Back to MDI

For the past two months I've been back on Multiple Daily Injections (MDI), and I'd like to talk about the reasons. I had finally hit the stage I never  thought I would: total device burnout. I love my pump. He's a purple Medtronic 723 named Henry. I use him in conjunction with a Dexcom G5. I never, ever in my life (until recently) thought I would voluntarily give him up. So what changed?

Henry and I just hit our 13 year anniversary. Okay, it hasn't been the same Henry the whole time, but I've still been on an insulin pump for 13 years. That's half of my life. For 13 years I never took a voluntary break. The longest I was without a pump was 3 days when I completely wrecked my pump at camp. There were two other times I went without, but they were both less than 2 days each. In 13 years I had at most 7 days away from my pump, total. Other than that I was attached almost constantly to the thing for literally half of my life. Thirteen Years. I was starting to feel a little bit tethered. 

In the months leading up to our anniversary I was looking for reasons to not just throw the stupid thing into a lake somewhere. I have variable basal rates that Lantus can't address. Tons of people would kill to have the luxury of an insulin pump. It's awesome that I don't have to stab myself with a needle every time I want to eat. I'm really bad at the carb game sometimes, and I don't have to inject myself again when I guess wrong. My blood sugar likes to play by its own rules most of the time, and I don't have to inject myself yet again when my numbers are doing their own thing. 

All of the above were swirling around in my head, and then I had a thought occur to me (and it sounded suspiciously like my mother). "Nobody is saying you can never go back." I started to weigh the options in front of me. What did I stand to gain by going back to MDI? My skin, for one. My hips and stomach look like a battlefield. For another, I wouldn't have something logging my every carb and unit. My endo would only know if I recorded it for her, and nobody ever said I had to. The biggest thing was my physical freedom. For 13 years I've picked out my bottoms carefully to make sure they could hold the weight of my pump. If I didn't have a pump, that wouldn't be a problem. 

I called my endo to see about getting some pens. I had worked out my Lantus dose a few months prior when I destroyed my pump at camp. I knew I wanted to use pens because I was given a pen of Humalog and one of Lantus when I messed up my pump at camp because they had a few laying around. My endo was super confused as to why on earth I would ever want to give up my pump. My A1Cs were pretty good (6.4) with the pump, so there was really no reason to change. I listed my reasons. After a little back and forth, she agreed that it was ultimately my choice, and she wrote a 90 day prescription for pens and pen needles. 

Almost 2 months in, and I'd forgotten how much I hated MDI. This is hilarious to anyone who knows how hard I resisted getting a pump in the first place, but I think that's a different story for a different time. As I said before, I'm not always the best at the carb game and frequently have to correct a few hours after a meal. It's not my insulin:carb ratio being wrong; it's just me (sometimes) being really bad at counting carbs coupled with me being quite insulin resistant. 

Speaking of being insulin resistant, my Lantus dose is pretty huge. It's 60 units huge. No matter where I inject or how long I hold the needle in my skin after injection, some always comes back out. The amount that comes back out varies, and I don't know how much this is messing me up throughout the next day.

As it turns out, not logging everything can have its downsides. Like forgetting if I actually took a correction dose, and if I did, when I did it. There's some guessing that can be done, but sometimes I just can't be sure I actually took a correction or not. My memory is pretty bad. 

The people around me aren't fond of watching me stick a needle into myself. This isn't a huge deal for me, because my health comes above their comfort, in my opinion. I'm not a total asshole though, so it does weigh on me. For what it's worth, I don't care at all what strangers think of my injections. I really, really don't. 

I'm fairly insulin resistant and carb sensitive, so I end up injecting frequently. I mean, I have to take insulin for carrots. There are very few foods that won't mess with my numbers. The sheer volume of injections is annoying. 

I'd forgotten about the bruising that can accompany injections. Now my skin isn't dotted with old infusion sites. Instead it's mottled with bruises from many shots. Even in the beginning when I was a good girl and changed my pen tip with every injection, I still got the bruises. 

I'm not a wasteful person at all. I reuse just about everything I can, and try to not waste anything if I can avoid it. This adds annoyance when I get down to the end of a pen. Let's say I have to inject 15 units for dinner, but I only have 10 left in the pen. Do I waste the 10, or inject 10 and then another 5 from another pen? It's frustrating, but I can't stand to waste, so I will usually inject 10 plus 5. 

