Blog Meme from Joshilyn Jackson

This was a fun one! I couldn't resist this blog meme from Joshilyn's "Faster Than Kudzu" blog, quick and easy as brownies from a mix--which is about my speed on New Year's Eve Day--or, what the hell, just go down to Starbuck's and grab some instead.

Here 'tis:
1. Take five books off your bookshelf.
2. Book #1 -- first sentence
3. Book #2 -- last sentence on page fifty
4. Book #3 -- second sentence on page one hundred
5. Book #4 -- next to the last sentence on page one hundred fifty
6. Book #5 -- final sentence of the book
7. Make the five sentences into a paragraph:

And here's my paragraph--an opening to an erotic mystery-thriller, mebbe?

Friday, five o'clock in the afternoon. God, however, did not seem to be on Houser's side, and he grew increasingly agitated. At a track in Arizona a monkey was a popular mascot until he began turning on all the shed-row faucets and tearing the shingles off the roof. His organ sang. THE WHORES ON THE HILL WERE HERE.

1) ONE SHOT by Lee Child
2) SWEET INVISIBLE BODY: REFLECTIONS ON A LIFE WITH DIABETES by Lisa Roney
3) SEABISCUIT by Laura Hillenbrand
4) AFTER by Claire Tristram
5) WHORES ON THE HILL by Colleen Curran

OK... your turn!!

Tagged by a Bookseller

The Bookseller to the Stars, AKA my friend Mark, tagged me on this one...

By the way, I HATE the new Blogger beta. DO NOT sign up for it. DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT. Especially if you have more than one Gmail account. Especially if you value your sanity. DO NOT SIGN UP FOR IT!!!

Not that I have strong feelings or anything :D

On to the meme--

1. I've come to realize that my ex... was an active drug addict, alcoholic, and criminal. (I hope he has found some help, because there is help out there... I know this for a fact)

2. I am listening to... cars going by outside.

3. I talk... about other people more than myself.

4. I love... my children more than anything in the world.

5. My best friends... are all women, for the first time since about first grade.

7. I lost... seven pounds thanks to the stomach flu.

8. I hate it when people... tell me that my son got diabetes because of what he ate.

9. Love is... complete obliteration of the ego.

10. Marriage is... a partnership between two separate and individually complete persons.

11. Somewhere, someone is thinking... "how much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?"

12. I'll always be... the one whose hair freezes outside on cold days because she is too lazy to blow-dry.

13. I have a crush on... Pablo Neruda (even though he's dead).

14. The last time I cried was because... I was being sick and thought I was going to pass out.

15. My cell phone... has the ugliest picture of me ever (taken by my son, while we were in line at a department store during the holidays), as its background motif.

16. When I wake up in the morning... bring me the coffee!

17. Before I go to sleep at night... I say my prayers. I really do!

18. Right now I am thinking about... my messy house.

19. Babies are... straight from heaven.

20. I get on myspace... and get annoyed.

21. Today I... need to catch up on holiday stuff instead of doing blog memes.

22. Tonight I will... watch a movie and wrap packages.

23. Tomorrow I will... Go to the Dickens Faire at the Cow Palace, I hope, but the plague (see above) in one or more family members may prevent it.

24. I really want... a cure for juvenile diabetes.

25. The person who most likely to repost this is... Becky Motew

Love My Pancreas

Reminder Weird Al Yankovich? LIKE A SURGEON and... boy, well everything else from the 80s that was crazy and stick-in-your head irritating!!

Well, he's still around making crazy parodies of contemporary songs. This one, called I LOVE MY PANCREAS, is priceless for anyone who is "pancreatically challenged"... or knows someone who is! Boy, before my son was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, I don't think I even knew what the pancreas did. Now I love all pancreases... even those stubborn, obstinant ones who do not work properly!!! (But I wish I could fix 'em!!!)

Adam's Routine

I thought this was really interesting and found it via Diabetes Health online. This is Adam Morrison's daily diabetes routine. Adam of course plays basketball for the Charlotte BOBCATs, and has Type 1 Diabetes.

