Red Rider

Last year, I participated in the American Diabetes Association Tour de Cure as a volunteer. The one thing that I regretted was not actually riding. When it was all said and done, I wanted one of those Red Rider jerseys. I love riding my bike, and even though I haven’t trained much I’m not really worried about making it 32 miles on Saturday. Even without riding for months, a 12 mile ride is still pretty easy for me. Strong legs and strong lungs, I suppose.

My dad will be riding with me. It is an honor to be able to participate in this event with him. I have always respected him and enjoyed following in his footsteps. He began seriously riding about the time we moved to Springfield and has participated in the MS 150 for several years. He rode in the Tour last year and I am very proud to be riding with him this year.

I’m not really plugging for money today, but I would appreciate your donation. If you’d like to help, please click here to be routed to my donation page. Thank you very much!

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Good Doctors Appointments Make for Great Days.

Last winter, I expressed my concern concerning “the other D” (depression) to my endocrinologist. She advised me to see a therapist and prescribed an anti depressant. Not wanting my endo to be responsible for things outside her area of expertise, I began the search for a general or family  practice physician to supervise my treatment. My previous GP no longer practices and I have been needing a replacement for some time.

I did a little internet research and ultimately picked the doctor I saw by reading online profiles that the hospital covered by my insurance. I am not really sure what drew me to Dr. R, other than she seemed young and personable from her picture. I figured she would be a good place to start.

When you see a new physician, it’s necessary to treat the first appointment as an interview to be sure that you are comfortable and a good fit with your new doctor. At least, this is how I see my health care. I learned when I first joined the DOC what a difference being an ‘involved patient’ vs an apathetic patient can make in the quality of your care. I think I floored my endo when I showed up at my appointment with a blood sugar log and a request for an insulin pump and CGM along with a .3% drop in A1C. So I came to my new doctor armed with questions not only concerning my specific symptoms for that appointment but also concerning her specific practice. It turns out my first try on finding a new GP was a fantastic success. Dr. R had great answers to all my questions. I’m actually looking forward to my follow up appointment next month.

If you are seeing a new doctor in the near future, here are some of the questions I used to make my decision. I highly suggest coming up with some of your own:

• Why did you go into family practice (or insert his or her specialty here)?
• What is your medical philosophy?
• How do you keep up with medical trends?
• Do you strictly perscribe drug based treatments?
• How do you feel about diet-based or other non-drug based treatments?
• How do you continue training?
• How important is continuing training to you?

 

What are some of the things you feel important to know before choosing a physician?

Day 2 of D-Blog Week: A Letter.

Dear Immune System,

I mean seriously. What the heck did I do to you? One minute, you’re attacking things that are part of my body, the next, you’re allowing cold viruses to fester for weeks. You’d better shape up soon, or else I’m not going to have the energy to finish d-blog week because of how crappy I feel.
I’d write more, but you seem to be ignoring the gunk in my throat and the throbbing in my ear. Get your act together so I can write a longer blog entry tomorrow.

Sincerely yours,

Sarah Jane

The Truth About My Relationship With Diet Coke

Remember that one time when I broke up with diet coke? Almost exactly a year ago? Well, I have a confession to make.

Diet Coke and I have been secretly sleeping together.

It’s gone off and on, but I have to say, there have been some hot and steamy days between me and the good ole DC. In fact, while I was working in the cold and dreary days of negative degree days in Utah, I would drink four or five cans of the stuff a day. When I moved home, I made a habit of buying at least a 20 oz bottle a day and consuming it,  until my bank account went dry.

But then, I got a job.

For the first week of my job, I hardly ever drank diet coke. I might have had two 20 oz bottles. And I drank a ton of water. I drank at least two 750 mL bottles of water at work, then one at home. My insulin dosage (bolus-wise) cut practically in half. Why?  Not only was I working all day, but I wasn’t munching when I was bored or thirsty. Not to mention I wasn’t eating out at all, except on Sundays with my family (thanks, Mom and Dad).

