JDRF South Region T1D Symposium - 2013

Over the weekend I attended the JDRF South Region Symposium in Nashville. I was so blessed to get to go and I have so many things to share. This was the first Symposium of it's kind that I've been to. And the first that Nashville and the South Region of JDRF has done. I'd personally like to see it become a regular thing. Let me tell you why....

When they announced this Symposium back in September, I knew right away that I had to go. Why? Well, one of the guest speakers was the D-OC's own Kerri Sparling. I wasn't about to let Kerri come to Tennessee and NOT go see her. Plus, I kind of wanted to see her around a bunch of people with Southern accents. ;)

I signed up to go with a dear friend of mine. She's not a blogger...or a tweeter, but she's on facebook and TuDiabetes and she occasionally guest blogs for me. Sherry is one of the kindest souls I know and I knew we would have so much fun.

When the weekend arrived, I was buzzing with excitement. I knew some other people I'd met before were coming. I also knew there were a few people that I'd never met IRL before that were going to be there. AND I knew there were new people to meet.

There were vendors set up when we were registering and getting settled in on Saturday morning. One of the good things about that was that I got to hold and play with the new t:slim insulin pump. I thought it was pretty awesome looking, and fun to play with. It also appeared to be more sturdy than I first imagined...though I guess the true trial would be how long it lasted (I'm tough on pumps).

Before we could even sit down to have lunch, I ran into some old Nashville area diabetes friends that I hadn't seen in a while. And I got to meet some bloggers and tweeters that I hadn't had the chance to meet yet, including Julie, Andrea, Holly of Arnold and Me & Aaron Jaffe (who I didn't know had a blog called Rep the Betes, until this weekend; shame on me!).

Seeing Victoria again was SO much fun. And I got to meet some awesome new friends like Stephanie, Madison, and Jordan (who had two blogs like I do! You can find her d blog HERE).

Honestly, the friend connections are always my favorite part of things like this, but there was also a host of fantastic information. Listening to Tom Brobson, National Director, Research Investment Opportunities for JDRF, shared his experience with the artificial pancrease trial, and shared some of the focus of JDRF.

One of my favorite quotes of the weekend (that Tom Brobson shared) was "Less Until None" in reference to JDRF working toward diabetes having less burden, being less invasive, having less complexity, and having less danger in our lives until there is no diabetes left. I like the sound of that. While I don't know that I expect a cure any time soon, the "less" stuff has a nice ring to it.

I attended both of Kerri's breakout sessions, and was thoroughly glad I did. The first was on Pregnancy & Parenting. While I'm not a parent, not pregnant, and not planning to be, I do think that pregnancy and parenthood are in my future somewhere. I wanted to know what she did and is doing to have a healthy pregnancy, and being healthy for her daughter. Kerri had an endo there also answering questions (turns out it was MY endo!!!), so there was medical advice, as well as Kerri's personal experience.

Kerri's other session was on T1 Diabetes in the "real" world. There was a whole room full of young people, older people, parents of children with d, people who'd been recently diagnosed. It was great to see everyone coming together and sharing stories. And just for reference, Kerri's talks sound exactly how she writes her blog posts. :)

Another session that I attended was on diabetes complications. It was a little depressing, but I liked some of the information I gained. I had mixed feelings about it, honestly. It wasn't what I was expecting, so I was a little disappointed. But at the same time, I found it very informing and I learned a lot, so I can't be TOO disappointed.

 

Overall, I thought the weekend was a rousing success and I really hope that JDRF continues to do things like this. While I understand that they like as much money as possible to go into funding research, there is a huge mental aspect to diabetes and this is one way to help. It goes right along with that "Less burden" part of the JDRF "Less Until More." Because things like this make diabetes less of a burden in my life.

Any Time Is a Good Time

Anytime is a good time for a d meet-up. I LOVE getting to meet my D-OC friends in real life. It's so great because there is a person you already know you love and have a lot in common with and there's none of the awkward stuff that usually comes with meeting a person for the first time.



Pumping at the Full House park...apparently
also known as Alamo Square. Who knew??

Sarah and I "met" through twitter and facebook and her blog (though I found her twitter and fb first). Something that I discovered quite quickly was that we both share a love of theatre, along with a busted pancreas.

Sarah & I at Lombard street. Let's just say there were juice
boxes consumed after walking up and down that hill.

When my love of theatre led me across the country to San Francisco, I knew Sarah and I had to meet up. :) Sarah was, of course, completely wonderful. She took me and my best friend around to sight see for a while, we went out to a great place for lunch, and then she joined us in our personal brand of crazy, which consisted of sitting on the sidewalk for 5 hours waiting on cheap front row tickets to see my favorite show in the world.

Sarah's great suggestion for sea food! So yummy.

