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Showing posts from December, 2007

For Context: Diabetic Basics

In order for the remaining post or two on corporate diabetes issues to make sense, we need to cover some fundamentals to provide context for non-diabetics or those newly diagnosed . Diabetes is a condition whereby the body fails to process blood sugar properly, resulting either in abnormally high (hyperglycemia) or low (hypoglycemia) blood sugar levels in the body. The World Health Organization categorizes all diabetes into three types: Type 1, Type 2, and Gestational. You might best remember Type 1 as genetically caused and most commonly associated with people who have required insulin since childhood. Gestational diabetes is typically temporary, associated with pregnancies in some women, and generally resolves itself after delivery. For purposes of our discussion we'll be concentrating on Type 2, also commonly known as Adult Onset Diabetes. Depending upon which health organization's data you believe, there are between 18 -21 million Type 2 Diabetics in the U.S. I am one of th

I Got Silly Stringed in Texas!

I'm in Plano at our Live Events offices for a couple of days and was preparing for my first interview when one of our sales executives stuck her head in the door. "If you hear thunder, we're about to reach 100,000 over in Revolve." Interested, I followed her to the Revolve sales area and learned that: as of that minute they had reserved 99,998 slots for girls and young women at our Revolve arena events so far this year, and one of our GRCs was on the phone finalizing the booking for two more people. All around me were giddy young sales women shaking cans of something I couldn't make out, and jumping up and down giggling. The one remaining seated salesperson looked up and yelled that she had the booking, and silly string flew everywhere and on everyone. Someone pulled the string on a pinata hung from the ceiling, and "100 Grand" chocolate bars rained down through the group. Then, the team leader assembled everyone for a prayer of thanksgiving for the

New Series - Diabetes and the Corporate Life

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In August 2001, just four months after joining Thomas Nelson, I was diagnosed as a Type 2 diabetic. Outside of a few people in the company I tried for the longest time to keep that fact quiet. After all, personal health information isn't anyone else's business, there's a great lack of understanding about this condition and nobody wants to be the guy who can't chin the bar. I was fortunate to have an endocrinologist and dietitian at Vanderbilt, and a great Assistant with diabetes in her family who could help me manage through the day. Why not keep it quiet outside my staff and just those people who need to know? I know of others in the company who have my same condition. From time to time people struggling with diabetes who heard about my situation have come to see me after being diagnosed. Unfortunately, there is scientific disagreement between health care organizations and professionals as to what is acceptable blood sugar and how tightly to control it. I've heard