This is weird. I don’t know what to say in a last blog post, because it makes it seem like a black hole is going to open up and suck me into it once I hit “publish.” (I really hope that doesn’t happen, because I still need to shower. I’d hate to be stuck in some Interstellar purgatory and have…
Signing off
Diabetes Advocacy, Diabetes and Emotions, Diabetes and Family, Diabetes Community, Diabetes Online Community, Psychosocial Support, Real Life Diabetes, Website InformationWhat I’ve Learned After 14 Years of Blogging About My Health
Diabetes Advocacy, Diabetes and Emotions, Diabetes Community, Diabetes Memories, Diabetes Online Community, Real Life Diabetes, RelationshipsThis Saturday will mark 14 years of blogging. Here’s some of what I’ve learned … Technically-speaking? Put the word “diabetes” in your blog title. Invest in a full-throated URL (instead of a .blogger or .wordpress site). Spellcheck and grammar check every single post. Use images, as they are nice and help flesh out your content. Back your content up. I’ll…
The Words We Use as PWD
Diabetes and Emotions, Diabetes Community, Diabetes Online Community, Healthcare, Real Life DiabetesThe words we casually use as people with diabetes continue to make me giggle. Like when I was a kid, my mom would casually tell me to go “shoot up,” (instead of “go take your insulin dose”) … the looks we received in public settings included a lot of arched eyebrows. Or how, during days when I have my insulin…
Man Cold Diabetes
Diabetes and Emotions, Diabetes and Family, Diabetes Community, Diabetes Online Community, Psychosocial Support, Real Life DiabetesThis video is older, by Internet standards, but I remember first seeing it and laughing out loud. “Laura … I called for you, I said ‘Laura!’” (And for the love of God there’s a Wiki entry for it. The Internet is forever an amalgam of chaos and delight.) Over the last few weeks, I’ve been running through my older posts…
Making it Work
Blood Sugars, Diabetes and Emotions, Diabetes Community, Diabetes Online Community, Mental Health, Psychosocial Support, Real Life DiabetesSometimes, I see things and I think they are a wonderful visual representation of diabetes, like the game Perfection. And this pot. My blood sugars are a heavy pot of boiling water. A rolling boil, the ones where you look at the water and see the bubbles coming up like predictable and methodical pewter poetry. Scary if I were to…
With My Whole Heart (and What’s Left of My Pancreas)
Diabetes Advocacy, Diabetes and Emotions, Diabetes Community, Diabetes Online Community, Mental Health, Psychosocial Support, Real Life DiabetesWhen I was a lot younger, I thought about my 40th birthday as so far in the future and potentially scary. I didn’t know how I would feel. I didn’t know if I’d still be healthy. I didn’t know if I would be happy. Also, what the hell middle aged?! Today is my birthday. I’m turning 40. I feel pretty…
In prepping for a chat I helped facilitate for the team at The Patient Revolution, I came across this quote in Victor’s book: These words really build a visual around the effort of diabetes management. There’s a tremendous amount of work that goes on behind-the-scenes of diabetes – so many individual threads and colors on this particular patient loom –…
Diabetic Health Journal GIVEAWAY
Diabetes Advocacy, Diabetes and Emotions, Diabetes Products, HealthcarePOST EDIT: The giveaway is closed and the winner has been notified. Thanks!! Lauren Bongiorno is a virtual diabetic health coach, entrepreneur, and author of the Diabetic Health Journal. Lauren coaches and creates resources for people with type 1 diabetes all over the world to achieve optimal diabetes management and feel strong and empowered. Lauren’s practice is rooted in her…
I used to wait on that cure. Not openly, but quietly. Every time a five year mark come and go and I’d be confused and feeling like my disappointment was silly, yet pervasive. After a few years, I stopped feeling bad about it. And after several decades, I stopped thinking about it at all. My hope lives in a different…
Goals: Wake up. Avoid shit that makes me feel crummy. Surround myself with people who make me feel like I’m understood. Drink just enough coffee to keep my eyelids pinned open but not so much that the room feels filled with bees. Check in on my blood sugars. Care about those numbers. Care about myself enough to care about those…
Advice for “Newbies”
Diabetes Advocacy, Diabetes and Emotions, Diabetes Community, Diabetes Online Community(This prompt was pulled from the #happydiabeticchallenge over on Instagram. To check out that hashtag, click here.) I feel weird giving advice because even after 32 years of diabetes, I’m still trying to figure things out. A lot of the time, I have “no eyed deer” what I doing. But the main thing that I keep circling back to is the…
You might also like: World Diabetes Day 2013. World Diabetes Day 2016. Perspectives on Diabetes: Why Children with Diabetes Matters. D-Blog Week: Change One Life, Change the World.