Subheading for this blog post: Bird Poop, Cat Pee, Dog Drool and Other Challenges    It’s Diabetes Blog Week, day three!  Today’s topic is “one thing I can improve.”  This is an easy one for me: exercise.  I do not exercise enough.   My excuse is that I’m busy.  It’s a good excuse.  Between...

It’s the end of the weekend, and Sunday night is spent as usual: folding laundry, tidying the kitchen, and organizing my work stuff for the next day. I just emptied out the pack I carried on a long coastal walk with my family today, and I found a handful of test strips at the bottom. In a two-hour period — the whole time of...

We people who live by the numbers: we don’t measure up, and we’re good at admitting it. Our acute awareness of the gap between where we are in our diabetes control and where we want to be is almost a point of perverse virtue. Sometimes I feel like the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter, the minister who tends...

Last week I ran my last race of the season, the Tel Aviv Half Marathon. And as I did in all of races I ran this year (4 half marathons, 1 marathon, 1 10k race and my first 15K race), I set a new personal record: 1:36:06. The race was great and it was a great way to finish a fantastic period of running. My progress has a lot to do with...

A two-juice-box night, in fact. This is what I saw on my nightstand as I was puttering around my room getting dressed this morning. While I do recall having low blood sugar (BG 72) and drinking one juice box and then, 10 minutes later (BG 56), the other one, it didn’t feel so remarkable to me until I saw the evidence several hours...

At the university where I work, every spring there is a 12-week community fitness program, called Getfit MIT,  in which teams of 5 to 8 people compete against other teams for overall participation rate and participation improvement. Each individual has a web-based account tied to her team’s account, and, to be successful, individuals...

When the alarm went off at 4:45 yesterday morning I wasn’t sure what was happening. It took me a couple of minutes to get myself out of bed. I wake up early most mornings but it’s never easy, and  Wednesdays are always the hardest (being the third consecutive running day of the week – then a break). I got up, made myself...

On Sunday, I ran my first 5K ever. Woo hoo! Even though my daughter and I have been running steadily for 12 weeks now, I wasn’t sure I was cut out for nonstop group running in unfamiliar territory. Add diabetes and insulin to a bit of caution, and I had some mental hurdles to overcome to prepare for the race and see it through. It...

My daughter and I have stuck with the running program we started in December. On Sunday (tomorrow) we are registered to run in the St. Patrick’s Day 5K in South Boston. (Yes, today is St. Pat’s Day, but presumably the race is scheduled for the day after so as not to get in the way of the serious celebrations that go on in...

Tel Aviv is normally a very hot place. The summer sun is brutal, and it’s humid, however, winters are relatively warm and comfortable with very few rainy days. But this year has been totally different. It is the worst winter we’ve had since 1992 (which was the coldest recorded winter ever). It‘s been cold and rainy for the most...