My Justin Bieber thoughts are on Huffington Post
Image via www.thehollywoodgossip.com
from HuffPost: "Parents of young children may find Justin's behavior to be not so different from what they see in their own home. He doesn't know where to pee, writes on the walls with his crayons and lacks the mental sophistication to be concerned for his own welfare. In short, Justin needs a diaper, a timeout and a parent to put those foam bumpers on the sharp corners in his life. He is a mess, and his decisions seem to get worse every time I look up and see his name on my Twitter feed."
Diabetes in the News
Introducing Google's smart contact lens project
Prototype from Google's Smart Contact Lens Project
“We’re in discussions with the FDA, but there’s still a lot more work to do to turn this technology into a system that people can use.”
from Google: "We’re now testing a smart contact lens that’s built to measure glucose levels in tears using a tiny wireless chip and miniaturized glucose sensor that are embedded between two layers of soft contact lens material. We’re testing prototypes that can generate a reading once per second.
We’re also investigating the potential for this to serve as an early warning for the wearer, so we’re exploring integrating tiny LED lights that could light up to indicate that glucose levels have crossed above or below certain thresholds.
It’s still early days for this technology, but we’ve completed multiple clinical research studies which are helping to refine our prototype. We hope this could someday lead to a new way for people with diabetes to manage their disease." full story
Olympic cross-country skier Freeman masters mountains, diabetes
Freeman decided then that he was going to try to compete in 2014, even though he would be 33 at the time.
Kris Freeman was diagnosed at age 19 with Type 1 diabetes
from Sports Illustrated: "Kris Freeman was approaching the 12th kilometer of the 30 km pursuit at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics when he noticed the first sign: An uphill climb seemed strangely difficult. He had been skiing well to that point, and had moved into a top 20 position. Then his body started shaking and wobbling. Freeman knew that roughly a kilometer ahead he had a coach waiting for him with a sports drink. But before he could make it, he collapsed in the snow." full story
Is there connection between Type 1 diabetes and cleanliness?
Some researchers suspect there may be a connection between Finland’s cleanliness and the incidence of the disease there.
from Washington Post: It may come as a surprise that Finland — one of the least polluted, wealthiest countries, where average life expectancy is among the world’s highest — has the highest rate of Type 1 diabetes. Each year, there are about 58 cases diagnosed per 100,000 children; in the United States there are 24 cases per 100,000, according to the International Diabetes Federation. full story
Huffington Post Live: feat. Me
I was on Huffington Post Live this afternoon for their 'Family Friday' segment.
The topics:
How do you deal with a defiant child?
Do you consider yourself to be your children's favorite parent?
and we talked about that guy on Tumblr who left a bunch of Post-It notes for his wife.
Diabetes Awareness on Huffington Post
Every November we celebrate Diabetes Awareness Month - is celebrate the right word? Anyway, there's nothing but blue circles as far as the eye can see, just as long as your eye can't see beyond the diabetes online community. After November ends you can be assured that there will be blog posts written that use phrases like, "We are just talking to ourselves" and even more that indicate that the choir is preaching to itself. We get sad that all of our effort didn't break the diabetes conversation wide open and we wonder why the NFL isn't wearing blue for diabetes?
Sound familiar?
I've been working behind the scenes to get real DOC based diabetes conversations/stories into mainstream media. It's a little too early to talk about a radio interview that looks like it will happen next month, but I can tell you today about one of my blog pieces that is running on Huffington Post Parents.
'I am not Diabetes' is featured on the Dads front page! Some love, shares and likes can push it to the front of HuffParents. My hope is that one day people will read about diabetes and understand it the way they do breast cancer and other more easily felt/understood diseases. My inclination is that when someone hears you have cancer, they immediately understand the situation that you are in. Diabetes, to the uninitiated is not so self-explanatory, but you know that.
