When Online Friends Go Offline.

Last weekend, I drove to Kansas City to spend some offline time with some of my online friends. (I think they're really just "friends" at this point, right?) Jess and Josh, Jacquie and Bob, Scott, Bob, C, Amanda and her mom, Brian, Sara, Barb and Jon, Charli and Tim, and I spent some time bowling, eating, laughing and learning, and I think all of our souls might feel a little more soothed because of it.

Several of us attended an event put on by the Kansas City JDRF chapter - typically called a "family retreat" (I went to a similar event in Omaha the weekend before). We heard from people like Dayton Coles, JDRF International Board Member; Patrick Clay, Pharm.D. (who is currently running a T1 clinical trial in KC); and Nan Borchardt, RD, LD, CDE (a veteran T1 herself). I picked up a few new things to try from Nan, like ensuring that your first few bites of breakfast are protein, not carbs (she says this helps to minimize the post-meal spike), making sure that you never give yourself two days in a row off from exercise (working on it!), and that those cardio workouts need to be at least 35 minutes long to burn enough calories for it to be worth it (already making that my new rule!).

There was so much more to the weekend than what I'll share here, but I can say that it was just the pick-me-up I needed. (And that this year's Friends For Life conference can't come soon enough - I'll see many of these people again, there!) Hearing other people's beeps, checking their Dexcom graphs while they sleep to determine if I needed to wake them up, witnessing (and then cheering) someone else putting a new sensor in their arm, comparing meters, defending other people's low blood sugar admissions... it's a nice feeling when all of that is "normal".

The drive home. You people are good for my soul AND my pancreas!