Remember earlier when I mentioned my variable basal rates? Yeah, that really has come into play. Because I'm still wearing the Dexcom, I can see exactly what happens when I try to use Lantus for my basal. I'll go to bed around 120, then dip down to around 70/75 around 3 AM, and be up to 250 by 9 AM. Then I'll spend a good chunk of my day trying to get my numbers back to where I'm used to seeing them- under 130 most of the time. This is the biggest reason I want to go back to my pump. It's not the number of injections I have to take, it's not the bruises, it's not the inconvenience. It's the fact that  I can't manage my basal needs with Lantus, and then it takes me hours to get back to a reasonable level. Because of this, Dexcom is now estimating my A1C to be 7.1, up from 6.4. 

All in all, I'm not okay with the way my care has suffered since switching back to MDI. I'm frustrated with the higher numbers I'm experiencing and I'm probably going to be back on my pump by New Year. 

Yes, the Crossfit Thing, Again.

It's been a little over 24 hours since the infamous Coke=Diabetes Tweet was sent from the official account of Crossfit. There have been numerous articles written about this fiasco, and I originally had no interest in writing one of my own. I spend a good bit of time on the internet, like most 20-somethings, so I've developed a thick skin for this type of ignorant joke. I was content to just let it go by; there were already articulate people fighting the battle with Crossfit on Twitter and Facebook. Then things started getting crazy. Instead of apologizing, maybe back pedaling, Crossfit not only stood by its tweet, but then opened its figurative mouth and spouted a lot of things that made it clear that the person tweeting for Crossfit does not understand diabetes. That's fine. Most people don't understand diabetes until they're forced to (and yes, it just highlights how far we have to go in raising awareness). The issue comes in the fact that they are not willing to let go of their misconceptions.


Before I get into the meat of this post, I want to express how strong the Diabetic Online Community (DOC) is. Generally, we stick together. We support one another, we chat, we fund raise, and we kick ass. Generally. When these jokes (obviously geared to the type 2 crowd) come out, the first issue always presented is "not type one! Nope, not me! I was diagnosed as a child and I only ate organic unicorn meat before I was diagnosed; I was perfectly healthy!" and the typical response is "oh, of course we didn't mean you! We know you guys are totally innocent!" So, I'm not going to touch that one. We are aware that type one and LADA (slow-onset type 1) are autoimmune conditions that we don't know how to prevent. We know.

My problem with the obvious "not me" gut reaction of type ones is that we are throwing our T2 brethren under the bus. I'm of the opinion that we have the more socially acceptable diabetes because it's generally accepted that we didn't do anything to cause our diabetes. But we need to stick with our T2 friends. I know there are quite a few T1 folks who resent the T2s because they feel T2 is easily preventable. I've already written about why I fight these misconceptions, but seriously, nobody asks for diabetes. Nobody deserves diabetes.

Some facts from the CDC:

As of their 2014 report, and estimated 29.1 million people in the United States have diabetes, and 95% of those cases are type 2. Out of all T2 cases, an estimated 80 percent of  them occur in overweight or obese individuals (those with a BMI of 25 or higher).

Okay, so dismissing the 1,455,000 T1s and the 5,529,000 "thin" T2s in the US, we are left with 27,645,000 overweight or obese type 2 diabetics. That's a lot of overweight T2s, I know. It shouldn't be surprising, given that being overweight is one risk factor in developing type 2 diabetes.  Newsflash: regular, full-sugar soda is a beverage that is relatively high in calories. Consuming an excess of calories causes the body to store the extra calories as fat, adding weight.

I am not denying that drinking cola can contribute to gaining weight, which can contribute to developing type 2 diabetes.

Given that 66.8% of Americans are overweight, and 35.7% are obese, I would honestly expect to have more type 2 Americans if weight were the biggest contributing factor. If HALF of all obese (BMI of 30 or greater) Americans had type 2 diabetes, there would be over 57 million type 2 Americans. It seems pretty clear to me that weight is only one contributing factor in the onset of type 2 diabetes.

Do you remember being taught about the fire triangle in elementary school? Fire needs three things to survive: heat, oxygen, and fuel. If you don't have all three you don't get fire. Weight is only one side of the proverbial triangle. But diabetes doesn't actually have a neat little triangle of causality. We're not really sure what shape it is because there are so many factors that influence T2: ancestry, age, sex, birth weight, and more. Blaming diabetes on obesity is overly simplifying a complex issue.

