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.

  (READ MORE)

It's after 9 p.m. on Saturday night and I've just learned something that normally would send me straight to bed. Likely crying. But I'm wide awake and I can't help but wonder if it's the double dose of anti-depressants I took this morning.

I met with a psychiatrist yesterday for the first time ever. Iv'e seen counselors before, but never for depression.

I was looking forward to the appointment. I was anxious to talk about how I got to where I was, issues that I struggle with, and I think a little validation that what I was going through was real depression and not just a wacked out personality.

I connected with Dr. L pretty quickly and easily. I imagined she'd be around my age and she was. She was easy to talk to; straight forward and rather blunt at times, which I was fine with.

  (READ MORE)

I've always been a quote collector. Each year in high school I wrote down all of the senior quotes in a notebook. I think I occasionally looked back at them. I had a gigantic book of quotes at one point, too, and I'm pretty sure I went through it with a highlighter. (Oh, wait. Looking over my shoulder at my bookcase I see I still have "Words of Wisdom.")

While I've since trashed that notebook, I am still a connoisseur of quotes. I think for the entire seven years we lived in that little town in Missouri, I had a quote (I think by Kenny Rogers) on a post-it note (that interestingly never lost its stickiness) attached to a kitchen cabinet: Don't be afraid to give up the good for the great.

  (READ MORE)

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.

  (READ MORE)

So pretty much after almost every endo appointment -- and all those pesky questions about how my numbers have been -- I think that I should get back to logging my numbers and my food. Well, mostly my food since my numbers are stored in my pump.

But having a food log in conjunction with my pump numbers and the copious information from Dexcom may help me and my doctors do some adjusting. And I'm quite certain it will help me continue to lower my A1C.

Ugh, just the thought of logging is overwhelming. I carry around a three-ring binder with all my "things" packed in it. It's like a mini briefcase. I'm much more likely to pay attention to stuff if I have to rifle through it every now and then. Carrying an actual briefcase left me finding important things shoved in the bottom way after they were needed.

  (READ MORE)

I thought seriously about postponing my endo appointment scheduled for this morning. I hadn’t seen the doc since August, when my A1C was 7.6. I didn’t think I was doing any better than I had been doing in August. In fact, I was pretty sure I was doing worse.

Thanks to some pretty crappy eating habits, some stress and dealing with worn out pump sites, I suspected my A1C was going to be ridiculously high. I even imagined myself telling the nurse to not tell me the number, to just write it down and let me look at it when I was ready. And then I realized that was stupid because how is the doc going to help me if we don’t talk specifically about what my A1C is.

  (READ MORE)