Monday, April 28, 2008

Identity Theft?

There have been two payments taken out of my checking account to pay Sprint. A mobile phone, apparently.

I don't have Sprint.

Yes, I'm on top of it. The bank has been notified. I spent LOTS of time on the phone with Sprint (to no avail). But I'm very, very pissed off.

Friday, April 25, 2008

The Feet Are Up

Daniel had a "physics" field trip to Six Flags amusement part today. Okay, the kids all had physics work to do, figuring out acceleration of roller coasters, and other cool stuff like that. But mostly it was a day of fun. There were thousands of kids from many physics classes across the region.

Today was also the "test" day for Six Flags employees, as their opening day to the public is tomorrow. I hope they get their act together! It's probably the worst theme park that I've ever visited, on many levels.

While Daniel was on the rides, I thought I'd check out the souvenir shops so I could bring something home to my other kids. The employees greeted me when I entered the stores & asked if I needed anything. When I finally decided on a couple of items, I brought them to the counter. The young lady who waited on me was very nice, but this was obviously her first time using a scanning device on a bar code. She just couldn't get the thing to work, but she kept clicking it on and off very fast, instead of holding the beam of red light on the bar code for a couple of seconds.

Click! Hmmm. Click! Hmmm. I waited patiently, although I wanted to walk around and grab it out of her hands. "TRY IT THIS WAY!!!!"

Finally, she called her manager who said, impatiently, "just type in the number!" Which worked. At least *that* worked.

I took out my charge card because I wanted to save my cash for lunch. The charge would not go through. It kept saying "processing" forever, then it wouldn't finalize. Eventually I told them to forget it and I walked away. I found out from others in the park that no one could get charges to go through. I also found out that most of the ATM machines were not working, either! I had given Daniel $20 (mostly for drinks, because I had to bring his lunch) and I had $20. It doesn't get you very far there.

I walked around to the different food courts. Most everything was fried, which upsets my stomach. I finally went to a hot dog stand and asked for a hot dog (I really don't like them but it's better on my system than fried food) but there were no hot dogs. They hadn't arrived yet. What??? I did see a Papa John's pizza place there, but for one slice you had to pay almost $7.00 and I just couldn't get myself to do that! Sbarros sells slices twice as big for half the price in malls around the country!

There was also a Chinese food place in a separate small building, Panda Express. The room was about 85 degrees. I stood in line for 10 minutes, and the line didn't move a bit. I saw one girl eating her food -- chicken, batter fried on fried rice -- and at that point I felt like I was going to PASS OUT if I didn't get some cold water so I walked out.

I ended up getting popcorn and cinnamon almonds for lunch, with a big bottle of water. I think the park keeps their drinking fountains at a very warm temperature so that you buy more cold drinks instead of refilling your bottle.

Daniel paid $8.00 for two sodas. One of the soda machines ate one of his dollars.

Honestly, don't these places make enough money on admission and souvenirs? I think it's outrageous how much they charge for food and drinks. I also think the food choices at our local Six Flags are the worst of any amusement park anywhere!

Then there were the rides, which kept stopping. The Superman ride, the big draw, stuttered its way through the morning, with a 20 to 25 minute wait between each ride because of the constant breakdowns. Same with two of the other roller coasters. Some of the kids were late for lunch check in because they were stuck on a coaster.

No diabetes issues on this trip though, thank goodness! Daniel felt low when he was in line for one of the rides, but he got some sugar. He didn't even test at that point (grrrr!) but when he did test later on, his numbers were fine. It was nice to have an excursion without an emergency! His friends were also great -- holding his kit for him when he went on a ride. Actually, the time he was low, he had given his kit to a friend to hold (because they don't allow loose stuff on the rides). But they all have cell phones and he just called his friend to run the sugar over. No problem. No need for mom to hover.

We're both a little sunburned, with sore tootsies. Daniel had a blast, and finally got to ride the Superman roller coaster, after two separate 1 hour waits.

It was also good practice for the JDRF walk, which is next weekend!

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Upside Down


Picture, 4-24-08, Upside Down
Originally uploaded by NaomiPoet
When we went to the endocrinologist last week she had us switch Daniel's Lantus shot to the morning to try to combat some of his evening highs. What mostly seemed to happen in the few days after we switched was that he experienced morning highs instead.

Yesterday he was high all day. Too high. After dinner I was logging his numbers into the book and was grousing about the high numbers that day. My husband asked if perhaps Daniel was sneaking candy because he found Reese's wrappers in his trash can upstairs.

I didn't know, but I didn't think so, because he usually just tags one onto the end of a meal. But we asked him about it and he said, "no, I just think you have to raise my Lantus."

That's when I got a shiver, a cold sweat, and said, "Daniel, I don't think I gave you your Lantus this morning."

He said, "Sure you did, I even commented about where you were giving the shot."

