I love reading blogs, but have you always wondered what the blogger you’re reading sounds like in real life? Well, if you have ever wondered what I sound like, wonder no more! I am this week’s guest on Just Talking, the podcast from diabetes (and gamer!) blogger Chris (aka @iam_spartacus). We chat about living in New York City, television, my job and the American Dream 2.0, blogging and Internet celebrity and how I suck at the 101 Things list. It was fun! It certainly went by quickly. And, if you’re listening, you’ll hear me say my last name correctly. Trust me, you’re probably saying it wrong but rather than trying to write out the pronunciation, just listen!

By the way, a couple of answers (to questions brought up in the podcast): 27 and December 21.

You’ll have to listen to find out what the questions were!

For the past week, various packages with delicious goodies have been piling up in the kitchen at my office. A big basket of chocolate covered nuts, lemon and berry cookies, and pralines direct from Savannah, Georgia have been calling my name ever since the holidays arrived… and it’s very easy to get my attention since my desk is right next to the kitchen!

When I was growing up, the holidays were always a point of sour deprivation. My parents tried to maintain a firm hand when it came to both  my brother and myself, but truth be told, my little brother was not much of an eater and I was. I loved food, especially sweets, and I would do anything to get what I wanted. I was a classic cookie smuggler, and I learned how to deftly uncover saran wrapped plates of cookies to sneak just one more. A tip: Don’t deny your child a cookie if they want one, because they’re probably going to eat it anyway. Just sayin’.

Truth be told, it probably didn’t matter if I had diabetes or not – little kids really don’t need that much sugar. It just isn’t healthy. But boy oh boy, the idea that it might actually be bad for me really made me want it even more!

My family was pretty good with adding insulin to cover any dessert I wanted. Although I’m sure my 9-year-old self would argue otherwise, I was probably not as deprived as it seemed. I remember when my doctor raised my dinner carb allotment from 60 to 75 grams in order to cover the 15 grams of vanilla ice cream that I was basically eating anyway at the expense of my actual dinner. But it never mattered, because I always wanted one more cookie!

When it came to the holidays, whether it be Halloween or Christmas, life was pretty much the same. For Halloween, we stuck to the simple sugar cookies, because they were easy to count carbs and add into an existing, albeit strict, meal plan. We also usually saved our cookie-making for the few days before Christmas, in order to minimize the length of time they were actually in the house. Our goal was to not prevent me from eating anything, but to make sure that what I was eating was going to work as best as possible. I became real friendly with food labels and learned how to plus or minus what I was eating to accommodate.

Every year, my friends and I would gather at my friend K’s house for a Candy House decorating party. Of course, there were loads of different kinds of sugary morsels lying around. By the time I was a teen, I was on an insulin pump, so those indulgences were a bit easier to manage because I could bolus like crazy and go to town (not that I am recommending anyone do this – it usually doesn’t work as well as you’d think and you ALWAYS eat more than you think). When I was a kid, though, I wasn’t on a pump and after decorating, I usually collected a small bowl of my favorite candies and brought them upstairs to K’s room where we hung out with our friends. I have no idea when the insulin taking took place. But I do know that these decorating parties almost always preceded dinnertime and I think I usually just gave extra insulin at dinner. But since most of us are either on Lantus or a pump, I recommend calculating the best you can, and cover more later if you need to.

J and I decorating our candy houses in 2005.

Remember, traditions always trump diabetes. Do your best.

Another sore spot for me was egg nog. Oh dear God, how I love egg nog. L-O-V-E. There were definitely times where I literally poured a gulps worth of egg nog into a tiny juice glass just so I could have a taste and not take insulin for it. Egg nog has about 30 grams of carbohydrates, and you can bet it’s all sugar. It also has like 87 million grams of fat in it, so my parents really didn’t want me drinking too much of it because it was just bad. We only ever bought one container of it and it probably lasted us the entire month.

We also did the Advent calendar, which I still do as an adult. The chocolate candies are ridiculously small. I can’t imagine they are any more than 5 grams of carbs, so it’s a safe way to get your child into the holiday spirit of indulging in bad food without actually going overboard. Of course, it’s a little late to start that, unless you’re OK with your child eating 15 pieces at one time.

