Living with Diabetes and Lapband

I might have to change my mind about Express Scripts.  They made me absolutely nuts when I had to use them before – between how they shipped insulin, to how they manage some medications.

There are advantages to Express Scripts over UHC Optum RX – they charge by the month, not the dose.

They allow PillPack though I have to pay the monthly cost, not the 90 day.  The nice thing about Pill Pack is that they help manage my medications that take pre-certification.

We’ll see how it goes, but I am going to let PillPack handle things for awhile.

I am enjoying the birthday wishes, and have good plans today – an exercise workshop with @sunstonefit and dinner later with my husband.

This is an important birthday for me as I am eligible now for Texas Teacher Retirement benefits.  In fact, I have all the medical information and am now chasing down pre-certification for prescriptions, etc.

I’m letting PillPack do the heavy lifting on that as I know that dealing with Express Scripts makes me crazy.

I’m also getting my head wrapped around the semi-retirement thing.  I know that people laugh when I say that retiring is hard.  BUT, first, this came as a surprise – I didn’t think it would happen as soon as it did – I got a bit lucky because I teach tech and could buy retirement years.  I could have gone back to the classroom, I had a job offer from a local school, but all signs pointed that it wasn’t the right thing for me any more.

I’ve always been very active, especially mentally, and I hate wasting all that education I have.  So there you go.

The best thing that has happened to me in the past two years is Johns Hopkins.  I have to thank a Syster for refering me to that job.   I teach computer science and web design for them and typically have over 10 students.  I typically put in 15 minutes to 2 hours a day.  I can do it anywhere I have good internet access – I did have to leave an agility trial recently because I didn’t.

I have also just started working on an Open Source project – for the software I am using now.  I always blog best when I am using LiveWriter and I am working on @OpenLiveWriter doing what I do best – supporting developers so that they can concentrate on code.   I would do a full time job doing that as a gig if there was the right project and developers but that doesn’t seem to be happening.  Softcard was the right project, but man were they the wrong people.  Individually okay, but sure didn’t know how to play together.

I am also doing my version of Extreme Weight Loss.  Meaning mostly that it it isn’t extreme.  I’m working out at Planet Fitness, our local aquatics center and SunStone Fit.  I don’t make it to all three each day, though I have once. 

I’m even doing more dog training and am looking forward to getting a puppy (beagle) in the near future.

Why not?

No seriously.  I love these items.   I have been wearing them for over two years now and everytime someone sees them up close they want them.

This is several sizes of the same design.  They come in one piece, and are easy to use.

Just slide the pin in place and you are good to go.

I’ve been using these in yoga:

Super simple.  Twist hair up, stick one in vertical and one horizontal and you are good to go.

It’s at http://www.lillarose.com/kweaver.

See http://www.lillarose.biz/kweaver  Gorgeous hair jewerly.  Found these at an agility trial – and have loved them ever since.  They are made out flexible wire, look gorgeous, and are easy to use.

My favorite right now is the You-Pins, wrap up your hair, stick two pins in them and you are good to go.  They also have really cute badge clips.  So there is something there for everyone.

More later, but I love these!

Posting here because @Nordstrom has ads here.

In the midst of an awecome @Nordstrom exerience which all mistakes were my fault.

My sister and I share a birthday and I foud the perfect present for her on clearance and since I’ve gone through the checkout process with them only to find out that someone else bought the same item before I did, and didn’t get it, I didn’t check the address until after tracking showed it was delivered and she didn’t get it.

I sent it to her old address with her new name.  <sigh>

They opened it without seeing who it was to, but that’s okay.  She got ahold of them and they put it out for UPS to pick up again.

I called Nordstrom customer service to see it if had arrived and told the customer service rep the story. It took us some looking but the reason it was on clearance is that the manufacturer had come out with a new version that was cuter.

Since they hadn’t processed the new one (if it has even arrived), they still went ahead and shipped the new version for the sale price AND upgraded the shipping for free for her to get it in time, since UPS is playing crazy games.

All very awesome.

Though when we were talking about this, Karen decided to get me a Nordstrom gift card because “they take care of you”, to the point of carrying exercise wear in my size. 

Typing this while at Nordstrom buying exercise wear and taking advantage of my personal 10 points day.

It’s quite cool to be able to go out to the web anytime and see my data:

And I’ve actually been much better at managing my diabetes lately because of that.  Which the dog really loves.

I’ve also been going through the insurance paperwork – both the medical insurance and the prescription medication – a lot of the work I’ve done lately.  Looks like we still need to jump through hoops for the generic Celebrex and for the Invokana, but the rest looks good.

Also have appointments set up for all my doctors in January since we need to do the new script thing.

I took advantage of a couple of CyberMonday opportunities and the Medtronics Connect device was one of them.

Since I'm an avowed Windows girl, it is a big awkward but works. I do have a iPod Touch, and am using it to upload my data. I can keep it in my bag, attached to a portable charger and use the hotspot on my phone.

I really wish they would create a Windows Phone app – or let me.

I wish they also had more than CGMS data uploading. I'd like to be able to see everything on the Connect app and website that you can see on the pump.

Not bad though, for a release 1.0

Oh, and the diabetes dog still works better – if she is relaxed, my blood sugar is just fine.