Lots of you already know that we met Adam personally when he played a game at USF, back when he was still playing NCAA ball for Gonzaga. Adam was so kind and asked our son lots of questions about his pump, answered our questions and offered his encouragement. I'm still a fan!

Game-Day Preparations

A typical game day for Morrison is as follows:

8:45 a.m. Wake up, test and bolus accordingly

9 a.m. “I eat a balanced breakfast—usually cereal and toast. Something where I know the exact number of carbs and how my body reacts to it.”

Mid-morning: Shoot around with teammates

Lunch: Test and bolus accordingly. “Then I’ll eat a foot-long sub sandwich with a lot of meat. Just something that will fill me up without a lot of carbs.”

4:45 p.m: Arrive at the arena. “They’ll have my meal ready for me. I always eat steak and a baked potato before the game.”

Game Time (7 p.m.): Once the game starts, Morrison tests and makes sure he has a suitable BG range.

“I like to have it between 120 and 180 mg/dl. I feel comfortable at that range.”

His trainer makes sure the bench area is stocked with orange juice, apple juice and glucose tabs, as well as Morrison’s meter and insulin. Morrison wears a pump, but must detach before games.

Time Outs: “Pretty much every time out, I test my blood sugar and if I need to take a shot I do. If I need to eat something, I do. I just try to stay on top of it during the games. I’ll usually test up to seven times during a game.”

Halftime: “Throughout the game, my blood sugar usually rises a little bit because of adrenaline. At halftime, I make sure I get it between 120 and 180 mg/dl.”

After the Game: “I try to get my blood sugar to around 120 mg/dl.”

For both his basal and bolus needs, Morrison uses Humalog in his pump.

Of note and perhaps most amazing: Adam has never gone low during a game since high school.

In Memory of Jerry

Sadly, today I mourn the loss of a young man, just a kid really, who could not stay sober. I didn't know Jerry, but he was the friend of a friend, shall we say.

Jeff has written more about Jerry on his Myspace page. That's how I learned of Jerry's death. Here is a photo of Jerry.

Jerry left behind a girlfriend, friends, parents, and grandparents. Jerry had a future, a whole, long, beautiful life just waiting to unfold in front of him. His addiction killed him. Just took him right off the planet. The end. No more chances. Just... gone.

A few days ago I was saying to a friend and fellow sober alcoholic how we have to remind ourselves that our disease is chronic, incurable... AND FATAL. We must never forget the immensely serious nature of what we are dealing with here. Drug and alcohol addiction will kill you, people. Not today, maybe, maybe not tomorrow... but it is a fatal disease, and you don't know when it will come calling to take its final payment. And Jerry's death just underscores that. People loved this young man, to some he was as dear as life itself.

The tragic waste of life that the disease of addiction leaves in its wake is stunning. Not just overdoses, as was the case with Jerry, but the long slow death of alcoholism and other addictions. And also, many deaths marked down as due to car crashes and suicides are really due to alcoholism or addiction. Meanwhile the disease laughs and strikes another notch in its belt.

Rest in peace, Jerry. Maybe someone will learn from Jerry's death--maybe it will be a wakeup call to someone out there. This disease kills, in all its forms. Blessings to all who knew and loved this irreplaceable young man.

Hooray!

Of course, it isn't REALLY a novel. It's just 50,000 words. But still... :D

Have a great weekend, all, and CONGRATS to all the NaNoWriMo winners!

It's a Disease, Stupid... Sweetheart

Hooray! Binky II has arrived from Smiths Medical. After a half hour reprogramming the pump with all my son's rates and ratios, Binky II is up and running. It is SUCH a relief to have that insulin pump working again.

A chronic disease is a chronic disease. It does not represent a character weakness. Would I blame my son for developing Type 1 Diabetes? Of course not.

Today I began thinking about how I finally admitted I was alcoholic and sought out help in managing my disease.

No one wants to be an alcoholic. We like to think we can manage our own affairs. Many of us have been very successful in managing other parts of our lives. So to admit we have a condition which is incurable, chronic, fatal and OUT OF OUR CONTROL is a horrible prospect.