Ultimately, the big fuss surrounding the Tweet is really about fat shaming. For a fitness Twitter account though, that's business as usual. Because, you know, these elite fitness types work so hard for their bodies, and everyone who doesn't is just wrong. And if you're one of those wrong people, you could totally benefit from their fitness regime and supplements. You could fix yourself, you know. you could save  yourself from diabetes, because as long as you work out and don't drink soda, you can't get diabetes. Tell that to the 5 million T2 diabetics who are at an acceptable weight.

Another large component of developing T2 diabetes is ancestry. 13.2% of black Americans have diabetes, compared to 7.2% of whites. But we can't post a meme about having diabetes because you're black, because that would be uncouth, right? It totally wouldn't be cool to blame diabetes on something that an individual can't control.

Tl;dr If you say "drinking Coke will make you fat and give you diabetes," you sound like this:

Dblog week day 5: Foods on Friday

Okay, I'm going to start of by admitting that food and I don't have the best relationship. I don't advise eating like me. Some days I don't eat unless I go low, some days I don't eat, and most days I don't eat what a human should. Instead of listing off things I eat on a daily basis, I'm just going to give an overview of the foods I do eat when I eat them.

Breakfast: I hate typical breakfast foods. Most of them are filled with a gazillion carbs and lots of sugar. I also don't like eggs, which are a breakfast staple for many. That being said, I love cereal. My biggest weakness is Froot Loops. I have to bolus 30 minutes before eating them if I don't want to see a huge BG spike. If I wake up in the morning and I'm on the low side, I will fill a bowl with Froot Loops and chow down. My other favorite food for breakfast is a peanut butter sandwich. I know, I know, it's not a typical breakfast food, but whatever.

Lunch: Lunch is my meal most likely to be skipped. What I eat for lunch depends on what I had for breakfast. I eat a lot of sandwiches for lunch. Peanut butter is my go-to, but sometimes I switch it up and have some cheese or faux deli meat (I'm a vegetarian). There's usually a Diet Coke at lunch time whether or not there's an actual lunch.

Dinner: Dinner is the one I almost always eat, mostly because my boyfriend also has to eat and it seems like the thing to do. Dinner is highly variable in what I eat, but pasta and Mexican foods are my favorite to eat. This is the meal where my vegetarianism comes into play. My boyfriend loves meat, and we usually end up making our own versions of the same dish most nights. For example, I'll make a veggie burger and he'll make a burger. It creates more dishes, but fewer arguments.

Snacks: Hummus is the best thing ever. Seriously. It's also very versatile. You can dip so many things in hummus: veggies, pita, a spoon... anything! Sometimes I'll eat hummus on an everything bagel thin for a meal. Mostly this section is about my love for hummus. Tip: take plain hummus and mix is with buffalo sauce for hummus with a delicious kick. It's so freaking good.

Again, I don't advocate eating the way I do, or the way I don't, however you look at it. I know it's not exactly healthy, but the blog prompt said there's no judgments on this, so I'm presenting it just the way I am! 

Dblog Week Day 4: Changes

I was diagnosed in late 1997, almost 18 years ago. A lot of things have changed with my diabetes management since then. The technology, the theories, and so on. I've changed too. Obviously I'm not 7 anymore. Let's take a stroll down memory lane...

I remember getting my first glucometer, the OneTouch basic, when I was diagnosed. I thought it was huge, and I almost wish I still had one hanging around to see if it really was as big as my little mind remembers it being. For those of you who never got to experience the OT Basic, it took a large, pendulous drop of blood to cover a circle in the middle of the test strip. It came with a Penlet lancing device that I swear used paper clips as lancets. It never occurred to me that testing would ever happen any other way. After the OT Basic, I got the Profile, then was in for a big change when  Imoved to the OneTouch Ultra. Everything about it was so small! The lancer was smaller, the meter was smaller, the strips were tiny and the sample size was nothing compared to what I was used to. It was the first meter I ever used that had strips that sucked up my blood. That was so cool. Since then, things have continued to get smaller and easier. Now I even have a CGM that can tell me my BG any time.

