I saw read about Eilish yesterday. But it did not hit home.
Today, the blog posts are flooding in. This sad story is all over the DOC:
TuDiabetes
Six Until Me
The Diabetic's Corner Booth
Talking Blood Glucose
Diabetesaliciousness
Sugabetic
I was once a thirteen year old girl with diabetes. It makes me feel numb and a bit terrified to think that any of us can be taken in the night like this. :(
Friday, October 22, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
It's only thursday and I am knackered!
I taught 5 classes in 4 days, wrote 5 lesson plans, went to my job interview (Tuesday), wrote 5 quotes for web designs and visited a new client I'm hoping to land, designed 3 web sites, made one logo, got the job (today: yay!), reviewed a student's dissertation, landed that client (yesterday: yay!), went to a staff meeting, finished my exhibition, made a booking at the dermatologist, and did the grocery shopping. I need a nap.
:)
It was a bit funny, I took unofficial time off my current job, which is a short term contract until the end of the year, to attend an interview with my boss, to get a job which is identical to my current job. Talk about a paradox. Anyway, HR will be HR eh? :P
:)
It was a bit funny, I took unofficial time off my current job, which is a short term contract until the end of the year, to attend an interview with my boss, to get a job which is identical to my current job. Talk about a paradox. Anyway, HR will be HR eh? :P
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Rollerblading and ducks
After my first week back to work after the holidays I've had a really good relaxing weekend.
I've read a few books. I have had a couple of "Aha!" moments, which I will explain in another post :)
I went rollerblading with Hubby and a selection of kids, at the local roller rink's family skate night. There nothing like flying round and round the rink listening to badly distorted emo music at full blast to make you feel 13 again! haha
Hubby and I had the kids to stay this weekend, so we went to collect them on Friday night. We were early, so they weren't all at their home yet. Olivia was busy finishing off her horse ride, so we drove down to the fields the pony club uses and watched her riding her horse, then washing and feeding her (the horse, not Olivia - although she [Olivia] did admit to taste-testing the horse feed!) As we drove back to the kids house the road passes over a small creek, and there, walking merrily in the middle of the road, was a mother duck and her five ducklings! How cute! Traffic was stopped on both directions, with orange hazard lights on. A lady walking her dog came out and shepherded the ducks off the road so it all turned out happy. :)
I tried skate-boarding for the first time! Well, I didn't go very far, but I didn't fall off either! Very pleased with myself. Ok, I will admit I had Hubby standing beside me letting me cling to his shoulder, but it was still lots of fun! :) It was cool to have most of the kids (and some mates) skating down the seaside walkway together. We ended up at the local skate park, where suddenly parents became V-E-R-Y uncool. Ha! Anyway that's where we got the idea to go to the family skate night, cos the roller rink is right next door.
We dropped Eldest Step Son off at his Grandparents, and took Two Youngest plus Loud-Mouth Friend home and made dinner - I tried making "Jerk Chicken" (Question: why is it called "Jerk"??) which was very tasty and met with silence - a good sign meaning kids are eating! :)
Here is my recipe:
700g chicken nibbles (small chicken wings and mini-drumsticks)
1 onion
2 - 3 Tablespoons of olive oil
portuguese chicken seasoning (mix of paprika, salt, chilli, oregano, lemon)
finely chopped fresh thyme (from my freshly replanted herb garden :D )
2 - 5 Tablespoons of your favourite dark soy sauce
1 Table spoon cornflour/cornstarch
Mix everything (except the soy and cornflour) together. I just put it all into the glass roasting dish and massaged it together with my hands. Messy but fun. Wash hands. Cover the dish with tin foil and put it in the oven at 200 degrees C.
Leave it for about 20 mins, or until the chicken is no longer pink. The tinfoil should keep all the moisture in, and the onion should mix with the oil to create a runny liquid.
Take the dish out of the oven and put it on a heatproof surface. Remove the tinfoil. Add the soy, more if you like saltier things, and make sure the liquid level is about half way up each piece of chicken, so they are half-submerged. This will let the top half go nice and crispy in the air. Mix up the cornflour in a little water and mix it into the sauce.
Return to the oven for another ten minutes, and put it to fan bake/fan-forced to speed up the crispy-ization. :) Serve with mini-roast potatoes, pumpkin, carrots, and fresh baby peas. Yummy!
