I press the button on the inserter and the sensor shoots into Charlie’s bruised butt.

He screams holy hell.

I pull the long needle out and blood fills the sensor and quickly saturates the outer edges of the tape.

Susanne compresses the area with a paper towel and shakes her head, giving me a look. Perhaps you know it.

Ben runs over to witness the carnage.

We shoo him away before he describes the scene to Charlie.

Charlie is inconsolable.

He’s never screamed like this before.

Blood is really pouring out.

I tell him to try to calm down.

He begs us to take it off.

  (READ MORE)

I'm no politician, but my day job does involve shaking the hands of many strangers. In the "normal" (i.e., non-diabetes-related) world, this is no big deal -- if the other person's hand is really icky, just use some hand sanitizer and be done with.

In the 1980's, AIDS-phobia taught us otherwise.

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An old adage suggests there is strength in numbers.

Not the numbers of our ABCs -- although there is strength in that knowledge -- but the strength of many people, standing together, for the same cause.

Many people making the same choice made Jesse Ventura -- a third-party candidate -- governor of Minnesota, and Abraham Lincoln -- also a third-party candidate -- President of the United States.

Many people speaking out on television and in the media made everyone aware of AIDS and of Breast Cancer -- even though those two diseases kill and disable far fewer people than heart disease and diabetes.

Why is it, then, that hundreds (thousands?) of Twitter users turned their avatars red for World AIDS day, or green to support the protesters after the Iranian election, but not blue to support World Diabetes Day?

  (READ MORE)

rpongsaj

I typically bleed easily. I’ve been that way for awhile. My body just doesn’t want to clot very quickly. Unfortunately, as a diabetic, I bleed more often than I don’t. Between finger pricks and infusion set changes, there’s always blood. Sometimes, there’s very little. My fingers will refuse to bleed no matter how much I try to get them to. The infusion set won’t bleed at all when I pull the old one off.

Other times, I’m Old Faithful gushing out the bright red mix. Sometimes the stories are funny. Sometimes they are annoying. Mostly, they are life.

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I hate to say it, but I had to consciously give up on my walk for some time. And I hate to harp on one subject, but my allergies seem to have literally taken over my life.

I had gotten in the habit of making sure all my walking gear would be ready for me in the morning-walking shorts, old grubby T-shirt, scrunchie, New Balance (Won't. Ever. Buy. Another. Brand.) walking shoes-and going to bed with high hopes of being able to walk in the morning. For roughly the last two months it was nothing for me to have a before-bed blood sugar reading in the low 100s or even under 100 and to wake up over 200. No, it wasn't dawn phenomenon. It was a funky combination of Byetta and allergies and whatever I ate before bed. (READ MORE)

On more than one occasion I've been rather surprised at how low a post-meal or random blood sugar check is. Not in a 'wow-I-did-good' kind of way; more like a 'geez-I'm-53-and-not-feeling-it' kind of way.

I don't consider myself to "suffer" from hypo unawareness, but it's safe to say that I get it quite often. I remember plenty of times waking to a fasting of around 60 and feeling great.

So when I have a day like today, it really drives me crazy.

After lunch, I was feeling pretty shaky. Not terribly low shaky, just like a going-low kind of shaky that I knew needed to be dealt with soon or it would get bad. I expected to be in the 60s and was quite shocked with an 83. I treated, thankful that I caught it early and went on my way. (READ MORE)