Prior to the birth of my son, I'd never been in the hospital before. I know the nurses have experience treating diabetes, but I was still worried about how my blood sugar would be managed.

Every diabetic reacts differently to the same situations. And living with the disease day in and day out for a few years-and managing to keep my a1c under 6 the whole time-really makes me an expert in what works for me and what doesn't.

What doesn't work for me is white flour, white rice, white potatoes, sugar or corn syrup. What does work is lean protein, healthy fats, whole grains, vegetables and fresh fruit, and, most importantly, food combining. (READ MORE)

Diabetic-Forum.net

Where to even start...?

And that is the point, you don't know where.

When someone is newly diagnosed with diabetes, where should their educational journey begin? Sure, there is the inevitable hospital stay, and the chat with a doctor, and possibly a self-injection tutorial (for the insulin requiring crowd), but what is the next step... after the hospital scene?

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Turbo Squid

It has been three years, seven months, and fourteen days since I was first sitting on that powder keg in the emergency room. I sat with my parents as my blood sugar was checked for the first time and the diagnosis was made. As plain as day, the doctor said the string of words I had never known before that time, type-1 diabetes. (READ MORE)

The week following my bicycle crash was spent going through varius stages of the "human Holstein effect" -- large, colorful bruises that mimicked the black-and-white markings of that particular breed of cattle, but in colors reminiscent of tattoos from the 1950's. While most of the bruising has faded, I'm still dealing with three bumps on my left arm and...

It could have been worse.

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My sister got a call from the hospital at which Mom has been recovering after valve replacement surgery. After a couple of days of perfect sinus rhythm, her care team suddenly wanted consent to insert a permanent "on demand" pacemaker. The issue was a single episode of about eight seconds of no heartbeat. While the idea of a pacemaker had been broached before, it was earlier in Mom's recovery. Since then, as far as we all could tell, things had quieted back down to "normal".

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I wish I knew why it is that at the times we most need other people around us to comfort and support us, we find ourselves physically, technologically, financially, and psychologically unable to reach out to ask for that help.

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