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I promise you, I don't go looking for bloggable moments from Charlie. I don't follow him around the house like the Verizon Wireless guy, asking, "How do feel about diabetes now? How do you feel about diabetes now? How do you feel about diabetes now?"

Take last night, for instance. I was minding my own business as I dried him off after his shower and we walked into his room, when he hits me with ,

"Dad, do you ever wish you had diabetes?"

"Well ,," I said, stalling while thinking how best to respond.

"Well, sometimes I do because I don't want you to feel alone."

"Oh," Charlie said with a thin smile. "I thought you were going to say 'no.'"

"Why?" (READ MORE)

bigevil600

Since becoming a "Weight Watcher," I have noticed the amount of stress in my life has increased. Having diabetes means I carry around a bunch of stuff with me where ever I go. I have my Glucose testing machine, strips, lancets, glucose tabs, and not to mention my carb counting book.

And now I have to add my Dining Out Guide which gives me the point values to restaurant food, my sliding scale for figuring point values, my tracker which I log my points in, and the Food Guide that has point values for all kinds of foods. So you see, I have more stuff to remember these days then I did before. (READ MORE)

I got a link to an article from ABC News today about Halle Berry. I was encouraged to see that doctors are equally concerned with her claims that she's cured herself of type 1 diabetes.

"Diabetics quickly took to the blogosphere to condemn Berry for claiming that a change in diet could cure Type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease in which the pancreas permanently fails to produce insulin, the vital hormone that regulates sugar levels in the blood."
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I went to get the mail today and found a package from Minimed. It wasn't the normal size box for Olivia's pump supplies and we've already received our Care Link doo-hickey (technical term, that - doohickey. The whatsit that you download pump info from. I think. I haven't actually used it yet. I keep forgetting....)

Anyway, inside the box was a brand new One Touch Ultra that beams blood sugar readings directly to Olivia's pump. Yay! I was all happy. I thought it would be great, that Olivia wouldn't forget about putting her blood sugars in, since the meter would do it for her.

Oh, how wrong I was. I gave it to her, all eager to see her reaction, since when the BD meter went away, she was very upset. But no.

"It's not green!" she exclaimed. "And it's not tiny." And she sort of flung it aside, sighing in exasperation.

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Having diabetes has many challenges as we all know. Exercising, eating right, checking our blood glucose levels, taking medicines, seeing doctors regularly, and so many more that I cannot even think of. We are busy bees.

One thing I have found as a major challenge is not losing my cool with people who maybe don't understand this disease so I would like to clear up a few things.

1. Not all people with type 1 diabetes are thin.

I am on a weight loss program right now and frankly, the only time I have ever been thin in my life was the year or so before I was diagnosed and was losing weight like crazy.

2. Not all people with type 2 are overweight.

This one drives me nuts. It is true that weight loss can help your chances of not getting diabetes but there are other factors too. I think of my uncle who had lung cancer but never smoked a day in his life. Same sort of a thing.

3. People who take insulin are not out of control. (READ MORE)

CraigPJ

Last week I wrote about my experience with my new endo. Today marks a week from that first visit and the day I am supposed to fax over a weeks worth of BG readings and boluses from my pump.

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