I thought about it. Busy morning. Rush to get to the bus. Prepare lunches. Get Dominic's stuff organized because he had a field trip. Sign a couple of permission slips for Nora. No recollection of Lantus.

"That's why you are so high today. You had no Lantus. I did NOT give you a shot."

Then I got mad at myself for the rest of the night. The upshot is that we're going back to evening shots. Easier to plan for, easier to remember. But Daniel will have to test at 3:00 when he gets home from school to see if he is drifting high. We can handle that addition to the routine. But adding one more thing in the morning is over the top.

P.S., the sucky news I got today when I called my insurance company is that they never heard of Pelikan Sun technologies, so they won't cover the lancets for the new lancing device. Time to start a letter-writing campaign.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Taking the Good with the Not so Good

The good news:
Dominic does NOT have celiac, according to the blood test. Pizza is still on the menu.

Not so good:
Rain deluge+blocked gutter+blocked drain=water in basement. Hello out there, you rain makers? Can you try doing your rain-making thing in moderation next time?

Other news: We switched Daniel's lantus from evening to morning to see if it would clear out those dinner to evening highs. It has! The problem is, now he has breakfast to mid morning highs! I'll wait the full week to see if things change, but I have a feeling that this isn't working the way the endo had hoped.

Last news of the night: I'm taking a writing class, something to help improve the creative flow. At the first class my teacher, Candice, offered this lovely mind shift about writing. You have to think about going off to write as something wonderful, something like a great secret. Like an incredible love affair, or a vacation in paradise.

That notion has been stuck in my mind for the past 24 hours. It is delicious.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Practice will make perfect.... in time

I love this. This is Dominic breaking the board with his back kick and then losing balance.



However it was done... mission accomplished. Board broken!

Friday, April 18, 2008

Busy Week!!

Wow. It's been such a busy week. A couple of my co-workers were out this week, which makes it stressful in the office. Too much to do, too few people to do it, you know the drill. Kind of tough to get out of bed in the mornings!



Wednesday Dominic tested for and earned his green belt in karate. YAY!! At some point I'll upload a little video. Then I had yoga class, and we did some serious abs work. Lie on your back, legs up at 90 degrees, then lower to 45 degrees, breathe... breathe... lower slowly to the ground. SLOWLY! Over and over. I'm happy I didn't clunk to the ground, but I'm not holding it at 45 degrees as well as I used to. There's homework for me.

Thursday Daniel had his endo appointment in the morning. The pope was in DC and maybe that's the reason traffic was so awful! I'm glad we left early to go to the appointment; even though we were in the suburbs it seemed like everyone and their twelve cousins were on the road. AGH! Then, when we got to the office, it was just jammed with people. I was pleasantly surprised when we were called in only 8 minutes after appointment time.

Daniel's A1c was up a little to 7.3, but I expected as much with the highs he's been having lately. He has been getting consistently high around dinner/bed time. Today was a perfect example. His numbers were great today -- 72 breakfast, 104 after breakfast, 75 lunch, 110 after lunch, then 330 dinner. AGH! We decided to switch his lantus to a morning shot to see if that helps. So tonight is a round-the-clock testing/novolog night for us as we switch over the a morning shot.

Thursday afternoon I had my casting call for the new Emeril Lagasse show that will air on Planet Green (called Emeril Green). I met a totally cool woman named Hadley who read a prepared statement about the show, then turned on a camera and asked me a few questions about my cooking challenge (type 1 diabetes & celiac), about me, about a funny food story... she even got me to sing on camera so I probably totally screwed up any chance of them picking me (PICK ME!!! PICK ME!!!) but it was a lot of fun, in any case. If I do get picked, they would need me for 3 days. First they come to your house (GASP!) to do a little interview about your food issue. The next day you are filmed going shopping at Whole Foods to buy the ingredients for your food challenge. The next day you go to the Whole Foods demonstration kitchen & make the food. Or I guess Emeril makes it for you and you get to taste.

Hadley asked what would be the one food I'd like him to create, and I chose to-go foods. That is one of our most difficult things, and I tend to get in a rut about it. School lunches, packing to go on car trips, going to friends houses & needing gluten free food... Yeah, I can do it, but I think it all ends up the same. I'd like to introduce some variety.

So we'll see! They are sending out all the videotapes of the people interviewed to the production company for review next week, and I'll find out the week afterwards if I have been chosen.

PICK ME!

Thursday night was International Night at Nora's school. She chose to do a display on Saudi Arabia (with daddy's help). We brought along a bunch of stuff from our time there -- coffee pot, chicken basket, books, flag, head gear, and sheets on the alphabet. Matt was there to write people's names in Arabic, if they so desired. We brought dates to represent the food, although they were California dates. Not quite the same. Nora got to dress in a Kenyan outfit for the fashion show. Of course I forgot my camera. DUH! Dominic came with me and discovered that at the Israel display they were giving away Israeli chocolate treats. (Hummus and pita, too, but he turned his nose up at that.) I almost needed to hog-tie him to get him away from there!

