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Pasta, Gelato, and the End of the Diabetes Honeymoon
About 10 days after Bisi started on the pump, the four of us joined my mom for a week in Tuscany. We had a great time; how could you not? But in terms of Bisi’s diabetes, the trip was difficult. Part...
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Gingerbread Houses and Diabetes
We have a Christmas tradition of baking, building, and decorating a gingerbread house, packed with as much candy as we can squeeze on. The candy is purely for decoration, not for consumption, but...
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Highlights from Doug Melton’s Work to Cure Diabetes
This fall, at a Tedx conference organized in our community, Mark and I had the chance to meet with and hear a talk by Doug Melton — the Harvard professor who became a pioneer in the field of stem-cell...
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Sleep No More: Diabetes and Sleep Deprivation
Without adequate sleep, I read in a recent Boston Globe article, “you get sick, fat, and stupid.” You’re at greater risk for problems including cancer, heart disease, weight gain, neuro-degenerative...
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Diabetes and the Edge of the Cliff
When Bisi was first diagnosed, I couldn’t imagine how we would ever settle into a routine again, how life would ever go back to being unscary. Of course, we did settle into a routine, and my fears...
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The Ups and Downs of Starting a Child on a CGM
Just as Bisi was the one to nudge us into getting her on an insulin pump, she has now pushed us to get her a Constant Glucose Monitor (CGM)—the Dexcom Platinum. I’m not quite sure why she was so...
View ArticleSouth Africa Safari with Diabetes
In a few days, our family is leaving on a trip halfway around and down toward the bottom of the world—my Mom is taking us on a safari in South Africa to mark her seventieth birthday. Most of me can’t...
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Safari Report
Despite my anxieties, the trip to South Africa was amazing. Most of the things I was worried about did not come to pass, and the ones that did were not that big a deal. We went on safari for the first...
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JDRF Walkathon: Three Years of Team Bisi
For the past three falls since Bisi was diagnosed, we’ve done the JDRF walkathon to raise money to cure, prevent, and treat type 1 diabetes. The first year it was a mad scramble to form our team, since...
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The Diabetes Honeymoon Is Officially Over
Bisi’s diabetes honeymoon ended a little more than a year ago. But a recent email from a reader seeking advice about how to keep his son honeymooning reminded me of the tenuousness of this time—and of...
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Low-Carb Diet Recommended For Diabetics
A couple of months ago, a study in the journal Nutrition caught my eye. Titled “Low-carb diet recommended for diabetics,” the study laid out twelve pieces of evidence for why reducing carbs should be...
View ArticleWhen to Grant Independence to a Child With Diabetes?
At the end of this past summer, the four of us went to an alumni weekend at the sleepaway camp in the Adirondacks where I spent 8 wonderfully fun and formative summers, first as a camper and then as...
View ArticleType 1 Diabetes vs Health Insurance
Recently, when doing an end-of-year bill-paying sweep, I realized we had won a fight with our health insurance over paying for Bisi’s diabetes care. The fight had been going on for so long that I had...
View ArticleHoney, I Crushed the Omnipod
You know those cascades of little mistakes that suddenly add up to a big one? Well, one of those cascading failures happened to Bisi and me the other day when I was driving her to a play rehearsal. I...
View ArticleWhat Kind of D-Parent Are You?
I have a theory about couples who manage their child’s diabetes together: that one parent worries more about the immediate consequences of a devastating blood sugar low (i.e., unconsciousness or...
View ArticleDexcom Dependence
Something happened on the way to the kids’ school today that made me realize how psychologically dependent I am on Bisi’s CGM, and, beyond that, the Dexcom Share program that we just installed a week...
View ArticleCarb Society
Bisi’s been out of school for almost a month, but I’m still recovering from all the end-of-year parties—the school potlucks, the classroom goodbyes, the treats after performances—that are especially...
View ArticleDear Taylor Swift …
Each year since her diagnosis, Bisi has done the JDRF walk-a-thon to raise money to fight diabetes. Last year, we tried (unsuccessfully) to get basketball stay Ray Allen to give to Bisi’s walk team....
View ArticleAnother Reason to Hate Halloween
Bisi had her lowest blood sugar yet this past weekend, and the scariest thing about it was that it’s not totally clear to me how it happened. It all unfolded on a walk the day after Halloween, that...
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