I walked into my local Whole Foods Body store with the best of intentions. I wanted just one item. I didn't know what brand to buy, but I had a general idea of what I was looking for. When the salesperson said the magic words, "What can I help you find today," I should have run far away. Instead, we started a dialog that left me leaving the store with a full bag and an empty wallet. (READ MORE)

It's been a while since I last updated and I apologize for that. Sometimes life just takes over.

A lot has happened in the last few weeks. When I last checked in, my blood sugar was crazy high, my vision was suffering the consequences and my endo was terribly unresponsive. Since then, I changed doctors, went back on the meds I took prior to getting pregnant, got my blood sugar back under control and can read the clock on the DVR again. I feel so much better.

I still haven't officially told my endo that I don't want to see him any more. I plan on writing him a Dear John letter soon. The final straw was that I contacted him regarding my vision problems and my shakey control and he told me to take metformin again. I asked to go back on the meds I took before seeing him and he ignored me. I felt that I had humored him long enough. (READ MORE)

Moon

With a tainted past of endless symptoms ranging from irregular periods to joint pain, I am constantly looking for new ways to manage my life. By manage my life I mean that I look for new techniques to relieve stress, I change my surroundings to optimize my happiness and I closely examine the medical choices I have to make. This all started about three years ago. Right after my senior year in high school, I started experiencing an array of symptoms. Slowly, they all compounded leaving me with an entire page of bullet points of things going wrong with me. Joint pain, muscle weakness, fatigue, irregular and painful periods, headaches, ear aches, mood swings and so on. (READ MORE)

karith

As everyone knows by now, my blood sugars have been elevated lately. Since about last Tuesday, my averages suddenly shot up into the 200s when usually I average 140s. All last week I was scared to make any changes just because I couldn't figure out why I was running so high. It's always my luck the day I increase basals that my blood sugars will drop back down and I'll end up with horrible lows. So I just kept blousing and tried to really watch what I ate to keep my levels down. Nothing worked. (READ MORE)

1. Get so mad at yourself for not starting sooner that you randomly pick a day to start without considering what else may be going on in your life at that time that may interrupt your plans.

2. Have one (or more) of your kids get up around 3:30 a.m. for several nights in a row and need a breathing treatment or a snuggle because of a bad dream.

3. Have so much going on that when you wake up at 4 a.m. to take care of the baby (or older child who is a restless sleeper) your mind starts to race, which will make it impossible to go back to sleep until about 20 min. before your alarm goes off. This will also make it easier to fall into bed pretty much any time after dinner and not want to wake up, creating a whole nasty cycle.

4. Participate in meetings that start at 8 a.m. and last until after dinner for nearly a week.

5. Get a chest cold. (READ MORE)

I recently solicited questions and got a taker (whoo!). katdiego asked: "Hi Julia, My daughter is almost 11, dx'd at age 6, wears a pump. I'm curious about puberty. At what age did you start noticing a monthly trend? What can I expect? I had heard that girls start showing an increase in insulin needs monthly for quite some time before they actually start to menstrate. And what about teenage rebellion? Does your daughter still take care of herself? Any advice on keeping you child engaged and conscientious about their diabetes care? Has she experienced burnout? I apologize if you have talked about these things previously. "

She also gave me some lovely compliments, so thanks, kat.
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