The holidays are a stressful time when it comes to having diabetes, but I also try to think of it like I do the rest of the year. I always have temptation. Temptation and I are not friends. I give in a little too easily. My A1C and waistline will attest to this fact. I will say that it’s very easy to blame the holidays for our trouble managing our diabetes. But moderation is still key. It’s still important to exercise. It’s important to recognize the important parts of the holidays, and to not focus so much on the food and commercialism. It’s important to enjoy yourself, and to take steps to manage things well. Cookies and candy are not bad in and of themselves, but they can cause bad things to happen if you’re not prepared.

Always bring extra test strips and never sit down to dinner on an empty insulin pump. Test early, test often. Bolus early, bolus often.

Bon appétit!

Posted in Diabetes, Food, Health, Identity ]]> http://lemonlemonade.wordpress.com/2009/12/16/ho-ho-how-many-carbs-did-you-say/feed/ 1 Allison n11500124_30155564_736 http://lemonlemonade.wordpress.com/2009/12/14/thing-that-makes-me-happy-13-my-boyfriend/ http://lemonlemonade.wordpress.com/2009/12/14/thing-that-makes-me-happy-13-my-boyfriend/#comments Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:13:31 +0000 Allison Blass http://lemonlemonade.wordpress.com/?p=2210 ]]>

It’s fitting that my 13th thing that makes me happy is my boyfriend because yesterday, on December 13, we celebrated our 1 year anniversary! It’s incredible to me that we’re at one year already, and yet it feels like so much longer at the same time.

I don’t usually like to get too mushy on my blog (especially since both sets of parents read my blog and that can get weird…), but some reasons my boyfriend makes me happy include: when he buys me flowers, when he laughs at my jokes even when they are way stupid, when we make dinner together instead of going out to eat, when he comes with me to my diabetes meet-up dinners, when we drive around upstate New York, when we go on roadtrips, and when watch movies together (which is good, because I watch a lot), when he humors me when I’m being a little crazy, and that he wants to do the Ride to Cure Diabetes with me next year.

It seems like yesterday that I was blogging about how no one loves me, and here I am, just a short while later, in love and loved by a very special man who sees me as me.

Which is always how I like to be thought of.

When I was 10 years old, I wanted to run away from home. I don’t remember why I wanted to run away. I was a young, very young, and probably upset at something my Mom and Dad wouldn’t let me do or maybe it something they made me do. Like clean my room or something, because what 10-year-old wants to clean their room?

Anyway, I remember drawing up a map of my house and deciding I should leave in the middle of the night with a backpack. I could hitchhike and start a new life somewhere fresh, like Wyoming (I’ve always had a fantasy of living in a town of 200 people, working a roadstop diner. Strange dreams for a girl who lives in the largest city in the country).

But I also remember realizing that if I ran away from home, I probably wouldn’t be able to get a job, because I was a kid. And if I didn’t have a job, I wouldn’t have insurance. And without insurance, I would have my insulin or test strips.

And I would die.

I couldn’t afford to keep myself alive.

Seriously, what kind of kid considers insulin and test strips when devising a plan to run away?

But that’s what growing up was like. That’s what it has always been like. I remember when I first noticed on my Minimed insulin pump that when I had a LOW RESERVOIR alarm that it would actually count down the time until the reservoir would be empty, based on the amount of insulin you take per hour in your basal rate. I remember thinking it was a bit like a countdown to death, because without insulin, I would start to die.

Not that we’re not all dying. I mean, that’s a given. Everyday you are getting closer and closer to the day you die. But that’s just because we’re mortal and all things die. No one knows when that will happen, but we know it will. (Wow. I am morbid.) A couple of years ago, I asked my friend Christine how long a person could live without insulin. If I just suddenly decided to stop taking it and did absolutely nothing at all to help myself. She said about three days.

That’s a much more specific timeline.

This morning, on Twitter, there’s an article floating around from a man named Robert Steinback (at first, I thought it was Steinbeck and I wondered by the author of Grapes of Wrath who has been dead for 40 years was writing about diabetes in a Florida newspaper, but I digress). He has had diabetes just a bit longer than I have and like me, has been relatively healthy with diabetes – as healthy as one can be with a chronic condition such as this.

And he lost his job a year and a half ago. So now he’s on COBRA. Except COBRA is going to run out in February. And no one wants to give him a job so he can have insurance, and no insurance company wants to give him insurance because he’s expensive.

I mean, what the hell kind of society do we have set up where people are like NO ONE WE DON’T WANT TO KEEP YOU ALIVE BECAUSE WE LIKE OUR SUMMER HOMES IN THE HAMPTONS MORE THAN YOU!

Sometimes I think the people who came up with these policies are so evil that not even the Devil would want them.

