Diabetes Mine - the all things diabetes blog

Birthday Wishes and Diabetes Dreams

Another year passes, and how do I feel?  Pretty darn good, most days, despite the chronic illness. If I do get the chance to blow out any candles today, what would I wish for?  Pretty simple (hoping disclosure won't jinx me here):

Continued good health for myself and my family.  May my three beautiful girls never have to experience diabetes any more up-close-and-personal than they are now, observing me.

A society that can pull together enough to take a long-term view of our state of affairs, and "prepare the economy for our children and grandchildren."

I'd like to also say an end to Global Warming, War, and Hunger -- but I'm trying to keep it modest here.  Unless I happen to find Aladdin's Magic Lamp; see Badshoe's list of wishes for better diabetes care.

In fact, Bennet quite inspired me to share some of my most pressing D-Care Dreams today.  Pending a CURE, I would love to see the following materialize in my lifetime:

Insurance coverage that actually provides for "health maintenance."  That means funds for educational classes, seminars, and the tools and devices required for "aggressive therapy," as long as the patient can prove they're dedicated to achieving improved results.  No more being punished for changing doctors, changing meds, or choosing a venue outside your "medical group" for the best care.  Yes I know, pigs still don't fly.

Less letting of my own blood for managing this disease.  Semi-invasive, non-invasive, no more finger pokes at all, ever -- bring it on.

An insulin pump combined with CGM that only pokes you in one place (or less). As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't have to be a "closed loop." In fact, I'd pretty much insist on being the "brain" that connects the pump and monitor, so I'm still the one calling the shots (no pun intended). I just want these two devices to work together, and do so without the need for two separate cannulas sticking into me.

A pump that has a built-in glucose store, so I could just push a button and administer a little sugar whenever I get low.  No more need for chalky glucose tablets or a bunch of food I'm not hungry for and can't really enjoy.

Carbohydrate counts stamped on every food.  OK, I know this isn't going to happen, but the closest thing I found so far is Carb Cards, those nifty flash cards.  I'm still waiting for that company to send me my review pack.  (Hey, it's my birthday! What more incentive do you need? ;)

A world in which having diabetes and being over 40 does not turn you into a heart attack waiting to happen, and does not exclude you from the inspirational diabetes stuff, like Medtronic Global Heroes campaign.  Are you listening, Medtronic?  That would be a nice birthday present for "all those individuals who are 40+ and have responsibly taken an active role in managing their diabetes," as my buddy Matt puts it.   

Thanks for riding the magic carpet with me, anyway.  A healthy, happy week to one and all.   

Whittling It Down

The thing most elusive to people without diabetes is how much constant work it is, I find.  When others see me using a lancet or pushing buttons on my pump and react with that ooh! look, I feel like shouting: "It's no big deal, I do this more than a dozen times a day! Every day of my life!!"  So why isn't my @#$! glucose control perfect? 

As recently noted, there are just too many things we need to do "perfectly": food, exercise, dosing, timing of dosing, logging results, more food issues, scheduling lab tests, obtaining the results, extracting meaning from the results, acting on the results... Ugh.  Where to start?

So I was lamenting about all this work in a recent telephone interview with the newly elected president of the American Association of Diabetes Educators, Amparo Gonzalez -- a lovely Columbia (South America) native now based in Atlanta, GA. She does a lot of work with diabetes patients in Mexico, where care is often low-quality and hard to come by.  How the heck do they manage their blood sugars without all the devices and support available here, I wonder?  Still, I was having the audacity to feel sorry for myself that day.

And then, somewhere in middle of our interview, Amparo said something really simple and really smart.  And really helpful.  She said: "I do an assessment of all my patients' behaviors, and then we select TWO THINGS in the way that person lives to change. We take it step-by-step... you have to be ready to change, but don’t try to work on more than two things at a time."

"I myself am working on two things right now: flossing my teeth*, and exercise. I'm going to focus on those until I get them right. And this is what every person with diabetes should be doing," Amparo added.  "You should always be working on something. There’s always something you can improve."

Right!  In fact, I wrote a lot about the "step-by-step approach" in our book last year, but clearly reporting and writing do not always translate directly into DOING. 

So after our interview, I thought it over good and hard.

Here are my Two Things for the time being:

1) testing BGs more diligently post-meals, and

2) dosing more aggressively for every speck of carb I ingest. 

