With Carey and George writing about music that moves their diabetes lives, I wanted to add my two cents on this one.

For years now, the song Fitzcarraldo by The Frames has reminded me of the diabetes community and our lives with diabetes. The song Fitzcarraldo is based on a movie from 1982 about a man, Brian Fitzgerald, so enchanted with opera and the singer Enrico Caruso that he takes it upon himself to build an opera house right where he lives.

In the middle of the Peruvian jungle.

  (READ MORE)

LP

When I tell my "real-life" friends stories about my friends from the Diabetes Online Community (DOC), I'm often told that my stories make these people sound real.

"Well," I say, "They are real. In many ways more real than some people I've met face to face."

I usually get the look then. The one that says: Nicole has been spending too much time online. Nicole's friends all live in the box.

That's the furthest thing from the truth. I mean - really - who can spend too much time online? And my friends don't live in the box, they just talk to me through it. Right?

I'm getting to the point. Patience. (READ MORE)

For a number of years, I was the only diabetic I knew. Diagnosed when I was a little kid, there wasn't an army of advocates knocking down the doors of my school. As far as I knew, the only meter in my elementary school was mine. In my high school, there were two meters: mine and the one belonging to a classmate's older sister. No one else I knew was taking a fingerstick before having the orange slices at soccer practice, or before tap dance lessons.

My first taste of a diabetes community came one summer at camp. Growing up in New England, I had access to one of the best diabetes camps in the country - Clara Barton Camp. I spent six summers at CBC, giggling with my fellow campers, singing my lungs out at the nightly campfire meetings, and making friends. (READ MORE)

Yesterday was just a crappy day in general. I think my brain was just working overtime which is never good for me. I try to keep the depression that comes with having diabetes at bay but sometimes it is overwhelming. Sometimes it seems nothing will get me out of it.

I have found the best way for me to get this junk out is to get it out literally literally! I write my blog here at dLife and my personal blog. I share the good times and bad. So many times I have thought, "no one wants to hear about my cruddy day" but whenever I have, someone else has commented on how they too feel that way now and then. (READ MORE)

This past Saturday me and 14 others walked to raise money to fight diabetes. It was the American Diabetes Associations "Step Out to Fight Diabetes" walk. I posted about this a few weeks ago but at that time, only my wife and I had signed up.


To have so many people walk, friends and family alike, was just awesome. I felt so supported, so loved and cared about. (READ MORE)

What did I do before the internet?

I used to buy the newspaper to find out what movies were showing at the theater. I would call all my friends at least once a week to see what was going on. I would have to watch the news to see what the weather was going to be like the next day. I would read the TV guide to see what TV shows were going to be on.

So much has changed.

Before the internet I had no relationships with any people with diabetes. I knew a few type 2’s but never felt like they understood what I was going through and they were always much older then I was so I felt awkward.

So now that I use the internet all day long, I have no clue how I lived without it.

  (READ MORE)