The Plan For Next Week.

It seems pretty popular these days to have guest bloggers post while a blogger is on vacation. Amy did it, and I know another blogger who is doing it while she is on vacation.

However, I am a lazy, lazy fool who can’t get her act together. So I’m not going to have any guest bloggers. Instead, I’m bringing back a few of my favorite posts from the last year and I’m doing a week of blog post reruns. I’m not sure if anyone has ever done it, but I figured that there are enough of you who are new to Lemonade Life that bringing back some oldies but goodies couldn’t hurt anyone!

I’ll be back with brand-new posts on Monday, September 29.

Try not to miss me too much!

Oops, I Forgot/Underestimated/Ignored It Again!

I think the thing that gets to me the most about living with diabetes is just how dumb I can be sometimes.

I mean, really dumb. I’m talking about those “WTF? I went up 300 points without eating/drinking/doing anything!” moments or even those “I know I shouldn’t eat this but I’m going to anyway” moments. I’m talking about those “Oh yeah… I did eat/drink/do that…oops.” I’ve probably thought “Oops, I did it again!” more times than Z100 played that god-awful song back when it was a Top 40 hit. And that’s saying a lot!

It’s stilly, too. It’s not like testing my blood sugar or counting carbohydrates is new. I’ve been a diabetic for nearly fifteen years - 2/3 of my LIFE. The other night, I was driving home from having dinner with my cousins when I stopped for a snack. I bolused appropriately, but when I got home about thirty minutes later, my blood sugar was 78. I check my pump and I saw that I had 7 units on board. Freaking out that I had insulin on board, was low and about to go to bed, I decided to have juice and a couple of graham crackers. Five hours later and I woke up nauseated and a dry mouth like I had just crawled through the Sahara desert. My blood sugar was over 400 mg/dl! You know why? My snack was fairly high fat (I had stopped at Burger King… shhh, don’t tell!) and it probably hadn’t finished kicking in. Did I actually stop to think about why I had seven units of insulin on board? Of course not! That would make sense.

Sometimes I think the most frustrating thing about diabetes is just how much I hate having to think about it, so I do these knee-jerk reactions and end up gulping down water at four o’clock in the morning and then feeling like I’m hung-over when my alarm clock goes off.

There are plenty of other moments like this that I’ve had and I’m sure you have them too. One of the most embarassing moments came when I was in college and I drove to all the way to work - TWENTY MILES from home - before I realized my insulin pump was still sitting on my bathroom counter. Or hey, anyone remember my “oops, I’m not plugged in!” moment from last June. Embarassing and painful!

Do you have an embarassing “Oops!” moments you’d like to share? Misery loves company!

Memorable Moments

Taking a cue from some of the other bloggers who are doing the 10 memorable moments meme. Being one of the younger bloggers, I’m going to try to think of some especially applicable moments. There will of course be overlap, but I think the reasoning behind the defining moments might be a little bit different.

Feel free to argue against me, or hey, why don’t you create your own damn list?

(Edit: I realize now that these aren’t true specific-moment-in-time moments, but that’s because Nicole and George didn’t do that either, so I got confused. Let’s just go with moments-slash-inventions, ok?)

Ten Defining Moments of My Generation

Wikipedia, Google and Napster, Oh My!
These were among the first online megacompanies that influenced how our generation learned and consumed media. It defined how we and our teachers, professors and parents approached our education. I remember when my 10th grade history teacher forbade us from using Wikipedia because it wasn’t “legitimate.” Libraries were a thing of the past, and copyrights became debatable.

Our First War
I remember on the morning of 9/11 my father telling me that I was watching history. The first tower had already fallen by the time I woke up on the West Coast, and I sat on the couch in the living room with my dad and watched the second one crash into Manhattan. The rest of the day, the weeks and months afterwards were consumed by 9/11, but it didn’t stop. A significant portion of my life has been marked by the second Gulf War in Iraq. I was only five years old when the first one happened, so this is truly my first experience with the words “combat”, “troops” and “casualties” in the vocabulary of our news anchors. I was fifteen when 9/11 happened, and since I just celebrated my 23rd birthday, about a third of my life has seen the war on terror.