My only fear is, if I focus on these two things until I get them right, I may never move on.  Ugh! These are my pain points.  I may be be chasing these goals when I'm 90 (if I'm lucky to live so long).  Sigh. 

Still, it's quite comforting to have a clear & simple strategy for the weeks ahead.

[*Editor's note: flossing teeth is a bigger deal than you might think, given PWDs' tendency to develop periodontitis.]

That Sleep Thing

I am writing this at 3:27 am.  In the next room, my 8-year-old is slumbering soundly.  How ironic... 

All those years of fear and loathing of being awakened every few hours by some unhappy baby -- dragging out of bed to soothe a bad dream, find a binky, or change somebody's sheets. Now that all the little ones finally sleep peacefully through the night, I've got some kind of self-induced sleep issue going on.  And it's definitely NOT GOOD for my diabetes management.

I wrote about it in this month's Straight Up column at dLife.

Try googling "diabetes and sleep" and you get close to a million hits.

A resident expert on MedScape writes that "sleep disturbances are common among individuals with diabetes. When compared with nondiabetics, patients with diabetes report higher rates of insomnia, excessive daytime sleepiness, and unpleasant sensations in the legs that disturb sleep."

So far the legs are fine over here, knock on wood.  I'm just wide awake night after night right about 3am on the dot.  (The witching hour?)  I toss and turn and mull over dozens of details and "to-do's."  I get up and putter for hours -- which usually means sitting at the PC.  In the morning, I generally have a dull headache and a sensation I can only describe as "thin" -- as in thin attention span, thin patience.  Bad news when you're a parent, and when you're a diabetic who needs oodles of perseverance just to get through the day.

When I haven't slept well, I can't work out. Too tired.  Less exercise = more cranky. 

When I haven't slept well, I do not eat well.  Just grabbing and stuffing and snacking.  That kitchen scale?  Don't even talk to me about it.

When I haven't slept well, I am angry at my glucose meter.  And it seems angry at me.  Then we both have a bad day.

Know what I mean?

'Nuff said.  I'm off to get some shut-eye.  Catch some Zzzz's.  Forty-winks and all that.  God willing.

Just Call Me Your Highness

It's happening again. The unexplained highs. Going to bed at 84, and waking up at 184 a few hours later -- even after eating two buffalo burger patties with cheese and salad for dinner.  WtF?

I MUST be fighting off a cold, although I don't feel any symptoms.  I'm using my PMS temp basal to offset this latest bout of SUS -- Sudden Unexplained {blood sugar} Surge.  But I am baffled and furious at the same time. 

One runs through the mental checklist:

- Is the insulin too old? i.e. ineffective?
- Am I having "absorption problems" at my pump infusion site?  (How do I confirm this without yanking it out?)
- Am I taking any other meds that might effect my BG levels?
- Am I fighting off some sort of infection?  (my eyes were feeling kind of itchy!)
- Has my carb-counting simply gone to hell?

Too many variables!! 

I check so often, and attempt to be so careful about tracking carbs (I do eat them, but in moderation, and with a lot of mathematics involved).  This is just so unfair.  THIS is what makes diabetes miserable for me personally, if you really want to know.  I don't spend a lot of time grieving over my "lost health" or dreading the long-term complications.  I work pretty darn hard at "getting it right," yet too much of the time, I just don't.  And that drives me crazy.

My endo says she worries about every minute her patients spend over 180 -- the definition of hyperglycemia, and the point at which your body can start to release ketones into the blood, which is very bad news indeed. So I suppose I ought to be scared.  But on the face of it, I'm just pissed off.  Really!

Just to make myself smile, I insisted that my family call me "Your Highness" for a day.  What the heck?  I'll never have a better excuse.

A 5-Letter Dirty Word for Women

That would be R-E-L-A-X, according to the lab technician who performed my annual mammogram yesterday morning.  Of course, it's not easy to relax when you feel like your naked breast is being slammed in a refrigerator door, but her overall point is still well-taken.

Women these days are trying to do and be everything. As 2008 ramps up, I'm feeling the crunch. Let's take a quick inventory of what's going on in my life: 5 posts/week here at DiabetesMine.com, two rather extensive magazine articles and multiple Health 2.0 projects in the works, 3-4x/week workouts, 5th grade homework, 3rd grade homework, Kindergarten reading group + school field trips, packed lunches, cat maintenance, massive laundry program, recurring family visits, Bay Area storm damage that ripped off half our roof, and don't forget the untold emotional trauma from having been at the San Francisco Zoo on Christmas Day with our 3 kids just hours before the tiger attack. (We ate lunch at that cafe!) Aargh. But I'm sure your list is just as crazy.

