Watch Your Mouth!

I must be getting cynical. I got one of “those” comments on Friday night. Read about it here.

The Beginning and The End

Yesterday on Blogabetes, I contemplated my mortality. Read A Diabetic Centenarian?

Also yesterday, I looked back on my first month as a pumper. Read Reflections on a Month of Pumping.

Write On

It may be trite, but sometimes you have to take a step back in order to take a step forward. Often, though, that “backward step” isn’t even backward, just a different kind of new start.

OK, I’m being horribly vague, so I’ll explain. As a writer and editor, I am always on the hunt for freelance writing. For two reasons: the extra money is sweet, and the exposure and experience are such a bonus. I’ve gotten to the point in my professional and freelance career where I can be slightly selective in the projects I choose to accept. It can backfire and can be counter productive, but quite often if compensation sucks I say no. And when I say sucks, I mean $0.10 a word. I’m not fresh out of college and desperate for the experience. I’ve got a solid resume and I’m proud of it.

But I digress. Slightly.

I’ve found myself in a position to bid on some writing projects. Some book writing projects. As I browsed through the available projects–some new titles that a publisher needed to be taken on from the ground up and some projects that needed to be completed–I got excited about several topics I knew about and was pretty interested in.

At the same time, I got scared. I had never placed a bid on anything–even at an auction–how was I possibly going to figure out how to bid on a book project? This was such new territory. If you bid too much you’re cocky, and if you don’t bid enough then you don’t value your skills. What a pickle.

Then, to my surprise, the publisher gave a dollar figure budget range for each project. Well, that made things much, much easier. And then, after getting the calculator out, I realized the compensation was way, WAY below the projects I usually ignore. Not to mention the time frame was pretty tight. I looked past my standards for other writing projects and placed bids for five projects. This is sort of like the ultimate foot-in-the-door experience.

It’s not like I’m taking the ultimate step backward, it’s not like I’m settling for inferior work and pay just to have some extra cash. I have to have the kind of experience I have in order to be at the bottom somewhere new. There’s a hierarchy, a natural order of things that has to be met. If I ever want to move forward in my career, in my life, in my writing, I have to keep searching for new things. I’ve completed one level and am (hopefully) starting out on the bottom step of the next.

A Fresh Perspective

As a writer, I can focus well on one subject. But I can’t always write about the same thing in two different ways for two different places. That’s the struggle I found myself in when I started writing for Blogabetes. All my diabetes-related writing energy went there. I wanted my readers to read what was going on in my diabetes life, but I couldn’t figure out how to fit it in to Blogabetes and my personal blog.

Now I know how.

My plans for this blog are concrete and fluid at the same time. I wanted a new look, a new name, a different atmosphere to reflect changes that are going on in my life, as well as anchor a new blogging platform for me.

 So welcome.

That’s the first big change.

If you’ve been keeping up with me on Blogabetes, then my next change won’t be news to you. In a nutshell, last year I tried Byetta and failed miserably; I went back to Novolog with my endo’s blessing. At a follow up appointment, he suggested that if I continued on the MDI path that I would be a candidate for a pump. I thought he was insane for suggesting to a person with type 2 diabetes, who was only three years into her diagnosis, that the pump was the ultimate therapy for her. Read about that visit here.

I got to thinking about it, though, and realized that the pump was a really good idea. So late last year I started on the get-Michelle-on-a-pump campaign. I decided that I could wait until Jan. 1, when my company’s new insurance policy kicked in, to really get the ball rolling. I just didn’t feel there was an urgency at that point. The first week of January I went for some blood work (specifically a c-peptide test) as a prerequisite for pump approval from the insurance company.

It took me close to a day to realize something wasn’t quite right when my c-peptide result came back at <0.1. I didn’t know what that meant at first, but soon learned that I have type 1 diabetes, not type 2. Another big change. You can read about my reaction to the blood test here.

Since then, I’ve gotten hooked up to my purple MiniMed 722, whom I affectionately call Toohey (like Pancreas II), and trialed a CGMS.

There’s more to know. Today’s Blogabetes post is about not wanting to get out of my warm bed last night to boost my sugar just a bit so I wouldn’t be going to bed in a lowish state. Read it here.

Again, welcome. Have fun reading!