Back in November, Christopher Thomas of Diabetic Rockstar suggested that one of the reasons diabetes doesn't get the attention it deserves is that there are so many different diabetes-related organizations which seem to be so much at odds with each other that "they can't even decide on a color". By this, he was referring to the American Diabetes Association's (ADA's) use of red as its primary color rather than World Diabetes Day Blue, which is close to the blue used by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) and not too far off the blue used by dLife® on its Web site and in the screens on dLifeTV®.

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One underlying theme of diabetes blogs and complaints is the difference of our daily routines from those of people who have never known a blood glucose test, never chosen foods based on specific ingredients or an organization's endorsement, never had to dress in a manner different from those around them, and never had to follow a ritual not of the mainstream. Yet we see, meet with, and talk to people who do this on a daily basis, who could never think of not doing this (or who would never consider it)... who do not have diabetes, nor are they housemates of people with diabetes. (READ MORE)

Several prominent dBloggers have posted this week about issues related to Driving While Low (DWL) and premature death. The subjects of these posts were people with Type 1 diabetes, which is the group with which we normally associate rapid-onset dissociative hypoglycemia. While this sort of hypoglycemia is certainly most common in Type 1 diabetes, it is occasionally seen in insulin-dependent Type 2. Most of the time, these lows would seem to be related to insulin activity peaking early or late -- or at least not in synch with one's food and drink.

Unfortunately, insulin is not always the culprit.

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A man is not dead until he is forgotten. -- African proverb

Saturday night, the vice-president of our Friends of Faire group delivered a well-worded "toast to the immortal memory", in which he named Robert Burns "the Bard of Scotland"  in the way that Shakespeare is "the Bard of England" (not to mention most of the rest of the English-speaking world!). As our festivities were dedicated to a member who had recently and unexpectedly died, her life was also celebrated in this toast, and her passing, mourned.

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"Pot luck" has been on my mind as my Friends of Faire group prepares for its annual Burns Night, and with it, the close of the winter holiday season.

While most of the United States population assumes that "the holiday season" starts with Thanksgiving (the fourth Thursday in November) and lasts until New Year's Day (or if New Year's is on a Sunday, January 2nd), for some of us the season may begin as early as Samhain (Hallowe'en), or last until Epiphany, Eastern Orthodox Epiphany, Imbolc (Groundhog Day)... or Burns Night.

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It's so easy to fall into the trap of thinking that just because I don't have to take a pill to control my Type 2 diabetes, I'm "cured". After all, that's what so many people in my condition were told, so many times, over the past half-century. Some are still told that today. And given that most of the time, my blood glucose levels stay between 85 and 120, with the occasional high postprandial excursion (which occasionally -- like, when I'm low and having dinner at a restaurant -- will lead to a high fasting reading the next morning), there's nothing to alarm the unsuspecting practitioner that back in 2002, at fifty pounds heavier than I am today, the doctor's meter read 170 mg/dl after a ten-hour fast, with an HbA1c of 7.8. Or in lay terms, "I had diabeetus".

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