When I was diagnosed. I was on older insulins that meant I had to eat the same amount of carbs at same time, every single day. I had to get up at 6 to get ready for school, so that meant I had to get up at 6 on weekends to eat the same number of carbs. I was not the favorite sleepover guest. My dad made me the same gross 45 carb shake for breakfast every day. It had peanut butter and eggs in it to keep my BG stable. I remember that very clearly. I also remember being a hungry kid and not being able to eat because it wasn't snack time, and sometimes 15 carbs just didn't cut it. I've never been a big meat or cheese eater, so a lot of the time I was just hungry. Whenever I complained about being hungry my mom would tell me to go have a glass of water.

In 1997 I was started on insulin vials and syringes. Those insulins could be mixed in the syringe so I only had to take one shot at breakfast and dinner instead of two. I remember being really excited when I got to use pens for the first time. It may have been because my hands were smaller, but they felt heavy, and I was terrified I was going to drop them while they were stuck in my body. I went back to syringes because of that. Eventually, after a year of nagging by my mother and doctor, I started on the insulin pump. Even the pump was different in 2002. There was no bolus wizard, so I still used my trusty calculator keychain to figure out my doses. The biggest thing about the pump was that it gave me more freedom. If I wasn't hungry, I didn't have to eat. If I was hungry, I could bolus. It was like freaking magic.

In 1997, I hated diabetes. Okay, that hasn't changed a bit. I still hate diabetes. I deal with that hate differently now. I used to throw hissy fits and refuse to take my shots. In my teen years I didn't want to be different from my peers, and I hated diabetes for making me so different. I tried my hardest to ignore diabetes. I did the minimum it took to stay out of the hospital. As I got older I got used to the doctors telling me that I was doing a really bad job of managing. I didn't care. Diabetes made me different, and diabetes was going to kill me. I was used the that idea. My a1c was 12 for the longest time. Even when I wanted to get better I didn't know how because I was so out of practice. Eventually I adopted a better attitude. I got a better doctor by chance, and now I wouldn't give her up. Now I'm active in the DOC, on Twitter, and sometimes I blog. I joke about diabetes, but not in the usual cupcakes=diabetes way.

So much has changed since 1997. Things I didn't even think of (like CGM) are now a part of my daily life. I can't imagine how different diabetes management will be in another 18 years. Part of me really hopes it will be cured. The other part of me is just accepting that I'll probably just have a few more gadgets to play with. Only time will tell.

Dblog Week Day 3: Clean it Out

I'm not in the mood for anything heavy today, so I'm not going to be cleaning out my emotional closet. As a matter of fact, my literal diabetes closet is actually in order. My purse... well, it's not. I'm not a super girly girl; I don't have a lot of purses. I mostly just carry around the one. It's become a catch-all for a variety of things. Take a look:

There's makeup, not that use it much. I have some gum, my test kit, lip balm, a pencil, a bottle opener I got in Seattle and subsequently forgot about, a AAA battery, the cotton ball from the last time I had blood drawn, an empty Humalog bottle, and, oh yeah, a shit ton of used test strips. The stack of test strips is what makes this post really about diabetes. This post has made me realize that I really should clear that crap out more often. I didn't even realize I had the cotton from my last blood draw. Grooooooss! 

Dblog week 2: Keep it to Yourself

When I joined the diabetes internet, I did so with the purpose of being open. I was not a "perfect" diabetic then, and I'm still not. I did not want to gloss over the negative aspects of diabetes. I refuse to do so. I've always been very open (maybe too open) about diabetes. I share pictures of beautiful CGM graphs when I have them, but I also make sure to show glimpses of the bad days, too. There are very few areas of my life that I'm not broadcasting, but there are a few. Allow me to gloss over them:

I'm not going to give you super detailed information about myself. Very few of you know my last name, and it's going to stay that way. I'm not telling you where I go to school. I'm not going to tell you how much I weigh, and I'm not going to give you my address. I think you understand what I"m saying here.

I try my hardest to not post about other people. This includes my friends, family, boyfriend, and medical professionals. I don't mention any of these people by name because they probably don't want me to. They didn't sign up for Blogger/Twitter just because I did.

I don't like to talk about exactly how much money I have to spend on diabetes. It's depressing. I believe I have answered a few tweets asking about insulin prices with my insurance, but I must have been in a generous mood. I don't like talking about the financial burden of diabetes.

