doesn't blog so she emails them to me. I swear to god once a week. I usually reply back to her and don't bother sending them on. This one I decided to post here. If you want to play consider yourself tagged. It's the whole list 10 weird things about yourself meme that's been floating around for awhile.

here goes.

1. probably the wierdest thing about me is that my insides are backwards. I have situs inversus, more specifically situs ambiguous because my abdominal organs are backwards but my lungs/heart are normal.
2. My favorite smell is that fuzzy warm spot on the back of my birds neck.
3. I collect tail feathers when my birds molt. I have hundreds of them and I can tell you which bird each one of them is from.
4. I don't have a favorite food, but if you ask, I'll say celery to get you off my back.
5. I was in my 20's before I realized that the song Amazing Grace wasn't about a person. (I'm not sure that's weird. but it sure is moronic)
6. I'm ambidextrous and in college I took notes with both hands until it freaked out a classmate and made me uber self conscious.
7. I'm afraid of podiatrists.
8. At restaurants I have to unwrap my silverware and set my place properly and it bothers me I don't have the minimum, knife, fork, spoon for my setting.
9. If I have blood work done or an IV put in, I always watch.
10. I can't remember the last time I turned on a TV.

your turn!

A couple of months ago I posted an entry about my male Budgie. The title had "sexy" in it. I also have a link to R.A.I.N.N. (see links on the right). Because the link has the word "rape" in it and my bird post had the word "sexy" in it apparently yahoo has indexed my blog for ratbastards searching for photos of rape victims.

Here's one for you, you sick motherfuckers.

Now get the hell off my blog!

For Lisa

My sister died today. She was 44. She drank a lot and had hepatitis in her 20s. Neither of which are good for the liver. She got cirrhosis, and then diabetes and pulmonary hypertension and an infection in her blood and spine. She was sick for a long long time. We knew it was coming, but it doesn't make it any easier.

Last year she saw a recipe somewhere someplace for what I and my other siblings called Beer Butt Chicken. I don't know what the original recipe was called but here it is. So, Lisa, where ever you are on your travels, this one is for you....

Beer Butt Chicken

1 whole chicken
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt
pepper
whatever freeking herbs you like, dried
12 pack of cheep beer in a can

-clean the chicken
-massage on olive oil
-salt
-pepper
-give it a rub down with some freeking herbs
-open a can of beer, drink 1/3rd of the can, shove the can up the chickens butt
-cook over medium type indirect heat with the grill cover on until its done.
-drink other 11 beers
-order pizza instead.

enjoy

I love you.

Yeah, I do.

I think it's disgusting too.


And on another note, I head to Chicago again tomorrow so islet updates after this set of appointments. The islets didn't behave so well for blood work the last time around. My A1c was 6.8, up from 6.2 so they want me back sooner then usual and I also get to see Dr. Thyroid because papillary carcinoma should be easy but noo, my labs had to come back in that weird place where they won't say I'm cancer free but they won't say I'm not either. *sigh*

Can I have a full body transplant next time? Just put my head on someone hot, thanks... ;)

Yay Febreeze. not.

Thanks to the joys or Sirolimus, I have an overly acute sense of smell now. Thats all fine for smelling things like roses and freshly bathed babies, not so much for Smells Like Cat but Uses Febreeze Lady at work. gag

FYI boys and girls, Febreeze doesn't work and last I checked, it doesn't say anywhere on the label "Why shower when you can Febreeze?".

Not eating lunch because I can't get away from the smell is great for my blood sugar though. I was in target range all day....

Confused?

Over at Nothing Is Sound, C-M writes about losing and finding a flash drive.

All I'm saying is, that's pretty much how I feel about my mind at the moment. Work is stressful and crayzee has done set in.

20 years ago

Be forewarned, the following is in no way diabetes related.

20 years ago I lived in this tiny podunk town in mid-Michigan. I moved there from Detroit. It was a huge, huge culture shock. The first week I lived there I decided to drive around and find the rest of the town because there just had to be more of it somewhere, right? wrong. There was corn and alfalfa and more corn and a few cows.

That day I was driving around I saw a man I like to call Jethro Tull Guy because he was wearing this tan shirt that said, you guessed it. Jethro Tull. He had a skinny white guy afro and holes in his jeans. He looked like something straight out of 1976. I thought "sweet!" and chuckled.

The following week I saw him again, Same hair, same jeans, same shirt. And then I saw him the next day, and the next. You get the idea. Every day in Podunkville mid-Michigan Jethro Tull guy walked to where ever about the time I was driving to Anthropology 101 at MSU.

Well yesterday we had a job outside of Podunkville. I haven't been there since we moved say 18 years ago and guess who I saw. Jethro Tull guy, same hair. same jeans, same shirt at the townie coffee shop. The same coffee shop I used to get my coffee at before my commute to school.

It was like stepping back in time.

Amazing how some places never change.

6 word memoir.

I was tagged by Christine-Megan over at Nothing Is Sound.

Game play is as follows:

1. Write your own 6 word memoir
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you'd like
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere
4. Tag 5 more blogs with links
5. And don't forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!


so here goes:

1 birds making me forget diabetes

2. See above picture.

3. see above link

4 and 5. I don't really know 5 other bloggers that haven't already been tagged. so if you want to play along. please do and let me know so I can read yours.

ok my 6 word memoir is lame. but there's a theme in my life and feathers make me happy. :)

Sad

After reading this article, I just wanted to cry.