Boy Bands
Backstreet Boys, N’Sync, Hanson, 98 Degrees… they weren’t the first boy bands, that’s for sure, but they were our boy bands. And we loved them dearly. Now we have a fresh new crop of boy bands (hello Jonas Brothers!) which are, of course, merely a reincarnation of the past. But boy do they strike frenzy in the hearts of teens and fear in the hearts of parents and boyfriends across the land.

VCRs
This was one of the first pieces of “new technology” that I truly remember. That and cordless telephone. But truly I think VCRs for the first time made the idea that you could control what you watched when you watched it, and allowed people to enjoy other activities without missing their favorite shows. It’s something we take for granted now with DVRs and On Demand television, but VCRs were pretty kick-ass back in the day.

School Shootings
First it was Columbine, but in the months after there were mimic attacks in public schools around the country. I was thirteen when Columbine happened and I remember that it was the first time that I was truly afraid for my life. Every school has their outcasts, their delinquents, the guy or girl in all black, who sits by themselves in class or in the cafeteria. For the most part, you just ignored them. But after Columbine, you couldn’t help but wonder…

Cell Phones
For me, this was an indication of independence. It allowed us to make split-second changes in plans and freedom from our parents while, of course, still being within arms reach. Cell phones are now required by law (c’mon now, sure feels that way!) and I don’t even have a land line. My generation is probably the first generation who will turn down - repeatedly - offers from the phone company to get the hook up.

E-mail and Instant Messenger
The only time I ever write a letter is when I’m writing to my grandmothers, because neither of them use the Internet. Well, one of them is starting to use it a bit more but I’m not sure how often she checks it and she only got the Internet about three years ago. However, with my friends in high school and college, e-mail was the way to communicate. Honestly, I hardly even used my cell phone or landline when I was in the house. I was always on the Internet, and thus, always on IM so I could chat with my friends no matter where they lived. I know people claim that instant messaging is ruining the structure of communication with LOLspeak, but I like to think it’s enhancing our ability to interact with those who are different from us, to share ideas and have a dialogue with people we would otherwise be unable to.

America’s Obsession with Celebrities
Alright, I know this isn’t terribly unique to my generation - people have been admiring celebrities for decades - but I think our generation is especially influenced by the media darlings like Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan and others. For example, the fashion choices now made by young girls and teens usually have a direct correlation with what a celebrity is wearing. Sure, fashion influence for adults is one thing - but having teens and tweens wanting to look like a 25-year-old is a little creepy to say the least. The fact we have multiple - THAT MEANS MORE THAN ONE! - television shows about celebrities is kinda freaky and I think it sets the wrong example of the kind of people our society should value.

Pedophiles
Have you noticed I haven’t actually put the Internet on this list, but just various incarnations of the Internet? While the Internet has obviously been very influential, there are certain aspects of it that have had a much greater impact on my specific generation. Pedophiles are one of them. When my parents and your parents, and perhaps even you, were growing up, the main fear was of adults taking children from malls, playgrounds and even off the front lawn. Then children were told to stay inside. Then they started going on the Internet, thinking they were safer there. But they weren’t. As a young girl, I have been propositioned more than once on the Internet. When I was 12, it terrified me. Now that I’m older, I have a better sense of who is safe and who isn’t, and I can quickly halt or redirect the conversation. But being afraid of strangers who sound like friends is something no other generation has come across.

Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon was founded under its original name, Pinwheel, in 1979 (thanks Wikipedia!) and was later renamed in 1981, just four years before I was born. Thus, Nickelodeon has been around for my entire life and I spent much of my childhood addicted to its programming. My brother and I even subscribed to the Nickelodeon magazine, the first magazine I ever read on a regular basis. There is something extraordinarly nostalgic about those TV shows, almost like our entire childhood is wrapped up in the shows that aired in the early 90s. Many people call that classic Nickelodeon and that the shows of today just aren’t nearly as good. I tend to agree. Pete & Pete, Clarissa Explains It All, Who’s Afraid of the Dark and All That may have launched the careers of a few famous actors, but for the most part, the casts remain a constant only in the reruns and DVDs of these shows, like a visual scrapbook of my childhood.