We all know someone who is struggling in this economy. For me, it’s Lee Ann Thill, who is also almost up with her COBRA coverage. But for her, she is married and has the option, at least, to buy into very expensive insurance.

Robert doesn’t even have that option, because he isn’t married.

A long time ago, I remember watching a movie about a French man who married a woman to get a Green Card to stay in the United States and have a better life here. Now there are people talking about marrying so they can get an Insurance Card so they can simply have a life.

Living should not be something I need to ask someone for permission. A healthy life is a right, not a privilege.

When I was getting ready to graduate from college, a lot of my friends were discussing their options for post-grad work. Some people were going to grad school. Other people were packing up and heading to Europe for backpacking. It was the 22-year-old’s version of running away. One girl I know just quit her job 3 months ago to backpack around Europe. When my mother was 22 years old, she also graduated from college and spent a few months in Europe. I wanted to do this too. Financially, I would have been able to do it. But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t have had insurance anymore – because I would have been kicked off my parent’s policy for not being in school anymore – and I need insulin. Throughout high school and college, my mom always told me, “You need to get a good job. You need to get health insurance.”

Instead, I got a job. With health insurance. I managed to make things pretty fantastic for myself, living and working in one of the greatest cities in the world and generally being really happy with things. Because that’s what I do: make lemons out of lemonade. But I never forget that I gave up Europe for my diabetes, and that my existence is primarily reliant on my employer, my health insurance that I receive through being employed, and those tiny bottles of clear liquid that have taken up residence in my butter compartment.

Today I’m speaking to a group of parents about raising a tween-slash-teen with diabetes (teens are 13-19, tweens are 11 and 12 because Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus have ruined the fabric of America’s youth – just sayin’). Because I have a very busy full-time job, I’m actually writing this the night before.

I was once a teen with diabetes. It was not that long ago, so I remember it quite well. Every so often, someone will ask me what is the hardest part of being a teen with diabetes. And I say, “The being a teen part.”

The truth is, having diabetes goes against the very nature of a teenager: It requires responsibility, it requires truthfulness with parents and other adult authority figures, it requires denial of pleasure, it requires doing things that others are not doing, and it causes potentially embarrassing situations, such as collapsing in the band building from a low blood sugar after a football game and having the band instructor shove an applesauce container in your face right after your friend forced you to drink some kid’s half-drunken root beer. And you don’t even like root beer! What, that’s never happened to you?

The difficulties of having diabetes are no surprise. Everything is a guessing game and it’s a frustrating, no-win guessing game. It’s no wonder that teenagers routinely say, “Screw it!” and jump off the bridge with everyone else. Jumping off the bridge is easy. Easy is good when you’re a teen. You don’t like hard. Hard is calculus exams and Shakespeare.

I have been a volunteer with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s Online Diabetes Support Team (try saying that three times fast!) for the past seven years, since it was launched during the winter of my senior year in high school. Since then, I have answered countless emails from parents and teens about how to manage diabetes during these crucial formative years. While I spent the better part of my college years counseling teens through my website Diabetes Teen Talk (now owned and operated by dLife), I haven’t spent as much time counseling parents, except through my blog and the occasional diabetes support group meeting.

Here are a few things you should know:

Relax. No, seriously. Take a deep breath.

Learning to manage diabetes is like learning to drive a car. Everyone can do it, but if you don’t know what the hell you’re doing you can kill yourself or someone else. It’s a bad, bad idea to jump in without having proper instruction and regular follow-up.

Work with your teen, not against him. Your teen will have his own learning curve for managing diabetes. It took me a year and a half to get my driver’s license. It took my brother about six months. Everyone is different but we are all doing the exact same thing.

Your teen is afraid of disappointing you. They do not react well to anger or threats or groundings or anything else in your arsenal. Remember, your teen did not choose to have diabetes either.

Communicate regularly, but don’t nag. Discuss – calmly – the situation and your options (see advice #1). In the 21st century, there are new ways of managing your diabetes, from smaller meters to concealed insulin pumps to decorative stickers to personalize medical devices. Discuss with them the difficulties they are having – they are aware of problems but they may be afraid to ask for help. No yelling. Your teen wants your help (no, really, I’m serious) but they don’t want to be blamed.

Every teen will want their independence at different times. Do not let go too slowly or too quickly. Some teens actually want your help, because diabetes is hard! Others are more keen on working independently – but they still want you as a resource too. Work with your teen to troubleshoot the situation. Keep them involved – ask them what they think, what they know, what they want to do. They’re smarter than you think, and they’ll appreciate your confidence in their ability to make decisions. They will learn best from doing.