Adding diabetes to the mix is just nuts. No wonder my BG numbers have been all over the map. I had the idea that I should REALLY start keeping a careful food and insulin dosing log, but after several false starts, I'm admitting to myself that it ain't gonna happen. 

Maybe I should concentrate on that five-letter-word instead.  Ladies, I found some nice step-by-step Wiki instructions on how to relax HERE. 

Have I mentioned, btw, that my mom is a breast cancer survivor?  Hers was discovered about 15 years ago, fortunately very early in the game due to mammogram technology.  I'm so proud of her. Today she's doing great, and we mostly forget that she was effected by this frightening disease.  But when I'm standing with my mammary glands squeezed into the Xray machine, I suddenly have flashes of what a friend said upon hearing of my diabetes diagnosis: "You HAVE to talk with my mom! She has BOTH diabetes and breast cancer!" 

Oy vey, I thought one chronic illness was all anybody deserved. I think a second would put me over the edge.  So you want me to relax?  Sure, as soon as I get my results of this latest mammogram with a clean bill of health!

Food Fight

For the first time in several years, I am feeling the pain of weight gain.  In the last few weeks I noticed my pants fitting a little tighter, my thighs looking a little wider, and a fair bit more huffing and puffing as I attempted to jog back up the steep hill that leads towards our house.

Sure enough, the scale confirmed that I've gained at least a solid 5 pounds over the past few months of "letting my guard down."  By that I mean "forgetting" to be cautious about what I eat.  I got a little spoiled, I suppose, because my diagnosis with the diabetes and the gluten intolerance sort of "forced me" to avoid sweets and packaged snack foods, along with most baked goods and pasta, and most starches and fruit as well.  So for a long time now, it's been sort of "easy" to maintain my weight without a day-to-day struggle.

But here's the trouble: I realize that I've gravitated toward a lot of high-fat foods.  For snacks, I'd rather pop a chunk of cheese or a handful of nuts in my mouth than anything that's going to require the guessing game of carb-counting and insulin dosing.  All that cheese and salami and those mixed nuts are now coming back to haunt me -- especially in the killer combination of also eating more high-carb gluten-free foods, now that my daughter is on them. (Who can stand to waste an expensive & tasty half-eaten gluten-free blueberry muffin?)

So what I'm saying is:  Aaaargh!  I'm going to have to get focused on losing weight, or at least on NOT gaining an ounce more.  Here's a whole new set of frustrations to go along with the fight to keep my blood glucose under steady control.  My heart goes out to Scott, and his love/hate relationship with food.  That's exactly how I feel today.

Mind you, I'm no stranger to this.  I had a painful brush with an eating disorder in high school/early college that very nearly ruined my life.  I do NOT wish to return to that dark place where I obsess about every morsel that passes my lips, ride the weight loss roller coaster, and beat myself up about it every day.

I do not want to hate food, because I love it.  But do I love my body more?  What I hate is feeling that I have to take sides between the two.

My Day "Away"

I was lucky this year.  For Hanukkah, my mom decided to cash in a certificate for a Day at the Spa she'd been holding onto since Mother's Day, and I was to be her chosen companion.  Haha!  A day of aromatherapy, foot massages, facial treatments, hot mineral baths and herbal teas.  What could be better?  Weeelll... leaving the diabetes at home for once would have been nice.

Here's how it went:

We left just before 11am and sailed into the City without a lick of traffic.  We coughed up the exorbitant downtown parking fees happily, knowing where we were headed.  Up, up, up a half-dozen separate curving escalators past sparkling holiday mall decorations, piano music wafting over the din.  But wait, it's almost lunch time.  I'm not all that hungry yet, but I'm only at 82 and we're gonna be pampering in there for several hours at least.  So we stop for lunch, a quick salad plate, which contains garbanzo beans and some mysterious sweet-tasting dressing that surely is sugar-based.  So I dose for 25g carb.

Soon enough, we're wrapped in our plush white terrycloth robes, and each being escorted into a "treatment room" by a "technician" in a little beige frock.  My "tech" has a heavy Russian accent, and asks me a lot of questions about my health before we get started.

"How is you's health?" she starts.

"Um, good, generally," I stammer.

"You taking medications now?"

"Well, yes, mostly insulin though..."

"Insol?  Affect your skin?  You take antibiotics?"