The best part? She didn't complain about the waiting. And I'm pretty sure she enjoyed the show. :) And the whole while, we both had low treatments, we both beeped randomly, tested, calculated carbs, and my best friend had lots of fun checking to be sure we were okay. :D

The show that led me to San Francisco and gave
me the chance to meet Sarah!

All of you who were blessed to be at Friends for Life this year, I'm still a little jealous. But I wouldn't have traded getting to meet Sarah for anything.

Guest Post - Diabetes is No Picnic

Yet again, I've come up on a major writer's block. And yet again my friend Sherry has sent over a guest post. Sherry, you are not only one of the sweetest, most sincere people I know, you're also a lifesaver when it comes to my blog. :)

Sherry's other posts can be found on the Your Voice page. Want to submit a post as well? Click HERE for instructions.

It was like any other summer day in the park. Except it was hot! We questioned our sanity at coming out on a day like that but we were already sweaty, so why not just stay a while?

There were 7 of us. Young, healthy looking, active---amid the blankets and picnic lunches and toys that one would play with in a park. We don't know each other well, or hang out together; all we have in common is this group--yet we share the deepest of bonds.

After some general tomfoolery and gadding about, we all sat down to eat together. Nothing unusual about 7 friends sitting about on blankets, opening lunches and gabbing about life in general. We looked just like the rest of the folks in the park that day. Except for one thing.

As lunch began, we all pulled out blood sugar meters, test strips, insulin pumps and syringes. Several minutes of poking, testing, bolusing, counting carbs, injecting, etc. followed. After all the medical hoopla, lunch went on as normal for anyone else. We even went through the list of new restaurants in town, deciding together which ones were the best!

This was one of those 'wow' moments that sneak up and shock me so much. You see, all 7 of us had juvenile diabetes. Four of us were diagnosed as children, two as adults and our 23 year old newcomer was only diagnosed a few months ago. This was our monthly get together--a tradition for the last couple of years since we found each other on the internet and discovered that we lived close enough for some face to face fellowship. Our leader and founder had lived with the disease since childhood was lonesome for the support and fellowship she had had as a child with diabetes. Since she had grown up, there wasn't the fellowship anymore. Adults with type 1? That sounds like a paradox. It was..... only several decades ago. Type 1 diabetes was rapidly fatal in our grandmother's day and age, but it isn't anymore!

Anyhow, since it was way too hot to play, we spent our meeting lying about on blankets and chatting. JDRF has a new publication for adults with type 1 which discusses situations unique to us. We shared with each other how diabetes affected our relationships with friends, our jobs, our marriages and our general lives. We spent time ranting about how type 1 is totally butchered by the media, making our lives much more difficult. We shared about how dating is affected- how one girl had had a date read her medic alert bracelet right on her arm on the first date!- and how the guy never came back again. We praised our boyfriends, husbands, mothers and fathers for sticking with us through all the highs and lows and juice stained clothing. Some of us wondered if we would ever be able to have children, or fly an airplane, or make it through grad school alive. One of us worried out loud about getting a severe cut on her leg and not even feeling it when it happened. Another of us was frustrated at the huge medical bill acquired for dehydration due to an innocent little stomach bug. One of our youngest members had just been diagnosed with bleeding in the eye. We wondered about our bodies being ravaged in places we couldn't even see. We talked about losing our eyesight, amputating our limbs and worried that we would someday very soon not be able to get the insulin we need to survive because of the new healthcare reforms. Would the politicians decide we weren't worth the cost of the supplies we need to live? We talked about the fact that none of us would survive this disease.....that in one way or another, this disease would be the major cause of our death. There we were, 7 people not even middle aged, sitting in the park on a sunny Sunday afternoon, having a conversation like that.

As the conversation died down, one by one we fell silent. Unusual for this chattery group. We just looked at each other, out of things to say. We all looked up when we became aware of childish sounding music wafting on the breeze from an ice cream truck. How ironic, I thought. After the conversation we had just had, why should we have to listen to an ice cream truck? None of us could even eat the stupid stuff without major hassles.

We decided that, although diabetes is no picnic in the park, we were just going to lift our heads high and live life to the fullest. We weren't going to miss a single thing we wanted to do!! We weren't going to let this disease steal our lives. We were going to live out the motto of our leader: helping others to live to their healthiest potential. So bring on the ice cream truck....we can handle it! We may even eat some of it! Ha

D-Blog Week: Saturday Snapshots

Day 6 of Diabetes Blog Week

Back for the third year, let’s show everyone what life with diabetes looks like! With a nod to the Diabetes 365 project, let’s grab our cameras again and share some more d-related pictures. Post as many or as few as you’d like. Feel free to blog your thoughts on or explanations of your pictures, or leave out the written words and let the pictures speak for themselves.

