Bits and Pieces: A Sunday Extra Edition

Extra Warmth by somadjinn

Things have been a bit crazy around here.  Thankfully I find myself enjoying a little pause in the action this weekend, so I thought I'd take the time to make up for some missed posts during the week and write a weekend update.

My Family

I got a phone call eight days ago from one of my Aunts back in Illinois. One of my eight cousins died on July 8th from what appears to be complications from type 2 diabetes. He was only 42.

As you know, I have type 2 diabetes too, so the news kind of hit me sideways. Granted, our situations are different, but still it gave me pause. Whenever someone in my family dies, like when my mother died of colon cancer or my dad died of Alzheimer's, I can't help but wonder, "Could that happen to me too?"

My Hands

Earlier this month, I followed through on a recommendation from my visit to the Mayo Clinic in Arizona and saw an orthopaedic hand surgeon here on Los Angeles.  He confirmed the finding that I have significant carpal tunnel symptoms in both hands and that surgery can be a fix for my condition.  This past Thursday I scheduled surgery for my right hand on Wednesday, August 31.

Now my challenge is to stay focused on how much this might help me pain, instead of getting sucked up into the anxiety a pending surgery creates.

My Sleep & My Diabetes

Have I mentioned that I have been using a very low dose of Seroquel, prescribe by a sleep doctor, to help me get better quality deep sleep for a while now?  Unfortunately, this medication is known to cause problems with blood sugar.

Due to my ever increasing Hepatitis C viral load, I've been having more and more problems managing my blood sugar. It's gotten to the point where I contacted my endocrinologist asking if I needed to start a second medication in addition to Victoza.  This week I decided to take a drug holiday. Lo and behold, my blood sugar has dropped from between 180 and 200 to 140 and 180 fasting in the morning. Seems stopping this medication might be the right direction to move in.

I am worried that in the long run this is going to negatively impact my sleep, but I do have a new medication to try from my neurologist that might be able to help.

My Blog

I decided a few months back I wanted a blog make-over. I also decided it was time to hire a real blog designer to help me with this task. My project got off to a really rough start, but I made some changes and hired a new designer.

I am now working with Katie Lane of DreamUp Studios who is making the process a breeze and I am so excited about my upcoming blog redesign. I've loaded a couple of things onto my blog today to give you a sneak peek of things to come.

If you are thinking of hiring someone to redesign your blog or website, create a logo or draw a custom illustration, I strongly encourage you to head over to DreamUp Studios and take a look at the awesome things they can do for you too.

Linky Love: Thanks for Helping Me Update My Blog!

Image by Brett L. via Flickr

So what do you think of the new look of my blog? I spend a solid two weeks looking for free templates, headers, widgets and other cool things to remodel my Blogger blog. I want to pass along some linky love to all the people that helped to inform, instruct and inspire me to create a new look for Oh My Aches and Pains! via their websites and blogs.

My new blog template is courtesy of Our Blogger Templates and I picked the one titled Blogger Theme.

My new blog header I discovered at Smashing Magazine.com under the post Blog Headers For Free Download. The artist is Heavena Rayan of India and she said this at Smasing Magazine.com about her design, "This design was inspired by my thought process. Whenever I need some ideas, I think, research & analyse and then I just let my thoughts go blank. This is when the ideas begin to flow. I tried to visualize this whole process & this is how I imagined it. I am sure a lot of people out there would relate to this process as well."

After reviewing several different blogs, I wanted to add "subscribe by RSS" and "subscribe by email" icons to my sidebar. Thank goodness for the Blogger Sentral blog and the post by Greenlava on Adding RSS button to your blog. As you can see on my sidebar, I learned how to add the buttons RSS, email and more to my sidebar thanks to this tutorial.

Did you notice the "Share the Love" social bookmarking widget at the bottom of each of my blog posts? The widget is called Sexy Bookmarks version 2 and I learned how to embed it into my Blogger html code at the CSS Reflex: web design & inspiration blog.

Don't you just LOVE the LinkWithin widget at the bottom of each post that brings up five related stories to the blog post you just read? This is one awesome widget that beautifully showcases my past posts. How does it work? How can you get it for your blog? Click here to learn more.

Did you also notice the new orange toolbar that appears at the bottom of the page, with all the cool features like: search, translate, recent posts, random post, subscribe to my feed, share this post, Facebook Commuity chat, Twitter and a nifty post-it like notifier? This very cool blog tool bar is courtesy of my friends at Wibiya.

Finally, I have to mention my long-time blog helpers that came to my new look from my old layout: Wowzio widgets, Lijit search, Zemanta and Stat Counter.

Let me share with you the real secret to creating my daily blog posts: every week I get emails from Lijit and Stat Counter letting me know how many people visited my blog in the previous week. Just knowing how many of you come and visit me each week inspires me to keep writing. I can honestly say that you, my blog readers, are the best blogging helpers of all.

Thank you for reading Oh My Aches and Pains!

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