Today at work the school nurse was out, along with quite a few other people in the office. We were a skeleton crew. I had to cover for the nurse today. Within the space of an hour I had one child crying over swollen glands (allergy attack), one with a nosebleed, one sporting a jammed thumb, and one with an itchy rash. After all that, monitoring the insulin shot for our one diabetic child was easy!!

Just after lunch Nora calls to say, "Can I go to the no-referral party after school today?" That's a party for kids who haven't gotten in trouble over the last grading period. "Sure," I reply.

"Okay. Then you need to bring a picnic blanket, a frisbee, and a snack when school is out."

WHAT? So much for getting my grocery shopping done before the kids get home.

Tonight I planned to make gluten free almond macaroons for Passover dinner at my mom's house tomorrow. I found a recipe that called for almond paste, egg whites, sugar, & almond extract. Pretty easy & all done in the cuisinart. I made the first batch and was well into the second batch when I went to count up the carbs from all the ingredients. That's when I saw on the almond paste box that it had wheat starch in it. I almost started to cry.

But I finished up the 2nd batch of cookies, went on line and found another recipe that called just for almond flour, confectioner's sugar, egg whites, vanilla (thanks, Martha Stewart) and made those. They turned out pretty good, and are 9.5 carbs each.

They're cooled off now, and it's time to put them away.

And tomorrow is another day.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Naomi needs meme

Okay, this is the meme that is floating around where you go to google and type in your name followed by "needs," so mine is "Naomi needs" and then write down the first 10 things that show up and respond. I think some of my google hits are hysterical because I share a first name with the not so well behaved Naomi Campbell.

1. Naomi needs a job, house, apartment, wife, husband...I could go on and on I would just seem real needy.

Okay. This one actually made some sense, in that I have been looking for a new job and have often thought that I could use a wife in addition to the husband I already have. He's wonderful, but he's not a wife. You know? And if I ended up with another house, I would hope it would be on a beach. So the new wife better be reaaalllly rich.

2. Naomi Needs Help.

Yeah. Always.

3. Naomi needs a Valium. Poor Naomi

Woo hoo! Gotta calm down! I guess google has figured out that I am a control freak and I need to relax a little! The yoga isn't working! HELP! (see #2).

4. naomi needs. takuan

Okay I wasn't quite sure what this was, so I clicked on it and it brought me to a Japan Today site where the first sentence was Naomi needs a spankee. It has been a long time since I have had a spankee, which I am defining as a cross between a spank and the hankee you need afterwards when you cry. If you ask my kids, I probably needed a spankee today. There's that old saying that my grandfather used to tell me: "Spank your children every day. If you don't know why, they will." The same could be applied to moms.

5. Naomi needs to be able to read an article and summarize the issues; Naomi needs to shut her pie hole and quit smacking people around

Gawd, and I was an English major -- poetry no less -- you'd think I could distill articles to their essense and then write about them instead of opening up my pie hole but life just doesn't work that way.

6. naomi needs to know how i feel about her trying to change me

I'm sorry. Naomi doesn't really care how you feel about her trying to change you. Just change. Naomi knows better.

7. Naomi needs to take some sort of anger management class.................A lengthy one

So anger is my outlet. It's creative as well as destructive. I smash the pottery and then create mosaics. Just don't walk barefoot in my house.

8. Naomi Needs Divorce from Irish Voice

I went to the judge to ask for a divorce from the Irish voice. He said I was crazy. The voice said Go n-ithe an cat thú is go n-ithe an diabhal an cat, and it's lucky the judge didn't hear or I might have been thrown in jail. So I'm stuck with this damned voice. Ah well. Meallan muilte Dé go mall ach meallan siad go mion..

9. Naomi needs to just STOP IT AND GROW UP!!!!!

I won't grow up! I don't want to go to school, just to learn to be a parrot and recite a silly rule!
If growing up means it would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree, I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up, Not me! Not I, not me!

10. Maybe Naomi needs to get together with Tyra and take a bit of aggression

I do have a friend named Tyra. How did google know? I'll have to give her a call. We can take a bit of aggression. We can take whatever aggression comes our way. Just be ready to deal with the consequences!

That's all, folks!

Monday, April 14, 2008

Raise Your Voice

Today is Type 1 Diabetes Awareness Day. Raise your voice!

We have been intimately aware of diabetes for almost a year now. A year ago -- lets see -- Daniel started complaining of needing the bathroom quite often. Having to get up a few times in the middle of the night. We didn't recognize the symptoms. We had no connection with Type 1 diabetes. Now I try to spread the word!!

