Author Archives: notmycell

Waffles – Day 4

Posted on by

4

Weird topic header right?? I’ll get to that in a second. Today’s writing prompt is great. So much so, I did it on Tuesday. However, here it is again.

Today let’s revisit a prompt from 2014 – May is Mental Health Month so now seems like a great time to explore the emotional side of living with, or caring for someone with, diabetes. What things can make dealing with diabetes an emotional issue for you and / or your loved one, and how do you cope?

Anyway, I am veering slightly again. First off, sorry it took me so long to start today’s post my internet went down earlier today and this is the best I’ve had in over 6 hours. Plus earlier, I was recovering from a low. Anyway on to my title.

I figured I would wildcard it today. Since I am PERFECT, I have no bloopers to share. Instead I will talk about waffles.

Channeling my inner Genie from Aladdin, this is no ordinary post on waffles. It does have a valid point, which I will get to in a second.

I always have Eggo waffles on hand, they are an all purpose food. In fact because I was too lazy to go food shopping for the past week, I have had waffle lunches, dinners, breakfasts, snacks. And it is so good.

But here is why I love waffles, they work for you on so many levels. Think about it each waffle is 13.5g or a serving is 27g. Let’s say you are low, mind you yes you need to wait for them to cook, but you make a waffle, put some jelly on it, and now you have roughly 20g of carbs in your system, both fast acting from the jelly/jam and the “longer” acting carbs from the actual waffle. I feel it’s a good balance.

They are consistent in size, shape, taste, etc. But things get even better if you want, think about it. Let’s say you need to get something in as a snack before bed, you put peanut butter on it and now you have something that will last longer in your system if you are worried about anything happening at night.

They are the perfect delivery food for whatever you need, plus at least for me they taste damn good, hell I even eat them plain.

If you are still with me, obviously this is my own opinion and my own obvious WILDCARD, but the reality is, we all have that comfort food that is something we can eat consistently and get the results we need, which takes some of the stress off of everything else. When we talk about our own mental health we need those gimmes, while obviously this is not a “free food”, it is something I am familiar with. So I singe the joys of my waffles for breakfast, lunch, dinner, bedtime snack, low treatment, or just my reward for making it to Friday.

Have a good day, stay sane. Have a waffle on me.

Advertisement

YOU DID THIS! – Day 3

Posted on by

4

I don’t like this topic. I am not a fan of this suggestion. It’s a good one, but it’s not me.

Today’s we are told:

Having diabetes often makes a visit to the doctor a dreaded experience, as there is invariably bad news of one kind or another.  And sometimes the way the doctor talks to you can leave you feeling like you’re at fault.  Or maybe you have a fantastic healthcare team, but have experienced blame and judgement from someone else in your life – friend, loved one, complete stranger.  Think about a particularly bad instance, how that person talked to you, the words they used and the conversation you had.  Now, the game part.  Let’s turn this around.  If you could turn that person into a puppet, what would you have them say that would leave you feeling empowered and good about yourself?   Let’s help teach people how to support us, rather than blame us!

We all hate the confusion, we all hate the stereotypes, we all hate the misinformation that is out there. I mean even now, with comments in the media that seems to place the blame on the person for getting diabetes. It’s ridiculous.

Yet, I am not going to share a story, I am not going to justify today’s post with a story. There is the ongoing reality out there that people will have to work on diffusing misinformation. But we as a community are not the only ones who face this issue. I mean if I get lung cancer, people will assume it’s because I was a smoker, but the reality is I never smoked a day in my life. People are always going to draw their own conclusions. I think the bigger thing that we as a community need to do, is have that willingness to inform the misinformed. But I think the bigger thing is that we can’t get angry, we can’t get overwhelmed, we can’t let it get us down. There is lot’s of stupid to fight. If maybe today we just can’t, there is always tomorrow.

Honestly, I think this is the bigger issue. Not dwelling on the past, the past is done. Instead work towards ending that stupid.