But always make sure you know what their decision is before they do it (they are teens, after all!).

Accept the fact your teen will probably forget to do something regarding their diabetes at least once. Probably more than that. They’re also probably going to lock themselves out of the house, forget their homework and fail that calculus exam. Shit happens.

Children with Diabetes says, “Remember that kids with diabetes are still kids.” Remember that teens with diabetes are still teens. They crave freedom, they want a car, they want to date and they want to go to college wherever they damn well want to. Work with them to help them achieve their dreams and goals and desires because diabetes should never make someone feel like they are different or not good enough.

Allison as a teenager, age 15, at JDRF Children’s Congress ‘01.

This past Saturday, I hosted a World Diabetes Day party in midtown Manhattan for about 20 of my closest D-friends. There was a great mix of type 1s, type 2s and type 3s there and we enjoyed New York style pizza and a homemade cake from one of the members of the ACT1 Diabetes support group.

Erik and I went down to the space near Penn Station around 11:00 to find Val already waiting for us! Val helped Erik and I move tables around to accommodate everyone, and while Erik went to purchase diet sodas (in 3 flavors!), Val blew up blue balloons while I taped streamers to the tables. It was very festive!

People starting arriving surprisingly on time – and we had almost everyone who RSVP’d by 12:15! Everyone took turns introducing themselves, how long they have had diabetes (or known someone with diabetes, as the case may be) and what treatment they were on.

Some of the folks just hanging out before the pizza arrived.

The pizza arrived at 12:30 and everyone dug in! I stayed simple and just bought cheese and pepporoni pizza, while Brenda brought some Asian Black Bean noodles and Val brought homemade chocolate cookies that were totally bolus-worthy!

Some of the WDD crew.

Promptly at 2pm, all the people with diabetes whipped out their glucose meters and tested, and then we marched downstairs (which was a multi-step process since the elevators didn’t fit everyone) and walked down 37th to 7th Avenue, and then back around on 36th to 8th Avenue. We arrived back at exactly 2:14 p.m. Then we all tested again! My blood sugar was already a bit high from that morning (a mystery high!) and was still high before and after the Big Blue Test. But I promptly crashed later that afternoon once my bolus kicked in.

Gettin’ our 14 minutes of exercise. Though my boyfriend was probably the only one who broke a sweat, as he kept running head of us to snap some pictures.

We were also wowed by the beautiful cake that was made in Dr. Banting’s honor. It was scrumptious and most everyone enjoyed it (a couple people saved slices for later).

The one on the left is regular, the one on the left is gluten-free.

Just a couple of ladies with the Big D enjoying some cake.

Some of you may not know this, but November 14 was picked as the day for World Diabetes Day because it’s Dr. Frederick Banting’s birthday. Dr. Banting is one of the co-inventors of the manmade insulin we use today. We wouldn’t have gotten very far if it wasn’t for him! I thought it would be a cute idea to have a birthday cake for Dr. Banting. And who doesn’t like a little cake?

A few people have commented that I shouldn’t have had pizza and cake at a party for people with diabetes because they are “bad.” But I think “bad” is sort of relative, because I don’t know about you, but I have a lot of random things that spike my blood sugar and that I shouldn’t probably eat: bagels, Indian food, and Cheerios, just to name a few. In fact, if you actually looked at my CGM after most meals I have, you’ll see that my blood sugar goes up. So yeah.

But I understand why people wouldn’t want to eat pizza and cake. Which is why I invited people to contribute other food that they would want to eat. And only two other people did (and one of those people brought cookies!). So what does that say? Either people would rather stay away from a party that has pizza than bring veggies, or they don’t actually care as much about the pizza thing as one would think. There were a couple of people who abstained from the food, but they still reported that they had a wonderful time, even if they didn’t eat anything because of whatever preference they have. To each their own I say! I have actually been to a lot of diabetes events in my time, and I often see people eating dessert or bread with dinner or something that another person might claim is “unhealthy.” In fact, I know a lot of people grimace when asked, “So, what can you eat?” because some of us believe we can eat anything as long as we know what we are eating. We all have made our peace with how we manage food.

As the party was winding down, everyone pitched in to help clean up the conference. People helped rearrange the tables and chairs, throw away cans, and clean dishes. And a few eager folks whipped out their lancets to help pop the balloons! We also took a big group picture, although a few folks (hi Val!) had already left.