My Ten Defining Moments

My Birth
I agree with Nicole - my birth is a fairly significant defining moment in my life, so I’ll put that one first. August 6, 1985 at 10:48 p.m., I, Allison Michelle Blass, was born at Beth Kaiser Medical Center which is now - as my father has told me - Reebok’s Portland office.

The Birth of Eric
That would be my younger brother. This is a fairly significant date as well because without him, I would be an only child and probably have a lot more stuff. Okay, okay, I’m kidding. But being an older sister is certainly a defining characteristic, and has probably made me far more bossy than if I was a younger sister. My brother and I actually got along fairly well when we were growing up, and I appreciate the fact that he was more easy going than I, because it made doing things like going to the corner store for ice cream, picking blackberries and going to the movies actually fun and not a painstaking chore.

D-Day
Being diagnosed with diabetes is probably the second most influential day next to actually being born, because it has shaped more of my decisions than just about anything else I can think. I can honestly say that much of what I have done and much of what I have learned about me as a person is related to lessons that diabetes has taught me. I may still have been a totally awesome person, but in this life, I know that diabetes is a big part of why I am the way I am. For better or for worse.

Becoming a Christian
This is actually a moment seven years in the making. That’s right. It took me seven years to accept Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. And let me tell you, that is a LONG time. Like, way long. I was 12 years old when I first approached a pastor about Jesus when I was staying at a summer resort with my family. Seven years later and I was baptized on a Thursday afternoon in the August after my freshman year in college. It was a long and bumpy road full of doubts and questions, and it’s still a bumpy road. But I also know it was the best decision I ever made.

Children’s Congress 2001
This was my entrance into the world of diabetes advocacy. I literally hadn’t done anything except a handful of Walks before this. But the people there inspired me to fight the good fight and I was connected with the right people and shown the right attitude to do it. It’s been an amazing ride.

The Death of Darcee
Darcee was a girl in my fourth grade class who had a degenerative brain disease called MLD. If you visit this website, you will actually see a picture of Darcee in the banner on the upper right hand side of the screen. MLD is a complicated disease that causes personality changes and mobility disfunction among other things. It made Darcee… different. My classmates treated her badly, and even though she wanted to be my friend, I didn’t like her so I wasn’t particularly nice to her either. We didn’t know she was sick. Just as fifth grade started, we found out that Darcee was sick and that she was going away to get better. While she was gone, we sent her get well letters and pictures. I knew how fake it was, but I did it anyway. On December 15, 1995, Darcee passed away at age 10. It was the first death I had ever experienced of someone I knew. Of course, death is hard but when it’s the death of someone who was sick and that you were mean to, the guilt was devastating. Since then, I have always tried very hard to be considerate and respectful of everyone, even if I don’t understand why they do what they do. Darcee would have turned 23 years old on June 28 of this year.

The Deaths of Teddy, Dr. Hansen and Mr. Othus
Eight years later and I went through three more excruciating deaths. The first was Teddy, a classmate I had known for years, who took his own life during the fall of my senior year in high school. It was the first mourning that I experienced with my close friends, and it also made me appreciate how important it is to recognize and acknowledge depression. Dr. Hansen, my first endocrinologist and the one that made diabetes much less scary, died that spring of the liver cancer he was diagnosed with five years earlier. I have written about Dr. Hansen before, so if you’re interested, I encourage you to read about that. Three weeks after I started my freshman year in college, and almost one year to the date of Teddy’s death, Mr. Othus, my history teacher and the mentor to half my high school, passed away unexpectedly from colon cancer. All three of these deaths impacted me in different ways, but they taught me the importance of life and encouraged me to live my life in the ways I admired about them.

