Sweet Victory

One thing about the Internet - it does have a way of connecting people. After my recent post about Lyme disease, I received a lot of messages from people. A fair amount of sympathy (which I don't wear well), a greater amount of empathy (which I adore) and a fair amount of advice. Along the way, someone asked me about my current supplement. Rather than responding directly, I decided to put it all here, in case it's useful for anyone. The obvious caveat: your situation, symptoms, budget and tolerance will vary. Not might. Will. Also, this post isn't going to discuss dietary changes I've made or are considering. As much as I can, I'm not super interested in removing things from my life. If eventually, I have to, fine. But for now, this is what I've added, and why. The Basics Prior to my lyme diagnosis, I was focused on my thyroid being to blame for my fatigue. (Like many diabetics, I'm on Synthroid.) In my research, I learned that these are common sup...

“ 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 ...

It’s never too late to find love. I had a dog once, rebooted from a home that Apparently had no toys. When we got her, we offered up a buffet of balls, bones and other expensive forms of molded rubber and plastic. She ignored them all, disinterested to find even a moment of bliss - in any one of them. She lived this way for quite some time Seemingly okay with a life without material - affection. One day, she came across a cloth mouse Long since discarded by the cat who now favored - killing the real thing. In a single moment, she became something we’d never seen before. Bringing it everywhere playfully pawing and chewing it, taking it to bed searching for it when she entered a room ignoring her food if it wasn’t beside her and unable to focus on anything else. I’d never seen her happier, or stupider. It only took me a short while to stop enjoying her bliss and start worrying what she’d do when - she lost this. Would she return to her previous mode of gent...

Were he alive, my father would not have been on Facebook. He lived in three dimensions, not two. He guzzled cheap beer when he was healthy and sipped blackberry brandy when he wasn't. He cut firewood in the late fall, sometimes with an axe sometimes with a chainsaw but always with snot dripping from his nose. I stacked the wood, going from annoyance to indignation until I finally came out the other end With pride. I held flashlights while he skinned his knuckles On everything. Late evening he'd watch the ballgame with a beer. I'd trace the veins on his hands, smell the Old Spice on his face and the bubbles in his glass. The wounds on his hands seemed so fresh but not once Not ever did I ever hear him Complain and never Not ever did I see him -flinch.

We come, young, old, etc. Those observing must wonder  What common trauma unites, bonds Brings us all together  - for this. First day check-ins, eager grins Mostly some Wondering what the hell they'd gotten Into. For some it takes hours for others Days but a week for all is  Plenty good to feel a sense of  Something you haven't  - before. We sweat, we cry, we bleed one Drop at a time confirming, affirming that What makes this perfect is nothing - more Than our own imperfections. An observer might say oh: Sweat, tears, blood - it's salt that Brings you all here but they'd be dead Wrong because it's the opposite of - that. It's the sweetness, the sugar the old Folks called it, that thing that robs Vision, limbs and even years from Our clutches. But not here. Here, we run we ride we jump we climb Higher and further away, away from Doctors from doubt from anything that says - No. Here, we laugh at our failures, here we Ponder possibilities consider new Realities and...

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....

The first four posts of the blog this week were to tell you about the DTC experience from my perspective, the ultimately limited lens of a running coach. But so much more happens beyond the trails and ex-phys testing. There are mental skills lectures, lead by author and all-around superstar Carrie Cheadle. If she’s not the first to figure out that the mental make-up necessary to deal with diabetes mirrors that required by athletes, she’s at least the one who’s getting the most mileage out of it. Carrie’s talks are riveting and the campers gobble them up with gusto. A team of dieticians are on-hand, too, with lessons in how to fuel the diabetic athlete, complete with taste tests and grocery store trips. Put carb counting on steroids and you begin to scratch the surface of what DTC offers for those interested in learning. And, as mentioned previously, the medical skills lectures are simply on a higher plane than anything I’ve found anywhere else. Tactics and tricks you might have h...

