Artificially Sweetened

From my local parenting magazine. Heh.

And because I’ve been told that I have been delinquent in the photo department.

Many thanks to Val for a) saving my life with that extra bottle of novolog and b) taking us to her town pool! And for all you curious DOCers out there, her castle is truly reeediculously awesome.

A few months ago I got a new meter from OneT@uch that replaces the BD one that talks to my pump.

I promptly filed it in the bathroom cabinet o’ diabetes supplies, as I have enough strips for the BD meter to last at least until the Cubs win the World Series the end of time.

I hauled it out last night after realizing that I left Old Faithful on my desk at work.  Amongst all the new meter swag was a vial of 10 strips (WOW! I AM OVERWHELMED BY GENEROSITY) and a coupon for a free gift.

You all know I love free stuff.  I got all excited.  What would it be? A faux leather case for OneTouchie? A skin for the meter to match my pump?  With great enthusiasm, I tore open the offer.

My friends, it was a coupon for twenty free lancets.

WHOO FUCKING HOO.

Have these people never heard of daylight savings time?

p.s. Some serious P’ito cuteness over in Flickrville… comment on the pictures and encourage me to post more of them

Is it really necessary to send me the same (strangely capitalized) “Now i Can GET EVERYTHING I NEED” brochure EVERY SINGLE TIME I order pump supplies?

I order my supplies online, so clearly I’m capable of getting information about your products without a 30 page high gloss paper brochure sent to me MONTHLY.

Why don’t you alleviate pain (to our environment) and extend the life (of our planet) by eliminating this brochure, which is headed straight for my recycling bin anyway.

Thanks,

AS

… who’s ever done this…

thought: hmmm, my site itches

damn, just changed it this morning. Shouldn’t be itching already. Stoooopid Disease.

Wait. Put in thigh site this morning. Itches on stomach.

[bangs head on wall] Put in new site. Connected, primed. Never took out old one. ARGH.

(Enter right, neosporin)

Oh, and a random cute kid picture. First Professional Haircut.

I am very ready for winter to be over.

I’ve been feeling down lately - not down down, but just kind of muted. I’ve gotten past the “WOW! This place isn’t my old job!” excitement stage at work and I’m having a hard time keeping my enthusiasm up through the grey of winter.

I’m nervous about my upcoming Adventures in Single Motherhood. After a nice long research leave, Pili is headed back to work. Work is two hours away, which means that Monday-Wednesday nights, it will be me and the boy. Any tips on getting out of the house in the morning singlehanded will be much appreciated.

I had an appointment with New Endo this morning: no insta-A1C machine, so I will find out tomorrow exactly how sucky my A1C is. Last one was 6.9: I am thinking somewhere around 8.3 New Endo was perfectly nice, but not nearly as thorough as Good Endo back in Less Urban City, and he wants me to log. Good Endo just downloaded my meter and pump. I am tempted to just keep seeing him, but in the end I’m not sure I am committed enough to my diabetes management to drive five hours roundtrip to see a doctor.

I hate seeing new doctors: I recite my medical history and they hmm and haw and bite their cheeks and say “you’re awfully young to have that” (3 basal cell carcinomas, little bastards) and I just feel like a big old freak of nature. This is compounded by the fact that I am back to my highest ever weight, and feel icky and fat - I’m muffin-topping out of all my jeans. I need to start doing the weight-watchers thing again, but when? (see above re: Single Motherhood) The online version doesn’t work for me - I need to be accountable to someone other than myself. I know that once Pili gets home, I’m going to want to see her, not spend all my time racing off to the gym and doing all the errands I couldn’t do when she was away. Oh, and I am having a major flare up of my l1chen p.lanus and my exczema, so I’ve got red itchy blotches all over my hands, stomach, underarms, and underboobs. And the dermatologist’s first appt is not until March. C’mon let’s hear it folks - am I not The Sexiest Woman Ever? (ahem). Let’s hear it for the medical trainwreck. Actually, the reason I made L.P. ungoogleable is that apparently there are people who think it is sexy and put up p@rn sites devoted to it. So hey, some icky wicky sleazeball out there on the internets thinks I’m sexy!

While I may be lacking in the Sexy of Late, P’ito remains quite possibly the Cutest Boy Ever (excepting the children/nephews/ friendskids of my kind readers, of course).

p.s. Congrats to Cheri, Gary & Eliana, who are OUT OF PGN! and Ezra & Jenny who welcomed Elsie Jane and two mommies, who have a damn cute boy of their own.

In order to get a post up more than once every two weeks. Oh, and if you know of any organizations that fund technology support for not-for-profits, please let me know? I’d love to liberate my workplace from Mac OS 9.2 so that I can blog at work again without bringing in my personal laptop so that I can actually get some work done without having my computer crash every five seconds.