I've read a few books. I have had a couple of "Aha!" moments, which I will explain in another post :)
I went rollerblading with Hubby and a selection of kids, at the local roller rink's family skate night. There nothing like flying round and round the rink listening to badly distorted emo music at full blast to make you feel 13 again! haha
Hubby and I had the kids to stay this weekend, so we went to collect them on Friday night. We were early, so they weren't all at their home yet. Olivia was busy finishing off her horse ride, so we drove down to the fields the pony club uses and watched her riding her horse, then washing and feeding her (the horse, not Olivia - although she [Olivia] did admit to taste-testing the horse feed!) As we drove back to the kids house the road passes over a small creek, and there, walking merrily in the middle of the road, was a mother duck and her five ducklings! How cute! Traffic was stopped on both directions, with orange hazard lights on. A lady walking her dog came out and shepherded the ducks off the road so it all turned out happy. :)
I tried skate-boarding for the first time! Well, I didn't go very far, but I didn't fall off either! Very pleased with myself. Ok, I will admit I had Hubby standing beside me letting me cling to his shoulder, but it was still lots of fun! :) It was cool to have most of the kids (and some mates) skating down the seaside walkway together. We ended up at the local skate park, where suddenly parents became V-E-R-Y uncool. Ha! Anyway that's where we got the idea to go to the family skate night, cos the roller rink is right next door.
We dropped Eldest Step Son off at his Grandparents, and took Two Youngest plus Loud-Mouth Friend home and made dinner - I tried making "Jerk Chicken" (Question: why is it called "Jerk"??) which was very tasty and met with silence - a good sign meaning kids are eating! :)
Here is my recipe:
700g chicken nibbles (small chicken wings and mini-drumsticks)
1 onion
2 - 3 Tablespoons of olive oil
portuguese chicken seasoning (mix of paprika, salt, chilli, oregano, lemon)
finely chopped fresh thyme (from my freshly replanted herb garden :D )
2 - 5 Tablespoons of your favourite dark soy sauce
1 Table spoon cornflour/cornstarch
Mix everything (except the soy and cornflour) together. I just put it all into the glass roasting dish and massaged it together with my hands. Messy but fun. Wash hands. Cover the dish with tin foil and put it in the oven at 200 degrees C.
Leave it for about 20 mins, or until the chicken is no longer pink. The tinfoil should keep all the moisture in, and the onion should mix with the oil to create a runny liquid.
Take the dish out of the oven and put it on a heatproof surface. Remove the tinfoil. Add the soy, more if you like saltier things, and make sure the liquid level is about half way up each piece of chicken, so they are half-submerged. This will let the top half go nice and crispy in the air. Mix up the cornflour in a little water and mix it into the sauce.
Return to the oven for another ten minutes, and put it to fan bake/fan-forced to speed up the crispy-ization. :) Serve with mini-roast potatoes, pumpkin, carrots, and fresh baby peas. Yummy!
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Books I'm reading
So I toddled over to www.stirrup-queens.com and found this book written by Melissa Ford:
I read the first chapter on amazon.com, so I've decided to order it. It will take over a month to get here to New Zealand! What!? It's almost like we live on the moon! :P
That got me thinking, maybe the local library has some books on dealing with infertility. It's been a hard thing to come to terms with this second diagnosis, but in reading Melissa's book (bits of it) I've already discovered things that are helpful to me. So I gathered my parking meter money and headed off to the library in search of more information.
I took all the interesting looking books, as follows:
Looks like I have a lot of reading to get through! I've started with the last one on the list, as it's written by Sue Saunders who is currently working as a counsellor at the fertility clinic that's we've had dealings with - how's that for irony! Anyway, even though it was written before the turn of the millennium, the information about emotional stuff seems sound.
Here's a bit of depressing news: GST has gone up. GST is Goods and Services Tax, and it applies to most everything you buy in NZ. It went from 12.5% up to 15%. "Why is that interesting to me?" you say, well, it affects the cost of IVF treatment. What was once around about $11K has just jumped to over $12.5K!!! :( I sat down with a calculator last night and worked out the cost. I suppose it doesn't really matter if I reveal the name of the clinic, it's not like there are many to choose from in New Zealand: Fertility Associates. (P.S I really really think they should consider changing the photo on their homepage - a big pic of a baby is just insulting!) Yeah, so at least the cost of everything is on their website.
I'm trying to decide what to do, how to progress things a bit. On one hand, I've already written to www.fertilitynz.org asking for their help, and they have said they will be advocates for us and forward our letter of complaint on to the fertility clinic. However that was over a month ago. Now I'm wondering if I shouldn't just complain directly to the clinic. What do you think?