Last year, my first year at Diabetes Training Camp, they added something new, courtesy of Rob Powell, a CDE who’s also an exercise physiologist. What they added was a series of tests so that one could benchmark their current ability in terms of aerobic endurance, flexibility and core strength. Last year, I had confirmed my existence as a one-trick pony with a stellar performance in the 1.5 mile run, followed by outright failures in everything else. And I don’t mean poor performances, either. I mean, I failed to register on the charts for flexibility and core strength. I attribute this to the fact that at the time I was spending exactly zero time on flexibility and core strength. Funny how those tests work. Going into the 1.5 mile run, I didn’t really have an interest in going all-out. Coming off a marathon three weeks prior, I knew where I was fitness-wise, and coming two days off a 20+ mile training run, I knew a peak performance was unlikely. I finished it in 9:27, good enough f...

Everyone is nervous for the first run or ride or swim of camp. Here’s why: The campers are concerned that they will be the slow ones, the huffers and puffers holding back the fit and the fast. The fact that nobody is concerned that they will be the fit the fast says something about human nature and how we all have a tendency to underestimate our abilities. The coaches aren’t concerned about having huffers and puffers along with the fit and the fast. That’s how things always are. And as for me, I know that where you are in the pack often says more about the genetic stuff your parents gave you than what you’ve done with it. But myself and the other coaches are concerned that the gap between the two groups is small enough that we can provide coaching, support or guidance at any point, and that everyone feels safe and accomplished throughout the workout. The med staff on the workouts also walk a fine line. They want the campers to feel safe but also want to encourage them to experim...

“I’m heading over to the track for some 400s. Want to join me?” I glanced at my watch. It was 9:30AM. I was scheduled to make up DTC camper beds at 10AM. I was dressed for the latter, not the former. My legs were heavy from the previous day’s twenty-one mile run and I hadn’t planned on running on this day, the day the campers would arrive after lunch. “Sure,” I said. “Give me two minutes to change,” and a half hour later I was coming back from the track with two-time Ironman Lyndsay Riffe. We made the campers’ beds up, doing our best not the drip sweat on their clean sheets. Immediately, I was brought back to one of the purposes of camp, which was to not let a moment, or thirty minutes in this case, go to waste. Lyndsay is one of the best I know at filling any vacuum of time with activity. The fact that her workouts didn’t often make sense (as the time I caught her inserting planks into a stretching routine) are more a symptom of her spontaneity than any lack of knowledge about h...

Last week, I participated in my second Diabetes Training Camp at Franklin & Marshall College in my home of Lancaster, PA. The fact that the only camp of this type is four miles from my home is just coincidence, though I was reminded by a friend recently that there are no such thing as coincidences, so we’ll leave it at that. Though it seems incredibly difficult to condense the week’s worth of learnings, emotions and activities into a cohesive review, it also seems a worthy challenge. If a prospective attendee finds value in these words, great. If an alumni of the camp can look upon these thoughts and be reminded of their own high-points, all the better. But in the end, I’m really writing these posts for me, so that I can capture my memories while they remain fresh. To the reader, it’s important you know my role in all of this, small as it was. Among a staff of a dozen or so, I’m the Running Coach, a position I picked up a year ago. I’m a member of the Coaching team, which compr...

So yesterday I knocked out a 20 mile run at 8:19 pace , the first I've gone that fast on a long run in more than a year and a half. It would be impressive, I suppose, if I were actually training for something. This was my 4th (or 5th? 3rd?) 20 miler in this build, mostly through 50 mile weeks, though the word "build" assumes one is building toward something and I've been as flip-floppy as a politician for quite some time now. A month ago I talked about throwing some 5 hour runs together for the NJ Ultra Fest, but a lack of ultra motivation and an over-abundance of snow have prevented that. Right now, I'm kind of thinking about peaking for the Bob Potts Marathon, but again, that means I probably should actually put a plan together, as I'm not fast enough to get fast without planning my plan and working the plan. Why I feel this way... I have no idea, and I don't like being so... aimless. But work's been crazy, the house remodeling (thankfully 99.99%...

