The Numbers Game

This wasn't the session(It's Not Just a Number's Game) I'd envisioned myself ever attending, to be perfectly honest, I'd wandered up+ over to this section of the hotel intent on finding a computer and easing my internet-deprivation pangs ASAP. There was nothing on the time slot agenda to suit the tastes of this finicky type 1.

And then I saw it. Maybe it wouldn't be so boring, I'd met the guy several years ago at my first FFL and he is anything but boring. I wander in, and sit next to another renegade type 1. (you could tell, by the green wristbands...everyone who didn't have type 1 diabetes wore orange wristbands)

Take 1, roll tape recorder. Two minutes in, I know that it's worth my time to stay-this guy has hit the nail on the head. It's mentally refreshing to hear someone else(someone with 40+ years of diabetes under his belt) hate diabetes with such a fervor and his sense of dry humor is right up my ally. I'm not sure how many of the parents would have rushed out and backed their car over their kid's bg meter as a form of therapy but everyone is enjoying the mental image of doing that. As a family therapist specializing in D for over 30 years, he's been around the block, seen every trick a kid with D can pull and his ways of dealing with those situations are extremily unconventional- making both the kids AND the parent(s) hate his guts.(temporarily)

I think many of the great psychologists/therapists have a screwed up youth, and where diabetes is concerned, which fuels the desire to help people.Back in the 60's, they didn't really talk about it and blame was rampant so I'm sure his was pretty difficult as well. Heck, it's still hard 30 years later, my parents didn't deal so well with it either. Being involved in your kid's life,even if they are a teenager is a must. (you certainly don't want them to turn out like me!) Also, the most important factor in a kid's a1c 1 year+ later is the ability of the mom to "keep it all together"(Dstuff,life in general) I thought that was pretty interesting.(if I were to have a child with diabetes,their a1c would probably be horrendous)

"Is that you beeping?" the woman on my left asks.

Of course it is..I have 4 electronic devices on my person, and three of them are going off. Cozmo is reminding me it's 1.5 hours after the meal, the Dexcom is telling me I'm over 250, and a pump I'm trial-ing with saline is going off too.

Not just a number's game, but I do feel the urge to rip them off my body + forget that diabetes even exists. They didn't have to do this in 1925, worry constantly about postmeals and pre-meals and malfunctioning sensors. Numbers
can be the absolute worst part about diabetes, in the absense of complications.


(check out Yoda's little pump!I meant to include sound clips from the lecture, but they didn't record very well.)