Guess what? I lost six pounds. Six pounds in a week! Just by working on my feet all day, drinking water, and cutting down on calories.

Then, I got paid. And I bought some diet coke. And I drank it. And I binged. On junk from the gas station. Which is how I gained all this weight three years ago anyway.

Today I didn’t hardly drink any water. Today, I drank one 20 oz bottle of diet coke, then I drank diet coke with Qdoba for lunch, then I drank another glass of diet coke with dinner, then my brother gave me 32 ounces of free diet coke when I dropped something off for him at the restaurant where he works.

And tonight, I ate a whole bunch. Of junk.

Right now, I feel awful. 11:44 at night and I’ve had a bunch of junk food and a bunch of diet coke.

I have come to the conclusion that Diet Coke and I have one messed up relationship. Why can’t I just drink the diet coke? I think it makes me hungry. I think it makes me dehydrated. If I’m wrong, it doesn’t really matter. The fact is, when I drink diet coke, I drink less water, and when I drink less water I eat more.

So I think I need to treat diet coke like new healthy Cookie Monster treats cookies.

Diet Coke is a sometimes food.

And so, DC, it’s time for our relationship to go back to being a casual acquaintance. Forever, I think. Addictions are addictions and they are usually unhealthy, and while some people can hang with diet coke quite often without experiencing consequences to their actions, it’s just not an option for me anymore as I embark on my journey to lifestyle change and healthy living.

Au revior, DC. You will be missed.

As a side note, I have started working for a local baby boutique and I am really enjoying it. It’s not what I thought I’d be doing with a degree, but I have big plans for my future so I’m pretty happy with where I am now. Anyway, it’s kept me pretty busy, and left me pretty tired at night, which is why I’ve slacked on blogging.

I HAVE COME TO TAKE OVER THIS BLOG: Smokey’s Debut

Mew mew mew. It has come to my attention that many of us of the feline persuasion who own humans that like to do this “blogging” thing take the occasional opportunity to do a little writing of our own. So, as an “APRIL FOOLS” on my human, We Interrupt  This Regular Scheduled Blog Post To Bring You A CAT POSTING.

To be quite honest, it’s mere coincidence that this is happening on April Fool’s Day, because I have been trying to do this for weeks. Let’s be honest, my days of attacking rogue ponytail ties and begging for food have gotten a little boring. In search of better things to do, I have been teaching myself to use human tech-gadgets. I started with just the ipod, and then progressed to the smart-phone. Eventually I jumped on the computer, because, let’s be real, I’ve been learning how to type ever since my human brought home her first laptop. Walking across the keyboard is a favorite boredom-buster of mine.

So began my quest to add my two cents to the blogging world. I mean, I have a lot to say, and I’m awesome, so someone should pay attention to me, right? But somehow The Human catches me walking toward her keyboard every time and either swats me or outright picks me up and moves me to the other side of her bed! How Dare She! Well, I’ve outsmarted her this time because on one of her rare forays outside of the house, she left her computer on and I gained access to her blog account.

After reading yesterday’s post on my owner’s mother’s new Nook (I just love that thing, but it is hard to sneak it away from her!), I couldn’t help but feel as though my owner was being a little bit conceited. Cat’s don’t struggle with this strange disease you humans call “depression,” because we all think very highly of ourselves. So I decided to make a vanity card of my own, and I came up with this:

Ok, I admit that I quickly threw this together in paint.  I mean, so sue me, I don’t have the sweet photoshop skillz that my owner possesses due to extensive adobe use while she was in Utah (or so she tells me, the brat left me here while she was adventuring in the mountains). Besides, her psudo-photoshop program went down with her compy, and her interm lappy does not posses the will power to run such a program. But I digress.