After 8ish weeks of diligent cycling and four(!) skills practices, there was no denying it on Saturday morning: it was time for my first cyclocross race. I arrived at the venue early and looked out at the beautiful course, trying to determine how technical the turns would be. "They don't look bad at all," I thought. "This might go OK." I went to the registration booth, where the process was flawless. They were expecting me, given that I'd already given them money. I had to give them a bit more for my one day license, but that was expected, too. There was still a ton of time left but I decided to kit up and ride the course to get a feel for it. And that's when the panic set in. Despite how the course looked to me from the outside, it turned out that when I see a turn off of my bike, I don't know, yet, how bad I am on the bike. Negotiating the turns, for me, was tricky. Incredibly tricky. Other guys doing warmups flew by me, while I went thro...

So seeking a break from running, I now find myself two days from my first cyclocross race. In the past eight weeks, I've been mostly loyal to riding. I've only run 4-5 times, including picking up 2nd place in my AG at a 5k race. I've been riding over most of my lunch hours, and have gone longish on most weekends. For the past 4 weeks, I've attended a cyclocross skills practice, along with 5-8 other riders, all of whom have more experience than I. On one hand, I've gotten a lot better and I've learned a ton. On the other hand, it's a tricky sport and I am still very bad at it. I haven't fallen in about 2 weeks, but every technical turn puts me further behind the other riders. Add this to the fact that running fitness isn't cycling fitness and you come up with the reality that on every test race I've done with the weekly pack, I've finished last, and not by a little. Though bruising on the ego, I love these "scrimmages" because ...

I've been curious about cyclocross for years. Whether that's because I think the running parts can make up for my lack of cycling prowess or simply because it's a sport nobody outside of Belgium has ever heard of is anybody's guess. But regardless, I finally made up my mind that this year I'd dip my toe in the pool. Coincidentally, the local paper let me know that there's a sort of weekly practice clinic that happens here in Lancaster , so when I finished my century ride last weekend, I decided okie-dokie, let's change the tires on the bike and go. Except, I didn't do that first because I had never practiced cyclocross skills and it seemed to me that before I showed up at a real practice, I should at least understand the basic concepts. I watched this youtube video which makes dismounts look incredibly easy. I quickly learned they're not. The guy in that video is a jerk for even pretending that it's half that easy. I went to the local high...

It took me six years of pounding pavement to work up the courage and training to do a 100 mile run. Last weekend, after six weeks of mostly dedicated riding, I completed my first 100 mile ride. That's not to say it was easy. Moreover, fitness is cumulative so all of those years of running helped build the fitness before I started riding. And finally - and perhaps most important - the ride wasn't a race, but a "ride." No timers. No results. Heck, no t-shirt since I didn't register in advance. As recently as two weeks ago, I wasn't sure I'd do the century ride. My training rides hadn't gotten any longer than 64 miles, and my knee continues to tweak around 45 miles (ironic, since so many runners become cyclists because of knee problems). But truth is, when I thought about the fact that I was considering not doing an event that wasn't even being timed, well, I questioned my own courage. What, in fact, did I have to lose? Absolutely nothing. T...

Fast forward 3 weeks from the last post, in which I announced plans to do a duathlon, followed by a century ride. Since then, I've done ten rides and four runs. Because the recovery profile from riding is so different, that number surprised me when I looked it up. Honestly, it doesn't feel as if I've been training that much. Not that it's a lot... For a guy used to working out 6 out of 7 days per week, this averages out to 4. But still, the lack of joint fatigue makes it seem even less. More than anything, I think I'm learning to become a cyclist. I've had more flats than you can imagine, mainly because I've finally committed myself to learning how to fix them and sometimes what I do comes back to bite me a few days later. In fact, two rides didn't happen because when I went to start things up, I had mechanical failures that burned up my precious lunch hour. While frustrating in some ways, I'm trying to comfort myself that I'm learning how to p...