Speak, Show and Tell…with author A. K. Buckroth

Dear readers, I need your assistance in making a profit-for-science decision involving diabetes research.  This would especially apply to other people who have lived with diabetes for fifty or more years.  Hear me out.  Help me to decide.

To begin, after having applied for and received the rare and renowned bronze “Victory Medal” and Certificate this past January, my boasting capacity is limited.  Through the Joslin Diabetes Center (JDC) in Boston, Massachusetts, these specifically recognize “the remarkable achievement of a successful life with insulin-dependent diabetes for half a century.”  Okay, fine.  I am alive with most of my original parts, excluding my appendix and my virginity.

Now the JDC would like me to participate in a study.  My succumbing to this ‘study’ would assist the JDC to receive funding for a special research project from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  They have demonstrated that there is still insulin being made in [the bodies of] several 50-year medalists.  Furthermore, this would allow the JDC to gain a “grant (money) to examine factors protecting against complications and complete destruction of insulin producing cells.”

Of course the American Diabetes Association (ADA) is involved along with “international leaders” and “experts from Europe and the United States.”  It is a study.  That word worries me.

If I submit and fly to Boston, the one-day, 8-hour, study “will include studies of the amount of blood flow in [my] eyes associated with protection from diabetic neuropathy, continued evidence of insulin production in the [my] pancreas, auto-immune diseases, and…” 

The tests that they perform involve a “mixed meal tolerance test that would challenge my pancreas to excrete any insulin that is there.”  Something about C-peptides and islet cells.  Blood tests every thirty minutes are also necessitated.  So far, their studies “suggest that there is a mechanism preventing the immune system from destroying all the cells with insulin.  This makes identifying individuals who are like this crucial to finding how to resist auto-immune destruction.”  Hmm.

Those are most of the facts that I have been told.  Sure, my flight expense would be re-imbursed, a one-night stay at a nearby Holiday Inn re-imbursed along with the taxi fare to the hospital. 

My negations involve #1. Coming up with the fares in the first place; #2. Traveling alone, which I do not like doing, especially cross-country; #3. Affording a rent-a-car to visit family and friends while I am there – if I go.  Why can’t “they” come out here and do their testing?!  Does not California have state-of-the-art scientific diabetes study facilities and capabilities of its own?  I guess Joslin wants to shine.

All in all, this study does not claim to procure a cure.  That is the end-product I would like to parttake in.  From what I am to understand, “they” want to find out how come I lived so long with this disease.  I can answer that: I take care of myself.  I’ll just have to have them read my book.  This whole medalist thing will be mentioned in one of my next books as well!

When hearing the word “smoothie,” thoughts of hot summer morning chores such as yard work were often awarded with a smoothie.  The short-drive-when-you-could-walk to the 7-11 was the closest smoothie location.  The summer mood is languorous, awaiting a saw-sucking delight splayed and sprayed from a metal container specifically for this purpose and in the store.  Desperate heat waves call for such measures. 

With that in mind, I never cared about the smoothie ingredients inside those large metal cylinders.  I wanted cold and sweet and that’s what I wanted!

Now I know better.  I think my age is teaching me to pay more attention to my body.  Therefore, I make my own smoothies.  As much of my daily life is spent between my kitchen and my home office, I greatly enjoy blending various fruits or colorful vegetables with the thought of being healthy.

Proclaiming to be a creative wizard, my concoctions are rarely shared  because much of the time I cannot remember what I put in the blender.  That’s the type of cook I am as well.  And I am a good cook! 

The blender is the mechanism of choice; the only kitchen appliance I use for my smoothies.  Oftentimes I have to hurry to find a container to refrigerate what was made in order to wash out the blender to make something else.  The easy and pleasant convenience of the smoothie container safely kept in the refrigerator is always looked forward to.

This habit has become a convenient and expected delight for any time of day in any type of temperature.  When I do not have time to make a sandwich or warm a bowl of soup or prepare a general meal, my smoothies are there – fruit or vegetable.

I delight in the fact that it is all natural with so many essential vitamins and minerals and pheromones, and whatever-mones that a body can handle.  This is what makes healthy eating fun.  There are many recipes on the internet that I indulge in or use as a base when adding my own ingredients.  It depends on what is available in my refrigerator. 

Hmm.  It is time to take a break.  You know I’m heading for the refrigerator for that banana-blackberry-stevia sweetened-2 peeled oranges-with water smoothie that I blended this afternoon.  It is waiting for me too!

Enjoy!  AK.

Here is a situation that we all come across sooner or later among these beautiful United States – Jury Duty. 

Through our beloved USPS ( United States Postal Service), I have been “hereby summoned to serve as a trial juror for the Superior Court…”  At first impressed that a Superior Court would want me for any reason conjures up positive emotions.   After the 30 seconds it takes me to get over myself, I think rationally.  After all, I have done this numerous times in the past.  So being, the anxiety never lessens. 

Hmm.  My responsibilities will need to be put on hold.  That means a dog-sitter and walker, getting a lead on laundering (and not just personal clothes), pre-paying monthly bills, making unpaid-for-work arrangements, fill the gas tank, collect loose change for vending machines and lunch money, change my voice mail with directions, set my e-mails to ‘vacation response’ without a vacation, cancel appointments, meal plan, get my exercise workouts in now, pack reading materials and medications, and so many more errands that were once enjoyable and done at my leisurely pace!

I have been told to “throw it [the summons] away,” and claim that it was never received.  I have also been told by others who have themselves been told (hearsay) that if you do not respond, “they” will find you.  Who are “they?’  And once “they” find me, what are they going to do with me?

In bold, red print on the summons it reads: “Failure to appear when instructed is punishable by contempt and/or fine, pursuant to [whatever states’] code of procedure section 209.”  Phew!  That’s a lot of guilt for a temporaty volunteer position!   Being found “in contempt” means jail time – I do not want that.  Being “fined” is no better because I do not want to pay for someone else’s legal wrong-doing.  Throw them in the slammer and be done with it!  No no, can’t take that attitude.

So, by the ‘systems’ useful force of guilt-by-duress, I concede.  Following the printed instructions by making a necessary telephone call for reporting instructions, my jury duty-ship-ness is postponed for two days with a message to “contact this office after five o’clock in the evening.”   Such a bother! 

Well, my house is now the cleanest it has been since before Thanksgiving.  My bills uptaded.  The taxes are filed.  Errands are accomplished to include extra dog food and treats.  Everyone has been notified whether they need notification or not.

I am going forward.  Although being forwarned that I will be placed on “Standby Service,” a chosen book will keep me busy as I wait to be chosen – or not – while sitting on a hard plastic chair for six to eight hours.  Sure, I could choose to ‘disqualify’ myself, but there is no recourse for that.  I will go forward and promote my country’s legal system with my brain and my time.   If this is the best I can do to serve my country and its citizens, then so be it.  I’ll catch up on some reading.

Stay positive and expect the unexpected! 

AK.

The history of insulin goes back to the early 1920s.  “Dr. Frederick Banting and Charles Best are known as the discoverers of insulin.  They first extracted insulin from the pancreases of dogs in 1921.”  www.TheHistoryOfInsulin.com and ww.Dr.CharlesBanting.com.

   Ingenuity and desperation were the necessary mothers of this invention, so to speak. As a child, I was often reminded or heard remarks pertaining to the organs of cadaver cows and pigs that were used for their extraction of pancreatic fluids – insulin – for human use. The documented history of this disease amazes me as well as answers some questions. For one, how did people survive? They didn’t. How was it detected, diagnosed? How did anyone know what to do? I learned most of this through my research preparation of the yearly Science Fair at St. Mary’s. I never won, but I am sure I brought early attention to parents and peers to this disease. That was my sole purpose. It was unpopular in the early 1970’s. People didn’t seem to care as long as there was ‘insulin.’ 

   There is one story I heard of or read about of how a person had to sharpen his/her own needles. How was that done? I have never found an answer and this question will remain in my mind. I am very curious.

   There is another story I came across some time ago that I will never forget. During World War I, a highly educated and young husband and wife escaped the harsh European regime at the time. I recall that the wife was 19 years old and a schoolteacher. Although she suspected she was sick, suffering with typical diabetes symptoms, medication was not easily available. Not until they made their own from the cadaver of a cow. To make a long story short, she survived on this concoction until arriving in America where she was able to purchase animal extracted insulin. This full yet short story can be found in an older issue of Diabetes Interview, specifically Issue 114, Volume 11, Number 1 © 2002, page 50, entitled “Eva’s Insulin,” written by Radha Mclean. It is truly awe-inspiring and worth your research and reading. Interestingly enough, through my research, I also found a substance extracted from, believe it or not, salmon that enhanced insulin that same time period. Amazing.

   I have always wondered how it was for many people many, many years ago who suffered with and through the systems and agony of diabetes, even before it was named. I can only think that their lives were short and uncomfortable. 

   As a “controlled substance, my use of insulin for over fifty years leads me to believe that I am an addict. I have had to use it, I need it, I crave it, I want it. These are the standard physical and emotional strains as with any drug, legal or illegal. Reality check!

   Present day “elders” of this disease, whom I prefer to call “champions” are those individuals whom I have only read about that have dealt with diabetes for longer than I. This fact continues to amaze and awe me; to have this disease for 50, 60, 70, and even 80 years is mind-blowing. I’m right there with them if only due to my choice to live while having a strong spirit.