My Depression
I have not always been a happy person, and there were occasional moments during high school and college when that manifested itself in negative ways - namely, the cutting I did in high school and college. It wasn’t something I did on a regular basis, but I had a propensity towards self-harm that I spent a lot of energy on controlling. I eventually sought therapy in my sophomore year of college, which taught me about my need to control situations and the anger I had towards myself when I thought I should be in control and wasn’t. I am a huge advocate of therapy, and medication if that’s something you and your psychiatrist think it’s necessary.

Blogging
Clearly, blogging has changed my life and certainly for the better. Without blogging, I honestly don’t know where I’d be. I have learned so much from all of you, and I truly feel like you have made me a better person. I have had so many opportunities to learn and also share what I know through blogging. I have traveled extensively because of the people I have met, I got my job because of my blog and heck, I was even in the New York Times! Can’t beat that.

Moving to the East Coast
Moving three thousand miles away from everything you know will teach you a lot about how to be alone among millions of people. It’s terrifying. It’s really, fucking hard. And if I knew then what I know now, I probably would have been scared shitless to try it. But I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into and I had only the dream of living in the Big City to propel me forward. Lucky for me, I did the move in baby steps. First a small suburb in New Jersey, now Hoboken, and perhaps in a year or two, the Big Apple. I also had the support of my cousins as well as wonderful co-workers who made it easy to not think this was all a huge mistake. If you want to try it, I say: Go for it. It’s hard, but it’s totally worth everything.

Overcome the fear of injections? READ THIS!

A few weeks back, I signed up for this daily newsletter called HARO - Help A Reporter Out. It’s a list of current queries from reporters that is maintained by this awesome, multi-talented guy named Peter Shankman. Basically, the idea is that reporters e-mail Peter about their story and who they are looking to talk to, and then Peter collects them and sends them out to a database of over 20,000 people three times a day. I joined it because I work in public relations, so we’re always looking for publications to write about our clients, but also because they occasionally have health or Gen-Y related stories that apply to me. I haven’t been contacted about any of the stories I’ve inquired about, but one query caught my eye and perhaps this applies to one of you out there.

This is the query in it’s entirety. Please DO NOT pitch off-topic. That’s Peter’s #1 rule.

Summary: Overcoming fear of insulin injections
Category: (Select)
Name: Camille Noe Pagn
Email: EMAIL ME FOR HER EMAIL ADDRESS. I’M PROTECTING THE JOURNALIST FROM SPAMMERS CUZ THEY STINK!
Title: Journalist
Media Outlet/Publication: Health Monitor Network
Anonymous? No
Specific Geographic Region? No
Region:
Deadline: 5:00 PM EASTERN - August 24
Query: “For a diabetes guide published by Health Monitor Network, I’m looking for a person with diabetes (1 or 2) to discuss overcoming the fear of daily insulin injections. Individual should be available to speak briefly (10-15 minutes) or email today, this weekend, or Monday before 2:00 p.m. “

Visit the HARO website if you want to join. It’s mainly geared towards publicists, but sometimes they do look for “real people,” such as this example, so you never know when you might be the perfect person!

Pass this around!

New Opportunities to Share Your Story.

Want to be famous? I’m working on a couple of freelance projects and I need to get some outside feedback so I thought I would turn to all my wonderful friends and readers for your assistance.

The first one is fairly easy. I’m working on an article on celiac disease for the JDRF’s website. I’m looking for a couple people, maybe three, to answer some questions about life with celiac disease, your diagnosis, ways to cope with the new diet, how it affects your diabetes… that sort of thing.

The second article is for Diabetes Health magazine. This article is about how people handle social situations with diabetes. I’m looking for four or five stories from people where you had to deal with the impact diabetes made on your relationships with people. Examples of stories I’m looking for: moving to college and introducing diabetes to someone new, starting a new relationship and explaining diabetes for the first time, meeting the in-laws, dealing with diabetes at a party or event. If you have another story, feel free to send that in too.

Please e-mail me at amblass at gmail.com for either one of these projects by next Friday, August 29. Even if I don’t pick you, I am always working on freelance projects and I’m always looking to hear stories from people with diabetes, so I may use your story in the future. Please send them in! Thanks!

The Stress Monster.