The other thing I'm trying to decide is whether or not I should approach the Health and Disability Commissioner. Here in NZ there is quite a good system where patient/consumers can easily make complaints about health providers. I've made use of them once before when my endocrinologist did a shoddy job of switching me over to Lantus (he got the dosing all messed up, which meant I had a bad hypo and broke my back, then he blamed me. Yes, he's my current endo - I live in a small town!) and the folks there were quite helpful and very clear about my rights. I know they probably can't do much in the way of getting us the access to public funding we require, but it would be good to stop a similar thing happening to other couples. It's totally changed my life. The more I think about what happened, I become convinced that we are being discriminated against. Just because Hubby has a vasectomy from a previous marriage, that should have nothing whatsoever to do with our marriage. Our marriage is infertile, with 0% chance of conception and over 7 years of trying. In any way you look at it, telling us to wait 3 years feels like a penalty that neither of us could have ever done anything to avoid. I read a couple of government reports by a chap called Wayne Gillett, in which he noted the feelings of grief and devastation are just as great in a couple who are "situationally infertile". I must get a copy of those reports (also quite old) and post interesting parts up here. Getting them may be hard though, as they are at the library at work, and I DO NOT want my co-workers to see me getting them out of the library. Maybe I will just photocopy them...
Anyway, I'm feeling tired and high and hungry. Want to eat, need to drink (water), and do a test. Until another day, have a great Thursday/Friday in your part of the world. :)
 |
| http://thelandofif.blogspot.com/ |
That got me thinking, maybe the local library has some books on dealing with infertility. It's been a hard thing to come to terms with this second diagnosis, but in reading Melissa's book (bits of it) I've already discovered things that are helpful to me. So I gathered my parking meter money and headed off to the library in search of more information.
I took all the interesting looking books, as follows:
 |
| The IVF Revolution, by Prof. Robert Winston |
 |
| Why me? The Real Life Guide to Infertility by Loraine Brown |
 |
| What to Expect When You're Experiencing Infertility by Debby Peoples and Harriette Rovner Ferguson |
 |
| Unsung Lullabies, Understanding and Coping with Infertility by Jaffe, Diamond, and Diamond |
 |
| IVF & Ever After by Nicola Bedos |
 |
| Infertility, A Guide for New Zealanders by Sue Saunders. No link, as I couldn't find anywhere selling it! |
Here's a bit of depressing news: GST has gone up. GST is Goods and Services Tax, and it applies to most everything you buy in NZ. It went from 12.5% up to 15%. "Why is that interesting to me?" you say, well, it affects the cost of IVF treatment. What was once around about $11K has just jumped to over $12.5K!!! :( I sat down with a calculator last night and worked out the cost. I suppose it doesn't really matter if I reveal the name of the clinic, it's not like there are many to choose from in New Zealand: Fertility Associates. (P.S I really really think they should consider changing the photo on their homepage - a big pic of a baby is just insulting!) Yeah, so at least the cost of everything is on their website.
I'm trying to decide what to do, how to progress things a bit. On one hand, I've already written to www.fertilitynz.org asking for their help, and they have said they will be advocates for us and forward our letter of complaint on to the fertility clinic. However that was over a month ago. Now I'm wondering if I shouldn't just complain directly to the clinic. What do you think?
The other thing I'm trying to decide is whether or not I should approach the Health and Disability Commissioner. Here in NZ there is quite a good system where patient/consumers can easily make complaints about health providers. I've made use of them once before when my endocrinologist did a shoddy job of switching me over to Lantus (he got the dosing all messed up, which meant I had a bad hypo and broke my back, then he blamed me. Yes, he's my current endo - I live in a small town!) and the folks there were quite helpful and very clear about my rights. I know they probably can't do much in the way of getting us the access to public funding we require, but it would be good to stop a similar thing happening to other couples. It's totally changed my life. The more I think about what happened, I become convinced that we are being discriminated against. Just because Hubby has a vasectomy from a previous marriage, that should have nothing whatsoever to do with our marriage. Our marriage is infertile, with 0% chance of conception and over 7 years of trying. In any way you look at it, telling us to wait 3 years feels like a penalty that neither of us could have ever done anything to avoid. I read a couple of government reports by a chap called Wayne Gillett, in which he noted the feelings of grief and devastation are just as great in a couple who are "situationally infertile". I must get a copy of those reports (also quite old) and post interesting parts up here. Getting them may be hard though, as they are at the library at work, and I DO NOT want my co-workers to see me getting them out of the library. Maybe I will just photocopy them...
