Boldly Going Where Diabetics Haven't Gone Before...

... And of course, that's a lie. It's 2010, for crying out loud. Diabetics have done the Ironman, been to the Olympics, flown planes, yada, yada, yada... Truth is, it takes more than a failed pancreas to keep a good man down.

And still, there are certain things that - until recently - diabetics have been highly discouraged from doing. One of these things is scuba diving.

Truth is, I've wanted to scuba dive since I was a kid. But things have a way of getting in the way until one day you realize, "Hey, I'm almost 40 and I'm still not certified."

And then you realize that scuba diving is all about the buddy system, so you're going to need a pal. At that point, it's a good idea if your 12 year old son has a long history of being on swim team, because he can sign up without your wife worrying too much about her young boy and her diabetic husband learning to suck air underwater.

So I've looked up the DAN standards for diabetic divers, and - like a healthy Type 1 Diabetic - I pass. I also scored most of the equipment I need for fairly cheap on Craigslist and will get the rest over the next month or so.

And then in November, I'll do what many diabetics have already done: get my Open Water Certification with my son. Looking forward to it.

Popular posts from this blog

The gun in my basement.

Image
In my basement, I have a safe. And in that safe, under expired passports and birth certificates, there's a gun. It's unloaded. Hasn't been loaded in probably twenty years, and yet every time I take it out, I check to make sure. If you're a gun nerd, it's a 9 shot .22 revolver. On this website , it says that "it is true that many people have been killed by a .22 LR in the course of history," but the writer concludes that this weapon is a bad choice for self defense. I didn't buy it for self defense. I didn't even buy it. It was my father's and after he died, my mother gave it me, along with an Elgin watch he'd worn for years. The watch was weathered and worn and I took it to be restored. The jeweler refused, saying it was worthless. Two decades later, the watch is still in my jewelry box. There's no need for it to be locked up. I have no idea if this gun is in my possession legally. No idea if my father had a permit for it, or w...
Read more

Happy D-Blog Day, Uh, I Guess...

So according to diabetics blog-wide, today is D-Blog Day, the day when those of us affected by diabetes are supposed to blog about it. Or draw awareness to diabetes... Or something like that. I'm really a bad poster child for the disease. Not because I'm not in great control (actually, I am), but because I've just never been bothered by the disease so much. Red sums it up well in Shawshank Redemption: "Get busy living, or get busy dying." So if living means three blood sugar tests a day, so be it. If living means being hooked up to an insulin pump, go to it. That being said, I feel for anyone with diabetic kids... I'm a tough guy about the disease. I wouldn't be if my kids had it. If either of my kids had diabetes, I'd be screaming about the politicians who are spending money on wars instead of research, and I'd be yelling about the schools that make it difficult to be a diabetic in the classroom. But my kids don't have diabetes, so instead I ...
Read more

The Bright Side

“ And if you ever get scared, look on the bright side: You’ve got a new life.” – Amos Lee Last month, I was diagnosed with Lyme disease. Since then, I’ve tried to write this essay a few times. The first attempt followed a narrative arc rife with suspense, with a few years of frustrating doctors’ visits, mysterious symptoms that came and went and the all-around sentiment that the batteries that powered my body were no longer able to sustain a charge or be fully refueled at the end of the day. But if you Google Lyme disease, you realize there’s nothing unique about that story. In fact, the reality that my own diagnosis came only two years after all of this started makes this a much shorter story than it is for many. The theme of the second version was more pitiful, tinged with regret about what this had taken from me over the past two years and what it might take in the future. But honestly, that one didn’t get far at all. If there’s a good time for something like ...
Read more