Bernard’s comment to my last post made me think about how much stress impacts our life with diabetes. Stress is one of those mysterious variables that doesn’t have a precise scientific calculation to how it’s going to affect blood sugar, like food and insulin do. But stress does affect our blood sugar in a variety of ways. Stress can increase certain hormones that makes our body less receptive to insulin. Stress can also lead us to do certain activities that have an impact, like overeating.

I haven’t seen a direct correlation between stress and my blood sugars as far as my hormones go, though when I was younger my mother was convinced my blood sugar went high right before I was about to fly. Flying has never been a stressful event for me, but stress is closely related to any kind of excitement or adrenaline spike which is why my blood sugars tend to go up after I exercise. My mother thought that my excitement for an impending flight, and perhaps the stress of packing although I didn’t have that much to do with it, affected my blood sugars negatively.

However, stress has definitely caused me to overeat in certain situations. In the middle of a chaotic workday, it’s not uncommon for me to escape the office for a few minutes to go down to Starbucks and pick up a frappuccino or snack. I always get the Mocha Light frappuccinos, which have half the carbs, but still, those midafternoon snacks can do a number on my numbers.

Bernard asked me for suggestions on how to handle stress and also boredom, both of which cause him to overeat, thus dragging up his blood sugars. I’m not a therapist, I told him, but when I was going through my depression in college I found therapy to be valuable. Other options are yoga or meditation.

Do you find that stress or other situations affect your blood sugars in some way and if so, what do you do about it? Perhaps our collective experience can help each other. Stressful situations are unlikely to stop in the near future, so it’s important that we’re able to find ways to fight off the Stress Monster.

Behind the Scenes

A few days ago, I read a post from Lee Ann about “good diabetics” and “bad diabetics.” It was frustrating to read that there are people who think there is some kind of civil war going on in the diabetes community. It made me reflect on an earlier post I wrote about noncompliant diabetics. It’s something I still believe, that there are people who are noncompliant, but reading Lee Ann’s story and the stories from other people who are struggling with diabetes made me realize that we often focus on the surface of our life with diabetes and not on the deeper, emotional triggers that causes us to do what we do.

There are those that are considered “good” diabetics - those who test frequently, count carbs perfectly and have an excellent A1C. Then there are “bad” diabetics - who don’t test, never carb count and have an A1C in the double digits. While there are diabetics who are like that, I don’t think having these glossy, stereotypical categories are really fair.

Today, I found out that my A1C has gone up a full point. In February, my A1C was 7.2. Now, it’s 8.1. On the surface, it looks like I’m a “bad” diabetic. It’s gone up. My logbook is littered with blood sugars in the stratosphere. But is that the full story? Clearly not. Life the past few months have been very stressful. I’ve traveled to eight states, spent hundreds of dollars fixing my car, dealt with structural changes at work and moved to a new apartment by myself. My life has been messy and I’m not the only one who deals with this.

This happens. Life happens.

When you look at the surface of someone who is struggling with diabetes, someone with a higher A1C, an empty logbook or penchant for SWAG boluses, perhaps we should look beyond the traditional excuses.

We are complex human beings and diabetes is a complex chronic illness, so to think that we can wrap why someone is a “bad” diabetic and put a pretty bow on it is, quite frankly, ridiculous. I know there are some people who are noncompliant because they are simply irresponsible and lazy. But I also know there are reasons that are wholly separate from this disease that range from eating disorders to clinical depression to life situations that make stabilizing diabetes incredibly difficult.

When I found out my A1C was over eight percent, the highest it’s been since I was a sophomore in college, I wasn’t surprised but I was also crushed. I knew I could do better because I had. But my endocrinologist - my lovely, lovely endocrinologist - wasn’t discourage. She asked me what had been going on, and I told her about my travel and my move. She understood that it was a stressful time and that now things were starting to stabilize. We talked through my trouble spots, zeroing in one my morning spikes and my correction crashes. Just talking about what was going on and knowing that there was someone who was going to walk through this with me was a weight off my shoulders.

