The Game

Congratulations! You have been randomly selected to play. Here’s your first question:

Predict the amount of insulin you need for breakfast today.

To make it easy, we’ll show you a graph using the latest technology for the exact same breakfast at the exact same time with the exact same insulin dose for the past two days:



Take your best guess….You’re wrong! You’re always wrong! But, you do receive a consolation prize: blurred vision, irritability, nausea, rapid heartbeat, shakiness, confusion, fainting, etc, etc. Plus, at no extra cost, you’re automatically entered into our grand prize drawing for blindness, amputations, kidney failure, and a host of other disorders.

By the way, there’s an admission fee for this game. Depending on your insurance coverage, anywhere from several hundred to several thousand dollars per year.

What’s that? You don’t wan’t to play? That’s too bad, because according to our rules, you have to. You will never win, you will never break even, and you can never, ever, quit.

Time to proceed to the next round: correction or lunch. Again to help you out, here’s your last week of BG numbers:



Have fun!

Diabetes Hall of Shame, Vol 1 -- and the book meme

I was surfing the OC at lunch yesterday and found this link on DiabetesMine

Amy’s comment on it was “Forbes reports: better treatments available, but the health care system falls short.” That sounded interesting, so I went to the page and read the article. As I did, I got more and more angry. The post is about Type 2 diabetes, although it never mentions there are two types nor that genetics play a role, and ended with the asinine quote "If you stay lean and fit throughout your life, you have a 95 percent chance of never getting diabetes," he said. "It's almost entirely preventable." From Dr. Robert Rizza, a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic and president of the American Diabetes Association, of all people. [emphasis mine]

I assumed that his quote was taken out of context, but still wrote out the following comment and sent it via their “comments” link:

"Diabetes" is not preventable
As a "lean and fit" person with Type 1 (formerly called juvenile) diabetes I found your article ignorant to the point of insult. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease having nothing to with weight, eating habits, or exercise. People with Type 1 must inject themselves with insulin daily to stay alive. There is absolutely nothing that can be done to prevent or alleviate Type 1 diabetes. Your article was about Type 2 diabetes, but you did not make any mention of this. And even though weight and inactivity are contributing factors to Type 2 diabetes, the are not the sole cause of it, and there are fit, active people with Type 2 because they have a genetic predisposition for it. [asswipe]

OK, so the grammar isn’t the greatest, but I was mad. And, of course, I didn’t add the “asswipe” but you can bet I thought it. I have gotten increasingly impatient with the blame-the-victim attitude found in almost all news reports, and this one didn’t even do the token “There are two types of diabetes…” sentence. I’m normally a fairly quiet person and don’t really enjoy calling attention to myself but now I am urging anyone who reads this to please follow the link and add your own comments to the editor….


And now for something completely different – Julia’s book meme. A disclaimer – I am a compulsive reader who has been know to read the toothpaste tube every morning if I can find no other reading material in the bathroom….


Instructions: Bold the ones you've read. Italicize the ones you've been wanting/might like to read. ??Place question marks by any titles/authors you've never heard of?? Plus I'm adding this, as Turtlebella noted that the choice of books by each author is a mite idiosyncratic: put an asterisk if you've read something else by the same author.