Excessive thirst
Dramatic weight loss
Frequent urination
"Fruity" breath
Fatigue

These are all signs of Type 1 diabetes. Listen up! It's not like you have to have diabetes in the family to get this! It's seemingly random; we don't know what triggers it. But if you or your child has any of these symptoms, get to the doctor and get your blood sugar checked.

There is no cure for diabetes. It is a disease that needs to be managed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There are no breaks, no vacations. Diabetics and their parents are frequently up at all hours of the night checking blood sugars or correcting blood sugar highs and lows.

But thank goodness it can be managed. Insulin is not a cure, but with proper care and attention it can keep blood sugar levels in range, which helps to prevent a host of other problems like blindness, neuropathy, and heart issues, to name a few.

Diabetes is difficult. It is heartbreaking. I'm so thankful for the diabetes online community, which has saved my sanity more than once, and has offered love, support, suggestions, and surprise gifts to me over the last year. I don't know what I would have done without them, and I hope to be able to pay all this kindness forward to others who in the years to come will be looking for the same lifeline. Until we find a cure.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

The Amazing Sky


The amazing sky
Originally uploaded by NaomiPoet
When I was a kid I lived on the east coast of Florida for a short time. I have clear memories of amazing sunsets, and I would sit and count the colors in the sky -- blue, pink, green, purple, orange, gold. The dramatic turns of weather would cause achingly beautiful twists of light, my favorite being the bright sunset just after a dark thunderstorm.

Last night's sky reminded me of that. We had no pre-sunset storm. And here in the DC suburbs we rarely have dramatic sunsets. But on the drive home from Daniel's Coming of Age ceremony (that's another blog post) I was kicking myself that the camera was in my husband's car. I could barely perform such a mundane task as driving when surrounded by such beauty. By the time I got home & got the camera, the light was fading and all that remained of the glorious spectrum we had witnessed were the purples & pinks underneath the clouds. But there were wide fields of gold, streaks of clear green, and poppy-orange contrasting with the dark gray.

It was one of those moments when the magnificence of the natural world sweeps away the worries of the day. It puts life into perspective.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

He Does What He Wants

Dominic has some very definite ideas about things. He certainly is creative when it comes to utensils. Here he is eating his soup with a straw. Doesn't matter that the little bits of pasta & carrot fly up the straw at supersonic sucking speed only to be lodged in the back of his throat, precisely at the gag reflex spot. I think that only makes the experience more fun.

He eats his pancakes with a spatula. *sigh*

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Sychronicity

Warning: gross... but back when I had to worry about such things it seemed like all the gals at work and I would get our periods at the same time. Makes for a fun working environment, eh? Now I'm reading around blog land to find out that other people have experienced wacky high numbers in the past couple of days, just like Daniel!

Raise your hand if your numbers have been high! And quit being so nasty to me, I'm only trying to help! :) That's mom talkin'...

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Diabetes 101

This weekend my co-teacher Jenny and I chaperoned our 6th grade class overnight at church to prepare for our ceremony. I thought back to last year, the first time I chaperoned this event. The mom of one of my students came up to me and said, "Ellen has diabetes. This probably won't affect what happens tonight in any way. But just in case she passes out, here's some cake gel. Rub it on her gums and call me and I'll be here in 10 minutes. It's never happened before, but just in case."

I was dumbfounded. "Okay." I took the cake gel. I put it in my pocket, and made sure I knew where the notebook with all the emergency numbers was, and went on with the evening. Nothing out of the ordinary happened (except the girls wouldn't go to sleep).

The next morning I handed back the cake gel & told Ellen's mom that everything was fine.

One month later, Daniel was diagnosed. Now I'm the one handing out the cake gel.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

New Lancing Device


I just read about the Pelikan Technologies newfangled lancing device that is supposed to be painless, and the lanced fingers heal more quickly. My first reaction was, "I WANT THAT FOR DANIEL!" However, it's $200, and I don't know if our insurance will cover it. Or maybe they will say that they will cover it, then after we get it, refuse to pay for it. Because they have done things like that in the past. Thank you very little, Aetna. In any case, we see the endo in a couple of weeks, so I'll ask.

Anyway, check it out. It looks cool. And if fingers can heal, if they can be less scarred, that would be wonderful.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

My Laugh of the Day

Nora is rehearsing for the show “Bye Bye Birdie,” and the kids in the cast were all supposed to find telephones to use for their props for the telephone song. I don’t have any extra phones hanging around, so I ordered a cheap, old-fashioned rotary dial (wicked heavy) phone off of eBay. We actually plugged it in, and it works fine.

I thought that for the early rehearsals all Nora needed to bring in was the handset part. So I showed here where it unplugged.

“Oh,” she said, “if I take that out does it then go to speakerphone?”

That was my laugh of the day.