LifeAfterDx--Diabetes Uncensored

A internet journal from one of the first T1 Diabetics to use continuous glucose monitoring. Copyright 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016

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Location: New Mexico, United States

Hi! I’m William “Lee” Dubois (called either Wil or Lee, depending what part of the internet you’re on). I’m a diabetes columnist and the author of four books about diabetes that have collectively won 16 national and international book awards. (Hey, if you can’t brag about yourself on your own blog, where can you??) I have the great good fortune to pen the edgy Dear Abby-style advice column every Saturday at Diabetes Mine; write the Diabetes Simplified column for dLife; and am one of the ShareCare diabetes experts. My work also appears in Diabetic Living and Diabetes Self-Management magazines. In addition to writing, I’ve spent the last half-dozen years running the diabetes education program for a rural non-profit clinic in the mountains of New Mexico. Don’t worry, I’ll get some rest after the cure. LifeAfterDx is my personal home base, where I get to say what and how I feel about diabetes and… you know… life, free from the red pens of editors (all of whom I adore, of course!).

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Of Words & Deeds

The color of diabetes. Deep red. Like blood. Moving, spinning, flowing. I swirl the glass in my left hand, gripping the stem lightly, watching the fluid rise and fall around the clear edge, slowly settling back into the bottom, not wanting to let go of the smooth surface.

Rio cocks his head to one side, waiting. I bring the wine glass to my nose and breathe in the aroma. Ahhhhhhhhhh…. A lovely cab.

I raise my glass and say, “to words and deeds.” Tonight we are celebrating.

Rio clinks his Roy Rodgers against my wine glass and repeats with delight, “to words and deeds!”

His mother raises her margarita glass, clinking it against both of ours; our three different drinks uniting in one toast like the Three Musketeers. “To words and deeds,” she repeats.

Tonight, we have much to celebrate.

Where to even start? Well, Rio survived second grade. Barely. But he won a science award, which came as no surprise; and he also won a most-improved reading award, which was a surprise. Rio’s lagged far behind in reading since pretty much day-one, not from lack of brains, but from lack of seeing any value in reading. (Don’t get me started.)

After coming home from the school awards banquet he proved he inherited some genes from his paternal grandmother. “Don’t awards require a celebration?” he asked, and then set the bar high by suggesting the Steaksmith in Santa Fe would be the most appropriate place to go.

“We do have other awards to celebrate too,” pointed out Debbie.

True. I haven’t posted about them yet, ‘cause I didn’t want LifeAfterDx to start looking like a resume. But I’m kinda proud of this, so just really quickly, my CGM book Beyond Fingersticks has now won:






Yep. Three, count ‘em T-H-R-E-E awards. Oh and the little Tiger book also won a second award this season too. That brings my book award tally for the three English Language books to eight, three for Born-Again Diabetic, two for Taming the Tiger, and three again for Beyond Fingersticks, which gives me resume bragging rights to say: “Author of three multi award-wining books.”

My mother is very proud of me.

But not all the action is in books. Lots of other cool things are happening with Words in my life right now. Of course all of you are up to speed with my work answering diabetes questions at ShareCare, and hopefully you’ve been following my Dear Abby-style advice column on Saturdays at Amy’s Diabetes Mine site.

What you might not know yet is that I’m now writing for dLife too.

If ya’ click on that logo on the left it’ll take you to my profile page that will eventually link to all my work there. Right now there’s a piece up about how many times you could/should use a needle. My Debbie once left a pen needle on a Byetta pen for a month, that’s sixty shots! (No, we’re not quite that poor, apparently I was unclear when I taught her how to use the penat least that’s her story, and she’s sticking to it.)

If you search a little, you might also find a piece I did on the importance of dental cleanings, with a unique twist.

So you might ask, does he ever sleep? And the answer is: of course. Just not very often or for very long. ;-)

Seriously, don’t worry about me on that front. I’m still in the trenches at the clinic, but now running a much smaller program. Not that we have fewer diabetes patients, in fact, I had two new ones just this week. One of them cried when I told him he had diabetes. But that’s a story for another day. As is the one about the guy in a wheel chair with one leg that has no electricity or indoor plumbing. Did I mention he has to travel 200 miles three times per week for dialysis? If that one won’t make you cry, the one about the 13-year-old type 1 whose father steals his syringes for heroin will. Where’s the mom? Pissed if a low blood sugar makes her late to go party, that’s where.

Like I said, we’ll have to save those for another day.

No, our program is smaller ‘cause grant funding is drying up. Well, hell, funding for rural health of any kind is drying up. It seems the folks who sit in the comfy leather chairs in DC really don’t care if poor people with beautiful skin colors have health care or not.

Sometimes I even think they’d rather just let everyone who’s not like them die.

So my program is down to just me, and just three days per week. Still, that’s three-quarter time on our ten hour days, and I find now that I’m getting older, the long days and long commutes really wear me down. I’m liking the Monday-Wednesday-Friday thing just fine, thank you very much. It gives me all day Tuesday and Thursday to write, and my loved ones are not exactly early risers so I have peace and quiet for hours on weekends to boot.

So life, in the big picture is good. Sure. I still struggle with my diabetes. My check book. The little annoyances of life, like the fact that I spend about of a third of my time fighting with the fucking insurance companies, rather than just helping my patients to understand how to help themselves be healthier. But, still, life is good. I love my work. The one-on-one with the people I can look in the eye; and the work with people I can only reach through my Logitch Wave keyboard.

Life, in the big picture, is good indeed.

Where’s that cocktail waitress? I think I’ll have a second glass tonight…

4 Comments:

Blogger Marie Seymour-Green said...

As one of your new readers, may I offer my congratulations - on the entire family's achievements. :-)

8:57 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Congrats to all!
Ressy

1:02 PM  
Anonymous Business logo design said...

Your post have the information that is helpful and very informative. I would like you to keep up the good work.

7:21 AM  
Blogger Scott K. Johnson said...

Congratulations all around for tha awards - especially to Rio! Way to go dude!

I'm sorry to hear things are so bleak at the clinic. It's very saddening. How does anyone expect things to get better if we don't help others help others?

2:08 PM  

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