Anyway, I'm feeling tired and high and hungry. Want to eat, need to drink (water), and do a test. Until another day, have a great Thursday/Friday in your part of the world. :)
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Exhibition opening
The opening to the tutor exhibition went really well. I was a bit worried because the other tutors were quite late installing their work, and then of course I was worried about showing my work next to theirs! We are spread across two rooms, and at one stage no one else had installed into my room, I was all on my lonesome! There was some talk of getting me to move my artwork to the other room - so not fair, since I was first to install out of everyone! So I chased the remaining artists to get them into my room, and it all worked out well.
The opening went off without a hitch, and it looked (and sounded) great. We had about 30 people come along, and for a lunchtime opening I thought that was quite good. The institute CEO came down and wanted to meet all the artists and talk to us about our works, which I thought was a really nice guesture as he's really busy.
I got some really good feedback from both the other artists and our students. It's great to see the look on their faces when they realise you are actually a practising artist, and this is a professional show. It's cool to see them see you in a whole new light :) Actually I think they were a bit surprised by how passionately each of us tutors could speak about our works, completely unprompted (students need to be poked with a hot stick before they will get up in front of people and talk about their work!!).
The other artists showed prints, paintings, digital artworks on computer, video, sculptures, photos, installations, and drawings. All in all it seems to be a great cross-section of different artistic disciplines and I'm very pleased I took part. I've had some great feedback so far, and everyone really wants to know what the words mean. That gives me a great chance to explain a bit more about diabetes, and several of my colleagues were very surprised to find I had diabetes - I certainly don't hide it!
Hopefully I will have some photos for you all by the end of the week :)
The opening went off without a hitch, and it looked (and sounded) great. We had about 30 people come along, and for a lunchtime opening I thought that was quite good. The institute CEO came down and wanted to meet all the artists and talk to us about our works, which I thought was a really nice guesture as he's really busy.
I got some really good feedback from both the other artists and our students. It's great to see the look on their faces when they realise you are actually a practising artist, and this is a professional show. It's cool to see them see you in a whole new light :) Actually I think they were a bit surprised by how passionately each of us tutors could speak about our works, completely unprompted (students need to be poked with a hot stick before they will get up in front of people and talk about their work!!).
The other artists showed prints, paintings, digital artworks on computer, video, sculptures, photos, installations, and drawings. All in all it seems to be a great cross-section of different artistic disciplines and I'm very pleased I took part. I've had some great feedback so far, and everyone really wants to know what the words mean. That gives me a great chance to explain a bit more about diabetes, and several of my colleagues were very surprised to find I had diabetes - I certainly don't hide it!
Hopefully I will have some photos for you all by the end of the week :)
Monday, October 11, 2010
A sort of anniversary
So this will be short and sweet, but I just wanted to mark the start of October since it's roughly one year since we started this journey of diabetes and infertility. My bloggiversary occurs next April - I can't believe it's so far away, I feel like I've been writing for ever! haha I will have to think up a special celebration for it.
Oh well, to mark the day, here is one of my favourite paintings. I actually made a reproduction of this work, in my student days (no, you can't see it!) :)
My lovely hubby took me out for Indian for dinner tonight. Yum yum! Butter chicken my favourite (predictable, I know - but I only choose it about 50% of the time I eat Indian, honest!) Lots of poppa dams, naan bread, white rice, and fried tandoori things on a hot stone. Ooh food heaven!
I have to say, I am a very useful person to take out to dinner. You see, whenever I take out my test kit, the wait staff ALWAYS come over. It might be coincidence, but it's happened so many times (more than 100) that I think the waiters are just curious! What is she doing? hehe - anyway the upshot is that we get served pretty quickly!
The downside, with indian food, is I have no idea how to carb count it. :(
Actually, it would be helpful if I knew exactly how much I ate :P But I just wolf it down, so hungry!
I had my first day back at work today after mid-semester break, and with a good breakfast test, and not much food (no grazing at the biscuit tin today!), and plenty of walking between classrooms, I went quite low during a staff meeting this afternoon. After treating that, then eating Indian for dinner meant a nice high just now. Ah well. Bolus. Then the painful part - staying awake long enough to know if it's "just right" and not going to send me plummeting overnight.
I also don't want to be high all night, as that will ruin me for the exhibition opening tomorrow (so excited!) Oh, question for you: do you get incredibly hungry when you are high sometimes? Like, ravenous? It's weird, my symptoms seem to have done a flip-flop over the last couple of months. I just want to eat the cupboards bare when I'm high, and (TMI warning, advance apologies, avert your eyes etc) I need to pee like a racehorse when I'm low. Weird I know - I've never been one to do things by the book :P
Oh well, to mark the day, here is one of my favourite paintings. I actually made a reproduction of this work, in my student days (no, you can't see it!) :)
 |
| Girl with a Pearl Earring - c.1665 - Johannes Vermeer |
I have to say, I am a very useful person to take out to dinner. You see, whenever I take out my test kit, the wait staff ALWAYS come over. It might be coincidence, but it's happened so many times (more than 100) that I think the waiters are just curious! What is she doing? hehe - anyway the upshot is that we get served pretty quickly!