To sum it up: I have loose lips on the internet, but some things are just out of bounds. 

D Blog Week Day 1: I can!

It's taken me a while to sit down and really write this post. I've had diabetes for a while now, so it's not that I'm a stranger to doing things while diabetic, or I couldn't think of anything cool I've done. My problem was the exact opposite: I have too many cool stories of things I've done in spite of or because of diabetes. I got to do the coolest summer abroad in Greece during 2011 (seriously, I got to play with bones). I've graduated college. Diabetes has helped me overcome some of my social anxiety. There's so much stuff that I have done with diabetes that would make a really good story, so maybe I'll save them for another time. Perhaps my post will seem mundane in comparison to others, because I decided to write about something so simple.

Despite diabetes, I've managed to fall in love.

Maybe that doesn't seem like a big deal, because in the grand scheme of things diabetes isn't that huge. It isn't going to turn me into a raging monster (except when I have high BG). Diabetes is not going to stop people from caring about me. Unfortunately I spent years believing that I would never find love while diabetes was in the picture.

I usually don't bring up things like this, so it's a little difficult to say. When I hit the age where boys were no longer a disgusting alien race, it occurred to me (not for the first time) that not everybody has diabetes, and dealing with diabetes isn't fun. Why would a perfectly good boy want to waste time waiting for me to check my blood sugar when he could be eating already with another girl? Why would a boy want to go out with me when there's a chance that my diabetes will do something stupid and I'll have to cancel when other girls wouldn't? I knew how much of a burden diabetes was to me, but that was the hand I was dealt. Why would another person willingly subject themselves to being around that all the time?

Like most girls, I joked around in high school and had a few boyfriends here and there. It wasn't until I hit my senior year of high school that I realized that diabetes didn't have to be a relationship changer. My best friend in the whole entire universe put up with my diabetes. She understood that sometimes we had to hang out and watch TV for a bit until my BG was in line. A boyfriend is supposed to be like a best friend, just a little bit different, right? If my bestie accepted the diabetes with grace, any good guy should be able to do the same, right? I could even consider myself fortunate that I had a built-in, non-negotiable test that my potential suitors had to pass.

Now I'm going to get mushy and nostalgic.

I met my current boyfriend in 2009 while doing marching band together. We were friendly, and we  talked a little bit here and there. We weren't super close. I started having problems with some depression medications I was taking in 2011 and I posted something vague about it on Facebook. Being the awesome guy he his, he messaged me to talk about it. Eventually he asked me out. He knew I had diabetes before we started dating, but I was still shy about it on the first date.

 At the time of the first date I was drowning in diabetes and trying super duper hard to manage it. Nothing was working, and I had one of the worst endocrinologists on the planet (for real, he was fired by his practice). I was back to manually logging numbers in an effort to make myself check more. So I explained my huge purse and unsightly notebook while I was poking my finger at lunch.

We've been together almost four years now. We live together with a dog and a cat. I can unequivocally say I'm in love with this guy. He makes me happy. The best part is that I have someone outside my family (BFFs are family) that I can bitch to about diabetes. It's taken some training, but he knows the lingo and all of my routines. We can laugh together about the strange places test strips end up living.

For anyone out there left wondering: yes, you absolutely can find someone who will love you, diabetes and all.

Downplaying the D-beastie

"I took insulin. I'll just grab some water to go."

"It's nothing a glass of juice won't fix!"

"Really, it's not a big deal."


I catch myself saying these things all the time. Really, it's understandable. I have things I want to do (plans with friends, a party, whatever), and I really don't want diabetes to get in the way by being its annoying self. The biggest problem is that diabetes just wants to ruin my day sometimes.

I'm going to a beer tasting with my friends, but my BG is really high because my site went bad overnight. Diabetes and I are fighting, and my friends are about to end up in the middle of it. I'd better diffuse this situation. I'm not spilling ketones, so I do an injection, change my set, and head out the door because it's not a big deal

Do you see how easy it is to downplay diabetes like this? The truth is, this beer tasting is outside, during the summer, in Atlanta. The truth is that all I want with a high BG is a tall glass of water instead of beer. The truth is, I'm irritable right now, and I'm feeling dehydrated. The truth is... it is a big deal to me.

