The Corner Booth

It was a Meeting of the Minds. Well, no actually it wasn't. A Meeting of the Diabetics might be more in order on this one. Sure, we're all smart, but it wasn't an intellectual meeting we'd come together for. Rather, a D-Meetup featuring four active Diabetes Online Community (DOC) members who live in Indiana. This was our Hoosier-style D-Meetup. We came together on Saturday, July 17, and it was one for the books. Entailing everything from Ninjas, Make-Your-Own Musical Crafts, Artistic (and not so much) Blood Meters on a Plate, Coin-Rolling,  Candy-Trading, Etch-A-Sketches, and unfortunately some Food Court Nightmares. Where: The Children's Museum of Indianapolis... the one with the huge dinosaur standing out front that we all wanted to climb up on top of, but managed to restrain ourselves ( this time ). Who ( from left to right in photo ): Myself (Your Corner Booth Host), Cherise ( Diabetic_Iz_Me ), Mike Durbin ( MyDiabeticHeart ), and Jenny ( Ninnifur ). Jen...

The most recent annual camping adventure took me up to Interlochen, Michigan for a week and allows me to trade in the real life stresses and online universe for much-needed relaxation outdoors. Here's a Friday Lite post with some snippets of My D-Life Around The Campfire and nearby places. Moonlight, Campfire, & The Darkness Outdoors: This was my 5th year in the past decade on a summer camping adventure, and the the third straight in late July heading up to the northern part of Lower Michigan with friends. But it was my first where I wasn't pumping, but rather endured Multiple Daily Injections. My sugars were pretty steady or even slightly Low a majority of the time, and only a few times did they rise Higher when overeating and not compensating with enough insulin. Daytime was easy enough. But after dark presented some challenges. Being at a Michigan state park helped, as there were lighted restrooms, showers, running water and electricity. Washing the hands was easy eno...

Camping is awesome. I love it. But what's even cooler and more AWEsome is when those summertime camping adventures are all in the name of good causes. Charity. Advocacy. Support. = Good Causes, indeed. Especially when you're talking about Diabetes, or other conditions that need to be cured and can use all of the help we may be able to offer. Breast Cancer and Camping: Our recent weeklong adventure to Michigan was not only a time for relaxing and escaping from everyday stresses, but also a time to contribute to the Breast Cancer Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure, which is an event featured on a page of its own - Causes to Care About. This is our camping cause because the trip organizer is one of several of my fraternity brothers and friends participating in the event on Aug. 13-15, 2010. Dubbing themselves Team Sisters, Misters, and Blisters , the group has pledged to walk more than 60 miles each to raise a combined total of $10,000. They're 53% in, and have a ways to go i...

  Our annual week-long camping vacation just ended and I'll be playing catchup for a little while, so I'm tapping some of the archived posts from back in the days when you might have just seen this as The Corner Booth, without a specific D-focus. This one originally appeared March 31, 2007 , but remains relevant today as many studies continue to provide nothing more than a reassurance of what's already out there and known. Not all, but many. Have you observed any particular studies (mice or pigs or otherwise) that might tickle a comment? Let me know, and of course thanks for visiting! Breaking news: "Sedentary behavior linked to high blood sugar." Another one this week: "Active Self-care Improves Blood Sugar Control." Really? Are you kidding me? We had to spend valuable time and resources on studying this? As if no one could have guessed this from talking to a person who's EVER BEEN TO A DOCTOR before??? Or actually lives with diabetes, or kn...

That time has finally arrived. As usual this time every year, it's time for me to unplug and unconnect. Typical regular life duties are being put on hold for a week as we head up to northern Michigan for the annual camping trip. No work meetings. No tweeting. No D-Blogging. Few phone calls. As little stress as possible. There, we'll spend a week in our tents and hanging out in the company of a dozen close college friends over campfires and good times. While it's tent camping, we are within the comforts of a state park. Once our workweek finished on Friday, we headed home to get all packed up before hitting the road on Sunday morning. Our drive is about three hours longer than pretty much everyone else going, as they all live in the Southeast Michigan area where we're from. But now that we reside in Central Indiana, this means an 8-hour drive north along the Mitten State's western coastline with periodic pit stops for us and the dog. The Shadow C...

In preparing for a week-long annual camping adventure that'll take me away from the online universe to campfire connections of northern Michigan, here's a guest-post from a fellow Indiana Type 1 named Megan Bartholomew. This young woman lives in the same county as I do south of Indianapolis, and earlier this year was selected as one of the Indy 500 Princesses for 2010 . Through that role, this 22-year-old Type 1 reached out and touched the Diabetes Community that's so close to her heart. We met up for coffee a month or so ago after the 500 Race Weekend and had a great time talking about any number of topics, and I mentioned that it'd be awesome to have her write here at The D-Corner Booth. She agreed, and so now I'm honored to share her story in what hopefully will be just the first of her entries here. Enjoy!   - - - - - - - -  - - - - - - - - -  Hi everyone! My name is Megan Bartholomew, and Mike asked me to write a guest blog a couple m...

I've never been a fan of the term "pre-diabetes." Of course, I'm no medical professional. I'm not able to dispute the scientific validity of this term and how it's utilized. Online research tells me that the CDC has reported that one in four people (roughly 57 million people) have pre-diabetes and therefore have a higher risk of developing Type 2 within 10 years. But as a jaded and skeptical Type 1 for now more than a quarter century, I have reservations with this "diagnosis" and how the existing medical establishment throws this around in what I'd describe as a reckless manner. For example, take my wife who was recently told at an employer-offered health screening that she has "pre-diabetes" because of a single fasting blood glucose reading of 113 mg/dL. Yes, that's right. 113. One one three. (Waiting, allowing that number to process...) This is where I let Suzi jump in and tell the story, as it happened to her... The h...