The rules:

1. Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
2. Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
3. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged.

Seven things:

1. My full name is Brian William Michael King. William is my grandfather’s name (my Dad’s Dad), and Michael is my Dad’s name (better known as Mick). I never met my grandfather, he died before I was born, but I am told I look quite like him. If I have a son I will call him Sue.
2. When I was younger I was a sports freak. I played a lot, including but not only – Gaelic Football, Hurling, Basketball, Soccer, Tennis and Rugby. When not playing, I watched almost any sport you can think of on the telly, from snooker to golf to darts. I gave up playing pretty much cold turkey when I was 16. Nowadays I watch no sport, with the exception of a bit of soccer here or there in major championships or when the Irish national team is playing.
3. I have Type 1 Diabetes, aka Diabetes mellitus, aka that particular genetic dice rolled my way. I am insulin dependent. I was diagnosed at age 31 which is quite late, Type 1 diabetes is also know as juvenile diabetes. My sister Paula was diagnosed when she was 7. I thought I escaped, but alas.
4. I was a vegetarian for 8 years. Nothing unusual there. I went back to eating meat when I got diabetes, as I lost a lot of weight at the time and it was too hard to balance the diet with my other medical needs. I’m fighting fit these days and am considering a vegetarian diet again.
5. When I was 18, I won a US green card in a lottery. During my college years and a couple of years after, I spent nearly all of my holidays in the US to keep it valid. I have lived in Connecticut (one of my sisters lives there), Boston (MA), Phoenix (AZ), and Boulder (CO) as well as visiting a bunch of other states. Eventually my visits became less frequent when I decided I wanted to stick it out in good ol’ Europe, and the green card lapsed. Later I lived in Vancouver, Canada, for a year on a work contract.
6. I came late to computers, probably because of #2. I was never into computer games growing up, and my first real exposure was typing up essays in college. My first Bachelors degree was in Politics and History at UCD, and after a year break I went back and did something completely different. I did a Higher Diploma in IT at NUI Maynooth. Luckily it was a good match and it thrust me into my future career.
7. I love dogs, but never had one growing up. Now I have an adopted “son”, Dolus, a graceful Black Labrador who is going on in years but remains a great pal.

7 people I tag:

1. David Boswell – because it is not as if he has enough to do already.
2. Sheppy – because he was not feeling the meme love.
3. David Rolnitzky – because choffman told me to, and because David is fun and smart.
4. Matthew Zeier – because he is a good Dad.
5. Jure Cuhalev – because he likes to blog, and he can spruce up his post with Zemanta.
6. Matthew Gertner – because he speaks many languages.
7. Doug Warner – because of the wonderful things he does.

So I want to give something back … and I got to thinking what is the online diabetes world missing. Then, just like a fast approaching hypo, it dawned on me. Planet Diabetes. If you are not familiar with the concept, Planet is a one stop shop for all blog entries on a related subject. For example, Planet Mozilla. Using Planet Planet software, it aggregrates all participating feeds into a single blog with a feed of its own.

Here’s a prototype. Next Steps:

• Contact bloggers to ask them to participate (i.e. use their feeds)
• Customise the design
• Move it to a domain that makes more sense, e.g. yourbloodsugar.org / mybloodsugar.org. Any ideas? I don’t think planetdiabetes.org is available.
• Find a cure for diabetes

Ok, if we achieve all but the last step, I’d be happy. I’ll leave that one to the scientists.

Thanks to Chris for helping get it set up.

Amy Tenderich on her wonderful blog writes about a recent experience she had when travelling. What starts as just a routine story turns into a rant about the nature of our “I’m all right Jack” or “Can’t help you sorry” society today. Extreme, maybe, but how many times have you witnessed something ugly and nobody intervened? I can think of a couple at least. I have to say Amy was incredibly patient in her time of need. If that was me, I’d be crawling on all fours down the aisle of the plane begging people to check their bags/pockets for something sugary.

When I was there, I stocked up on supplies. See for yourself.

Wow, I feel like an addict. Luckily, these things are saving my life, and not making it worse. Bring on a cure! It would be like moving from wired to wireless, less baggage to worry about (in a physical as opposed to mental sense).

I have Type 1 diabetes, which means I am insulin dependent, and will become more so once my pancreas gives up the ghost and stops producing insulin altogether. On a general level, I feel fine. The last few months have been stable and I’ve got into a good management groove. I have my highs and lows (both in glucose sugar and mood) of course, but they are getting less and less frequent.

Here’s a chart of my readings for the last 30 days (click for bigger size).

This chart was produced the OneTouch software. This would be a good topic for another blog entry, which I might do some time. I was writing down my readings for a long time and hand-entering into an online service, but that was a real time sucker. So I upgraded to a Johnson & Johnson One Touch glucometer from which I can connect to the PC and upload all my readings. Nice!

As you can see, my readings are in target only about half the time. So I still have some work to do. I am not so disciplined yet with my diet, and don’t do any carb counting because my body still may be producing insulin which makes it more difficult to estimate. More snippets below.

Tablet and Insulin Usage

This has been my routine for the last month or so.

• Morning (before breakfast) : 4 Diapril MR tablets
• Afternoon (after lunch) : 1 Glucophage tablets
• Evening (before dinner) : 2-4 units of Novo Rapid (quick acting insulin)
• Night (before bed) : 3-5 units of Lantus (long acting insulin)

Exercise

Regular exercise and keeping in shape is crucial in diabetes management. Usually, the is a direct correlation between insulin intake and exercise, i.e. the more exercise you do, the less insulin you need to take. My routine is pretty simple right now. Every day I walk with my dog for about 30 minutes, and once a week I go swimming. Could be better, could be worse.

I don’t go to the doctor regularly, about once every 2-3 months. The best doctor with this disease is yourself. If you don’t look after yourself, you will get very sick. Simple as that. I send my doctor reports via email and we discuss things there mostly. I am going for a meeting some day next week, however, so I’ll follow-up with what happens here. Until then amigos, leave your computer, put down that chocolate bar, and go out for a really long walk to wipe away the cobwebs and feel good.

Type 1 means insulin dependency, Type 2 can be managed for the most part with other drugs and a change in lifestyle. My sister has been insulin dependent since the age of 7, so it didn’t come as a big surprise to me, but took a bit of getting used to. Now that it has settled down a bit, I’ve felt better than I have in years and am in what is known as the honeymoon period, where my insulin dependency is small because my body is still producing some. This could change in 2 weeks, 2 months, or 2 years.

I’ve been looking around for some online resources to make my life easier, and here’s what I’ve found so far:

Organisations:

• Diabetes Federation of Ireland
• Slovenian Diabetes Association
• American Diabetes Association
• National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse (US)
• Canadian Diabetes Association
• Diabetes UK

Software:

• On-line Diabetes Resources (at mendosa.com) – an exhaustive list, and even though much of the software is out of date there should be something for everyone.
• SUGARpoint – this is the service I use. I upload data such as blood glucose levels, insulin doses, and so on. I can then get back nice tabular data and charts for personal records or to bring along to my doctor.

Blogs:

• The Diabetes Blog [Feed]
• Simple Thoughts » Diabetes [Feed]

If you are diabetic and use any other resources, I’d love to hear about them here..