The downside, with indian food, is I have no idea how to carb count it. :(
Actually, it would be helpful if I knew exactly how much I ate :P But I just wolf it down, so hungry!
I had my first day back at work today after mid-semester break, and with a good breakfast test, and not much food (no grazing at the biscuit tin today!), and plenty of walking between classrooms, I went quite low during a staff meeting this afternoon. After treating that, then eating Indian for dinner meant a nice high just now. Ah well. Bolus. Then the painful part - staying awake long enough to know if it's "just right" and not going to send me plummeting overnight.
I also don't want to be high all night, as that will ruin me for the exhibition opening tomorrow (so excited!) Oh, question for you: do you get incredibly hungry when you are high sometimes? Like, ravenous? It's weird, my symptoms seem to have done a flip-flop over the last couple of months. I just want to eat the cupboards bare when I'm high, and (TMI warning, advance apologies, avert your eyes etc) I need to pee like a racehorse when I'm low. Weird I know - I've never been one to do things by the book :P
Friday, October 8, 2010
My diabetes artwork - installation complete! Hooray!
Five posters, two ladders, and four lows later, I'm done! Yay! What a day! :D
And here's some shots from the installation of the work:
Here are the posters, see which words you recognise:
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| DOC: the diabetes online community, a wonderful bunch of bloggers who encourage and support each other :) |
 |
| SUM: six until me, the first diabetes blog I read, and the one that inspired me to create my own blog. |
 |
| BASAL: refers to insulin basal rates, a word that diabetes folk will understand, but other people might not necessarily. |
 |
| SWAG: stupid wild-arsed guess, for when a diabetic takes an unscientific amount of insulin, rather than working it out. |
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| BOLUS: the insulin a diabetic takes with each meal, or to correct a high blood sugar. Another word that non-diabetics may be puzzled by. |
By now you are probably scratching your head, wondering why on earth I've made these posters. Well dear friends, I will tell you :) I'm a tertiary tutor at the local college, and I work in the art department teaching typography, design, web, and digital media. It's good fun. Once a year the art tutors get together and put on a little exhibition to show the students and the local community what we've been up to.
At first I didn't know what to make my artwork about, but then I thought what better subject than diabetes? But how to portray it in a way which is both useful to diabetics (ie, improves knowlege and understanding of T1 diabetes) and sympathetic to diabetics (ie, not crass or gross, using obvious imagery like needles, blood, or the horrors that get repeated in the media about diabetes).
This artwork, although not large, is my first foray into making diabetes related art. And so far it's getting a good reception by those who've seen it. The exhibition opens on Tuesday and I can't wait!
It's made of ink on watercolour paper, on cotton printed fabric. Each piece is hung separately from a bamboo pole, perpendicular to the wall:
 |
| The first thing the viewer will see when they step into the gallery. |
 |
| The five posters are hung perpendicular to the wall, to obscure the straight view onto the images. |
 |
| I love the shadows created by the pieces, and how they become a floating sculpture, rather than just flat pictures on a wall. |
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| Kitch floral prints were chosen for the backing, to tie the pieces into my home. |
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| The viewer will have to come up really close and stick their head in the 40cm gap between each poster to view them properly. I like that! |
The posters depict words created by, specific to, or repurposed by the diabetes community. The underlying themes in this work include diabetes, community, language, and the interplay between secret and public. I chose this visual style to work as a visual pun on the idea of embroidery samplers, sometimes called needlepoint samplers. I've turned my posters into graphic samplers dealing with words related to diabetes, which is synonymous with needles. :)
Here's a short timelapse video of the making-of one of the posters:
And here's some shots from the installation of the work:
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| Tying tiny knots in fishing nylon line, to hang each poster. |
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| The day was like a aerobic step-class from hell. I went up and down the ladder soooo many times! Ah, we must suffer for out art! :P |
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| Final touches, straightening and checking the pieces before tidying up the room and setting the lighting. |
It's been a mad day, with a crazy rush to get everything done and put together. A couple of lows interrupted my day, and I couldn't get above 5.2mmol/L until about 6pm. Oh, they've all caught up with me now though, I'm 17.2! Bah! :P
Roll on Saturday! :D
Roll on Saturday! :D
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