And a quarter goes by

I am about to depart on another work-related trip to India in the coming weeks and Justin reminded me a few days ago that I haven't blogged since I returned from my last trip. I have certainly thought about blogging quite a few times since then. There are those moments as a diabetic when you just want to "tell" someone whose probably been through the same thing. Fortunately for me, I am pretty much connected at the hip with my best friend, so when these situations happen, he's there. Then I get over it. Then life goes on, I get busy and I three months goes by before I write another post. Things I've learned or realized over the past three months:

I don't like it when my endocrinologist is pissed off at me.
I probably have "teacher's pet" syndrome or something, but sometimes I feel like my doctor is my teacher and every three months I take this test that I really want to do well on. I know that's not the right way to think about that whole dynamic, but sometimes I can't help but feel that way. So you can imagine my anguish when I had to have her paged on a Saturday night at 9pm because all my insulin prescriptions expired (happy 1 yr anniversary) and my lantus had decided to konk out on me. I was in Michigan, so it was actually midnight for me and Justin's family at a 24-hr pharmacy trying to figure out what to do. I didn't want to wait until Monday, but even worse, I didn't like the feeling of not being able to get something I needed. I was reminded of this incident a few weeks later when I watched Wordplay and heard Jon Stewart say..."Could I go a day without doing the crossword? I mean, it's not insulin or anything, but..." Anyway, let's just say doctor was not happy about being paged on a Saturday night and I don't think she understood my situation. I didn't run out of insulin...I just gathered enough evidence to realize it stopped working. She said she was "very very scared for me" and that we should talk about this. I'm kind of dreading my next appointment (also getting my cholesterol tested) and hope this ends up falling in the "not a big deal" category because I'm usually an A student.

Being responsible for another life is a big deal.
When things go wrong, I tend to find a way to blame myself. This could be a positive characteristic because it means I take responsibility for things and feel like many things are within my control, but I end up working hard emotionally to get over the guilt. I've never had anything depend on me for everything and that's what Lucy does. She depends on me to keep her safe even though she isn't smart enough to realize a lot of things...such as how dangerous it is to jump off a 5 foot ledge and then run into the street. Or how she shouldn't eat Styrofoam packing even though it looks very enticing blowing in the wind. It's a horrible feeling to think for a split second, that this puppy you've raised so diligently for the last 7 months, this puppy whom you've invested so many hours of trainings, dollars and emotions is just about to be hit by a car. And the situation was entirely in your hands.

I love pilates and it loves me back.
I've found a workout routine / studio that I really enjoy. My latest a1c went down from 6.6 to 6.3 and I attribute it to consistently working out (and taking insulin in a more timely fashion after I eat carbs). It continues to amaze me how much easier it is to have good blood sugars if I exercise.

Idaho should remove "the potato state" from their license plates.
I visited the midwest (Chicago and East Lansing) and Sun Valley for the first time in the last few weeks. I really enjoyed both trips and it opened my mind a bit that there could be places I may like to live outside of the bay area and NY. Sun Valley was very beautiful and picturesque, even though it was burning down while we were there.