When I was her age my neighbors prayed over me to "cure" me of my diabetes and then blamed me and my parents for not having enough faith. My mother told me god gave us doctors and insulin and ignoring that is as much of a "sin" as "not having enough faith".

Hopefully some other child's parents will come to the same conclusion before their child suffers the same horrible fate as Madeline.

That poor child.

Yay Spring!

Happy Happy!

Merry Ostara, Happy Easter, Yay Passover and all that jazz.

Whatever you happen to celebrate have a good one.

I'm just glad spring has officially sprung, even if there's still snow on the ground.

Why Bother Testing?

prompted by a blog I was referred to by, well, someone else, I started thinking why bother testing at all?

I'm not on insulin.
I don't take oral diabetes meds.
I'm not adjusting any medications based on said tests,
My last A1c was 6.0 or something along that line.
I hardly even qualify as diabetic anymore.

According to that criteria and the above blog I should only be testing once every few days.

So why bother?

Well,...

My doctors have asked me to. (good enough reason for me, if I don't they too will call me non-compliant, not just my pharmacist that really knows little about me other then I'm diabetic and I've stopped taking my diabetes medicines for some reason.)

I like to know if the foods I eat have effected my blood sugar in a drastic or not so drastic manner. I can't always tell ya know, sometimes even the non diabetically challenged get thirsty. I know, I know novel concept but its true! I was so surprised the first time I thought to myself "self, you're thirsty, you must have an elevated blood sugar level for sure" and I was sadly euglycemic. I say sadly because, well I wasted a finger poke for nothing?! wait, nothing? no I got the reassurance that indeed my newly procured islets were functional. yay!

oh back to my list

I like to know how exercise effects my blood sugar because on rare occasions if I exercise with my blood sugar at low-normal range I actually, go low-low. like say under 55 low. How do I know this? Well, 1 I test before exercise (more wasted strips?) and 2. I test after exercise (waste waste waste!)

and testing may effect my behavior in the future. like say, I know now that I can eat two slices of pizza with out my blood sugar going over 200 but dang, eat three and I'm doomed. So, now that I know this because I've tested my blood sugar more then twice a week, I will eat one or two slices and supplement my dinner with a salad. smartness out of someone not on insulin, wow.

When I quit purchasing my insulin through the pharmacy I usually use my pharmacist did ask me if I were getting my insulin else where (good question) and I told her no, I was off insulin and told her why. Now, I also work with said pharmacist so I get more chance to talk to her then most customers get to talk to their pharmasists but still SHE asked the right question imo.

My point here boys and girls is, not every pharmacist knows whats going on in their customers' lives, why they take the meds they take or dont take and in the case of diabetical customers why they test as often as they do and quite frankly its not their business, unless there are serious interactions or contraindications for said drugs.

So back to my question.

Should I bother? yeah, because if I don't who's going to tell me when my blood sugars start going up and I might need to have a medication change? Who's going to tell me what foods to avoid? How much exercise to get? When to call my doctor for advice? Certainly, not my pharmacist.

and on that it's 2hrs post prandial and its time for me to stab my finger and waste yet another strip....

Medals and Bragging Rights

My niece had her first gymnastics meet today at the ripe old age of seven. She placed in each of her events including first for floor routine. She did awesome!

She happens to be one of the coolest kids I know. The other coolest kid? Her sister. ;)

Not MY friend!

Time for one of those "back in the day" stories, boys and girls!

Back in the day (circa Jan 1980) I was diagnosed with diabetes at the ripe old age of nine. My mother, who was also type 1, recognized the symptoms, and took me to the doctor who immediately sent me to hospital where I got all kinds of fun booklets about diabetes. They all infuriated me because dang! I was NINE! ;) and they were written for idiots!

Now that I'm closer to 39 I realize that all medical booklets are written for idiots, even when they're written for grown ups. ;)

Any way, I found my favorite book from back in the day so I thought I'd scan the cover and post it. It's priceless! btw, I was never convinced that Mr. Hypo was my friend!

Intro (imported from a previous blog)

I'm type 1 kinda sorta I'm not really sure anymore. Let me esplain....

I was dx'd type 1 at age 9, did the whole Nph/R regimine for years, switched to Lantus and R, Lantus and Humalog and eventually went on a pump using Novolog. A few years ago I started researching Islet transplantation and the Edmonton Protocol and decided I wanted more information on clinical trial for islet transplants. I found a website that listed centers doing transplants and registered there.

About six months later I got an email from one of the centers saying they were screening for study participants and was I still interested? Yep I was, a bunch of tests, bloodwork, paperwork and ayear later I was waiting for the call for my transplant. I got that call May 13, 2006, was transplanted on the 14th and I've been off insulin since July 14. 2006. So far so good, there were rough patches. I had some complications and a whole lot of puking from one of the medications but over all so far so good! Would I do it again? You betcha! I feel great.

My blood sugars aren't perfect. I still watch what I eat because too many carbs and I spike, but eventually it comes back down on its own. Soo. I've gone from type 1 on a pump to type 1 kinda sorta not really sure where I fit in the scheme of things but its all good. ;)

Anyone interested in islet transplants can check out The Chicago Project and The University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago's islet transplant program . I'm happy to answer questions too, either here or through email.