Dear Reader, I’m Fighting Myself.

So I was sitting here tonight thinking. Not really about anything in particular… I’m just kinda burnt out from the week already. But anyways, I grabbed a copy of the Tao Te Ching off of my bookshelf and flipped to a random page. I turned to chapter 68. The first stanza of the chapter is as follows:

” The best warrior is never aggressive.
The best fighter is never angry.
The best tactician does not engage the enemy.
The best utilizer of people’s talents places himself below them. “

[ Tao Te Ching, translated by Charles Muller ]
[ published by Barnes & Nobles Classics ]

After reading these few lines, I sort of returned to sitting and thinking… digesting what these words were saying. The way I interpret this is that the best tactic in life is to let things come to you. “The best warrior is never aggressive”, if one is always on defense, there is no pressure to make anything happen. You deal with things as they occur, and prepare for the inevitable. “The best fighter is never angry”, one must remain cool-headed. As soon as anger sets in, you get sloppy. You interpret things wrong. You screw up. “The best tactician does not engage the enemy”, I interpret this similarly to the first line. A good tactician will never enter an open field, but will always hold the advantage of the high ground and wait for the enemy to approach. By not engaging, I’m going to assume that one should never actively engage in conflict, but simply wear the opponent out passively. Yup, that one’s foggy… The last line, “The best utilizer of people’s talents places himself below them”, to me at least, means that in order to best manage people in a group setting, you must first be humble and not look down on your peers or subordinates. By simply using the term ’subordinate’, that last line is contradicted. I just didn’t know what else to call them.

I feel that I should strive to live in this way. I have never really been one to “go with the flow”, really… no matter how many times I agree that it’s the best path, or how many times I tell others to “just roll with it”. I pretty much suck at rolling. I have lately had the mindset that if I don’t make something happen, it will never happen.

When I was home last weekend, my mom said something to me. CSI was on, so I’m not positive on the wording, but it was pretty much how I’m never happy with what I have, and am always trying to get more of something or trying to get something new. My current want is a Blackberry, which requires funding for both the handheld unit and the data and airtime plans. This is one of those new and shiny things that I want. A new tattoo is another. More hours for work is a third, even though there is a softly-defined maximum of 40 hours a week with no paid overtime. I’m not sure whether to call this greed, boredom, or something else. But she definitely has a point. I have never truly been happy with what I have. I have always wanted something more.

At some points in life this is a good thing. At work, I do my job. I do it right, and I do it in a timely manner. I have been told on multiple occasions this week that I (and a co-worker that has the same mindset in regards to the job) are on the ball, and are much more efficient than last year’s crew. I forget if I filled the world in on my job. I’m one of 12 people working for Villanova’s Summer Music program. I’m in charge of all of the A/V stuff, but also do whatever else needs done throughout the day and week. Turns out, I’m on the ball. That fits into the “always striving for more” category though. I’m always striving to be smarter at work and to utilize my time more efficiently.

But at the same time, always wanting more is a negative. I budget money out before I have it. I try to force things before anyone involved is ready for them to happen. I get stupid and try to put round pegs into square holes, and then are too frustrated to realize why things aren’t working. And while all that is going on, my patience runs thin for all of the wrong reasons, and I get sloppy. “The best warrior is never aggressive” fits in well here, as does “The best fighter is never angry”. Both of those statements are being directly contradicted here, and in doing so, the situations get exponentially worse as time progresses. All because I am a bad tactician and have engaged in things.

Now if only I could subscribe to those words and ideas. Imagine how much simpler things might be in my head. It’s funny, because half the time the person the warrior is aggressive to, the person the fighter is angry at, and the person the tactician has engaged… is all myself. Half of the time I’m engaging myself in an intricate tug of war, and in that particular situation, I always lose. Some tactician I am, eh?

Looks like I’m off to the war room to have a chat with my troops and battle planners.

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Thanks for listening,
Tom. =)

The Curse of Big Eyes.

So it seems that when my doctor told me way back when to bolus before I ate, she had never suffered from the eyes bigger than your stomach problem. I had dinner tonight and got set myself up with some desert… it was a somewhat rough day…. so I crunched my numbers, and bolused. I got dinner down. I was feeling a little full, but knew I had some time before all the insulin was processed, and that the food I ate would metabolize quicker than the insulin. So basically I had time before my numbers plateaued and then started to drop into a low. During this time, the feeling of being full did not subside, and to add to my problems, I began to feel a bit nauseous.

So here I am, sitting here with this crazy carbo-binge desert (45g of carb total…. it was a rough day. gimme a break). I’ve got 12ish units of insulin in my side… my numbers are dropping…. and I have absolutely no desire in the world to eat this desert. None. I opened the packaging, the smell of it hit my nostrils and I sorta did a “ew get that smell outta my nose” maneuver. I tried to just shove it down my throat… that failed horribly and I just ended up breaking it into a couple of large, messy pieces on my desk.

I hate it when this happens. I never know what to do. There’s no way to hit “undo” and have that insulin pop back into my pump. There’s no way to pop a 45g sugar pill. It all involves eating something… and there simply isn’t room, nor is there the desire, for that food to enter my body.

It’s kinda funny…. this happens 90% of the times that I pre-bolus for a meal. You’d think I’d have learned by now. Guess I’m just a silly little kid at heart. I don’t seem to be learning from my mistakes.

