Leighann Calentine's Blog, page 54

{Type 1 Tuesday} 09.24.13

Here are a few things I thought might interest you:

Let me know if you have read something lately that interests you!

Death of a Pancreas World Diabetes Day: Return of the shirt (Joanne’s family is once again selling these T1D awareness shirts that would be great for World Diabetes Day on November 14th, walks, or Blue Fridays.)

Diabtribe is giving away an entire year’s worth of test strips. You even get to choose which brand you want. Enter through September 30, 2014.

Arden’s Day Oh Lilly: Coco,...

Kids First, Diabetes Second…in bookstores!

Q and I were out and about and she asked to pop in a bookstore to get the 4th Harry Potter book and to take some time browsing. We stopped in the diabetes section to see if my book Kids First, Diabetes Second was in stock…and the answer was yes!

I know when Q was first diagnosed I looked at the library and at bookstores and didn’t really find any good resources beyond what we were given in the hospital. I’m thankful to my local Barnes & Noble for not only carrying my book in their store, but h...

{CGM} Swimming With The CGM…I Mean Actually Swimming!

Q uses her continuous glucose monitor almost always. She’s only had a few short breaks in the almost 1.5 years we’ve been using it. Two week long breaks were to go to diabetes camp this year and last. There was a one week break where I waited too long to reorder sensors and two fluke sensor fails left us without. And there was a week this August that we were, um, unintentionally without a working DexCom receiver.

Q does a lot of swimming in the summer. She had daily swim lessons for a couple o...

{Food} Chipotle

Dealing with both diabetes and food allergies presents challenges when trying to eat at restaurants.

I feel like I have handle on SWAGging* carb counts and dealing with blood sugars if I am wrong. But it’s, of course, always nice to actually have carb counts available.

The tree nut allergy presents a more serious challenge because she could have an anaphylactic reaction, which is very serious.

The good news is that we have recently found Chipotle. Their menu is completely nut free** and only two...

{Our Story} Best A1c, I Think Ever. Huzzah!

We had our quarterly endo appointment last week and my biggest question was how to handle the weird morning schedule at school this year (more on that to come!).

I’m always kind of meh when it comes to Q’s A1c. I mean it is what it is. It doesn’t matter how hard I try or how many sleepless nights I spend trying to keep her in range or how many times we test a day, it never seems to budge. It fluctuates between being at the “top of acceptable” to “higher than I want.”

(And no, it’s really not im...

{Type 1 Tuesday} 09.03.13

This is a long, long overdue Type 1 Tuesday! The switch from Google Feed Reader kind of threw me off. I still haven’t found a new one that I 100% like. What feed reader are you using now?

Here are some of my favorite posts I have read recently:

Diabetes Management

Rumored Apple hires from medical sensor field could hint at ‘iWatch’ capabilities (VERY interesting!)

Strip Safely: Accurate Diabetes Testing Matters

There have been lots of witty comments about the suggestive title, but I’ll just share...

StripSafely Edition of Diabetes Art Day

Last week I explained why the StripSafely campaign is important to me: Because dosing insulin for a child with type 1 diabetes using test strips that aren’t accurate can have serious affects on blood sugars.

You can see the photo I took last week representing the 89 blood sugar tests we did in the week that Q was without her CGM. Today the artwork I share with you is a graphic representation of the monotony of numbers that we deal with day in and day out as we deal with diabetes. These are tho...

{D-LOL} Cupcakes

I don’t know if I had d-mommy brain or if it was a Freudian slip, but this is now a running joke…

Me: You can eat that cupcake outside, but you have to pay for it first.

Q: (Looks at me weird.)

Me: I mean give yourself insulin!

Further Reading

Having Fun With Diabetes

More D-LOL blog posts

All images are copyright D-Mom Blog and D-Mom Media and may not be copied or reproduced without express written permission.

{D-LOL} Cupcakes is a post from: D-Mom Blog

The information provided here is for entertainm...

StripSafely and a Special Edition of Diabetes Art Day

This photo represents the 89 times Q’s blood sugar was tested during one week.

You’ll notice the little flecks on her fingertips, each a wound from being poked with a lancing device to get a drop of blood.

What’s worse than having to physically hurt your child each time you need to know her blood sugar levels? Having to poke her a second time because you can’t trust the accuracy of the test strips.

Last week we were without Q’s continuous glucose monitor (CGM). You don’t know what you got ’til...

{YouTube Tuesday} Think Like a Pancreas

Think Like a Pancreas: A Practical Guide to Managing Diabetes with Insulin–Completely Revised and Updated written by Gary Scheiner. is my go-to diabetes management book, especially when I need to adjust basal rates or insulin:carbs ratios. I liked this funny take on the book.

Watch the “Think Like a Pancreas” video:



(E-mail and feed subscribers click over for embedded video.)

You know you’ll have this in your head all day now!

And Another Thing…

Here are some links you might be interested in.

More...