Inspiration (and its result)

70.3 miles! A team of 20 women with diabetes (like me!) swam, biked and ran 70.3 miles as a team.

Team WILD - Women Inspiring Life with Diabetes - completed the Austin Longhorn Triathlon. It's almost unbelievable, but it's true and so awesome. You can see their blog, though, and you'll know it's for real. Team WILD coordinated women with diabetes, doctors, diabetes educators, dietitians and trainers to make this enormous feat and all the training needed for it workable with diabetes.

Here's a wonderful radio piece about Team WILD. It made me cry.

I'm inspired now to do something challenging for me - a half-marathon (the distance Jennifer ran - but she also biked and swam) in January as part of a Winter Warriors training program. I'm so excited I can do this - yay! I'm ready to bundle up and rock out. And I know I can do it.

Sorry to be so very cheesy, but I'm feeling warm and fuzzy about this. Go diabetes, go me!

Reverse that.

I just watched a clip from Bill Maher's interview with former Senator Bill Frist. Senator Frisk is a cardiologist and a republican. Bill Maher is a liberal, to some extent, and well-regarded by lefties around town.

I usually wouldn't watch such a match up. I know what I believe in, I don't need to hear bottled arguments and I don't listen to a lot of political talk.

I did listen to this conversation because it touched on the flu shot, which I'm getting soon. But what I heard flipped my opinions around completely.

Republican Bill Frist advocated for flu vaccines as well as the H1N1 vaccine. Bill Maher said he doesn't really believe in vaccines and that he thinks people shouldn't get flu shots and won't die from the flu.

WHAT?!?!

Seriously. Flu vaccines are killed vaccines, that means you can't get sick from them. H1N1 is a huge threat to different populations than the seasonal flu, which is why healthcare workers try to get the word out about the vaccine. Vaccines, by the way, have been around since the 1800s and have eradicated smallpox and nearly eradicated polio, Guinea worm, measles, mumps, elephantiasis, rubella, and many other viruses. This isn't small potatoes.

When people say things about medical advances and healthcare initiatives without any basis in science they're causing trouble and being stupid. Certainly you can decide if you want a flu shot (I do) or a H1N1 shot (I do!). It's up to you to decide what you put in your body. You also can decide if you want to eat crappy food, drink whiskey for breakfast or smoke cigars all day long.

But scaring people about scientifically tested vaccines is way worse than the flu. It's just stupid.

Back up, jerks!

I'm happy to see that Chicago supports patients seeing doctors without harassment, as evidenced by this new Chicago City Council measure.

When women visit Planned Parenthood or any other health center they should be free to enter and exit without bother. There are safe, specific rules about where people who oppose health services to stand and speak their minds. Those rules, including the FBI's Freedom to Access Clinic Entrances Act, are incredibly important.

I find anti-choice/pro-life protesters particularly frightening and I cannot imagine how women in desperate situations feel. Even riding my bike by a clinic where protesters stood with signs made me so angry - I felt my whole body clench up as I pedaled by. What if I was trying to walk in to see a doctor?

People who protest aren't just speaking their minds though - and it's not just a freedom of speech issue, obviously. It's an issue of harassment - sometimes assault or stalking or murder. Pro-choicers can be (as demonstrated by Dr. George Tiller's murder in May) stealthy. Certainly most protesters are not criminals - but the damage that the criminal pro-lifers do is horrifying.

My mom's best friend escorts women at a Planned Parenthood clinic. She walks them through gangs of protesters who yell at them as they leave the clinic. I'm so thankful for her, and all the people who push back on behalf of women's rights - keeping women safe as they make their own choices about their own healthcare.

Thank you, Chicago City Council.

AH-CHOO!

Today I learned that I have allergies.

How can this happen? Well, I'm figuring this all out so I can tell you:

• I'm really just hypersensitive to whatever crap happens to be hanging out in the air. It's not like it's really hurting me (like how peanuts can really hurt people who are allergic to peanuts). It's just bothersome sneezing and runny nose fun.
• I've heard (and cannot find any backup to this on Wikipedia just yet) that I can outgrow my allergies. I love that idea, and I'm hopeful that I'll toughen up some and stop being bothered by this.
• I can take some pretty remarkable medicines to help me out. I promised CVS that I wouldn't make meth out of Claritin D and soon I should be "symptom free" according to B who is hypersensitive to environmental allergens sometimes. That's pretty amazing.

Those are my allergy facts, or allergy bits of possibly factual information. Gesundheit!