Once a year my company offers health screenings -- free -- and an incentive (such as a gift card) for taking the health screening. I think it's a great idea for companies to do this because there are plenty of stories about people who don't go to the doctor enough and then go through a health screening at work and discover that they have diabetes or high cholesterol or that they're this close to having a heart attack.

That's great. But I don't participate mainly because I already know what's going on with me. I see my OB once a year, I see my primary once a year, and I see my endo every three months complete with blood work. There is nothing that a health screening can tell me that I don't already know. In fact, it would likely do nothing more than piss me off because someone with little knowledge of diabetes would be telling me that I test too much or questioning the validity of a CGM.

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I've said it before and I know others have too: it's awfully strange, considering my profession, that I don't read books. I've never been a book reader. Ever. I struggled through classes in high school and college that required reading novels.

I know, right? And yes I still want to write the Great American Novel. But that's different. Part of the reason I don't read more is that I'm easily distracted. I can sit down and read a chapter or two of a book, put it down and think that I'll be able to get back to it the next day. But then it's a week before I pick the book up again and I've forgotten what I've read.

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One of my biggest issues in my diabetes management is "knowledge." I don't mean that I don't know what I'm doing or enough about the disease. Trust me, I've had that covered for awhile now. I'm talking about the simple facts of knowing how I am in this disease.

My bad habit is to skip a blood sugar check because I know I'm high. There, I said it. I confessed.

I'll give you a blatant example. I bought a cake yesterday. So I had a pretty big piece last night after dinner (a very low carb dinner, I might add). I bolused for what I figured it might be. And I went on with my evening.

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March 3, 1993. I was 4 and a half years old. My parents were worried. I'd been sick for too long and continually got worse. Vomiting, thirst, excessive urination, extreme weight loss. I was wasting away.

March 3, 2010. I'm 21 and a half years old. I'm still diabetic, but I'm not wasting away. I have no major complications. I have to say that seventeen years ago, as a tiny four year old, I had no idea what diabetes meant. I certainly didn't foresee seventeen years with a chronic illness that takes up every moment of my life.

It's strange to know that seventeen years have gone by now. Yesterday doesn't feel much different than today. It's more the accomplished feeling that runs through me when each D anniversary passes by.

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February 2010 marks my fifth anniversary with diabetes. I've been thinking about writing this post all month, though, clearly, I haven't found a way to write until the last day of the month.

I find that when I have an idea for a post -- say, a theme or a headline or just a quick idea -- but that I struggle writing it down it's usually because I just can't put my finger on the right words.

In five years I've been a lot of places with diabetes and learned a lot of things. I've had an A1C as high as 9 and as low as 5.9. I've lost 50 lb. and gained it back. I've been on oral drugs, I've taken Byetta and Symlin, I started on the pump. I had a beautiful baby.

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I haven't been eating right at all lately. I know what everyone will say because my mother has told me the same things already. I need to focus, I need to keep my eating habits on track, I need to stay healthy. But right now, I don't need to be told this. I need to find a way myself, on my own, to fix this.

I'm just not very hungry lately. Or if I'm hungry, I have no appetite. I can go hours upon hours without eating or even thinking of eating. And when my stomach finally growls, I peruse the pantry and come up with nothing. I want nothing.

But then there are these times where I just want to eat and eat. I'm not hungry, but pounds of food seem ideal. I want cookies, donuts, Coke, and cake. I just eat and eat, until I just get tired of eating.

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