"Mainly just a lot of insulin, and a few other ..."  (I cut myself off; do I really need to explain the half-tablet of thyroid medicine I take every morning?  Can't I just get my facial now?)

She lets it go and begins by dipping my hands in hot paraffin, which first startles and then soothes.  Next the hands are wrapped in plastic, covered with big, soft protective mitts, tied up at the wrists with ribbons.  Snuggled in the massage "bed" as I am, I feel like an infant wearing giant anti-scratch mitts.

Suddenly she seems to remember something urgent:

"You take off your jewelry?"

"I just stuck most of it in the robe pocket."

"Oh no! You forget it there.  Or somebody take your robe by accident... no good."

We compromise by placing my more valuable pieces in a paper cup (which looks a lot iffier to me than the robe pocket, but mittened as I am, I'm in no position to argue).

Cold cucumber rounds on the eyes.  Aaaah, the pumpkin face mask, followed by a neck massage.

And then, just as Spa Nirvana should be setting in, the Old Ticker starts up:

Do I detect a slight dizziness?  Could my blood glucose be dropping?  I WAS only at 82 before the salad, after all... 

Oh NO!! Not now... Not with the pumpkin face mask on and the mitts.  God, the mitts!!  And the robe... which I am NOT wearing... is hanging on the door over there somewhere with my raisins in the pocket... What if someone DOES take my robe by accident? 

And WHERE have I left my combo glucose meter/insulin pump?  In the flipping locker room!  Down the hall to the... right, was it?  Oh God, I'm naked on some strange bed with hands and face bound, and no hypo treatments in reach.  What HAVE I done...?

Hmm-dmm, ding, ting... the soothing sounds of New Age massage music enter my consciousness.  And we've moved on to the foot massage, which feels heavenly -- even if I'm still wondering about how quickly I could reach sugar if needed.

After an hour of this sort of tainted bliss, we are out in the open again headed to the steaming spa pools. Then it dawns on me: with my OmniPod attached to my belly this week, I can't dunk in the jacuzzi.  Oh well. I opt for the sauna and "mister" and steam room, where only one co-patron is curious enough to gesture at my pod and ask, What happened?

Later, on the way home, I do feel incredibly refreshed -- a little glowing even.  My body certainly enjoyed this precious day away, even if I can't ever turn off the damn mental Diabetes Detection System.  Maybe by Hanukkah next year, somebody will be offering a Mental Day at the Spa scenario for us PWDs, ay?  Fat chance.

Living Without

This month, I've actually faced one the biggest health challenges of my life.  And it had nothing to do with my own body.  My littlest girl, who just turned 5 at the end of October, was experiencing chronic stomach pains, so the doctor suggested -- in light of my own wheat allergy -- that we try her on a gluten-free diet.

It's one thing to deny yourself all the "normal" foods and goodies that other people enjoy, but quite another to have to force this kind of restriction on a small child.  Arguably, this month has been harder on me than it has on her.

First off, let me say that she was actually begging me to take her to the doctor.  How many 5-year-olds do that?  So we can gauge the level of her discomfort.  When we left the pediatrician's office at the end of last month, I tried to make her new diet sound like a special adventure. 

"You get to eat Mommy's special foods now."

"Mommy's foods?  Wheat-free muffins?  Yay!"

It didn't take long for that "Yay" to melt into "When can I eat wheat again?" and later, in a much more imploring tone: "When I can eat wheat again, can I have XXX??"

The bittersweet news is that her stomach pains have subsided.  I keep reminding her of how much better she feels, but all she can think of is Frosted Mini-Wheats and flour tortillas. 

In a few days, we'll start slowly reintroducing wheat into her diet.  I am bracing myself for the results.  If she still feels well, great! But then we have to start from Ground Zero figuring out what's wrong if and when the stomach pains return.  If she starts having symptoms again, then we've nailed the problem --  which means facing a lifetime of living without wheat. (I'm managing OK, but for me it's just an inconvenience with the added benefit of keeping my carb intake down)

Think for a moment, if you will, about what this means for a child: NO regular pasta whatsoever; NO regular baked goods, including muffins, bagels, donuts, cookies, crackers, etc.; NO breaded items, like fish sticks and chicken nuggets; NO pizza crust or cous-cous or regular waffles or pancakes.  This means always being the weird kid with food allergies.  Always having to bring your strange special foods from home. Never being able to eat birthday cake.  It's killing me.