I often think that the way we picture things can help us in our attitude about diabetes. The ugly truth about diabetes is presented to us on a daily basis. Every high. Every low. Every bad A1c. Every newly diagnosed complication. Every story about so-and-so's second cousin twice removed that "lost his leg" or "went blind." It's around us.

Today I'm choosing to show pictures of the good thing about diabetes. And only the good things.

These are the wonderful pictures of the best part about living with diabetes. Each friend I make is another positive point for living my life with diabetes. Because it would have been a miracle if I'd met any of these people....except for the diabetes that brought us together.

Once again, click HERE to see more posts on today's topic.

D-Blog Week: Find A Friend

Time for the first post of this year's Diabetes Blog Week, the brain-child of my good friend (and pseudo twin!) Karen, who blogs at Bitter-Sweet Diabetes. If you haven't signed up yet, there's still time! Check it out HERE.

Today's topic:

It seems the most popular thing about Diabetes Blog Week is that it helps us find blogs we weren’t reading yet and connect with some new blog friends. With that in mind, let’s kick off Diabetes Blog Week by making some new connections. Think about the d-blogs you read that you think we may not know about and introduce us to one that you love!! Let’s all find a new friend today!


When I started blogging a little over five years ago, I kept up with so many different blogs. Mostly because our community was smaller then. There were less of us and less blogs to read. In the past couple of years the diabetes online community has exploded with new bloggers. People living with Type 1, Type 2, LADA, people who care for people living with diabetes. There are so many I can't even begin to put a number on how many there are.

In the process of this, I've slacked on my blog reading. I still read sometimes, but I stick to a core few most of the time because I think I might go crazy if I tired to read and find everyone.

That being said, a lot of my D-OC interaction has gone off line. I've met some amazing people because of the online community, and in that I met a lovely person that always manages to make me laugh.
While we've only met in person one time, I look forward to getting to meet with her more often in the future.

Tricia and I met at Simonpalooza back in October of 2011. I am sad to say we didn't get much of a chance to chat while I was there because there were so many people there and so much going on. But, with twitter and facebook, we've gotten to know each other better. And while I'm horrible about leaving comments on her posts, I love to read her blog.

In true pumping style, Tricia's blog is entitled Battery Operated Pancreas. She's one that I suggest you check out (if you haven't already). And if you get the chance to meet with her in real-life, DO IT! :) You'll be blessed.

To see more great Diabetes Blog Week posts on this topic, click HERE.

Instant Friends...just add water (or coffee)

I've never been exactly good at meeting new people. I tend to be slightly awkward and uncomfortable when it comes to people I've never met before. I've gotten better in recent years and I owe a lot of thanks to the D-OC for that.

The thing about meeting new people online is that the instant awkward meeting is almost nullified by the safety of the internet. We get to know each other before every meeting each other. Each time I've been blessed to meet someone from online in an offline setting, there's no awkwardness. Just instant friends.

A little over a week ago I was blessed to get to meet another person from the D-OC. Victoria Cumbow is a fellow blogger and tweeter that I've gotten to know over the last year or so.

Through our online interactions I discovered that she grew up not too far from where I did (a little over an hour away) and that we both travel to Nashville on a fairly frequent basis.

We tried to meet up a few months ago, but it fell through, but when Victoria knew quite a bit ahead of time about an appointment in Nashville, I immediately requested the day off from work so that we could get together. We met up for coffee and breakfast and then, after Victoria's appointment, met up again for lunch and shopping.

I never seem to run out of things to talk about with d people, but with some, there's a more instant connection. Perhaps it's because we're close to the same age. Perhaps it's because we were raised in the same area of the country and state. Perhaps it's because we share similar religious beliefs. Or that we have a similar sense of humor. Victoria and I fell into an easy and almost instantaneous friendship that was planted in diabetes, but rooted in so many other things.

I love when diabetes isn't the center of a conversation, but can still happen naturally. That always seems to be the case with my friends from the D-OC. And a day with Victoria was no different. It wasn't unusually for diabetes to creep into the conversation, but it didn't happen often. We shared other things and talked about other things. But when diabetes did come up, it didn't have to be explained. It just was.

Side note: If you get the chance to meet Victoria, do it. She's a blessing and a light in the D-OC and in life.

Vloggy Simonpalooza

My vloggy tribute to Simonpalooza.



Caroline's vlog that inspired me can be found HERE.

Video of the D-OC meeting Simon at the airport in Kansas City



Video of Simon thanking Cherise

Simonpalooza NYC Style

This community that we have all created has become an amazing, wonderful family for us. I know that we realize that, but the past week has more than proved it. Our friend Simon (@STroyCrow) lives in Australia. More and more, we've had people from around the world entering our community and it's wonderful to see.

The man of the hour (or the week, as the

case may be).