• Pepito birthday wishes - thank you, thank you, thank you!
• Holy shit, child is walking. Who gave him permission to do that?
• Diabetes management: what’s that? Or: I thought it was hard to make sure I left the house with all the supplies I needed before I had a child.
• Need to find endo and primary care in MUCDTR, stat.
• Symptoms of frozen shoulder? (see previous item) Am really hoping this is just a pinched nerve. Ouch.
• Missed a birthday party for a good friend this weekend. I suck. Go wish gandksmom a happy birthday please, so I don’t feel like such a loser.
• If you were tagged for a meme over six months ago, should you just let it go or should you go back and do it?
• V. V. V. Happy for Cheri, Gary, and Eliana!

Most of the boxes are unpacked. And glory glory hallelujah, we finally have both internet and a landline.

Both Pepito and his mommies have been enjoying the new house.

Looking out at his new backyard.

Proudly walking (not independently, thank g-d) amidst the boxes.

Peering through the “chubby kat” cat door.

The house has a semi-finished basement room, which we call the playroom. Here’s the “adult” side. I got this on Saturday at a yard sale for $60 - delivered.

And while the mommies play pool, the boy can play with his toys… A lot of these were left for us by the previous owner.

My friend MC is right: move is a four letter word. Go give her some lurve, she has been through hell lately. I hate it when things don’t work out for my friends.

I started my new job on Monday.  So far… so good.  I am a little nervous about the expectations people have of me - after waiting a year for someone to start, it’s easy for that person (um, me) to become supergirl, the imaginary solution to all problems.  On the other hand, the position has been vacant for a long time, and I’m basically starting from scratch (well, from scratch with an office full of files going back to 1973), so anything I do will be better than the nothing that was happening before, right?

I have to choose an insurance plan, or negotiate a pay raise (already, I know: I am supergirl) that would enable me to stay on Pili’s excellent insurance and spare new employer the expense of covering me.   Amazingly, for a very small, rather financially challenged organization, they are paying my whole premium. This may change once they discover what I will do to their insurance costs…

Last year, Pili paid $3800 dollars for the privilege of having me on her insurance.  If Employer paid me $4000 extra, I would happily stay on her coverage.  Of course, Pili’s employer’s contributions to my health care are not tax-deductible - in fact, they are counted as additional income and she is taxed on them!   

I am usually pretty good at figuring these things out, but for some reason, my eyes have been glazing over on this decision.  Tomorrow I will find a detailed current benefits & costs list for Pili’s insurance and post the new options and the current plan here and let you all tell me what to do.  I also have to find out how diabetes and pump supplies are covered under the different plans… most of them have a 50% co-pay for non-generic perscriptions.   I am terrible at swallowing pills, and the generic version of my anti-depressent pill is not coated, so it always gets stuck in the back of my throat and tastes nasty.  In order to avoid tasting battery acid in the back of my mouth all day, I have my doctor write that one DAW and pay extra for the name brand.  But I may get depressed all over again thinking about how much that stuff will cost me with a 50% copay. 

Finally - I swear this isn’t strictly a mommy blog…  although I know it sure looks that way at the moment.

But our boy has started doing some really incredibly cute things.  He’s cruising all over the furniture, and he loves to push his little walkie thing around.  He has also started kissing.  Last night, we were reading Whose Knees are These and when we got to the last page with the picture of the baby, he kissed it over and over again.

This morning, he was occupying himself with his second favorite passtime - pull-all-the-books-off-the-shelf - (his first favorite is pull-all-the-shoes-off-the-rack) and he pulled out The Happiest Toddler on the Block.  After studying it for a while, he started kissing the little girl on the cover.  By the time I got the camera out though, he was trying to eat the dust jacket.  I hope it’s true… you are what you eat!

This post is already reeedicuklously long, so I will not get into the Great Sleep Wars of 2007 that have been waged around here.  Except to say, please tell me about how you and your partner fought bitterly disagreed entirely had very difficult times deciding what to do with a child who Does Not Like to Go to Bed.  Even when he is Very Very Tired. 

I am the damn luckiest diabetic out there (so far).

Another annual eye exam.

Twenty-one years and counting.  A long stretch behind me of A1Cs that made my doctors sigh heavily and say, I know you know that this isn’t good for you.  An even longer stretch behind me of years when I didn’t bother to know what my A1C was.

Another annual eye exam.

Dread in the pit of my stomach all day. Will this be the time I don’t dodge the bullet? The other shoe has to fall sometime. Biting my lip as my eyes go crazy and I wait for the doctor to come in and check me. Taking my glasses off to see if there are any magazines on the rack. Putting them back on to see that the magazines a foot in front of my face are all year-old copies of Golf Digest. Waiting for the doctor to come in.

