Tomorrow is the big day!

Bright and early tomorrow morning, I'm going to my pump start class. I'm nervous and excited. I'll fill in the details following the class. I've been working on some homework for it and I'm not overwhelmed, but close. :-) Here goes nothing!

November is Diabetes Month

I've been doing a bit more reading and I've discovered (not too difficultly) that November is American Diabetes month. (I learned at Hub Hobby last month that October was National Plastics month...so probably there's more to November than diabetes, but we'll just go with it!)

The CDC has an article that's more heavily focused on Type 2 diabetes, but is a good read because anyone can get it. Here is the link. There are also other resources to check out at the bottom of the article.

Another aspect of diabetes that I'm interested in is research. While I haven't found any studies that I qualify for, I have found a study that is gathering information about how type 1 diabetes develops. They are looking for non-diabetic family members of individuals with type 1 diabetes. I'm subjecting Abraham to a clinical trial (he's excited to further the reseach though) and I'm planning to talk my brothers into it as well! Here is a link.

Happy November!

P.S. Note to self: Be good at Thanksgiving!! :-)

Thanksgiving Day 5K!

As an additional motivational factor to keep active, I signed Nathaniel and I up for a 5k race on Thanksgiving morning. Its good for me to have a goal to look forward to when managing my diabetes because otherwise I get too numbers oriented or really dragged down--neither of which result in successful management. So, by setting an activity goal, something that I'm paying for, I usually keep more in line. To help achieve this end, I purchased another jogging stroller!!

On Sunday, Nathaniel and I started training for our Thanksgiving Day 5k! We both ran about 2 miles (I ran a block and walked a block, repeated--he ran the whole time). Today I'm so sore!! I'm also so motivated! About a month ago, I sold our other jogging stroller in hopes to purchase a double jogger next spring, thinking that I wouldn't be out jogging any time soon. But since we've signed up for this 5k race, I was on Craigslist today looking for double joggers and found this single for a great price! When I e-mailed and saw that it was still available, I jumped on it. This way, either of us will be able to take one of the kiddos should the need arise when we go out for our training runs. :-) I'm going to beat this diabetes!!

Wii Fit

We'd planned on purchasing Wii Fit for a while, but hadn't gotten around to it. This weekend we added Wii Fit Plus to the "game" collection. It is so much fun and an animated balance board telling you that you're not strong or you're adjusted age (for your performance on a task) is like 20 years older than you are is really motivating! :-)

We've been having a lot of fun getting to know all the in's and out's of the "game." Come on over if you'd like to give it a try sometime!

Its fun to have an activity that I can do to stay fit (and track it) that Abraham enjoys seeing. We even set up a little profile for Abraham and Abigail...baby stats! Activity and exercise are a great way to make my body make better use of the sugars that I'm consuming, so its fun to have this as an additional option--whenever keeping track of my two active kiddos leaves me feeling sedentary!

Halloween...

So, lets check my blood sugar after halloween festivities and pizza...

wait for it...

wait for it...

192...

Not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Too bad the highs don't feel as gross as the lows. Wouldn't that be nice motivation! :-)

Press on.

Paradigms

After being diagnosed with diabetes, I realized how many paradigms I'd established about health and food and life in general, that were not accurate. I'm establishing new ones slowly that hopefully more thoroughly represent reality.

I'm also excited to announce that, while I practice thinking with new paradigms, I'm going get to practice using a new Paradigm--the Medtronic Minimed Paradigm Insulin Pump. I'm ordering the clear pump so the picture below is exactly what my new "pancreas" machine will look like. :-)

I'm grateful for the Lord's timing of this opportunity as our insurance will cover a large portion of the cost. In addition, I'm excited for something different. I'm getting the pump with the continuous monitoring, which will allow me to find trends in my sugar levels. Also, I'm pretty sick of poking myself so many times in a day and this should reduce that significantly. God is so good!!

What to do at 9:22 pm when you've got the munchies...

Eat a cucumber and dip it in apple cider vinegar! :-) Okay so it wasn't that good, but I didn't eat the chocolate chips that I wanted to. Yeah! Small victories! Goodnight.