Diabetic Christmas came early

Curtis had just walked out of my office to check on something when my cell phone let out its alarming "Cat Party" ring. I didn't recognize the number and considered not answering it since I thought Curtis would be back soon and we could finish upgrading this server. But on a whim I answered and it totally made my day. On the other end of the line was my Minimed representative calling to check on the status of my insulin pump. He reminded me my pump warranty was expired and it was time to get a new one (really? so soon?). I told him I had just talked to my endocrinologist a few weeks earlier and was interested in upgrading to the Paradigm pump that talks to a continuous glucose monitor (CGM).

He asked what kind of insurance I had and how long I had been diabetic. He asked for my most recent HbA1C rating and if I could sense my low blood sugars. And then he said he could send me a new pump and the continuous glucose monitor as early as next week. It was that fast. I had told myself this was going to be a battle with the Insurance Giants and I was going to have to write a dozen letters or pay a lot of money out of pocket to get the kind of blood sugar control I've been wanting for a long time now but all of a sudden he just told me I have "the right" insurance company and it's not a problem.

I felt the need to ramble to him and justify why I wanted the CGM. My A1C was 7.1 this last time but I would like to have it lower. Somewhere in there I said, "and if I wanted to get pregnant I would want that number to be lower." My rep suddenly blurted out, "Oh! Well, I'll be sure to put down that you're trying to get pregnant because then the insurance should cover your sensors. They should cover a 30 day supply of sensors every ... 30 days, I think." My mind quickly did the math of $35 per sensor times 10 sensors in a month.

Oh yes, we'll be "trying to get pregnant" if that means I don't have to pay for sensors. In fact, my husband works at the same office I do, so we could start trying right now if that would get the insulin pump, CGM and first 30 day supply of sensors delivered by Monday. I'm not sure if some savvy person at the insurance office will realize they're reimbursing both my birth control pills and the sensors in the same month, but I doubt those departments talk to each other. Ideally, just wanting more control should be reason enough itself.

Cat versus bird

Whenever I get home I'm amazed at the cats. I think they spend the entire day in bed keeping up with the sunbeam through the window. After a long day, I could be quite envious of a cat. When my mother was married to her first husband (early 1960s), her young brother-in-law came to stay with them for the weekend. Her husband's brother was much younger (a change of life baby perhaps?) so he was about 9 or so at the time.

My mother asked Richard what he wanted for breakfast and he declared he wanted cookies. Mom patiently told him cookies were not on the breakfast menu and that he could have waffles or eggs or cereal or oatmeal or any number of things other than cookies. No, he wanted cookies. She told him that she was going to make some breakfast for herself and maybe he would think of something he wanted.

After a bit, Richard asked her, "if you could be any animal what animal would you want to be?". Mom considered for a moment and said she thinks she'd like to be a house cat because they don't have a lot of cares in the world and don't have to worry about money and can sleep all day.

Richard sat silently for a few minutes and then declared that if he could be any animal, he would be an eagle. Mom asked him why that was and he said, "because nobody tells eagles what to do." Well, alright then. I suppose eagles could also have cookies for breakfast if they wanted.

As we begin preparations for Thanksgiving while all the hubbub of Christmas looms, I think about my mother's desires to live as a house cat. It seems like there are so many items on our collective "to do" lists, I'd welcome the chance to just follow a sunbeam across the bed. Cats and eagles really aren't all that different, I suppose. An eagle may force the issue and defy anyone who might try to take his food from him. But if other house cats are anything like ours, they will just ignore you when you tell them they can't crawl in that cabinet or have the left over cereal milk and they still manage to have a pretty stress-free life.

I'm enjoying this house cat mantra of just doing what I want by setting my own agenda and not letting other people stress me out. And for all I know the cats may have cookies for breakfast after we've left for work.

Making the best out of a beard situation

This section of Rich's beard is one of my favorite things about him. He grows hair fast. Shave twice a day in basic training kind of fast. 5 o'clock shadow by lunch kind of fast. So a lot of the time I complain about his scratchy beard. He looks best to me clean-shaved and if he decides to sport a goatee, I claim he's been replaced by the evil twin version of himself - the Flexo to my lovable Bender.

But this one section of his beard is so fantastic. See how it's all swirly? It's like there's a hurricane of hair that's been working its way up his jawline and is about to make landfall on his earlobe. Oh no! Board up your houses, right ear townsfolk! Stock up on tiny little loaves of bread and 1/100 gallons of milk!

I just like to come up next to him and make stormy swooshing noises.