Well… I guess I’m just gonna have to suck it up and eat it. That is, I believe, one of the most horrible things to ever say. “Guess I’ll just have to eat it…”

Whatever,
Tom.

EDIT: Me going low changed everything. That desert got wrecked. It’s now in the vicinity of my stomach, and my sugar is in the vicinity of 100. All is well.

Medical IDs.

A medical ID is something that I am often taking for granted.  I always hate looking at my wrist and seeing the ID hanging there (never could get it to fit right…) or feeling the chain around my neck.  While the necklace ID is much more comfortable for me, I often wonder “Will a paramedic think to check if the pendant on this chain is a medical ID, or will s/he simply think ‘Oh, a necklace.  Probably has Jesus on it or something.’”  At one point in time, I had misplaced the pendant ID, so I was forced to wear the bracelet.  More often than not I would choose to go sans ID, and wouldn’t really think twice about it.

Nothing has happened yet that really warranted the need to wear ID 24/7, but think about it.  You have a freak low in the middle of the grocery store.  Unless someone has a good eye and knows the symptoms of hypoglycemia, what are the chances they would handle the situation correctly?  The ID at least gives them the information that you’re a diabetic.  They’ll probably think sugar, and then grab some and forcefeed it to you.  Or they’ll at least be able to tell paramedics “Hey, diabetic passed out on the floor… bring sugar.”  That is why we wear the ID.  Not to tell the world “Hey, I’m diabetic!”, but to tell that one or two people that are working to save your life “Hey.  I’m diabetic.”

There are tons of online stores out there at which to buy some pretty nice IDs.  Last night I got an e-mail from Austin Cooper, the founder of EvasionID, about his ID line.  I remember seeing these a while back and thinking “Hey, that’s pretty slick.”  Austin was diagnosed as a type1 at age 15, and when he looked for an ID he liked, he was bum outta luck.  So what’d he do?  He made his own.  He set up a website.  Now he is sharing his creation with all who care to shell out the cash for one ($19 or $24, depending on thickness).  The IDs themselves are actually pretty sweet:  leather bands with a metal plate fastened to it with the medical symbol on it.  “Type 1 Diabetes” is imprinted on the inside of the band.  While I feel that the “Type 1 Diabetes” should be a little more accessible (looks like the EMT would have to take the entire bracelet off instead of just flipping over the plate), it will still do its job.  This bracelet will say “Hey.  I’m fashion conscious, and I’m a type 1.”  So for those of you who are looking into getting an ID, whether it be your first or your fiftieth, head over to EvasionID.com and check these out.

For those of you that don’t like the look of these leather bracelets, there are more traditional IDs offered at American Medical ID, where I bought both of my current medical IDs.  They’ve got a few choices in the way of style for both bracelet plates and pendants, each offered in 5 different metal choices (ranging from 10k gold to stainless steel).   In addition to the more adult IDs, they offer a line of kid’s IDs that utilize sports bands instead of chains.  All I’ve gotta say about the kid’s line is that, while there are only two plate options… they look pretty ballin to me.  If I had been diagnosed as a kid, I probably would have wanted one of these.  Especially the red and navy blue sportsband.  Makes me think of power rangers for some reason.  But then again, I doubt these were offered back then.  So no power rangers for me.         …unless I buy it now.

But seriously.  Everyone should have a medical ID.  I pray that I will never need mine to save my life, but hey.  It’s kind of like Pascal said about God.  “If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.”  In this context, this is saying “If you need medical ID and you have one, you’re fine.  If you don’t ever need medical ID and you have one, you’re still fine.”  Think of the other side to the coin.  If you need an ID and you don’t have one…  well that’ll be a sticky situation.  Another way to think about it is that medical IDs run on the same concept as a condom.  Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.  =P.

So if you’re out there reading this and don’t have a medical ID, please head to either of the links I have provided, or do a google search, or call your doctor.  Just… get an ID.  If not for yourself, then do it for me.  If it’s a financial issue, your endo can probably hook you up with a free ID.  I’m not positive on this, but I think I remember getting a pamphlet about a free medical ID when I was diagnosed.  All I have to say is, please get yourself a medical ID of some sort.  [Writing your info on your hand with a sharpie does not count.]

Peace,
Tom.

Another new look. Not a fan.

So as you noticed if you read my last post, or can now see, there is a new look to the site. This is the second change in recent weeks, as I didn’t like seeing all the things I had fixed in the old theme… looking ugly again.

I re-designed my header image to try to keep that theme… but in the end I flat out didn’t like it. So I ripped my old header image off the site, and put in a new theme. So here we are. Once I can scrape together some cash to pay for the custom CSS ability here on wordpress.com, I’ll probably change back to my old theme. The one that I really liked. Well, this is here to stay for now, and I can’t change anything other than my header image and very basic layout options. So. Hope you like it, and enjoy.

I’ve been working on a post in my head for the past two days while I’ve been at work. It has to do with the concept of old souls, rebirth, art forms, and in a more broad respect religion. It just seems that once I’m done with work (and class after that on Tuesdays and Thursdays [I assume it'll be the same on Thursdays as it was on Tuesday]), I am too tired to form those thoughts into well-formed sentences. Occasionally I can form a sentence, but then I am hit with another, more daunting task: putting the sentences in the correct order so it tells a story. Maybe this weekend I will have the mental power to get it down in ink or pixels.

Until then, just keep smiling. =)
Tom.