Well, here is my big news: I’m starting an MFA in creative writing program at Queens University in about two weeks! Yikes! I’m so excited. It’s a low-residency program in Charlotte, NC with a great faculty. I applied past the deadline and they accepted me and in two weeks I’ll pack my bags and drive to Charlotte for a week of reading, writing and work-shopping. I’ve never been away from my boys for this long and I have about 30 books I need to be reading and I need to get my writing ready to be work-shopped and I am thrilled and overwhelmed. This is a dream come true! I am abandoning my MAT in English program which was a means to an end so that I can follow my passion. I have lusted after an MFA for years but told myself it was too late, too expensive, too everything and so I put my dreams in the closet.

Last week, in the middle of a bad cold and after spending the day in bed while my children watched tv, I knew I couldn’t return to my MAT program. I knew it wasn’t too late or too expensive for me to open the door to my dream and let them out of the closet…..Apparently I am a late bloomer and while I’m sure to be one of the older students in the program, I know that it doesn’t matter because I’m only now starting to realize that my life is constantly evolving and changing shape. I’ve given the last seven years of my life to my children and now it’s time to follow my dream. It’s not too late after all.

(And I have a husband who supports this dream…how great is that!?!)

Somehow I just got the winter 2008 issue of Countdown, (not sure why it was late), and I saw an interesting newsbrief that says, “Children at risk for type 1 diabetes may gain some protection from developing the disease by increasing omega-3 fatty acids in their diet, according to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.” The newsbrief explains that Omega-3 fatty acids are “abundant” in certain fish, dark green veggies, canola and sunflower oils.

Hmmmm….I’ve had type 1 diabetes for 23 years and am the mother to 2 boys, ages 4&6. My boys are not fans of fish but they do eat “trees” (broccoli), so this is wonderful news! Who knew there were ways to fight this disease, and that our tools in battle could be so simple like tuna and broccoli! I think this is very exciting and so if anyone has any kid-friendly tuna recipes, send them on over!

How many times over the last 23 years have I gotten low with strangers? Last week I went to my grammar class at 5:45pm. The class is 3 hours and so I gave a small shot and ate a quick dinner around 5:15pm, much earlier than normal because I didn’t really have another choice. My normal routine is to feed the kids’ dinner and then Dale and I eat around 7pm every night. I rushed out the door to school and we sat and listened to the professor for over an hour. I had sugar in my bag, Skittles and grapes in case I got low and as the class went on, I started to feel funny. It was difficult to follow the lecture and I could slowly feel myself slipping away but I didn’t want to pull out my One Touch, it was the first night of class and I was sitting in the front row! So I waited, and hoped the professor would call for a break.

Finally, at 7pm, our professor said we could take a break and I stood up to find the bathroom. I followed another student I knew and she tried to talk to me and I couldn’t say anything, I just followed her and kept quiet. When she went into the stall, I tested my blood sugar and was 50! Ugh. I had to hurry back to the classroom to dig out my candy and in the meantime, my classmates started talking to me and I tried to follow what they were saying and come up with intelligible answers but I knew I wasn’t making any sense at all. I was slow to come back and by the time I did, the professor was ready to resume the lecture and by then it was too late to tap my classmates on the back and say, “Hey, by the way, sorry if I was being weird just now, I’m diabetic and my blood sugar was low.” I didn’t say anything; I just let it go and hoped they didn’t think I was weird.

On my way home I wondered how many times I’d been in this situation. I wondered how many people I’d met along the way who had caught me in a bad moment. I knew it shouldn’t matter what other people thought of me, especially strangers who I would never see again (I dropped that class!) but the part that bothered me the most was that I cared at all, that I felt like I needed to apologize for my behavior, that the way I acted, wasn’t me.

There is a photo of me and Dale with some friends on the beach before we were married.  It was a cold fall day and we were wearing jackets and hats and in the picture, I am wearing sunglasses. Dale hates the picture because he remembers that day. “That was the day you were low,” he said the last time I was flipping through the album. It’s a beautiful photo, the beach stretches out behind us at low tide and the sky is a gray blue with wispy white clouds. Dale tells me he remembers how my eyes looked that day; my pupils were big and distant as if I wasn’t really there. He’s not asking me to apologize but I feel like telling him, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, it wasn’t me.”

But if it wasn’t me, who was it, and where was I?

Ok. I’ve done a little research and it appears that type 1 diabetes is on the rise, at a rate of about 3% a year. So, I was wrong in my earlier post about diabetes and pregnancy when I said type 2 was on the rise, not type 1. However, I still stand by my argument that the study should have separated the groups of women with diabetes into type 1 and type 2.