Simon decided he wanted to come to the States. To see us. For months he worked more hours per week that most of us even think is possible. All to come visit us. So when I found out that he was making a stop in my favorite city in the world (New York people!!), I knew I had to go.

After a few bumps along my own planning, I made it to the city a few days before the actual Simonpalooza event. This allowed me time to meet up with some people who weren't going to make it to "official" event on Saturday. It also allowed me to spend some time hanging out with Simon BEFORE there were a million people around.

Some things I learned this weekend were that Simon is an amazing person (even though I think we all already knew that). He's got a huge heart and an amazing amount of determination. He wouldn't have been able to come to the U.S. without such determination.

Met with Jennifer on Friday since she couldn't make it to

Simonpalooza on Saturday.

I was also reminded how much this community is bonded. While most of us have never met, we are all friends. There were so many people I met for the first time at this meet-up (nothing like an Aussie to bring out the people that no one else can!). But just like it always is when I meet someone from the online community, it's like we aren't meeting for the first time. It's like meeting old friends.

Hanging out with these girls is never boring. :)

There were so many people there that I have met before. And seeing them again makes me realize how much I miss the face-to-face interaction with the people who have become some of my closest friends, and thankful that we have technology to keep us in touch in the times we are apart.

Two of my favorite people!

As I spent time with another friend with diabetes when I got back to Tennessee, she pointed out something that reconfirmed something for me. She said that those of us with diabetes have made something so positive out of a thing that can be so negative. Diabetes can be a truly devastating thing on so many levels. But things like the D-OC and the wonderful meet-ups in real life, and the knowledge that we have each other to lean on has really helped us put a positive spin on living with a chronic illness.

This picture was almost five years in the making!

I apologize for such a ramble filled post, but I'm still exhausted, having only made it home this evening. But know that this weekend possibly changed my life. It was unlike any other meet-up I've ever been at and I'm grateful and blessed to have been able to be a part of it.

This was a hug and run, since Kelly didn't arrive until

right before I had to leave, but I FINALLY got to meet her!

Fun Trips & Great Friends

This past weekend I had the pleasure of making yet another trip to the city that never sleeps. Those of you that know me at all know of my obsession with Broadway, theatre and the city that hosts such great dramatic arts (and as Allison like to remind me, they host so, so much more than just theatre).

But the other thing that New York City offers me is a sort of central meeting spot for many of my D-OC friends. That makes my trips extra special. This trip I knew would be hard for people to meet with me since my only free time was Monday morning. But, I took a chance and issued an invite to everyone I could remember that might possibly be able to get into the city.

In keeping with tradition, Allison and I saw a show on Saturday night, after she took me to dinner at quite possibly the only place in NYC that plays country music! :P Allison, my roommate Amanda, and I saw La Cage Aux Folles. Kelsey Grammer and Douglas Hodge were the leads in the show and it was quite hilarious. Douglas Hodge certainly deserved the Tony award he received for the role. His ability to project his expressions all the way to the back of the theatre.... wow. Kelsey Grammer was hilarious as well. I plan on posting my review on my other blog in a day or two.

Monday morning I decided to have my little D get-together at Dylan's Candy Bar. :) How ironic, right? But there's nothing like ice cream and cupcakes for brunch. I don't care how much you want to pretend you don't like the idea. Allison, Karen, and Caroline (also known as carobanano) came to hang out with me. I'd met Allison and Karen before, but only knew Caroline from Twitter. I LOVED getting to meet her. She is super sweet (no pun intended... or maybe there is!).

As we were leaving Dylan's Candy Bar, my lovely roommate took some fantastic pictures of us looking like an awesome girl band! :)

I just realized how short I am.... :)

Diabetes Sisters Conference

Just a few days ago I got a friend request on facebook from a lady I had the pleasure of meeting an Insulin Addicts Anonymous meeting (yes, this is the name of Nashville's Adult T1 support group!). I don't get to make it to very many IAA meetings because Nashville is quite a drive for me, but when I get to go, I love spending time with other T1s. Jackie and I only met once at the last meeting I was at (back in the summer). At the time I don't believe she had a facebook page. When she friended me the other day she asked if I had heard about the Diabetes Sisters Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina. I hadn't heard about it, but I asked her for a link to the information anyway.

Turns out it is going to be the weekend of April 29-May 1, which is not a good weekend for me. But after exploring the information, I thought I might forward the information onto you all in case you were interested. It sounds kind of like grown-up diabetes camp for girls! :) Yay!

The agenda can be found HERE and seems to have some very interesting break-out sessions. There is one about pregnancy, and several about exercising (including maintaining blood sugar levels during) that sounded interesting to me.

Riva Greenberg is also going to be a keynote speaker on Saturday.

I hope that some of you can go and let me know how it is. If you go, let me know what you think!