As ever, hats off to the parents who deal with this, in many cases with children whose celiac is so severe that even a few crumbs of gluten can make them sick.  I may be knocking on their door soon.

Lucky Number Seven

I've been tagged at least twice for the latest meme: seven random things about yourself.  These memes seem to go round and round, and I'm not sure how much you all really want to know about how quirky I am.  But here goes...

1) My first "real job" in high school was at McDonald's.  After that, it was a local drug store/gift shop, where I was actually fired for insubordination, after pointing out the absurdity of their 30-page rule sheet.  Go figure.

2) Everybody says my No. 2 daughter is my "Mini-Me."  At right is a photo of her from a Halloween-past, a few years back. She looks much more mature now.  But ain't she a beauty?  (all on her own, I mean; I don't see so much of me behind that butterfly)

3) I rowed on the Crew Team for a year in college.  At the end-of-season banquet, I was awarded the honor of "Most Vogue Rower" because I regularly showed up to 5am practice wearing mascara and hoop earrings.  (I think the team captains meant it as a dig, but I didn't care)

4) I grew up together with most of the members of the punk-revival band, Offspring.  Their lead singer Dexter and I (whose real name is Brian, btw) got benched at recess together in kindergarten after I copied his bad behavior of balancing his latest art project on his head.  Their drummer Noodles (aka Kevin) was my next-door-neighbor.

5) I love garnish. I'm the only person I know who regularly eats the sheaves of lettuce, parsley sprigs, and tomato and orange slices that come on the side with most restaurant dishes.  No explanation. Just love the garnish.

6) I am distantly related to a concert pianist by the name of Ilana Vered.  She is married to the brother of my aunt by marriage who lives in Washington state.  Both Ilana and my aunt were born in Israel and speak Hebrew, Romanian, Polish, English and a few other languages I can't even recall.  I neither play piano nor speak Hebrew, but when I was little I dreamed of being swept off by these two exotic women to learn both.  The closest I ever got was moving to Germany and learning to speak German.  Nicht gerade was meine Familie sich gewuenscht hat :)

7) Like most other bloggers in the OC and elsewhere, I find that many visitors come to me through, well... unexpected Google keyword searches.  One that keeps repeating itself here and always makes me smile is "marijuana diabetes," "cannabis diabetes," and sometimes "weed diabetes," leading folks to this post.  Seems that I've somehow become a major magnet for PWDs interested in that particular alternative therapy ;)

While we're on the Lucky No. 7, btw, let me take this opportunity to point you once again to the Diabetes Big 7 -- seven self-care behaviors to help you succeed.  This sort of constitutes Quirky Thing No. 8 about me, actually: I can't stand to put up a post here without any "meat" to it, 'cause I want this blog to always strive to offer something tangible to help fellow PWDs.  On that note, you might like these seven principles as well.  Whatever works, I always say.

PS - Ah yes, the rules of the meme can be viewed here.  Whom to tag?   Looks like so many of us diabetes bloggers have been tagged already, so I'm going to think outside the box here: Sara Ost at Healthbolt.net, Elisa Camahort at BlogHer, Tom Reynolds of Random Acts of Reality, John Mack at Pharma Marketing Blog, and Ben Goldacre of Bad Science -- you're it!

Test Strip Art

Back in the summer I was having a little fun bemoaning the trail of all those used test strips that seems to follow me everywhere I go.  Well, a number of you got all over my case for not being more organized, by planting some strategic "TS repositories" around the house.  So guess what?  I took your advice.  And here's what's come of it:

The Kitchen Repository:

The Upstairs Repository:

My 10-year-old's Artistic Take on What To Do with Them:

(I swear the motif was her idea!  Sagacious kids these days...)

More Test Strip Art (from the literal art movement)

Now I must admit we didn't count them all up, but there must be about $1,500 worth of test strips here.  Anybody interested in purchasing some framed TS Art wall prints?  Maybe I should sell them on eBay.

On D-Blog Day, Recentering

Well hello there, it's me.  I've been busy reporting a lot of news lately, which has been immensely stimulating, to say the least.  But today, on the occasion of the 3rd Annual D-Blog Day, I'd like to take a moment to reflect and recenter.  Why do diabetes blogs matter?  What was the reason that I started this I started this blog in the first place?

Ah yes, in small part because I do not know how to relax (it's a curse), and in large part because I got this disease, and I felt a compulsion to do SOMETHING about it.