I was raised to not use diabetes as an excuse for anything, and I don't. I'm also the person that doesn't want to get in the way; I like to go with the flow. I don't want to be "that diabetic" with the problems, so I never let it show that it bothers me.

I was thinking about my downplaying habits in relation to personal advocacy. What is it saying about the severity and seriousness of diabetes if I'm always saying it's not a big deal? Are people going to take my fundraising and awareness campaigns seriously if I'm able to do things with a high or low blood sugar?

Moving forward, I'd like to change the way I handle it when diabetes acts up. If it's beer time, and I'm high without ketones, I'll likely still go out. I'll explain why I'm holding back on the beers. I'll tell my friends I'm going to be a little cranky for a while, because diabetes is a part of me, and I'm kind of a big deal. 

Foot Update!!

A friendly warning: there is a picture of my stitched foot in this post. 

I had my foot surgery a few weeks ago. When I got home from the surgery, my dog wouldn't leave me alone for a few days. Everything went fine with the surgery, and they put me in a sexy, sexy post-surgical boot. A few days after surgery, my foot was quite swollen, and my toes looked like Vienna sausages.

The pain meds were... an experience. I was prescribed Vicodin, which I thought I had taken before. Well, I have never taken Vicodin before, and it makes me really, really nauseated. I mean, to the point of almost vomiting in my boyfriends car (thankfully I didn't). That being said, taking Vicodin and an anti-emetic every four hours did nothing to the accuracy of my CGM numbers. So at least it had that going for it.

In addition to the lovely drugs, my doctor prescribed this neat little machine for me. It circulates really cool water around my sore foot and squeezes on my other leg to prevent DVT. I really only used it for the first few days after surgery, and now it's sitting in my living room. I really do need to call the guy to return it.





I went back to the podiatrist yesterday, almost three weeks post-op. I was told that my foot looks good and is healing quickly. Yay foot! The doctor took my stitches out, manipulated my foot for a bit, and then bandaged it back up.I haven't been allowed to get my foot wet since the surgery, so that means it hasn't been washed since before the surgery. That's why my doctor's initials are s till on my foot. Also, the smell! I won't even get started on that....

I still have some swelling and bruising in my foot, as well as some pain and stiffness. You know what, though? I'll take it for now. I have at least another week in the sexy gray boot before I can start slipping back into my dancing shoes. Right now I'm still walking like a slow poke, but I should be back to normal-ish soon. 

Diabetes Goals: 2015

Okay, it's January 3 and I have yet to commit to any New Year's resolutions. So here we are. It's good to have goals, it really is, but I've never been a huge believer in changing everything overnight just because the year on the calendar has changed. My goals aren't really specific to it being a new year; they're things I've been steadily working on anyway. Just as it's good to have goals in the first place, it's also good to have them written down and shared. At least for me, having my goals out there gives me a sense of responsibility to stick to it. So, diabetes goals...

• Bring A1C below 7.  I rang in 2014 with an 8.3, and I'm ringing in 2015 with a 7.1. I can do this, I really can. How? Listen to my CGM more than I do. I need to use it to live closer to the 100 line than the 150 line. Last year I started my CGM and I started changing my mindset toward numbers. 200 used to be my upper limit, and over time I've bumped it to 180. I'm afraid that if I bump it any lower it will alarm every time I eat. I think listening to my CGM will make the biggest difference. 
• Stop obsessing over BG numbers. I know it sounds counter-intuitive given my goal of decreasing my A1C, but sometimes I drive myself nuts stressing out over going to bed with my BG at 150+. I stress myself out sometimes for no good reason other than I'd like to see a better number on my meter. 
• Eat fewer carbs. This is a huge challenge for me. Not only are carbs the most delicious thing on the planet, but I'm a vegetarian who hates eggs and cheese. These are the go-to snacks and meals of the low-carbers I've spoken to. I know full and well I'm going to fail this so hard. I like salad and veggies as much as the next person, but potatoes and pasta are the best. 
• Like myself more. This isn't even related to diabetes, mostly. I've always had a hard time liking myself, from the things I say to the way I look in the mirror. Especially the way I look in the mirror. It's hard to admit, but I'm a bit vain. Yeah, the one who hardly wears makeup ever is actually vain. It's something to work on. 

There are my four goals for 2015, or just for life in general. Last year I achieved my goals by May. I'll give myself until June to check back for a progress report unless I beat my record (doubtful).