Diabetes and Pregnancy

According to a recent study conducted by Kaiser Permanente and funded by the ADA, “diabetes before motherhood” has doubled in the last six years. The study is the largest and most diverse to examine type 1 and type 2 women with diabetes in childbearing years. We need this kind of research; we need more information about managing diabetes during pregnancy. However, this report which was released in the May issue of Diabetes Care and has been plastered on Diabetes health, Science Daily and Yahoo news makes some important mistakes. The point of the research, I think, is to encourage women to engage in healthier lifestyles before they get pregnant to decrease the risks of miscarriage and/or birth defects. This is all well and good…..However, as a woman who has been living with type 1 diabetes for 23 years and as a mother to two healthy boys, I am frustrated by this report for the following reasons.

“In the study, Kaiser researchers did not look at whether any of the women had prenatal diabetes care or how the babies fared after their birth. They also could not determine the type of diabetes the women had.” (Associated Press, www.physorg.com) Wait, what? They could not determine what type of diabetes these women had??? The study looked at the increase of diabetes in women in childbearing years, and they couldn’t determine whether they were type 1 or type 2!?! The story in the Associated Press shows a photograph of a woman who has type 1 diabetes and is 7 months pregnant with her second child, her beautiful 3 year old daughter smiles in the front corner of the photo. The woman tells the interviewer how when she was pregnant the first time, she checked her blood sugar sometimes 15 times a day. I did that too, I thought and I read on…

The story in Diabetes Health discusses the dangers of high blood sugar during pregnancy, “If a mother’s diabetes is poorly controlled, she can have up to a 25 percent risk of delivering a baby with a major malformation of the heart, brain or skeleton. (But) with excellent care, these women have an excellent chance of having a healthy baby.” Yikes! I think, this is so scary to read and I’m done having children…..I keep reading. In Science Daily, the story explains some of the reasons for the increase in women with diabetes before pregnancy are, “due to the fact that our society has become more overweight and obese.” (www.sciencedaily.com) Okay, I think. Maybe they are not talking about me. So wait a minute, who are they talking about then? I keep reading.

None of these articles differentiate between type 1 and type 2 diabetes. This is what I discover after I print everything out. Research shows:

1. Diabetes in women of childbearing years has increased
2. Poorly controlled diabetes can lead to birth defects
3. The increase is partly due to our obese society
4. Women can improve the life of their unborn child with diet and exercise.

So….hmmmm…Type 1 diabetes is not on the rise. The study did not bother to separate those of us who must inject ourselves with insulin and those who can “Reverse Diabetes.” (Such a cruel phrase!) The study lumped those of us who have been living with this disease for years with women who have type 2 diabetes, probably not diagnosed until they were in their 20’s (because even though type 2 is on the rise in childhood, the majority are still diagnosed when they are older).

I find it hard to believe that a study funded by the ADA couldn’t bother to group the women according to type 1 or type 2. While I appreciate the challenges every woman faces with type 2 diabetes, I know that her disease is not the same as mine and I resent that these researchers refused to take our differences into consideration. I resent that these researchers are using scare tactics about birth defects to grab the attention of all women with diabetes, type 1 and type 2.

The part that angers me the most about this research is that a woman with type 1 will read these stories and feel afraid to have children. Women with type 1 diabetes can lead healthy, normal lives, have healthy, normal pregnancies and have beautiful, lovely, healthy children. Don’t let this research tell you any different.

Sorry for the crazy font on my blog…I’m not sure what has happened, but I’ve got NW designs working on fixing these visuals! Bear with me….

I don’t know about you, mama writers, but I feel like May is for me. I have spent too many hours volunteering at my kid’s pre-school field trips, Easter plays and birthday parties and I am spent. I have said yes to too many blogs, columns and editing projects and my creative writing, my passion has paid the price. So May is for me, May is for saying no, May is for sitting in front of the computer each day and writing for me.

Here’s some tips to help you reclaim you:

· Set a limit on the number of times you check your email during the day. For example, once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and one time in the evening. The less you check your email, the less distracted from your creative writing you will be. As a mother, I’ve begun to feel guilty about the time I spend in front of my lap-top, away from my children and when I read an article in the New York Times about a writer who decided to regulate/restrict the time he spent on the computer, I was intrigued. Could I do the same thing? The idea of limiting my access to my computer made me hyperventilate. So I knew I had to try. I have not yet made it through a full day off-line, but I am attempting to limit my access and I’ve noticed that after hours away, when I log back on, I haven’t missed much.