It Starts Again

Posted on by

1

It’s funny the past few months the little voice hasn’t wanted to come out. It hasn’t wanted to write. I tell myself it’s been a long time. I should write something. The normal conversation transpires at this point. What do … Continue reading →

The Day of the Ride

Posted on by

0

August 13th, 2016

Dear Diary,

Let’s be honest, the pretense of my writing a diary is shot at this point. It barely lasted through the first day. Now there is no way it was going to last through this post. But at least I tired. I stayed committed even though I didn’t want to  be.

Well ride day has come and the excitement I haven’t seen when it comes to riding in a long time, has appeared. I guess this is a good thing. Got up early and hopped in the shower and got ready for the ride. I

After that was breakfast. Yay, food. Not as good as the cheese curds.

After breakfast I set my basal rates and got ready to kick off the ride. Man it was early.

Yep, that was me the morning of the ride. I looked so happy and graceful. Honestly, I met both of those expectations this time. The ride starts easily enough, I think it’s because I remembered to stretch, huge different. As the ride begins we broke off into different start groups, so that all 330 of us were not riding off at once.

I felt good, at this point I was convinced that I was going to do more than I had planned on doing originally. I wasn’t rushing myself to do the full loop. After the start things do become a blur, not in a bad way, it’s a bunch of riding, but also riding with people you know or don’t know, chatting or just riding.

I hit the first break point faster than I had anticipated refilled my supplies, stretched, chatted with some people and started to head out again. Once again I was with a different group of people, but we eventually separated and continued on the ride.

Break point 2 fast approached, got more water, took care of some things, had some electrolytes and pickles and pickle juice, disgusting but good. At this point I considered how I was feeling and decided to press on to break point 3. The ride was still good, I really hit my stride in Iowa.

See I’m still happy and still judgemental. At this point I was at 42ish miles and I had to make the choice to continue in the loop or not. After careful consideration of my body, my legs felt fine, I think I could have handled the hills, but other parts of me were starting to act up. So I decided to partner up with another rider and start heading back.

The was a good decision, Peggy and I chatted most of the way, but I lost her a few times as she was moving a lot slower than I was, and would slow down periodically. I never intentionally left her behind, but sometimes my pace on the “hills” left her behind. So as we got closer to the remaining break points, she would yell at me to go ahead and she would catch up. That worked for me.

The ride back was slightly rough, the tail wind we had on the way out was now a headwind on the way back. That added up, but honestly I felt cool because of the wind. The last 10 miles of this ride are the worst, because there are road signs for La Crescent, Minnesota and La Crosse, Wisconsin so you knew how much riding you had left. I swear the bridge over the Mississippi which was so easy on the way out, now was the biggest challenge to face. At this point I was riding with Tracy, who I had breakfast with the day prior and we crossed the finish line together.

That was it, they yell our names, they are clapping, and cheering us on. They give you a medal, which is hanging on my door, and you get to stop riding. That was the best part, well that and the ice cream sandwich.

All in all the ride was good, no major issues, I felt great at the end, well 95% of me did, my tail ed was not happy with me in the least. That was a pain in the ass…. HAHAHA. but seriously, it hurt.

Things that were great is once again with testing dealing with and changing my basal rates along the way, I started and ended where I needed to be.

JDRFRide9

My morning low had me thrown off because I went to bed at 185 and I adjusted. Apparently, my body decided to metabolize my insulin differently this time. It is what it is. I am just glad to have done this ride.

As I said earlier my desire to ride was at a low before the ride, however, things are different. I think truly it is because I made the ride about the ride and not about NEEDING to do the full 100. Once blue makes it back from La Crosse we have a date. And I am happy about that.

So on that note, diary I am done with you, I am never going to write to you again. At least I will need to be on something to decide to write diary style again.

On that note I am done finished writing.

Good Bye diary and world.

Brian