The first week in August marked the start of the 2010 run of the New York Renaissance Faire, an event in which the most popular exhibitions involve aiming long, pointy objects at impossibly small, circular targets. Whether it's an 8-foot-long lance hooking a three-inch-diameter ring, or a 26" arrow aimed at a bull's eye 100 yards away, or a sword or spear looking to unhinge a 1/2"-diameter ring of chain-mail armour, these are impressive displays of marksmanship and control -- kind of like trying to keep one's blood glucose levels between the mythical "102" and "104" (mg/dl) of glucometer-packaging displays, regardless of what one eats and when. (READ MORE)

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One of the most frustrating aspects of diabetes management is the fact that diabetes has a mind of its own. At any given moment, your body can do the strangest things that you have no control over. Stress, hormones or the weather can have a huge impact on blood sugars and insulin levels. And it's the worst when it's completely unexpected.

Every so often I have weeks where I run higher than normal. I've never found a correlation to one specific trigger, but usually I notice it's when multiple triggers seem to go off at the same time. Whether it be a combination of increased stress and decreased sleep or change in hormones and a change in exercise or maybe even all four, I run high for a few days. (READ MORE)

My family sat down for dinner last night and I was feeling frantic and stressed and generally not in a good place. My fasting sugars have been a little high and I'm sure my post-lunch have been too, with all the goodies available at work.

The tragic Colorado church shootings took place Sunday just a few miles from my home. My 4 year old has questions I don't know how to answer.

This is crush week for us for the holidays. If it's not shipped or mailed by Friday, it very likely won't make it in time. 95% of our friends and family don't live in this state so I have to be done this week.

Halfway through dinner, the 5 month old started crying. Not a light fussing, but an full-on screaming crying -- something was DEFINITELY wrong with her. Kate does not do this very often. It ratchets up my stress level immediately. I feel SO bad for her and guilty (of course) that I may have done something to cause it. And there's the worry that something is seriously wrong. (READ MORE)

Yesterday morning, I started having a specific kind of pain. It was the same pain that started with my ovarian cyst back in April. I dreaded how the day might progress.

The pain went off and on as I went to class and work. I felt like I had been transported back to April. All the signs were there.

Throughout the day, my blood sugars had been perfect. I was amazed. But as the pain became more consistent, my blood sugars started to rise.

After dinner, my blood sugar was 387. And so it began...just like April. I knew that I had bolused correctly for my meal and hadn't eaten any food that should cause a spike like that. I was sure that the pain and the blood sugars were connected.

Just like in April, I bolused to bring my blood sugar down. And just like in April, they wouldn't come down. Bolus after bolus, pumping insulin into my body.

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From time to time, a heated discussion will erupt around the terms and phrases "prediabetes", "borderline diabetes", and "beating diabetes". The basic gist of the debate goes like this:

Someone will post that he was told he has "borderline diabetes" or "prediabetes", or that he had type 2 diabetes, but since he changed his diet, got off his diabetes medications, and has normal lab results, he has reversed or cured his diabetes.

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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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