· Whether you are a type A or a fly by the seat of your pants kind of girl, pull out your planner, organize and catalog your writing goals. Having them on paper, in an organized fashion will help even the most spontaneous of us. And don’t forget to assess your progress. How are you doing on your New Year’s Resolutions? So far, so good? Or do you need to recommit? Write those down too.

· Practice saying no. Start small…No, I can’t make something sweet for the school’s Spring picnic. No, I can’t edit your article. No, I can’t volunteer for this writing group. And No, I can’t watch you ride your bike right now. Mommy needs to write. No is hard to say sometimes and you may feel guilty, but after a few tries, you’ll get more comfortable saying no and it will come easier. Soon, you will find yourself with time to write those stories that have been coming together in the back of your mind. You will breathe easier. You will smile more often. And you will remember that you are a writer.

(From The Writer Mama zine)

Varnell, of Austin, has a knack for finding joy in small moments. She also has multiple sclerosis and has used a wheelchair for many years. Since her diagnosis in 1991, she says, she has sought out everyday positive experiences, such as that toddler-TV break.

As a result, she says, “my life is better now than before I had MS.”

Varnell’s story is not just another anecdote. It’s the inspiration for a recently published study that showed that others with MS who engage in uplifting activities — even saying “thank you” and dining with friends — report fewer symptoms of depression and a higher quality of life than those who don’t.

Here’s the back story: Varnell participates in a long-term study of MS patients run by the University of Texas at Austin and financed by the National Institute on Nursing. One year, while filling out page after page of study questions, Varnell became frustrated. The scientists wanted to know how much pain she had, how often she felt sad, whether she was losing her sight and whether she was ever embarrassed by her appearance. “It was all negative, negative, negative.”

So Varnell sent researchers Lorraine Phillips and Alexa Stuifbergen a list of about 60 questions she wished they had asked — such as whether she had taken a nice nap, gone to a movie or enjoyed a picnic lately.

To her delight, the researchers agreed, in 2005, to ask participants whether they had engaged in 35 positive experiences, all chosen from Varnell’s list.

The results, published in the March issue of the Journal of Holistic Nursing: People who checked off the most items for a given week were the least depressed and had the highest quality of life. That was true even for those who had the most severe MS-related limitations, such as not being able to walk.

The study does not prove that positive habits stave off depression in such chronically ill people. It’s possible that people who do those things are just more resiliently happy anyway. But seeking positive experiences might help, says Phillips, now at the University of Missouri. In other words, she says, Varnell’s list “could be an intervention” for people with MS and other chronic illnesses.

Included on the final list: “I watched Sesame Street just to see children laughing, playing and singing.” Also included:

“I said thank you and meant it.”

“I phoned a friend.”

“I went to visit a friend.”

“I said something pleasant to someone else who didn’t expect it.”

“I crossed off something on my to-do list because I finished it.”

“I learned something new.”

“I was a volunteer or agreed to become a volunteer.”

“I went to a library and checked out a book to read.”

“I went shopping and bought something for myself.”

“I pampered myself with a manicure, massage, new haircut or relaxing bath or shower with a new cologne or perfume.”

“I don’t think I’ve watched Sesame Street lately, but I’ve used just about everything else on that list,” says Jenni Prokopy, a writer in Chicago who has fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition, and blogs at ChronicBabe.com.

“When I’m not feeling well, doing some of these things can help me feel better.”

Helping others is also a tonic, she says.

Varnell agrees. Recently she volunteered at a MS charity walk. She worked all day, signing the certificates of people who finished the walk, chatting with participants and thanking them. She should have been exhausted the next day. Instead, she says, “I felt great.”

What are your small moments?????

Is there any way to read this essay and not feel deflated? Rachel Donadio writes about the NEA’s report which showed that 53% of Americans hadn’t read a book in the previous year, but in 2007, (according to the industry tracker Bowker) 4000,000 books were published/distributed in the United States, up from 3000,000 in 2006. So, according to this research, fewer American are reading, while more are writing.  In the essay Ms. Donadio writes that IUniverse has grown 30% a year in recent years, producing now 500 new titles each month. Susan Driscoll, vice president of its parent company states that, “most writers using IUniverse sell fewer than 200 books.”

Yikes! How is it possible to feel motivated by these statistics? 200 books!?! After reading this essay, I wanted to crawl into a closet with my book proposal and lock the door, give up, throw in the towel….But then I thought, no way. There is no way after all this work that I could give up. I don’t know where this journey will take me, but I’m in it and when my book gets published, I’m going to make sure I sell at least 201 books!