Lil' Dean Fam

We've had an amazing year in 2013 and here are the top 13!  At the bottom is our Christmas letter. 1. Skiing at Solitude in January This was seriously my favorite day of skiing ever.  The kids did such a good time their first day on skis.  Great memories.  2. Jazz games in February Colin and I were lucky enough to attend three Jazz games this season.   3. Evan turns five, March 4. Playing with cousins I was fortunate enough to watch my sister's kids a few days a week.  It was such a fun time for the kids to play together.   5. Woman of Steel, May This was my second triathlon.  I did this one with my friend Lydia and it was such a blast!   6. Tour de Cure, June Justin rode this 25 mile tour with me to help raise money for diabetes.  Together we raised quite a bit of money and had such a fun time training together and riding.  Thanks again to all who donated!   7. Clegg Reunion Santee La...

It was such an honor and truly an awesome time to ride in this year's Tour de Cure in Brigham City, Utah.  The American Diabetes Association puts this ride on in cities across America each summer.  This is my first time participating in the ride and it was really, really great!  I am SO GLAD that I decided, even though last minute, to participate.  I signed up for the ride less than a month before it was held and was able to raise $210 for diabetes research.  Many of you know that I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes (insulin dependent) in my early twenties.  And guess what?  I didn't get this disease by eating too much sugar!  Nope, my pancreas just pooped out on me as the result of a virus from a simple sore throat.  Researchers are working VERY HARD on finding ways to improve the lives of those who suffer with diabetes and I believe that there will be a cure some day.  So, that's why I rode.  Because I hate having diabetes, and ...

In 2 short weeks, my brother and I will be riding in the American Diabetes Association's Tour de Cure.  We have been training hard for this 25 mile ride and we're pretty excited to do it together.  Thank you so much to everyone who has donated already.  We lack just a little more than $150 to reach our ultimate goal.  Please stop by and donate if you can!  Thanks so much! https://donations.diabetes.org/site/SPageServer?pagename=TC_Tour2012_PC2_A https://donations.diabetes.org/site/SPageServer?pagename=TC_Tour2012_PC2_A

November is Diabetes Awareness Month.  I want to be more involved than I was last year, and build on that each year.  I've participated in the National Blogging Month NaBoPoMo challenge on my family blog before.  I doubt I'll be able to blog all 30 days but if you think that you can blog about your health each month, here's a place where you can receive a prompt.  I'm going to give it a shot.  I'll see how close I get.  Maybe I'll commit to one per week.   Diabetes is an illness which affects almost 26 million people globally.  I was diagnosed with Type 1 in 2001.  It's a challenge in my every day life.  It is manageable, but there is so much more which can be done.  In an effort to raise awareness (this is Diabetes AWARENESS month after all) I've decided to point you in the direction of a few ways you too can participate.   Firstly, you can log a Big Blue Test here.   You test your blood sugar, exercise and test aga...

I've decided to start a new Diabetes blog.  This way my diabetes posts will be separate for those who are interested and the family posts will still be here.   I've been blogging since early 2006. At first I was over on some weird myspace-like site but then I quickly switched to blogger. I've been here since October, 2006. I love blogger and have enjoyed keeping our family journal of pictures and activities there. From time to time I'll blog about Diabetes. Recently, I've been introduced to the Diabetes Online Community (DOC) and although I follow many diabetics on twitter, I am only occasionally able to meet up for the weekly DSMA twitter chat. I've noticed that many tweeters are also Diabetes Bloggers. I thought I'd give it a shot and maybe focus more of my thoughts about diabetes on this site. If you'll bare with me, I'd like to transfer my OLD diabetes posts over to this blog. And, away we go! Be sure to add me to your RSS!

 Tomorrow, Monday, November, 14, 2011 is World Diabetes Day.  I'm not sure if Google will be doing a special doodle for that day but check and see!  Usually if you click on the doodle, you'll find information about the special day.  The day is meant to raise awareness about Diabetes.  I've written on my blog a handful of times about diabetes.  You can link to all of those posts by scrolling to the bottom of my blog and clicking on the "label" diabetes.  The condition has effected my life in many ways.  Most days, however, I don't really think about it much.  I thought that for WDD I'd write the story of my diagnosis.  I don't think I've ever done that before, forgive me if I have.  Many people ask me how I found out I had it, or how old I was when I was diagnosed.  So, here's the story.  I will warn you though, that some of the details are a little bit TMI so there's your warning! In late April of 2001 I started having ...

I visited with my diabetes doctor a few months ago and after talking about some of the issues I'd been having with controlling my blood sugars and losing weight, we decided to try a new drug for a trial period.  The drug is called Symilin and it replaces the hormone Amalin that your pancreas makes.  Most people know that your pancreas makes insulin and it is common practice to use as a treatment for diabetics, really, it's the only treatment Type 1 diabetics use.  There are several different types of insulin patients use but most don't use an amalin replacement.  From what I understand, Symilin does three different things.  1. it makes digestion slower 2. it makes the insulin you take more effective and 3. it makes you feel full. So, at the beginning of May, I decided to try Symilin for 6-8 weeks.  Symilin doses start at 15 and then go up to 60.  For a new user, you take 15 micrograms and then after 3 days without nausea, you can increase by another ...