The Point Is, now that I have hacked into her blog you are going to see a lot more of me around here lately. She clearly has invited me to be a part of the gang here, because she not only made her background the color of my fur but she put my picture right up there in her banner! And while I may not have been the wittiest of cats today, like my idol and possibly relative Siah, I promise for funnier, cattier posting in the near future. But if you’ll excuse me, I’ve wasted far to much time today.
Off to lick myself, pillage for spiders, hiss at those disgusting dogs, and stick  my butt in my human”s face because she just walked in the door.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Boy is he wordy. He has gotten wordier in his middle age. I give all the credit for this to Kerri, of course.

“How I learned to stop waiting for the end of the roller coaster and enjoy the ride.”

“What am I supposed to do when the club lights come on? It’s easy to be Puff but it’s harder to be Sean…

I know my kingdom awaits, and they’ve forgiven my mistakes…Tell the world that I’m coming home.” – Diddy-Dirty Money featuring Skylar Gray

There is always that precarious point in your life when you spend a lot of time searching for who you really are. Some people hit this point at the end of high school. Some people right out of college. For others, it might not happen ’til mid-life and lead to things like buying motorcycles or handguns.

For me, it’s been a process, and I’ve discussed it before.  I’m constantly looking for answers and endings to journeys. I am looking for my ultimate job, my ultimate boyfriend-husband, my ultimate body image, my ultimate “life,” and somehow have this concept in my head that I won’t be happy until I find it.

When you’re at this place in your life, you have two choices. One, you can choose to be miserable and let it fester and tear down your self confidence. You can let it destroy who you think you are until all that remains is a shell that you can’t seem to penetrate to refill with something substantial. Or, you can enjoy the ride.

Because life is a roller coaster. Coasters seem to be a common theme with my diabetes management, and while comparing life to valleys and mountaintops may seem overused and cliche, it really describes how you feel. I, however enjoy the roller coaster metaphor for life above the hiking metaphor (even though I love hiking). But life moves too fast to think of it as a hike. And sometimes, it just plain throws you for a loop. Or a quarter mile long corkscrew.

When you peak that hill, you feel weightless, and you can see for miles But when you begin to fall, you feel your stomach drop, and sometimes it’s a 40% grade and sometimes it’s a 90 percent grade. Sometimes you move at 55 mph and sometimes it’s 70. It depends on whether the track is made of wood or steel.  When you hit the bottom of the hill, you feel like you have 3 g’s of force bearing down on you, and like you’ll never be able to lift your hands up again. Soon enough, the pressure lifts and you can breathe again and you’re headed up that next hill. And at the end of the day, the loops and hills are what makes life worth it.

I haven’t been enjoying my ride. I’ve been waiting to get my feet on solid ground. I’ve been scared out of my mind like the first time I tried to ride the upside-down roller coaster at Worlds of Fun in Kansas City and panicked and ran out the “chicken exit.” (I was probably 9).

But it’s time to grow up and buckle my seat belt and stop staring at the “you must be this tall to ride this ride” sign. Believe  me, I won’t forget the safety  rail.

But I will raise my hands up high.

The rollar coaster I was too scared to go on.

March Is Here

And I won’t talk about goals, because I kind of wore that topic out yesterday, and if you want you can read my list here.

But I will leave you with the promise of spring, and as always, big changes for Sarah are on the horizon.

Motivation Monday: Food

Lots of bloggers try to jazz up their posts by making weekly themes with catchy titles. I admit I’ve done this a time or two. But what I am going to do is a series of posts regarding the new “goals” page I put up over the weekend.

Since my endo appointment last week I’ve been feeling rather positive regarding my life. While I still haven’t decided exactly what I want to do the next few weeks, I am already feeling happier and like, “I CAN DO THIS” regarding health and life, which is a huge change from just a few days ago.

So, for a few weeks at least, I’m going to be going over the goals on that list and explaining why they’re important to me.

First of all, I want to explain that almost all of these goals are all ongoing. Meaning that I can work at these things for the rest of my life, pretty much. So it’s not going to be a “check off” list. My Monday posts will simply serve as a reminder for myself of my goals and perhaps focus on a goal I want to work on that week.

