The Corner Booth

~12:45 p.m., December 11, 2013. William Lee Hoskins. Yes, I'll carry on your name , but also everything you've taught me during over the course of my nearly 35 years. Love you, Grandpa.

Many years ago, I started exploring family history. This was a couple years after finding the Diabetes Online Community, but before I really stepped into that world of wearing diabetes very openly on my sleeve. Back in late 2007 and early 2008, my focus was on my full-time newspaper job and my off-hour, stay-up-all-night hobby of aspiring family historian. This was just before Ancestry.com got a surge of new interest and a TV show brought it even more recognition, and it was something I couldn't pull myself away from. A key motivation for this was my grandfather, William Lee Hoskins, who's been a pivotal force in my life and has always been the heart of our family. I'm proud to have William as my middle name, as does my own dad, and it's an honor to have been able to compile 20 months of intense research into a 35-page Living History that I presented to my grandpa on his 80th birthday on Oct. 8, 2009. I found myself scouring through online records and datab...

 A very happy (and hopefully blue-colored) World Diabetes Day , Everyone! Of course, this annual celebration was placed on this particular day thanks to its historical D-significance as the birthday of co-creator of insulin, Dr. Frederick Banting, who was born on Nov. 14, 1891 -- and would be celebrating his 122nd birthday here in 2013 if we were alive today! (In fact, the Banting Homestead in Canada just opened a new education center in conjunction with World Diabetes Day this year.) So, we raise a Diet Coke (or Fresca) in his honor today, while marking another World Diabetes Day, which dates back more than two decades, but really started getting traction in 2006 when the United Nations adopted a resolution making it an official day of observance. Gauging the Impact of World Diabetes Day Today, we wanted to take a closer look just how the World Diabetes Day awareness campaign has evolved through the years, and what kind of impact is it having? So guess what? ...

Someone in the Diabetes Community online recently engaged me in conversation about why they do not support a particular color or symbol to embrace diabetes. What started the whole online exchange was how they were promoting diabetes awareness, using a ribbon that had a little blood drop symbol and used a color that most associate with another health condition. I supported the advocacy and D-Awareness raising, but noted my hesitancy behind multiple colors and symbols. I noted my support of the color blue. That person's point: "Diabetes is not a color or symbol, it's a disease. Period." Over time, there have been so many other colors and ribbons in regard to diabetes that it makes my head spin. I often feel that we're doing ourselves a disservice by having so many different colors, as that seems to tell the non-diabetic world at large that we can't even agree with each other about how we want to communicate about diabetes at the very ground level. Thi...

I took a couple airplane rides recently, the first since buying a Dexcom G4 CGM. Airport security was mostly hassle-free and not an issue, for the two airports I went through in my own city and then the higher-traffic one I was flying home from. They knew what my insulin pump was, and just did their thing swabbing it for possible explosives that only took a few minutes. No issues there. ( maybe because I'm currently using an Animas Ping that really does look like a medical device and is much more old-school retro looking, compared to modern-looking devices like the t:slim... ) My CGM was less understood. At both airports, the same comment came my way from a handful of security people: "All phones and iPods need to go in a bin and get scanned." My response: "It's not an iPod, it's a medical device." TSA responses varied -- "Oh." ( Read: Whatever. ) "Oh" ( with an exclamation point! ). "Really?!" ( ...

Published this post initially in March 2010 . But it's again how I am feeling, after being reminded by Kerri Sparling in a great post she wrote recently. So, here it is again. In The Waters Again Sky is dark. Clouds hover overhead, trapping the light behind a veil of darkness, a haze that stops you Source . from seeing what's ahead. A bright spot, a break in the clouds, can be seen ahead on the horizon where the sun shines through. That's the destination.  But it's not an easy path. This journey means you must ride the river. A dangerous river. Toward that place off in the distance, a spot you hope isn't a mirage as you desperately try to reach it. This river is riddled with rough patches. A rocky, wave-splashing-against-the-shore type of river. Rocks sit in strategic spots along the river, aimed solely at catching you off-guard and pitching you helplessly into the waters. The only...

Photo by Mike Hoskins Today, something a little different... We're imagining what a job ad might look for that lazy organ in the body largely to blame for us having to live with diabetes: WANTED: Self-starting leader who isn't afraid to call the shots, and can bring a creative style to a challenging body of work. The position might even be for a CGM Data Entry Manager, Artificial Pancreas Division of Associates In-Corporated (A1C). Word has it that my very own slacker organ, Peter PANcreas, put his blood into the test strip vial for consideration. And rumor was that he scored an interview! So, we reached out to the company's executives to see how that all played out. Thanks to a source inside A1C who managed to get us "in range," we were able to snag a copy of the resume that Peter submitted for the position. Peter PANcreas 104 Blood Meter Blvd Mike's Body, 888 Behind the Stomach peterpancreas@diabetesmine.com OBJECTIVE: To find a management and supervi...