From time to time, a good, in-control diabetic, can have a unexplained roller coaster of blood sugars. This week I experienced one that lasted much longer and had different attributes than any other I've experienced.  It was so strange that I just have to blog about it.  This is my roller coaster. For those who aren't diabetic or familiar with normal numbers, I should be right around 100. For me, anything in the 80-140 range is pretty normal- and considered good blood sugars. (Narrative below)  date  time       sugar 4-10 9:37 am 305 4-10 12:12pm 73 4-10 4:56 pm 199 4-10 9:52 pm 346 4-11 7:52 am 360 4-11 10:57 am 166 4-11 12:40 pm 313 changed my site 4-11 2:34 pm 260 4-11 3:35 pm 231 4-11 4:57 pm 176 4-11 10:07 pm 197 4-12 7:43 am 294 4-12 11:23 am 373 changed bottle of insulin, kept same site 4-12 1:47 pm 322 4-12 2:50 pm 238 4-12 4:21 pm 213 felt quite low at dinner, didn't check but guessed it was in the 50...

Did you know that November is National Blog Posting Month (NaBoPoMo )? It is also National Novel Writing Month, and National Diabetes Awareness Month . So... what to blog about? Well, I'm not a Novel Writer, so that's out. I do have diabetes, but that's no fun to blog about, most days. On this blog, I'm making a goal to blog about one thing I'm grateful for each day in the month of November. On my other blog, I'm making a goal to blog each day this month about my diet and exercise. Today, I'm grateful for fall weather!  I got out and mowed my lawn today.  I also walked the kids to school.  It was wonderful weather.  Definitely a day to be outside.  Fall isn't too long in Utah, so I'm enjoying it while it lasts. 

This isn't a post about motherhood. My 8th year diabetic diagnosis anniversary was a couple of weeks ago. I've been thinking lately of how that diagnosis has changed my life. I think maybe I'll just write it out in list form so that it isn't a mumbled jumble of thoughts. These are in no particular order. Diabetes has changed my life in that, it has: - made me have to go to the doctor a lot more I see the doctor every three months. I have to have my A1C taken every three months when I visit the diabetes doctor. I have to have "routine" (as in routine for diabetic) blood work at least every other year. I have to have a foot exam at least every year. I have to get a flu shot every year. During my pregnancies, I had to visit the diabetes doctor more frequently, every three weeks on average. I had to see the ObGyn more often than regular women. I also had to see a specialist at least once or twice per trimester. During the 4 weeks of pregnancy I had to ha...

My friend Robyn does a fitness blog and she invited me to guest post this week. I wrote "10 tips for going sugar-free" . Its very related to the fact that I have diabetes, but the tips are great for anyone who is looking to go low-carb or even just cut out some extra calories. So check it out! Check out her fitness blog too! I've been thinking of some good diabetes posts that I need to do soon also, so stay tuned.

So my blood sugars have gotten a bit out of control lately. Waking up high several mornings in a row- random high and low sugars, etc (see green in the graph above). I decided it was time to put the CGM on for a while. On Wednesday of this week my sugars went like this: 6 am: 130 - okay normal 12 pm: 80- wonderful 4 pm: 256- arg 9 pm: 405! what?! So I had my sensor in that day but it ended at lunch and I didn't feel like starting it up again because it had kept me up in the night for 2 nights in a row beeping every 40 minutes to tell me my sugar was high- 305! I was hoping to sleep well this night so I was just going to start it back up in the morning. Well, apparently that was a bad idea because when I changed my site around 5pm I guess that's what gave me the dramatic high. So I bloused 9.5 units and then changed my site. When I pulled it out it looked fine- so I'm sure that's just a wasted site- arg. I've been having this problem when I change to a new site that ...

Colin and I are excited to be a part of the 2008 tri -county Walk to Cure Diabetes. We walked last year and had a really great time. The walk will be held at Wheeler Farm on Saturday, August 23. Registration begins at 8:30am and the 5K walk will start at 9:30am. Our goal last year was $100 and we earned that amount in a little less than a week. On walk day, we had surpassed our goal by 20%. I've decided to double that goal this year and we are well on our way to accomplishing it. Thanks to those who have already donated and registered for the walk. It should be a lot of fun. I know that most of my readers are also on my extensive email list, so I apologize for the repetition , I just wanted to get the word out and I thought that this would be another great way to do that. Thanks! If you would like to join this year's walk please follow this link. http://walk.jdrf.org/walker.cfm?id=87032163 If you would like to donate money to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, please...

If anyone is interested in joining us in the tri-county Walk to Cure Diabetes, here is all of the information. The walk will be held on Saturday the 23rd of August. Walk begins at 9:30 am. It will be held at the Wheeler Historic Farm. The distance is a 5K. I am a team captain for the team I've called "Dean Team". If you're in the area and would like to join our walking team, click on this link: http://walk.jdrf.org/register.cfm?id=87032163 Last year we joined last-minute and were able to raise a little over our $100 goal. This year I've set our goal at $200. I will put up information later on how to donate. For now, we're just looking at making our team of walkers.