Later that evening, as Erik and I were on our way to another gig – babysitting a four year old with diabetes and her baby brother – we snapped a few pics of the Empire State Building in blue. The Empire State Building is my favorite building in the city, and I loved looking out my room when I lived in Hoboken to see what color it was that day. But there’s nothing as breath-taking as seeing it lit up in blue. Our blue.

Good morning everyone! It’s World Diabetes 2009! World Diabetes Day aims to bring to light the importance of diabetes education and finding a cure for the millions of people worldwide who lives with this chronic, devestating illness, especially those in developing countries who don’t even have basic necessities to live with the disease.

No one should die from diabetes, so that’s why I am encouraging people to visit Life for a Child to donate to help children in developing countries have access to education and insulin. Insulin may not be a cure – but it is the reason we are all alive and everyone deserves access to it. There are a few other organizations who are dedicated to providing access to medication, and I encourage everyone to see out an organization that fits with their beliefs. I just happen to like Life for a Child.

In addition, tonight, the documentary on Life for a Child will be airing on the Sundance Channel at 8pm. I wrote about this film in April 2008 when I saw the premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. I don’t happen to get the Sundance Channel, but if you do, please watch it.

Today, I’m hosting  a party for people with diabetes in Manhattan. I’m excited to see everyone, although I hardly need a reason to throw a party. But I’m always looking for a good excuse to get people together. I’ll have pictures on Monday.

Whatever it is you choose to do today, I hope overall that we are able to bring some light (preferably blue!) to the diabetes cause.

When I was growing up, I was not athletic. I’m still not athletic, as anyone who has ever met me or seen a picture of me can attest to, but I have finally found a few activities that I can stand doing for more than, like, five minutes. I vividly remember trying out for the soccer team when I was in elementary school and having zero control of my soccer ball and after ten minutes, completely giving up, throwing the ball into a corner and turning into a hysterical mess of hot tears and gulping sobs as my mother drove me home where I promptly stomped upstairs and slammed the door. The most athletic I got after that was when I was the scorekeeper for my middle school’s girl’s junior varsity volleyball team.

It wasn’t until college that I attempted another athletic activity, one that surprised even myself that I would consider doing: ballet. I have never been graceful, and being overweight, I felt more akin to a lumbering football player than a graceful swan. I took classes through my alma mater, the University of Oregon. I was not only getting college credit (albeit not towards anything remotely relevant), but my parents were also paying for it (since they paid my tuition). It seemed like a sweet deal. Although my flexibility never improved to the point I could do the splits, my hamstrings stretched well enough that I could almost put my hands flat on the ground when I bent over.

When I was a junior in college, though, my classes for my major ramped up, I started up a second minor in Non-Profit Administration, and my classes started to conflict with the times of the ballet classes. I eventually dropped dance class in favor of, you know, graduating on time. I kept my leotard, tights and ballet slippers in a drawer up at my parents for ages until I finally decided that I might want to try taking dance classes again.

The problem with starting dance class while being a working woman is most of them are during the day, or on the weekends, or they are only once a week which doesn’t really help when you’re trying to improve your strength and technique. I was taking ballet four days a week in college, and even then it really wasn’t enough. When I wrote my 101 Things List in January 2008, I put “take an adult ballet/dance class” on the list but sadly, couldn’t find any studios in New Jersey that would fit my schedule.

In July, just before moving to New York City, I lost a change purse that I used to keep my train and bus tickets. It was a Coach change purse, and I loved it because I’m a designer whore who can’t afford anything designer. I was crushed. So for my birthday in August, Erik bought me a new Coach change purse. When I opened it, I thought it was perfect, and was completely surprised that he would think to replace it with another Coach change purse (these things aren’t cheap).

While I was looking at it, Erik says, “What’s that it in the pocket…?”

“Huh?” I asked, flipping it over. In the front pocket of the change purse was a little card. I pulled it out and read, “Ballet Arts: Center for Dance.” Erik had bought me a pack of ballet classes at a studio in midtown Manhattan. (Yeah, I know, awww….)

It took several weeks before my own schedule lightened up enough that I had time to take the class. My parents mailed me my ballet clothes – shoes and all. The shoes are the most important aspect of a ballerina’s outfit. The shoes are leather and take weeks to break in, formed to the foot and worn down enough that they slide comfortably across the floor. I lost one of my shoes my sophomore year in college and was so frustrated when the leather of my new shoes would stick to the floor!