Maybe they just need to feel a day with type I in the way that we do... I for one am happy to share what life is really like with diabetes, if it means bringing awareness to the next level. I'm not suggesting that I am the first person to do this, plenty of intrepid diabetes advocates are working tirelessly to get the word out. I'm just saying that maybe the world can handle hearing about diabetes in the way that we speak to each other about it. I'm not going to try and dress up Arden's story, or make it sound like it's been written by a NY Times reporter. I just want tell our real, raw stories until those football cleats turn blue.
The first step is to get this piece's popularity to a place where HuffPost will consider posting links on there Facebook page and then, hopefully, to the frontage of HuffParents. Please take a second, to like, share and comment so we can show the mainstream that the DOC has a voice that others would be interested in knowing more about.
'I Am Not Diabetes' on Huffington Post.
* I am not compensated monetarily for my writing on Huffington Post. They do provide a link to my book on my author page.
update
The post has been added to the front page of Huffington Post Parents and the main page of Huffington Post!
Carry that Weight
I can feel myself getting older, at least I think that's what this feeling is - I can't really tell. Sometimes my head is so foggy that I can't envision accomplishing anything in a day beyond fighting with diabetes. I do have moments when I think that all I need to do is push a little farther, jump back on a treadmill perhaps, retune my body. Then the fog surrounds my day and I run out of time, energy or the will to push myself.
I have this recurring thought that tries to sneak into my mind when I get tired like I am right now, but I don't allow myself to concentrate on it. I wonder if you know what I am talking about? It's a thought that I can see it in my mind's eye and I know what the entirety of the thought is. That is, I know what words I would hear in my head if I allowed my mind to settle on the idea and consider it - but I don't let myself do that. I never think about how much I look forward to the day that I can sleep, exercise or concentrate on myself because those thoughts feel like giving up on my daughter. I know that's unreasonable, but it is how I feel.
It's no great secret why I don't think about those things or why I imagine that I won't be able to do them when the day comes that Arden leaves for college. How would I do that? How could I possibly do that when Arden can never get away from diabetes. I don't like thinking about diabetes as an attachment to Arden. I want to feel sad on the day that Arden grows up and goes off on her own, that good kind of sad that tells you life is progressing in the way that you hoped.
That's why I'm trapped in a maze with no exit, we both are really. One day, a door is going to open and I'm going to be invited to walk through it, but I can't imagine walking through that door and leaving Arden behind to wander this unrelenting maze by herself. Moreover, I don't want to feel relief when Arden moves into the next part of her life. I want that happy sadness, I want hopeful, I want future - not relief.
“Boy, you’re gonna carry that weight
Carry that weight a long time
Boy, you’re gonna carry that weight
Carry that weight a long time
I never give you my pillow
I only send you my invitations
And in the middle of the celebrations
I break down
Boy, you’re gonna carry that weight
Carry that weight a long time
Boy, you’re gonna carry that weight
Carry that weight a long time”
I am as hopeful about life with type I diabetes as anyone that you'll ever meet but some days, and maybe it's just these long sunless winter days talking but, some days feel like we are surrounded on all sides by a unstoppable force intent on our destruction.
I don't say that life needs be fair, but it would be nice to be able to imagine an end game.
It would be easier to fight on days like today, if it didn't feel like we were only fighting to get to tomorrow... so that we could fight some more.
I don't mind carrying the weight, I never expected being a parent to be easy, but I can not accept having to pass that weight to Arden one day, like a weary baton carrier. I can't spend the end of my life watching her shoulder that burden when I know how heavy the relentlessness of diabetes feels to even the people who are living well with it. I imagine that we all feel like this sometimes, know that you are not alone. But we have to leave those feelings behind us and continue to move forward. There has has to be an answer somewhere out ahead of us. We can fight one more day, and another if necessary. I believe in us even on cold, grey and dank days. I believe in us when the sun feels like it's behind a thousand miles of heavy clouds. I even believe when diabetes weighs more than I can carry - I believe because the men that wrote this song, are the same men who saw the sun coming. I know that we can carry more then days like this lead us to believe.
I've never said this before but, I want a cure and I think I want it as much for me, Kelly, Cole and all of you, as I do for Arden.