There are five categories: Food, Health, Mental, Professional, and Personal. First, I will tackle my top priority in each of these categories, although it may be hard to choose.

Today’s category is Food.

• 30 g or less carbs/meal
• Lower sodium intake
• Cut out caffeine
• 10 fruits and veges / day
• 64 oz water/day

Right now the two goals I am most focused on in this category are water and fruit and vege intake. I have my trusty SCA water bottle out and ready each morning and I try to drink at least 12 oz before I hit the caffeinated beverages. It really does help you feel full, they don’t lie.

I always thought fruits and veges would make me feel hungry (and in the past they have) but when you break your meals down to 4-6 small meals a day and eat veges at each of them, it’s not as hard as it seems. This week I bought my own fresh veges, and we’ll have to see if my dad will be apt to buy me more until I am back to having my own income.

Why are these goals important? Last week, David Edelman of Diabetes Daily published this article describing how more water in your body can actually lower your blood sugar. Not to mention overall health benefits of staying hydrated: feeling fuller, more energy, more chance for your body to rid itself of toxins, and better kidney function.

Fruits and veges are a similar story. They pack lots of fiber, important in everyone’s diet, not to mention other important nutrients that you just can’t get anywhere else. Plus, veges are blood sugar friendly, and so are fruits that are high in fiber like apples. And it’s that high fiber content that fills you up. I personally enjoy having non-blood sugar raising snacks around the house. It just makes those munching feelings less guilty feeling when I have some carrots or cauliflower handy.

Veges I’ve been eating this weekend:

Cauliflower
Broccoli
Carrots
Butternut Squash

Ways to get veges and fruits in your diet:

If you can handle a little bit of juice without sending you into the sky blood sugar wise, try these things:

Mix 1/4 cup of (100 percent) fruit juice with water or sparkling water.

I really enjoy the V8 V-Fusion with green tea added. It’s lower in sugar than the straight-up V-Fusion, and still has a serving of fruits and veges in every serving.

10 fruits and veges a day is a lot! On Friday I only made it to five.

 

What are some of the diabetes or health related goals you are working on right now?

Weekend Edition: Photo Challenge Day 2

Second Day of my Photo Challenge MeMe

Day 02 – A picture of you and the person you have been close with for the longest.

This was hard for me to pick. I have two best friends I have known for equal time. In the end, I decided to post one of each. Paige and Sammi, I love you guys.

Paige

Sammi

 

 

Weekend Edition: Photo Challenge, Day 1

I’m taking the facebook photo challenge that’s been circulating, but instead of doing it in 30 days or using facebook, I decided to use the weekend and post them on my blog. I hope you enjoy!

Photo 1: A picture of yourself with 15 facts

 

Smokey and Sarah

15 Facts About Myself:

-I just spent 5 months living in rural Utah. It was awesome and horrible at the same time.

-I’ve had type 1 diabetes for 12 years.

-My parents have 2 dogs and 1 cat. Well, he’s my cat. See photo.

-The last five months were the first months I’ve lived outside Missouri since I was 3 years old.

-I spent those three years living in Kansas City, KS, so it doesn’t even really count.

-The hospital I was born in was in Missouri. Making me technically born in Missouri.

-I am a HUGE college basketball fan. MARCH MADESSS IS COMING!

-I’m actually a lot of sports fan. My teams are Kansas in college basketball, St. Louis Cardinals in baseball, and Kansas City Chiefs in football.

-I will FINALLY have my BA in history in May, after a LOT of paperwork issues!

-But what I really want is a BSN.

-I am really awful about keeping things clean – room, house, apartment, wherever I live.

-I shouldn’t eat it but frozen pizza is one of the best things in the world.

-My favorite color is purple. I also enjoy green and pink.

-I am secretly in love with Neil Patrick Harris.

-Despite all the stress and uncertainty, I am quite happy with my life at the moment, and quite in love. 🙂