The Corner Booth

 On a recent vacation to Canada, I was able to visit the "birthplace of insulin," the house where insulin co-discoverer Dr. Frederick Banting lived and worked at the time when he came up with the idea that would lead to this life-saving miracle drug. It was such a humbling experience to be able to visit the Banting House , the very place where in 1920, Dr. Banting woke up one morning at 2 a.m. and scribbled down the amazing idea that eventually saved my life and so many others. Personally, I would have died not long after my 5th birthday. But then again, my own type 1 mom wouldn't have survived past her 5th birthday, so I never would have born in the first place without Dr. Banting's revelation. Whoa! Seriously, as a person with T1D who would most assuredly not be alive today without this discovery, being there gave me the shivers. And as a guy who appreciates history in general, I savored walking through the preserved rooms and hallways where the most ...

So, Day Four of Diabetes Blog Week 2017 . Topic: What Brings Me Down (aka Throwback Thursday, if applicable). Ummm........ OK, fine. Let's cue the ELO here , why don't we... If not that, then maybe... And shit, if that doesn't work, then maybe the only recourse is... If those three don't "bring me down," well then screw it, I'm going to ride this glucoaster of being High for a bit. And then, most likely: I'll have to tell you again, before I get off the floor (due to a triple-effect hypo). Does that answer the question?! If not, maybe another #DBlogWeek blogger has a better answer in mind...  (Seriously, I get it's a play on Mental Health Month and what challenges your mental health when it comes to living with diabetes -- and so I'd double-down on my above points. Because, seriously. High blood sugars are so much a part of mental health and diabetes . It's beyond ridiculous how closely tied together those...

So, Day Two. Diabetes Blog Week 2017 . Topic? " The Cost of a Chronic Illness ." Sure, many are writing and being oh-so-serious. Because, this issue is... oh-so-serious. And downright enraging and maddening and so on and so forth. But there's another side of this question, relating to the cost of living with diabetes.... from the POV of " What's the cost YOU FACE when living with someone who has T1D?" My beloved cat might have something to say, if she were around these days to speak about this. Shadow's been gone for 5 years now, her Cat Dreams of World Domination Unrealized . But she certainly paid the price as a result of living with us and my type 1 world -- especially in the context of DOC craziness. For example, being subjected to all kinds of strange behavior -- like being forced to wear diabetes supplies on her head... which as you can tell, SHE ABSOLUTELY LOVED! ;) If she were around today, Shadow might say something along th...

There was a diabetes day more than a decade ago that hit me like a ton of bricks. OK, maybe that's the first flag right there... when I said "diabetes day." As if, every single day of my life isn't a "diabetes day" where my pancreas isn't doing what it should and I must take on that role and think about everything related to a D-Life. No, this was a particularly more-focused D-day, because I had an eye doctor appointment. Yep, one of those dreaded doctor visits where you get bright lights beamed into your deepest eye sockets, and you try the impossible of bravely holding back the tears as you look through the whiteness as you " Look Left, Look Right, Look Up, Look Down ." And then occasionally, you must face the humiliating task of trying to see tiny numbers and letters and not appear stupid, or ID the closely-colored hue book that has hidden numbers and letters, but is not easy given your partial color-blindness. (((Sigh))) And that...

We referred to him as a "father of the Diabetes Online Community," and anyone who’d ever known or connected with him felt the passion to help that burned beneath his kind and gentle spirit. It’s no exaggeration to say that David Mendosa was one of the top diabetes writers in the world, a journey he began after his type 2 diagnosis in 1994. Sadly, our D-Community is now mourning this lost friend from Boulder, CO, who passed away on May 8 as a result of an incurable form of cancer diagnosed in April. He was 81, and in his last email update sent out only a week before his passing he quipped, "I am glad to be able to write that this type of cancer is not one of the many complications of diabetes.” A third-generation Californian who moved to Colorado in 2004, he was born in August 1935 under the name Richard Alexander Mendosa; he went by "Dick" until the mid-70s and later "Rick," until he legally changed his name to David in 2005. Those who knew David o...

On a recent drive home from out of state, I happened to hit a stretch of road construction. The interstate was closed down to one lane, with two lanes as well as an entry ramp merging traffic into the single lane. As my car slowly moved through the clutter, I came to the road crew... Milling around on the side of the road in between the orange barrels. One guy in an orange hat and vest was sitting on a guard rail, hunched over to see his phone in the sunlight. Clearly, they weren't doing what I thought they should be in repairing the road. I bitched out load. WHAT. THE. HELL. YOU ARE ALL STANDING AROUND OR SITTING THERE PLAYING ON YOUR PHONE, WHEN PEOPLE ON THE ROAD MUST DEAL WITH THESE HAPHAZARD, NON-SENSICAL LANE CLOSURES!?!? For a moment, I thought about pulling my car off to the side and getting out to confront the apparent non-working construction crew. Then, I though about what I wasn't seeing. Maybe there was more to this story than I knew. By chanc...

Scott Johnson’s left shoulder was bothering him. Really bothering him. "I couldn’t remember a specific incident, but was sure it was just a stubborn basketball injury," said Johnson, a longtime type 1 for more than three decades who blogs at Scott's Diabetes and has worked within the diabetes space for many years . But after months of physical therapy with no progress, and even what he describes as "negative progress," Johnson was diagnosed with adhesive capsulitis , better known by most people as frozen shoulder. This is one of those lesser-known diabetes complications, one that doesn't get discussed much in comparison to vision loss, nerve damage, and a host of other very scary ones. But it's a complication that can be painful and life-altering, and isn't always easy to recognize when we might just equate it to "the wonders of getting older." Overall, it's not really on the radar unless you're personally experie...