For about two years previous to my seeking out recovery, I knew there was something not quite normal with the way I drank. But I still believed I could control my drinking. So I attempted to moderate. For example, I vowed never to drink hard liquor. I soon learned that wine and beer would get me intoxicated just about as efficiently. Oh, I made all sorts of promises and rules for myself. It's laughable now!

Just to name a few: I vowed never to mix drinks, never to drink at home, never to drink in public, to drink only red wine for the "health benefits," never to keep alcohol in the house, never to drink in front of others, to drink only on weekends, to count drinks and stop at a pre-set number. Near the end I swore off drinking completely for one month. When that worked just fine, I decided I did not have a problem. After all, I figured, an alcoholic would not be able to quit for a month. So I began drinking again... moderately and in a very controlled way... of course!

About one year later I found myself consuming more than I would like. I decided to try another one month quit and didn't worry too much when I only made it 12 days. After all, I had proven to myself I could quit whenever I wanted to. I just didn't WANT to. Why should I have to give up drinking? It was the only thing that got me through most days.

This disease is stunning in its subtlety. The disease lies to you. It tells you that you don't have a problem or that you can control the problem. I was quite surprised to learn that nonalcoholics do not play these little games with themselves to try to cut down on drinks. These very desperate acts I was taking to try to control drinking were themselves the most glaring symptoms of all.

The fact is, NONALCOHOLICS DO NOT NEED TO TRY TO CONTROL THEIR DRINKING. They truly can take it or leave it. Also, NONALCOHOLICS DO NOT WONDER IF THEY ARE ALCOHOLIC. Really. It was hard for me to believe it, but there are people out there who do not sit up and wonder. Actually there are quite a lot of them. I am not one.

Let me repeat it again: NONALCOHOLICS DO NOT NEED TO TRY TO CONTROL THEIR DRINKING.

It's a disease, stupid. We didn't get it on purpose.

Let me edit: It's a disease, sweetheart. And we still didn't get it on purpose.

I used to believe, anyone would drink if they had my life. I drank because of conflicts with loved ones and I drank to celebrate how much I loved them. I drank when I was happy, and I drank when I was sad. I drank when people hassled me about my drinking and I drank because I had suceeded in quitting for a specified period and therefore I didn't have a problem. I drank because I was over excited and I drank because I was bored.

All of the preceding statements are false. I drank because I am alcoholic. That is what alcoholics do. I believed I was different and special and that I could control alcohol. Little did I know, it was already controlling me.

Like many, I did not want help. No one understood me or what I was trying to do. No one understood that I had this "infallible plan" to control my drinking. Yeah, I was doing really well on THAT score. I was what they refer to as "terminally unique."

I have been realizing of late, looking back at my own life I suppose, just how cunning, baffling and powerful alcohol is. It is stunning the capacities of the mind to rationalize away our drinking. If all that brain power was put to good use there would be a cure for cancer in a year. (For juvenile diabetes, too.)

Simply: The disease uses your mind to play games with you so that it can keep killing you. Don't believe everything you think.

I am just one person who found a solution that worked for me. I don't endorse any recovery plan, but there is one that worked for me which I'm glad to further discuss with anyone who reads this blog, whether I know them or not. Hopefully the email link works

Or check out the forums at Sober Recovery and just lurk for awhile and see if anyone is telling your story. You might be surprised.

I used to think being alcoholic was the worst thing that could happen to me. Today I am a grateful, sober alcoholic. Being a recovering alcoholic has given me a purpose in life and has shown me a way to grow into a human being I had never even dreamed of. It is a process and it is not always easy, but it's simple.

No one can control the disease, in themselves or in others. The disease is what it is. Cunning, baffling, powerful, chronic and fatal. That's not changing any time soon.

However, once we have admitted we are not so very special after all, that we are not so very different from those who have gone before us, we come to realize: there are two choices. Be a sober alcoholic, or a drunk alcoholic. And for this alcoholic, it's a great day to be sober. Onward, XO