Diabetes Technology and You

Aside from the panic of being told you're diabetic (when that first occurs), one of the other things that sends most of us into a tizzy at that point is all the new technology with which we're suddenly presented. Some of us can't figure out how to stop activating the mute button on the cell phone we've had for more than a year. And here we are, neck deep in glucometers and test strips and lances and, for some of us, needles or pumps. Overwhelming? It's mind-blowing. Especially since we're already scared we're going to do something wrong and die. Any minute.

But we didn't even have insulin until the 1920's (despite having identified diabetes 3500 years ago). And people who needed insulin as recently as 1970 were still boiling syringes on the stove. (Ugh!) So while diabetic technology may be daunting to us at first, being without it -- it seems to me -- would be much, much tougher.

I discuss my own struggles with embracing and mastering the technology related to my condition in my book, Your Life Isn't Over ~ It May Have Just Begun! And actor/comedian Jim Turner, who's been managing his diabetes for nearly fifty years, gives us his take on diabetes technology in this short and helpful dLife tv video. If you haven't visited the dLife website yet, now might be a great time!

Audio Book Endnotes

A funny thing can happen if you don't stay up to date on your emails. You can miss important information that you really want to know. A couple of days ago, for example, I discovered that I've sold ten copies of my audio book produced by Audible...when I thought I had sold none. Oops! The reason it's an oops is that I included end notes (sort of like footnotes, but at the end of each part of the book) in the paperback and Kindle editions of Your Life Isn't Over ~ It May Have Just Begun! and I couldn't imagine how to include them in the audio edition so I didn't.

I was reminded of a clever option yesterday when I listened to an audio book while running and the author just said the word "asterisk" and then went on to read the extra information. Maybe I'll go back and include those some day. And certainly, I'll use it for the next book I record. But for now, I'm feeling guilty because my audio book purchasers are missing some information I intended for them to have. And to further complicate the matter, I have no idea, of course, who they might be.

Hopefully, at some point, they'll seek out my website and find this blog with the missing information, as I intend to include it all right here right now. It will make for a longer than usual post, but at least an effort will have been made.

Some of you may not appreciate this if you already read the paperback or Kindle edition and so are being handed old news. Others of you who haven't read -- or listened to -- the book as yet may find the information oddly out of context. But I would say to both groups that the information is worth having or at least considering, so I make no apologies. And I'm presenting a lot of good stuff to know in one little package.

We're Not Alone

I went to a local Health Fest yesterday. It really covered the waterfront. The hundreds of community residents (like me) who were milling around from table to table could pick up information on nutrition; health care programs; medicaid, medicare, and insurance options; and all manner of possible ailments. I saw welcoming faces behind table after table willing and able to discuss all kinds of complicated and delicate matters. Are you at risk for a stroke? What are the early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease? Just how germ-y are your hands? And on and on and on.

Folks were having their blood pressure, pulse, respiration rate, and eye sight checked. They were getting flu shots. They were having mammograms done. They were being tested for HIV. And yes, they were were being tested for diabetes.

Cue The Trumpets!

This is a big week for me and my new book on managing diabetes. Your Life Isn't Over ~ It May Have Just Begun! will be officially launched Tuesday evening (accompanied by diabetic-friendly snacks, of course). I will be selling and signing copies of the book at that time and again at separate events on Friday night and Saturday during the day. To advertise all those events, I'll be featured on the local PBS radio station morning talk show all week, as well as appearing on public access television, too (see above). Marketing is a lot of work, folks. But it's so, so worth it, if it helps others save their own lives.

If you've bought a copy of the book and found it helpful, please consider reviewing it on Amazon.com, so others will know. Thanks. 

Don't Ask/Don't Tell

Silly me. I thought when I wrote the last line of Your Life Isn't Over ~ It May Have Just Begun! and put it on Amazon.com that at least a few of the 21 million diagnosed diabetics in the United States would jump right out there and pick up a copy. Eight years ago, when I was diagnosed, I would have. The options I found helped, but did not give me the kind of tips and hints and inside information I so sorely needed at that juncture in language couched to lessen my anxiety instead of increase it. So the fact that my book is probably one of the best kept secrets in America right now would be frustrating if I hadn't gotten a pretty clear signal early on as to why.