Diabetes Thoughts Blog

Have you had any luck?

lpatacch — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 02:09:23 +0000

I was hoping to have a great post about all the relatives I found in the 1940s census. Sadly, that is not the case. Not because they weren’t there – completely different issue. I couldn’t get to them.

The archives.gov site just would download my enumeration districts. Ancestry.com still hasn’t uploaded any of my states. Sigh… I was looking forward to seeing the images today.

Cool tool for the 1940s census

lpatacch — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 01:53:38 +0000

I just found a tool that can help with the 1940s census. As you probably know, the 1940s census will be coming out on April 2nd. They will be indexed by enumeration district, but not by name. It will be a while before it will be indexed by name.
If you are like me, you do not want to wait. Stephen Morse has made a cool tool that can help with that: http://stevemorse.org/census/unified.html
All you need to do is list the state, town and street address. From that it can give a (or a few) enumeration district. Yay!

1940s census

lpatacch — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 06:15:13 +0000

For those who are as interested in the 1940s census as I am:

Free infusion set

lpatacch — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:06:54 +0000

If you are interested in getting a free sample of the SpringNow universal infusion set, here is the link: http://www.springnow.com/freesample.html. They will send it to your Health Care Professional. Let me know what you think!

my day

lpatacch — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:56:04 +0000

My day was filled with updating websites (not this one), grading, putting together lectures, online lecturing, which is nothing new. I am doing a bit more than usual, so my day was super packed. I did make sure I took 15 minutes for myself – sipped some nice gingerbread black tea and relaxed.

Then I picked up my daughter and had some extra work, because she isn’t doing work at school like she should. I tried to explain that if she did the work, they would give her stuff that is more challenging, but it doesn’t seem to sink in. Blah. So, we spent the rest of the time going over multiplication (which is not her thing), MCAS practice, (which does seem to be her thing), and finishing all the work she should have done at school.

Then, off to the Girl Scout cookie cupboard to pick up many cases of cookies. I had a great mom come to help me, but I still seemed to hurt my back, ouch. Then back home, to deal with laundry and supper. Later, I have more grading…

In there I am supposed to shove counting carbs, paying attention to my blood sugar… Lately, I just don’t want to. I feel a bit like my daughter who doesn’t want to do work at school. I want to act childish, stomp my foot (which is even too childish for my daughter), and exclaim, “I don’t feel like doing that!” So there!

no time for diabetes

lpatacch — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:11:26 +0000

You ever feel like you have no time for diabetes? I know I have lately. I had to go to work, but then realized I had to change my insulin set. Bam, five minutes later than I planned. Then, my sensor runs out, and I couldn’t time things well so I could be able to test my blood sugar in around two hours. I want to be able to run around and not have to shove that snack down my throat between students. But, if I don’t quickly eat that snack, I might pass out. I guess I am just tired of dealing with this…yet again.

Animas gets warning letter from the FDA

lpatacch — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 03:34:45 +0000

It looks like on December 27, 2011, Animas was sent a warning letter from the FDA. It complained that Animas didn’t report within 30 days an event of a device failure that led to the death or serious injury of a patient. It also complained that the OneTouch Ping and 2020 insulin pumps were still being sold, even though a few failed. Scary.

http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/2011/ucm285656.htm
Image is picture on the One Touch Ping in pink

Temptation

lpatacch — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 05:35:13 +0000

We had a nice day today. My daughter and I worked together to get everything in the crockpot for supper. She even took the trash out with very little prompting. So, I decided as a treat we could make a cake together.Watching her try to break eggs was very amusing. Her first couple of attempts looked more like she was squishing the eggs than cracking them. We were originally going to put the sugar free frosting on it. But, then I noticed that the Betty Crocker sugar-free frosting had maltitol. Sugar alcohols and me don’t mix very well. Instead we frosted the cake with dark chocolate (fully sugared) frosting. I wish I could say that I watched my family eat their slices of cake and happily sipped my tea. Nope, not me. We all sang the unbirthday song, and then I had a slice too. My insulin guess was off by a bit, but I got it better by supper time.

Photo credit: darrenhester from morguefile.com

Online Courses

lpatacch — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 03:34:17 +0000

Taught my first class using Google+. I have to say that it works much better than eLearning, but I think I will keep eLearning for the grade book. For the lecture I used DropBox to handout the slides and syllabus and Google+ hangouts for the lecture itself. I have to say I was quite impressed. Hangouts seemed to work as well as Skype. We could even all video conference without having to pay for it. Those who couldn’t video conference could still type their questions. And, there was the extra feature that allowed me to show what was on my screen which really helped the lab part of the class.

Notes for next time: Make sure to keep showing the slides using the screen show. If a student’s connection is having static, mute them immediately. Yay for being able to save gas by staying home!

Sigh…

lpatacch — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:59:59 +0000

I was SO happy. But then this conversation happened.

“Guess what! My pre-lunch glucose number was perfect – it was 120!” I said

“Isn’t that high? That sounds like a post-lunch number”

Well, since my blood sugar was either running too high pre-lunch or way too low, I was happy with a 120. Well, until that comment, and then I started to second think my happiness. (And my post lunch numbers are nowhere near 120…not if I don’t want to pass out in 30 minutes anyway.) I started thinking, my numbers aren’t perfect, why am I happy. I should be pickier.

But, shouldn’t it be okay to be happy with something that is finally trending towards good? I think the whole number thing is too easy to get crazy about. It makes you feel guilty. It makes you feel bad about yourself. Grrr.