*Allcott, Louisa May Little Women
*Allende, Isabel The House of Spirits (also about half in Spanish)
*Angelou, Maya I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
*Atwood, Margaret Cat's Eye
Austen, Jane Emma
??Bambara, Toni Cade Salt Eaters??
??Barnes, Djuna Nightwoodde??
Beauvoir, Simone The Second Sex
*Blume, Judy Are You There God? It's Me Margaret
*Burnett, Frances The Secret Garden
Bronte, Charlotte Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily Wuthering Heights
Buck, Pearl S. The Good Earth
Byatt, A.S. Possession
Cather, Willa My Antonia
Chopin, Kate The Awakening
*Christie, Agatha Murder on the Orient Express
??Cisneros, Sandra The House on Mango Street??
Clinton, Hillary Rodham Living History
??Cooper, Anna Julia A Voice From the South??
??Danticat, Edwidge Breath, Eyes, Memory??
??Davis, Angela Women, Culture, and Politics??
??Desai, Anita Clear Light of Day??
*Dickinson, Emily Collected Poems
*Duncan, Lois I Know What You Did Last Summer
DuMaurier, Daphne Rebecca
Eliot, George Middlemarch
??Emecheta, Buchi Second Class Citizen??
*Erdrich, Louise Tracks
Esquivel, Laura Like Water for Chocolate
Flagg, Fannie Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
Friedan, Betty The Feminine Mystique
Frank, Anne Diary of a Young Girl
??Gilman, Charlotte Perkins The Yellow Wallpaper??
??Gordimer, Nadine July's People??
*Grafton, Sue S is for Silence
Hamilton, Edith Mythology
Highsmith, Patricia The Talented Mr. Ripley
??hooks, bell Bone Black??
*Hurston, Zora Neale ust Tracks on the Road
??Jacobs, Harriet Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl??
*Jackson, Helen Hunt Ramona
*Jackson, Shirley The Haunting of Hill House
Jong, Erica Fear of Flying
Keene, Carolyn The Nancy Drew Mysteries
Kidd, Sue Monk The Secret Life of Bees
Kincaid, Jamaic “Lucy
*Kingsolver, Barbara The Poisonwood Bible*
??Kingston, Maxine Hong The Woman Warrior??
??Larsen, Nella–Passing??
*L'Engle, Madeleine “A Wrinkle in Time
*Le Guin, Ursula K. The Left Hand of Darkness
Lee, Harper To Kill a Mockingbird
*Lessing, Doris The Golden Notebook
??Lively, Penelope Moon Tiger??
??Lorde, Audre The Cancer Journals??
Martin, Ann M. The Babysitters Club Series
*McCullers, Carson The Member of the Wedding
McMillan, Terry Disappearing Acts
??Markandaya, Kamala Nectar in a Sieve??
??Marshall, Paule Brown Girl, Brownstones??
Mitchell, Margaret Gone with the Wind
Montgomery, Lucy Maude Anne of Green Gables
??Morgan, Joan When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost??
*Morrison, Toni Song of Solomon
??Murasaki, Lady Shikibu The Tale of Genji??
*Munro, Alice Lives of Girls and Women
Murdoch, Iris Severed Head
??Naylor, Gloria Mama Day??
??Niffenegger, Audrey The Time Traveller's Wife??
*Oates, Joyce CaroleWe Were the Mulvaneys
*O'Connor, Flannery A Good Man is Hard to Find
??Piercy, Marge Woman on the Edge of Time??
??Picoult, Jodi My Sister's Keeper??
Plath, Sylvia The Bell Jar
Porter, Katharine Anne Ship of Fools
Proulx, E. Annie The Shipping News
Rand, Ayn The Fountainhead
Ray, Rachel 365: No Repeats
Rhys, Jean Wide Sargasso Sea
??Robinson, Marilynne Housekeeping??
??Rocha, Sharon For Laci??
Sebold, Alice The Lovely Bones
Shelley, Mary Frankenstein
Smith, Betty A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Smith, Zadie White Teeth
Spark, Muriel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Spyri, Johanna Heidi
Strout, Elizabeth Amy and Isabelle
*Steel, Danielle The House
*Tan, Amy The Joy Luck Club
??Tannen, Deborah You're Wearing That??
Ulrich, Laurel A Midwife's Tale
??Urquhart, Jane Away??
*Walker, Alice The Temple of My Familiar
*Welty, Eudora One Writer's Beginnings
Wharton, Edith Age of Innocence
*Wilder, Laura Ingalls Little House in the Big Woods
*Wollstonecraft, Mary A Vindication of the Rights of Women (is this a trick question – isn’t this Mary W Shelley above?)
Woolf, Virginia A Room of One's Own