You too can go to India with your insulin pump.

The title for this post is a working book title from a dear Divabetic friend of mine who traveled to India and decided she wanted to compile a book of diabetic anecdotes, stories, and general hilariousness surrounding experiences with this often crappy, lifelong battle with disease.

Here are some of my stories:

"Hi!" my glucose meter says cheerfully to me, like we haven't seen each other in weeks and have been having a sensational substituted relationship with each other's voicemail boxes. Ok, my meter doesn't actually speak, but the technology cannot be that far off. And, sadly when my meter does say HI, it spells it wrong (high) and it means I have not been taking care of myself.

The above picture is me and my pod. My pod prefers it's formal name though: Insulet Corporation Omnipod, a new wireless insulin pump system that allows you to be catheter-tube-free and receive all the benefits of 24-hour access to your life-sustaining medications, and it's waterproof, swim and shower away my dears!

I like the nickname "pod" this comes in handy when you are wearing it on your abdomen and in Thailand receiving a $4 massage and the practitioner exclaims "what this!? Is ok?" and I reply "Oh that, it's my ipod, you know for music." There is really no where else to go with this conversation so the massage continues, discretely avoiding a generous perimeter around the pod, and quiet questioning exchanges from my masseuse to my friend's masseuse next to me. Meanwhile my friend is laughing and likely missing out on her own abdominal massage.

Two things: truly the ipod markets can't be that far off from invasively inserting the hordes with internal music devices that send wave signals though your interstitial fluid straight to your inner cochlea and with a simple twitch or click of the tongue you can fully adjust your playlist or volume! [By the way I now officially have a medical alert ipod shuffle that was inscribed by Forest: Jane Silver / Type 1 Diabetic, which was ridiculously sweet of him, and now as a healthcare professional I will always look to an unconscious person's ipod for medical information!] Second thing, the diabetic devices department of any pharmaceutical research company is ever on the lookout for the next absolute coolest way to manage every aspect of your diabetes. So much so, in fact, that is widely known that diabetes medicine and supplies tops the charts for pharmaceutical funding in the United States, which means one very flooring, very serious, very sad reality: there is no monetary incentive to work for the cure for diabetes when all this money can be made simply palliating the struggle.

I'd rather have a brand spanking new insulin producing system installed in my pancreas please! I love my pancreas, I do, goddess bless it for all that it does do, and for not petering out until I was 17, I still remember birthday cakes and halloween candy! I also take on the philosophy that diabetes can be truly fantastic for you if you let it. Counting calories is so 90's anyway, let's all count carbs together! And fiber and simple sugars and protein. Diabetes re-directs you every time to a healthier diet and lifestyle. I have recently taken on a triathlon-a-day exercise program for myself: hahah, well this means I run with my dog in the mornings, commute to class and clinical on my bike and swim laps at the university gym in the evenings. But hey, that is sooo good for me, and I love it. Endorphins are a gorgeous bonus too.

That's the word on me, my pod and the diabetes we share.

ps. and, yes, I am bringing back the fanny pack.

I caught my first baby today!

Ok, now that the title has no doubt grabbed you--be forewarned that this post may indeed come across as a smidge gratuitous...


First things first, yes today I did catch a baby, my very first. Today my clinical nursing group had a lab for our OB studies. One station was "the birth" where a simulation mannequin births a sim-baby. Each patient has real pulses and can make real sounds, pretty cool nursy-techy stuff really. And, well among the group of us, someone had to be the baby-catcher. So there I was, and it was a little scary and very very exciting, even if everything was rubbery and bolted together.


Now, onto more thought-provoking matters of the vagina...


This glorious quote comes to mind: My Vagina Is Under-utilized.


A great friend said this to me one evening in Thailand, and later I experienced first hand what that might entail. In Bangkok there is an infamous event that is referred to as a Ping-Pong Show. Those who are proper, avid Tom Robbins' readers may be familiar--this was my source of course (Villa Incognito). But, as suspected this was certainly something to be seen to be believed. So I will leave out many a detail so that those interested may get the full experience for themselves one day. Though, as another dear friend said: Jane, I wouldn't go see a ping-pong show much like a wouldn't support zoos. Word.


What I do want to share with you all here is the amazingness that is the vagina. Apparently women (possibly only a select few) can extract a collection of razors, or open a glass Coke bottle, or indeed shoot ping-pong balls into a target (or sometimes the audience..) all with their vaginas! But I noticed something else, something very interesting among these women. The first couple of talented ladies had obvious Caesarean birth scars on their lower abdomens. I thought, oh no, I hope these ping-pong artists are not choosing a surgical birth for the sake of their demanding professions! The theory that your vagina never returns to normal after a vaginal birth is about to be further debunked with this rather unique example: as lo and behold the remainder of the vagicians had no surgical birth scars in combination with unequivocal evidence of a birth (stretchmarks and the post-delivery belly). I was so excited... that these women were using their vaginas to the utmost potential, taking on a great challenge and making a living off of their fantatic tissue integrity. It was a very rewarding ethnographical study to be sure.


There are no pictures to accompany this posting. Now that would be inappropriate.


Hmm, I think vagicians™ might be my new favorite word... I hereby coin it. Can I do that?

Yum!

...ah the myriad culinary delights of the greater southeast asian circuit.

Collage

starting out in bangkok

balinese bartender santa (hahah, these are way out of order)

brunei jetty to the jungle

indian santa in kuala lumpur. he told me santa was outsourcing.

butterfly garden in singapore

mobile phone ad in papua new guinea

this smiley man is holding a tiny baby wild boar (ready for eatin' ma is being handled by the guy with the arms)

guadalcanal in the solomons is doused in oil

a blond boy in honiara, solomon islands

aboriginal art in the making in darwin, outback

east timor chap selling cheap and delicious bananas

folks oozing out of a minibus in dili, east timor

proudly flying the gold star communist flag into hualong bay, vietnam

and a cheeky puppet face in the burma market