Life is complex. It changes and with it, so do your blood sugars and your basal rates and your bolus ratios. Having a chaotic life and a chaotic disease can be overwhelming, which is why I think it’s so important to have a place that centers me, that refocuses my scattered energy and frustrations. It’s why I spend so much time on advocacy and mentoring. I’m able to channel the parts of diabetes that I don’t like into something that I do like. When I hear that people struggling with disease are afraid to talk about what they’re going through it really makes me sad and disappointed.

Being a “bad” diabetic - whatever that might mean - does not mean you are a bad person.

Diabetes management is not black or white, but varying degrees of gray. It’s not a game where you have to pick sides. The behind the scenes of our lives are only open as we make them. If you are struggling with something, say something. We should never be afraid to talk about our struggles. And if someone says something to you, listen. They are opening up their soul, their struggles and their fears. Nothing any of us say should ever, ever be disregarded.

Behind the scenes, we really are all the same and we all deserve respect and compassion.

Celebration of Life.

The last stop on my summer Lemonade Tour was Washington D.C. for the Quilt for Life exhibition on the National Mall. A huge tarp was erected on the grass directly in front of the Capitol building. As I walked closer, I saw rows and rows of quilts hooked up to boards with wire and clips. Over in a smaller tent, there was a collection of navy blue T-shirts milling about.

I volunteered a couple of hours for the Children with Diabetes Quilt for Life, which is a collection of nearly 700 quilts representing children and adults with diabetes. We listened to Jeff Hitchcock and Ken Moritsugu talk about the Quilt and what it represents. Jeff spoke about his daughter Marissa diagnosis, but the emphasis was on our lives - not on diabetes - that makes the Quilt for Life so special. While it is certainly a dramatic reminder of all the people diabetes has touched, but Jeff said this was a celebration of life.

I walked up and down the rows, examining each quilt and the child behind it. Some of the quilts represented adults, like Scott Strumello and Amy Tenderich. I also saw my quilt, number 457.

Towards the end of my shift, I spotted Jillian and, as I do with everyone I meet, gave her a big hug. If you’re affected by diabetes, you’re in my family. Plain and simple. (Unless you’re a psycho, but so far, so good.)

Jillian told me that Kevin was down at the other end of the tent.

Yes. You read that right. Kevin. THE Kevin. With his wife, Meg, and his freaking adorable children, Ian and Eleanor.

Rumors of his death have been greatly exaggerated.

Kevin (with Eleanor and Ian), me, Jillian and Meg.

Afterwards, Kevin had to return to work, so Jillian, Wendy and I went to Ruby Tuesday’s for lunch before taking off.

It’s been a long long few weeks for me and I’m thrilled to be grounded for longer than a couple of days. While July was nothing but a great adventure, I’m looking forward to a quieter, mellower August. Exploring my new town and the larger one across the river sounds exactly what I need before my big voyage across the pond.

If the past couple of months, with all the people I’ve enjoyed spending time with, have taught me anything it’s that there is nothing so rejuvenating and inspiring as spending time with people who understand you and encourage you. Thanks to everyone who have come out to the meet-ups and I promise there will be more.

Eventually.

More photos are in the Quilt for Life set on Flickr.

We Came, We Saw, We Cut, We Conquered.*

Time for the CWD Friends for Life recap.

Short version: It was awesome.

Long version: Most of the time when I go to diabetes conferences I don’t really go to learn. Aside from the information overload you get during your first year or so of living with diabetes, it’s really hard to learn much that is “new” in diabetes. Besides, as someone who both writes and reads diabetes blogs, information about new technology, like CGMS and insulin pumps, and research is readily available to me.

So why did I go to a diabetes conference? Simple: for the people. In addition to the bloggers I’ve already met, I also had a chance to meet Manny, Sara, the “Other Allison” and Mandy. This also means I’ve officially reached meeting 10 new bloggers (actually, I’ve met 11) in just seven months! This isn’t even including Kevin and Jillian, who I am meeting on Monday.

It’s true what they say: going to CWD is like coming home. I am involved in several different communities and through it all, the diabetes community is the one that feels like family. It was a phrase that was used several times throughout the conference by all the staff. The people who were attending the conference were a part of our family.