Because I knew I couldn't be the only one blindsided by diagnosis, sitting home on the couch feeling so immeasurably alone... or searching the Internet at night and wondering, where are the OTHER PEOPLE?  The Others who know how to live with this thing?  Because there must be others picturing a "rest of my life" full of medical vials and hospital hallways, unending syringes and knowing you're a "flawed" human being.  That's how it felt right after diagnosis, anyway.  Kinda black.  VERY alone. 

What I decided to do was start writing to them, all the Others, who must be out there somewhere according to the ADA.  I could try learning everything about diabetes -- anything at all that might make life better -- and report back to the Others on a web site. 

That was January of 2005.  New software had just come out allowing anybody to create an online journal they could update any time.  The idea that this "blog" thing could really be accessible to millions of people was too much to take in.

So I built one, and I began to write.  And They came.  They gave me tips.  They argued with me.  They said thank you.  As sappy as it sounds, a few of them actually made me cry.

Fast forward to November 2007.  It's a regular thing now.  I post nearly every day.  My site hosts advertisers.  I spend an absurd amount of time on the web, for a mother of three.  I attend several "industry events" each year, and make small talk with "insiders."  People send me news tips and requests to reprint my material and pleas for help.  It's all very time-consuming, but it gives me a strong sense of purpose.

I'm happily surrounded by hundreds of other D-bloggers (300 of us now?), who form a community, sharing our fears, frustrations, and triumphs.  We even have special meeting places on the web where we can post photos, enjoy audio content, and much more.

I've learned a ton, but I am still no doctor.  I'm still just watching with wonder as this online technology creates a dynamic new world of patient interaction.  I remain an exceptionally curious patient with a compulsion to do something for people with diabetes.  Thank you, for listening.   

Find a Happy Place

Having practically grown up in Disneyland, it definitely feels like going home.  Except it seems a lot smaller, and a LOT more crowded, than I remember.  Anyway, for a good 60% at least of our two-day annual park schlep last week, it lived up to it's motto, "The Happiest Place on Earth."

Some memorable moments this year:

* Pulling into my mom's garage to be greeted by a handmade sign saying:
WELCOME TO GRANDMA'S PLACE -- THE HAPPIEST HOUSE ON EARTH

* Standing in line for those roasted turkey legs they sell (Thank God!) and watching the vendor-guy struggle for 10 minutes over the order, "Two, please."

* Disembarking the Dumbo ride to have my four-year-old look up with those big brown eyes of hers and ask, "Mom, do Jews believe in cartoons?"

* Observing my 8- and 10-year-olds struggling with the generations'-old philosophical question: "Wait, so Pluto's a dog, and he belongs to a Mouse?"

* Talking about becoming a US Citizen while waiting in one of the particularly long lines, hearing my middle daughter, who was born in Holland, asking: "So then how did I get an American passport when I was a baby, Mom?  Did you take the test for me?!"

A couple of smart moves (yup, patting myself on the back):

- Renting a stroller. Who cares if she's almost 5 and it's only about three yards between rides?  The stroller was our portable backpack holder, and everyone aged 10 and under in our party had a turn enjoying the respite, at least for a little while.

- Dashing to the far back of the park and then making our way forward.  My brother always insists we do this.  Everyone else just runs straight to the closest attraction, which is why Fantasyland is usually anything but for the first half of the day.

- Covering up my OmniPod with a rolled-up sweatshirt when we went on the Matterhorn.  Did you know that a bucking child leaning on your belly during a roller coaster ride can pull that pod right out?  Crisis avoided. Whew...

- Bringing our own lunch on Day 2.  This saved us the $80 and 90 minutes otherwise wasted on overcrowded, poorly-serviced, nutritionally deprived, and did-I-mention-overpriced (?) lunch locales.

(Note that a web site called Disney with Type 1 Diabetes has you covered on everything from carb counts to first aid stations in the park -- the kind of stuff you research in advance only if your kid's the one with the diabetes, I might add :)

Ooh, and do I sound like Grumpy Mom here?  Guess I forgot to mention the rush of euphoria I get every year when the parking tram starts up its engines to shuttle us to the Main Entrance -- our first "ride."  And the feeling of floating on air when it gets dark out and everything is sparkling like magic. 

OK, I admit, for two whole days, I felt irrationally happy (even when the kids got cranky). I didn't worry about conference calls or deadlines or orthodontist appointments.  In fact, I almost forgot about having Type 1 diabetes and celiac disease.  Now that IS magical.