Look at my ear. Hairy ears. No, look straight ahead. At my ear. Ewww. Bright light, blinking, blinking. Let’s try that again. Okay, just a minute more. Okay, you’re done.

Your eyes look great.

Pili standing up in the waiting room, scanning my face for signs of trouble. Smiling when she sees that I’m smiling at her.

Your eyes look great.

Stepping out into the blinding sunlight, grateful for its ferocity even behind dark sunglasses.

The last time I went to Awesome Endo, I did a three day CGMS and he tweaked my basal rates and carb ratios a bit.   And for two weeks, I was SuperDiabetic.  You all know her: the one who faithfully tests two hours after meals and actually gets up in the middle of the night to do basal rate checks…  The one who weighs her food and looks up carbs and doesn’t say, “oh you already threw the frozen pizza box in the recycling? I’ll just eyeball it.”  The one who doesn’t eat frozen pizza, for g-d’s sake.  Who always always always tests before eating a snack. And who goes to the gym religiously, and checks her blood sugar mid workout and etc. etc. etc. 

Yes, for two weeks after the experience of having the blood glucose impact of every time I twitched in the direction of the candy aisle or took a bite without testing first recorded indeliably for all the world to see, I became the diabetic whose blog normally would make me cringe and turn my face away in shame.  And then… life happened.

I actually had an appt with Awesome Endo on Monday, right after we got back from Guatemala.  But I felt like crap - emotionally (duh) - and physically (our little boy already knows how to share! He shared his cold with me!) - and so I called and cancelled, pleading illness and expecting to be told that the next available appointment was in June by which time, of course, Perfect Diabetic would have been located somewhere inbetween the couch cushions or with the dustbunnies under the bed and restored to full functionality.

Howbout Friday? Asked Perky Receptionist.  Howbout it? Aside from a hair appt - flickr friends stay tuned for my exciting new colors - I didn’t have anything going on on Friday. Friday it was, damnit.

So when Awesome Endo asked me if I thought I knew what my A1C was, I steeled myself for the inevitable lecture, and said weakly… maybe around 8 (last visit was 7.5).  “What makes you think that?” he asked.  Well… I dunno, I just feel like my blood sugars haven’t been that great lately and… (I detect a hint of a twinkle in his eye).  Do you know what it is? Are you playing with me?

Yes. It was 6.5.  I don’t think I’ve had one that low since I turned thirteen. 

This disease, it just fucks with your head. 

I should be thrilled, but since I don’t feel like I brought this about in any concrete way, I also don’t feel like I deserve the credit for it.  Plus, since I don’t know why it happened this way, I feel like whatever good fairies were playing with the A1C machine today could just as quickly turn their backs on me next time. 

Still, 6.5.  For the first time in a long time, the diagnostic code he checked on the insurance form was 250.01: diabetes, type I, controlled, instead of 250.03: diabetes, type I, uncontrolled.  That felt pretty good.

I am a homebody. Two long weekends out of town in a row, and I am a mess.  My blood sugars are playing that fun game called chasing the rollercoaster. Whee 355! Whee 45! Whee 306! Whee 62 again. And that whole losing weight thing? Um, did someone say something? So very much not fun.

My parents want to come up and visit this weekend and I’m torn.  I want to see them and yet I have so many things I need to do before we leave for Guatemala (dates purposefully left a little vague for nebulous internet-privacy reasons, sorry. You’ll hear about it when we get back!). I want to actually write something for lesbian family which I have been shamefully neglecting. I have a thousand things to do for work. I feel like I haven’t been alone with Pili in ages. (And yet I am blogging right now rather than curling up with her. A sad fact.)

We are accumulating stuff for the Guatebaby. Hand-me-downs mostly, a few purchases here and there (my weakness? books, books, books. And soft clothes).  I am trying not to be superstitious that it is bad luck to acquire things before he is home.  It’s only before they’re born that you’re not supposed to buy stuff - right?

We got the most amazing gift from Bernard - a fellow PWD and adoptive parent. A soft stuffed kitty cat, Stack and Roll Cups for hours of baby amusement, and for the mommies - top-secret James Bond passport holders, a cozy neck rest for the looong flight to Guatemala City, gatorade powder and glucose gel for one mommy in particular, and that lifesaver of international travel - a large box of gallon ziplocs. Thank you so, so much Bernard. We are moved beyond words.

We found out that our case is out of family court, which is great. Unfortunately, we’re still waiting on pre-approval from the embassy before we can be submitted to PGN. It is nice to know that progress is happening, however glacially it seems to me.

And only a few more days until we are face to face with this: