People keep asking how I'm doing, especially after we learned my pancreas is a conversation piece. I figure this is easier than bulk mailing the same answer.

January 1st I was in an ugly car wreck which mercifully did not seriously injure anyone. We're still dickering with the insurance companies over whether the at-fault party owned his vehicle or had coverage, but that's another entry altogether. The Saturn was totaled and I got a rug burn on my right shin from over-tight calf socks, along with a bruised side where the driver's side armrest collided with me. No big deal.

Two weeks later, what should have scabbed over lightly and then healed was now a swollen, unpleasant area on my leg. On the advice of my chiropractor, I was sent to the ER to have my spleen checked where the bruise was. To shorten the story, a routine urine test revealed I was diabetic. The ER doctors and my primary care physician paid little attention to my low weight and pronounced me Type II, probably because they still think in terms of "adult-onset" versus "juvenile."

To shorten the story further, I went behind my primary physician's back and saw a local doctor who's an adult-onset Type I himself, and he ordered a more comprehensive set of blood tests which proved conclusively that I'm Type I, my pancreas is nonfunctional, and I am insulin dependent. Oral meds will not cut it. My primary physician reacted to finding out about seeing another doctor by dumping me as a patient (in the successive week he dropped other "noncompliant" patients and his only assistant quit on him). Good riddance.

Blue Cross anted up for the Medtronic insulin pump I now wear. It's the size of a pager, looks like a pager, and holds 3 days' worth of insulin in it (which coincides neatly with having to change the insertion set on my body every 3 days). If you're Type I and you don't have a pump, get one. The Medtronic Paradigm I have cost five grand, but the actuaries at BCBS finally figured out that the complications of a simple wound and the weekend hospital stay cost three times that. An ounce of prevention...