This 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…
What 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, RelationshipsPoking around in that box that’s been hiding in every iteration of “home” for the better part of a decade, I found another writing sample from what looks like third grade. (No date on the piece of paper, but third grade is where we learned cursive, so this is either the end of third grade/fourth grade time of my life….
Seems like there’s been a yearly theme since … like 1986. I found this paper in a box in my basement, one that had been given to me by my father years ago as he was cleaning out our family home. I’ve had it for ages but it’s taken me until this week to start going through it. I found…
Rewind: Voicemail for my Pancreas
Blood Sugars, Diabetes Advocacy, Diabetes and Emotions, Diabetes Memories, Relationships(I’m traveling this week, with limited access and desire to visit the Internet, but while I’m on an adventure, I’m rewinding the blog to showcase some older posts. So don’t freak out if you see some older post about being pregnant or whatever because giiiiiiirl I am not pregnant.) “Hey, you. This is awkward. Voicemail. I hate voicemail. But I…
I’m the middle child of three, the only one in my family with type 1 diabetes. My “diabetes diet” influenced food choices for the whole family, but we weren’t without sweet treats, especially since my brother and sister weren’t under the thumb of NPH and Regular insulin. So sometimes my mom got crafty with her food storage stylings. Like when…
Your mama so awesome that she dragged measuring cups and a tiny scale to restaurants so she could accurately carb count your food. Your mama so awesome that she hand-fed you graham crackers while you had a logic-defying low on the kitchen floor. Your mama so awesome she woke up in the middle of the night to check your blood…
Before I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, I started wetting the bed. I was six years old. We didn’t know to check for diabetes. I wasn’t exhibiting any other symptoms. But on a somewhat regular basis, my mother was changing my sheets and I was turning my pajamas into soggy bottoms. “What do we do? What should we do?”…
“Your meal card says you need to eat one vegetable and one fat. This coleslaw is your vegetable and your fat.” My camp counselor sighed, having been through this routine with me before. “You need to eat it. You can’t leave the table until you’ve eaten it.” “But I haaaaaaate coleslaw!!!!” I wailed, eight years old and wearing my tie-dyed…
Thirty One Years with Diabetes.
Diabetes and Emotions, Diabetes and Family, Diabetes Community, Diabetes Complications, Diabetes Memories, Diabetes Online Community, Psychosocial Support, Real Life DiabetesWhen my diabetes marked it’s 25th birthday, I wrote a bulleted of stuff I’ve learned since diagnosis. Another handful of years later, most of that list still holds up, with a few tweaks: Sometimes I can’t believe this is still A Thing. That diabetes is still a thing that requires attention, work, and patience. I used to believe in the…
Diabetes Pregnancy: Now and Then, Part Two.
Diabetes and Family, Diabetes Complications, Diabetes Memories, Diabetic Mommy, Infertility and PregnancyWelcome to the continuation of Laddie’s pregnancy story, showing what pregnancy with type 1 diabetes was like back in 1979 and 1982. Today is a continuation of her story, with details about her sons’ births, the cost of care, and how diabetes did, and didn’t, play a role in bringing her sons into the world. For more about Laddie’s life…
Managing diabetes and pregnancy in 2010 and then again in 2016 was a lot of hard work, and my story is similar to so many moms in the diabetes community: a heavy focus on blood sugars, piles of doctor appointments, and dozens of tests for mom and baby. Today’s management of diabetes and pregnancy is very different than what was…
This week is school vacation week for Birdzone, which means there’s plenty of Bird-watching and not a whole lot of inbox-management. (Unless it’s after midnight … which is when all work-from-home happens … that’s normal, right? So are these bags under my eyes, right?) Which means that I might be re-visiting a few posts here and there. Starting with today, and…
Ten Things About Things.
Diabetes Community, Diabetes Memories, Diabetes Videos, Psychosocial Support, Real Life DiabetesI do really hate those “Ten Things About Things” sort of posts, but in this case, I’ve screwed it up even more by intending to write a list of ten things, then realized I only included nine things. Whoops. This spring will mark eleven years of sharing my diabetes story on the Internet, and over the course of the last…
It’s weird to see that posts from 2011 are still relevant to how my diabetes behaves today. See also: when my blood sugar is tumbling, sometimes the dishes become a priority over a fistful of jellybeans. Today, I’m looking back at a post from 2011 discussing that exact phenomenon, the urge to become a one-woman cleaning crew when under 65…
This morning, I thought about Eddie. Eddie was the kid who I shared the hospital room with back when I was diagnosed with diabetes in 1986. He popped into my head after I woke up, jet-lagged and confused from traveling yesterday, and watched a spider scuttle across the ceiling of this apartment. Eddie had been bitten by a spider; I…
Diabetes Blog Week: Kicking It to the Curb.
Diabetes Community, Diabetes Memories, Diabetes Online Community, Psychosocial Support, Real Life DiabetesWhen I was first hospitalized upon diagnosis, I spent two weeks in-patient learning the new and tangled ropes of type 1 diabetes with my parents. My hospital roommate was a kid named Eddie, who had been bitten by a spider. The other source of comfort was Kitty. This grubby thing has been with me since the beginning. My mom and…