So last night was pretty scary as it goes for diabetes. I had the highest high I've ever had since the day I was diagnosed (actually it was higher last night). So here were the events leading up to this high. I hadn't gotten much rest on Wednesday night because Evan had decided he wanted to stay up all night long. I started feeling pretty tired and kinda ill. So I laid down and then I decided I'd get ready for bed. I checked my sugar and it read "HI". That's bad. So I checked again and got the same reading. Well, since I didn't exactly know how high "hi" was, I decided to try to bolus about 9 units. I guzzled a bunch of water down and went back to bed. While lying there, I checked on my site and realized that it had completely come out. So, I wasn't getting any insulin. That's bad on a normal night, but this particular night I had decided to get a mango drink at Taco Bell to go with my dinner (free coupons online btw ). I usually NEVER ea...

As of yesterday, (again a day late and a dollar short) I've had diabetes for seven years! Can you believe it's been that long?! It sure doesn't seem like that long to me. Seven years is a long time. I remember that when I was diagnosed that I made the decision to make diabetes be a way of forced good health. I knew that I would have to eat healthy, exercise, and do all of the things everyone should do anyway. I felt that my reason to live a healthy life was chosen for me. I went information crazy and tried to learn as much as I could about diabetes. I printed out hundreds of pages off the Internet and read them, highlighted things, put them into a binder. I was really craving to know as much as I could. Things started off rocky for me, as is the case for a lot of newly diagnosed diabetics. But, I had a good doctor and a GREAT nurse who tried to get my insulin dosages correct. She would call me twice a week to go over blood sugars and insulin dosages. About a year after bei...

Today I had my tri -weekly (every third week) visit with Dr. Day at the Diabetes Management center . He is my favorite doctor ever. His personality and mine couldn't be more different (this man is my polar opposite) but for some reason, that works for me as a diabetes doc. Anyway, I had my HbA 1C taken today and it was .................(drum roll)................ 5.2 !!! This is as good, if not better than a non-diabetic person's. So, I've talked about an A1c before, but for those of you who aren't familiar with this diabetes lingo- it is basically a two-month average of blood sugar (Web MD link). Anything under 7% is considered normal. So, I'm pretty proud of myself. Overall though, a good A1c means I'll be healthier in the long-run, have less long-term complications that come with diabetes, and have a healthy baby during this pregnancy. I'm pretty excited. I even did better than one of the nurses in the office who gave me a hard time a while ago. I had ...

Well, I've had the sensor for a week now and have just started my second site for it. So far I think it is working pretty well. The only complaint that I have is that it is keeping me up at night. Almost all night long it's beeping at me and telling me that my sugar is high, or my sugar is low. I guess that is good because then my sugar can be more even during the nighttime as well. However, I was starting to get quite sleep deprived. Last night the sensor ended and so I took it out. I decided to leave it out for a night and wait until this afternoon to re-connect. I am really glad that I did too because I went to bed at 9:00pm with a BG of 140. I woke up at 6:00am with a BG of 96. I'll see Dr. Day on Monday so he can have a lot of sensor data to look at. I think this will really help my sugars during this pregnancy. I was really proud of myself for the first three days because my glucose graph was almost a perfectly straight line, I was really excited about that. Right now...

I got a phone call at work today that wasn't work related. I think that's happened about twice in my life. Anyway, it was Minimed calling to tell me that my insurance had approved me for the Continuous Glucose Monitoring Sensor (CGM)that goes with my pump! I am so excited I can hardly stand it. The sensor its self is relatively inexpensive at about $1000. The kicker is that the senors you have to change out (every 2 to 10 days)cost $30. each. That can get pretty expensive- $90 to $450 per month. The best part of it all is that my insurance covered me 100%! Minimed told me that my balance is zero. They are overnighting the sensor to my doctors office and it will be there tomorrow. I'll have to get trained on how to use it and everything but it should be up and working early next week. Yea! If you're wondering what it looks like or how it works, click on the hyperlink "sensor" above.

We are finally making our big news public. We're expecting our second baby! We are all really excited and Ryan is quite unaware of what's going on, although we do tell him about it. He's too young to understand I guess. The baby is due March 29, 2008. I'm hoping to have it around 38 weeks. I am currently 12 weeks pregnant and looking forward to the first trimester being over. I haven't been really sick, so I'm lucky that way. I have been quite tired so it's been nice that I only work in the mornings, I sometimes sneak in a nap while Ryan is down for his. My blood-sugar has been excellent (14 day avg. 118, A1C 5.9). I've already been to the OB twice as well as the Diabetic Specialist. Both doctors are happy with the way things are going. We had the baby's heart rate measured today and it was 155 beats per minute, exactly the same as what Ryan's was at this point in the pregnancy. Colin thinks the baby is a boy because there are some obvious simila...