Last night was my first class, and while my mind remembered all the plies and degages, my body firmly did not. The first half an hour was actually pretty good, but then my body realized it had not done this in four years and it was pissed. My thighs and calves screamed at me and I was so sore afterward that my calves cramped terribly as I climbed the stairs to my apartment.

We’ll see how I manage another class in the future. I’m not sure how well my body will tolerate doing a ballet class just once a week, so I’ll have to fit in the time to go twice, or maybe three times a week if I can help it. Erik only purchased a 10 ticket card though, and I don’t want to use them up too quickly. Ballet classes are not cheap.

Ballet is, however, a form of exercise I’ve always enjoyed. And it’s one that I can actually do. Well, I can do it better than maneuvering that Godforsaken soccer ball (sorry, deep-seeded childhood bitterness). It doesn’t seem to damage my blood sugars too badly probably because it’s not to intense and I don’t have a rush of adrenaline. I wore my pump to last night’s class because I was wearing my gym pants, but my instructor said that it’s best just to wear a leotard and tights when dancing, to help improve the line of your body. Since I don’t wear a bra while dancing (the leotard keeps you plenty in place), there isn’t anywhere to put the gadget. I always danced without a pump in college, but my body doesn’t like to be disconnected for too long, or I spike something fierce. So I’ll have to work something out if I partake in ballet regularly.

Do you have a favorite, non-traditional method of exercise? I know Scott plays basketball with his homies. I’ve always thought team sports or dance are more fun than huffing and puffing on a treadmill. If you have any ideas on things I can try, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Anything to keep me off an elliptical machine will keep me happy!

This past weekend, I flew down to Florida to participate in a two day diabetes event at the Diabetes Research Institute, with a handful of other diabetes bloggers including Kerri, Manny, Scott Strumello and Gina, along with a few other familiar faces, like Jeff Hitchcock and Ellen Ullman. While we were in Florida to speak at the annual Diabetes Research Institute conference, this year renamed Diabetes 2.0, our weekend actually began on Friday with a tour of the Diabetes Research Institute at the University of Miami, where we had the pleasure of meeting and speaking with leading diabetes researchers, including Dr. Jay Skylar, Dr. Antonello Pileggi and the famed Dr. Camillo Riccordi, the DRI’s Scientific Director.

As we toured the facility with our guide, the President and CEO of DRI, Robert Pearlman, we went in and out of a variety of labs, watching scientists hovering over their microscopes, and we even met one of the mice that is helping scientists in their pursuit of a cure . We learned about everything from new methods in islet cell transplants to find new sources of islet cells from stem cells, both embryonic and adult stem cells, and how to avoid using the toxic immunosuppressant drugs used to keep the body from rejecting new islet cells – but which causes loads of health problems and really isn’t the greatest alternative to diabetes.

While most of the scientific mumbo-jumbo went absolutely over our heads, for me, personally, it was absolutely inspiring and humbling to meet the scientists who are working everyday to help me. We all want a cure and we all know that there is an incredible need and yet lack of priority that our country has given finding a cure for a variety of reasons. And yet when you are in the room with these men and women who are working everyday, all day, just to help you because they know the importance, that absolute requirement it is that this disease be cured, it’s hard not to feel overwhelming grateful and to think, “Wow, I really am not alone in this.” There are people all around the world who are working tirelessly to help us live a normal life. No one asked them to do this, and yet they’ve chosen to devote their lives to finding a cure for a disease that many of us struggle to believe will even happen.

But I am a cheerleader for these men and women. When I look at the DRI, and when I look at the other scientists working in Boston, Minneapolis, San Francisco and in dozens of countries around the world, I can see tangible reasons for hope in these people. Because they aren’t giving up and moving on to something that will get them more fame or money. I am not going to give up on them either.

With Dr. Camillo Riccordi at the Diabetes Research Institute

Happy D-Blog Day, everyone!

I’m back from Florida and it was definitely NOT enough time. I should have gone down earlier to relax a bit, as it was beautiful and warm in Ft. Lauderdale. I’ll have a longer post tomorrow about my DRI experience, but I just wanted to stop by and say a little hello and let everyone know that I have made it home safe and sound! I still hate Newark Liberty International Airport and I swear that airport as separation anxiety as it took nearly 30 minutes to get my bag at baggage claim. How hard is it to put suitcases on a converyor belt? I don’t understand.

Tomorrow is my first day at my  new job so I have to hit the hay!