Sweet Victory

Today's topic: changes I want for diabetes. Great topic, as it gets to the heart of my interest in coming to Aspire Ventures and doing work for Tempo Health . To be clear, I don't need another diabetes app that allows me to log my stuff, even though we're building one. I don't need another place to put old news, and I really don't need another place to put data that's already been logged someplace else. What I want and what I need is insight. I need something that can comb through my data and find the trends that will lead me, and others, to better control. While my relationship with my endo is good, giving them spreadsheets of data and watching them scan over it in a short appointment tells me that they need this information, too. What we're attempting to do at Tempo Health is just that; focusing on turning all of that data into something that informs the patient and their caregiver about what matters inside of that data. From insights, there becom...

Today's post asks, "What needs to be cleaned out about our diabetes, either physically or emotionally?" I think you'll see some great posts today about the emotional burden of diabetes. You won't find that here, though. What you will find is a short commentary about how health insurance has changed what it means to be a diabetic in the US. What you see there is my back-up closet of supplies. There's probably about two years worth of Medtronic supplies (as well as two out of warranty pumps), and a much smaller supply of first generation Omnipods. (Let's be honest; the batteries in the Omnipods are likely shot and they should be disposed of.) Those items were acquired during several years of auto-shipped supplies when I was on a low deductible insurance plan. The boxes showed up every quarter and they got added to the pile where they were stocked up as if I were preparing for either Diageddon or - more likely - unemployment. What I didn't take...

Originally I didn't know what I'd write about when asked what parts of diabetes "I keep to myself." Truth is, I don't keep a lot to myself. Opinions? Oh yeah, I've got them. About diabetes. About the next Star Wars movie. About rye whiskey. You ask, I've got something to say. But there are certain things related to diabetes that I don't tend to talk about much and blog about even less. Not many, but a few. 1.) I don't talk much about infusion set failures that lead to high BGs. I've read some extremely emotional posts from diabetics who'll allow a bent cannula to be the catalyst for a tirade about the frustration of the disease. And I get it. It's annoying. But things - particularly mechanical things - fail. The added stress you feel because of the bad infusion set? It just pours gas on the fire, so I don't do it. 2.) I don't tell diabetic parents how they should feel or what they should do. I am a parent. I have diabetes....

So after nearly a year of not blogging, here I go committing to a week of posts for Diabetes Blog Week . A short disclaimer: I've actually been writing and posting a lot. Sometimes at LinkedIn. Sometimes on corporate blogs. But not here so much for the past year. Until this week. So pull up a chair and let's get to it. Today's post topic is "I Can," and is supposed to talk about what I've done despite diabetes or other positive aspects T1 has brought to my life. You might say I completed a hundred mile race "despite diabetes." I say that running ultramarathons requires an intimate knowledge of fueling, particularly carbohydrate fueling. Diabetes taught me to do that. You might say I'm a relatively disciplined person "despite diabetes." I say diabetes was the first thing that taught me that discipline and consistency are some of the best ways to stay on top of diabetes, and these habits will flow over to other aspects of your life....