A Chapter Meeting of D.E.S.A.

Long, long ago, the Diabetes Exercise and Sports Association was named I.D.A.A.(International Diabetic Athletes Association) They dropped the diabetic and the international parts for the sake of political correctness. Anyway, I learned that and a whole slew of other goodies at last night's founding chapter(Baltimore D.E.S.A) Doug Dressman(Executive Director) and Rick Philbin(Animus, diabetes exercise guru) were on hand to kick things off, and then a local CDE falicitated the meeting. (held, where else, at the most humongous health club I have EVER seen, it was like a Super Walmart with two stories. If it weren't so far, I'd consider joining it.)

So...it was inspiring. All these triathletes/marathon runners/cyclists/mountain climbers/parents of kids with D, and about 7 CDE's from every hospital in the state.(And just plain me..there to learn, from the pros) I think it will be a good group, DESA is not just about type 1's. It's for the type 2's, parents, and anyone who knows someone with diabetes. DESA is about "hookups", (not that kind, mind out of the gutter, please)matching people to people with similar interests. (type 2, type 1, CGMS users, etc)

The DESA International Conferance will be held in Toronto this year. Of course, that's totally infeasible to attend but the entire schedule sounds really amazing- not only do
you learn from the experts, you get a darn workout every day(whether you were planning to just kick back, eat yourself into a stupor, and fall asleep during the lectures) or not. Then on Sat..they have a soccer tournament.(Italy vs The World)
I love soccer, have played it since I could walk all the way through high school. Never got any awards, because kids on homeschooled teams just don't, but I'm still good.(to toot my own horn) It would be cool to play on a team again.

Refreshments: tofu sandwiches and water. I've never had tofu sandwiches before, they were actually good.

Now.. I want to get a Running on Insulin t-shirt, it will inspire me to greater heights. That's one of the cool things about diabetes..we get to wear t-shirts like that! Non D's don't.