turkey talk

Friday, January 09, 2009

Taking Diabetes class


It was really pretty last night with the moon shining down like a flash light zooming in on my house and the yard around it. It was a little cool, but not too bad. The Christmas lights are all gone on our street and the feel of the street is somewhat different. I guess you would say quieter and subdue. I have been taking diabetes classes at our local hospital Bert Fish. Yesterday was my second time. It is kind of cool, like a secret society of people who meet on the third floor in the conference room. Yesterday we got a short film on TV by the American Diabetes Association on the basics "What is Diabetes?" The lady in the center of the story says "Who me?" "I feel fine." We had a question and answer session with a map set up to look like the game "Candy Land." Plus there was a multiple choice written quiz at the beginning which I got about 4 or 5 answers wrong. Things I thought might be the right answers weren't the right answers at all. They were something else. I carried along my test kit which I received during my first meeting which turned out I didn't need. I was given The One Touch mini in a lime green color. I was told I needed to get refills on test strips and what is called lancets. The lancets are the short needles used to draw blood from the finger to put on the test strips. The instant the test strip receives the blood a number reading appears on the One Touch Ultra Mini. I got called by CVS pharmacy saying" I need to call Blue Cross and Blue Shield because the insurance won't pick up any of the cost of the refills" and these are very expensive. I will try and do this today. Next Thursday we get to talk with the dietitian about what to eat and what not to eat.

1 Comments:

  • At 6:29 AM, Blogger Lew said…

    What in the world is that guy in the boat with the oar doing? Looks like a boat that has gotten stuck and is waiting for high tide. Now high tide did help me once. I was on a small boat in the bay of Miami near Turkey Point doing some environmental sampling. I had a boat driver from FPL named Scott who was a young man to drive the boat. We were cruising the boat around a small island in the bay. The island was named Arsenicker Key. The driver got too close to shore while we were on the east end of the island and the boat ran aground. We were stuck. No matter how much Scott revved the engine, the boat wouldn’t budge. We had an emergency oar on board and tried pushing ourselves off the sandy bottom but to no avail. We weren’t going anywhere. We were stuck. But then I had an idea. I would climb out of the boat and push it off from the sand. Into the water I went to push. To my dismay I discovered that the soft appearing sand was actually a mixture of sand and broken sea shell. Lots of sharp pieces of broken sea shell. I sank to my knees in the soft sand. My legs from the knees down ended up getting badly scratched and some minor cuts from the broken sharp sea shell pieces. Despite my heroic efforts, the boat remained stuck. I climbed back into the boat to try and think of something else to try. I thought and thought but couldn’t think of anything else to try. So there we sat, going nowhere. We sat and sat, and time passed on. After about 45 minutes the boat suddenly came free. The young man Scott got all religious and said that it was a miracle. He said that he had been silently praying for a miracle. I said, “Scott, I think that it was the rising tide that got us free”. And so off we went to the dock. And perhaps the man sitting in the small boat in the picture has also gotten beached and is waiting for the incoming tide. I know what you mean about the expense of the diabetic test strips. I had the same problem in that neither Medicare nor Blue Cross would not pay for them without a diagnosis of diabetes on the prescription from the doctor and documentation of proof of diabetes. I had the prescription from the doctor but I am borderline diabetic and so I do not have documentation of the diagnosis and had to pay $ 100 for the test strips. The lancets are expensive also but nothing in comparison to the test strips. I use to do my testing first thing in the morning when I got before I had anything to eat. I tested this morning and the reading was 93 which isn’t bad. When I drank regular soda instead of diet soda it was over 300. I have two test strips left. When the last two are gone, I will have to discontinue the testing. Last night I had some of the miniature Reese’s peanut butter cups left over from Christmas and so I was curious if the sugar was up this morning. I suspected that it would be but it was within limits. By the way, when they give a test before a class, they just want to see how much you already know and whether the class will be of a benefit to you. Sometimes they will give the same test after the class to see how much you learned. They did that when I went to Oak Ridge for the ten weeks of Health Physics training. A 300 question test at the beginning and the same 300 question test at the end. It was a measure of how effective their classes had been. I don’t know what the answer is to the diabetic testing supplies. The instructors in the class may have some suggestions. I haven’t come up with any solution other than to stop testing. Well, thank goodness for Splenda to help me with the sugar. I have eaten 1.8 pecan log rolls and am still surviving (Mary ate 0.2 of one of the pecan log rolls). Your mom needs to eat lots of ice cream to put some weight on. She looks to be too thin. Ice cream is a lot more tasty than those Ensure drinks. I guess that we all have our medical problems. That is life. Today will be more leaf raking. But as I rake the leaves up, more fall from the trees every time a gusty weather front passes through. Have you tried looking at the stars and moon with your telescope from within the comfort of the house? You will be surprised at what you can se. Even when it looks like there aren’t any stars to be seen because of the street lights, take a look anyway. The tube of the telescope is specially designed with baffles to help take care of the light from the street lights. Sometimes you can just scan the sky very slowly with your telescope and you will stumble across objects. You should be able to see the crab nebula in Orion’s belt, the Andromeda galaxy, and the Pleiades which a very bright small cluster of stars which is quite spectacular to see, even in a small telescope. And of course there is Mr. Moon but you should have a moon filter to view to help protect your eyes from the brightness of a full moon. Have a nice cool day. Lew

     

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