I flew in Tuesday night and Mandy and her parents picked me up from the airport. After an exciting adventure in finding out hotel, we finally arrived and settled in as we had an early morning the next day. Wednesday was an unofficial conference day. Many people were there for the receptions and the focus groups, but the conference had not officially begun. I attended the Young Adults breakfast with Sara and Mandy where we discussed some great ideas for how to expand the conference to include young adults. It’s not quite the all-inclusive adults with diabetes sessions that I’m aiming for but it is a step in the right direction.

The conference itself was amazing and Jeff Hitchcock should have a full report of all the activities in a couple of weeks. I’ll post a link when I see it online so everyone can read the re-cap.

In addition to the two day conference, we (Sara, Mandy, Heidi, our new friends Alex and Beakal and ourself) also spent a day at Universal Studios. We went on all the rides and had lunch at the CWD’s buffet area in a closed off Latin Quarter. We escaped the clutches of Lord Farquaad, fought off aliens and survived a twister. We even had our picture taken with Shrek and Donkey.

One of the perks of going to a conference for people with diabetes is that they make all kinds of wonderful arrangements for you. This year, those of us who went to Universal Studios (or Islands of Adventure, which was the other option) received a Community Relations pass that allowed us to use the Express line which is usually reserved for people who are either handicapped or who pay extra. I have mentioned a few times about going to Guest Services and requesting a disability pass because standing out in the hot sun for several hours can damage insulin (which, for my new readers, you need to live). When I was in Orlando two years ago, I went with some of the other teens with diabetes to pick up these passes on our own, but this year they were included with our park tickets. However, rumor has it that Disney is getting very, very stringent about who they give these passes out to but I say it’s a fight worth fighting. Not only is it a legitimate reason (the July heat from the Orlando sun really can do serious damage), it’s also a nice perk. Considering everything I have to do to stay healthy as a type 1 diabetic, this is the least the universe can do to repay me.

P.S. Shout out to Dorothy, one of my faithful readers!
*Thanks to Sara Mandy for letting me steal this as the title for my post.

Rolling out the Welcome Mat

To all the people who received my business card at BlogHer this past weekend and have decided to check out the URL scribbled at the bottom of my business cards, I say “thank you and welcome.” Pull up a chair, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the ride.

Conferences are a whirlwind of activity because people try to fit in so much learning and socialization into just a few hours. Like my upcoming CWD Friends for Life conference, BlogHer conferences is the once-a-year opportunity when most of these bloggers are able to interact with their online friends face-to-face instead of monitor-to-monitor. While most bloggers, including myself, are fairly comfortable talking about intimate feelings and personal life stories in front of an entire audience, there is no replacing having a personal conversation, just the two of you.

One thing I found interesting were the similarities in opinions surrounding communities, language and the age old question of how to get more traffic that affect every blogger, no matter which niche they are in. It was also interesting to hear how blogging has helped people in almost identical ways - there really is something to this whole “baring your soul on the Internet” thing that has a way of changing someone’s life for the better, whether they are a mother, a tech geek or someone with a chronic illness like me.

It also reminded me once again that not everyone who reads my blog has diabetes. Whoops. Sorry about that, folks.

There were a few sessions that I plan on elaborating later, but unfortunately I have a mountain of work to attend to. That’s what happens when you leave the office for two days and are about to leave for another three days.

One thing I will say before I go:

Throughout the conference, several women shared some very personal, intimate stories from their life and how blogging helped save them and keep them from giving up on their life. While it was amazing to recognize the sheer good that can come from a complete stranger, it also made me appreciate even more the lasting friendships that I have made through my own blogging community. Although many of you I have not met and some that I don’t even know about, the power of blogging was tangible at this conference. Everyone at the conference was connected to someone else. No one was alone. Anyone who has ever been cynical about bloggers only being obnoxious, self-centered ranters standing on their soapboxes have obviously never been to BlogHer or met anyone who truly uses their blog as a gateway to support and friendship.