Christianity or Bust

I got spammed by a Muslim on MySpace yesterday.

I told her Mohammed was a false prophet but never got to read her reply because her MySpace account got deleted and so did her response.

NOTE: I wasn’t sure what to name this post, so I named it after the Bruce Springsteen song from the Nebraska album.

A couple of days ago, my mother told me that the people who bought my childhood home have sold it and the new owner is demolishing it to build a new home.

Today, I walked past it and took a dozen photos. It’s strange because in many ways, it looks the same as when I lived there but also there are many changes. There haven’t been any renovations that I can see, from the street level. The old maple tree is still there. I have fond memories of trying to grow seedlings to trees, without success.

The house is on the corner of two streets. It’s strange that the owners renamed it so that it’s numbered as part of the other cross street.

Do you ever feel that truth get desensitised? For example, I feel like I’ve heard the words “That person/friend needs Jesus in their life” so much that it loses its impact. Yet, the full truth of the statement is still there.

Thus, I wonder, if a person has their life relatively under control (ie no drug problems, minimal emotional damage and baggage and no workaholism etc), do they need Jesus less or just appear to need Him less?

I’m probably waffling on now. This post reminds me of an advertisement I saw about mental health where the homeless person under a bridge is considered a problem but the business man who labours long in his cubicle isn’t.

Well, I’ve been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes now for just over a week. After seeing a GP who found I had a blood sugar level of 35 mmol/L, I went into hospital on Sunday 17 December. I got out on Wednesday 20 December.

I thought it might be a good idea if I wrote a little about my daily experience.

Physical Pain

I have four injections per day.

Before each meal, I inject 12 units of NovoRapid, a fast-acting short-lifespan insulin that lasts for 4.5 hours.

At midnight, I have a daily injection of 15 units of Lantus, a slow-acting insulin.

I don’t use syringes. The insulin is dispensed with a “pen”-like device that contains the vial of insulin. To use the “pen”, I screw on a new needle, prime the device (ie test it by shooting 2 units into the air), dial up the number of units of insulin I need then inject the needle into either my belly or thigh and press a button.

The pain isn’t too bad. The needle is extremely fine. I try to pick where my skin looks the least blemished. Eszema and past injection points can toughen up the skin, which makes needle penetration harder and more painful. I still feel a little nervous before I do this each time.

Each type of insulin uses a different dispenser. Although it may seem inconvenient to have to carry around two dispensers, it’s better since there’s no swapping around of insulin vials and readjusting of dispenser. Even the NovoPen case has three convenient spots for disposable needs: one for each meal. The Autopen 24 is what I use for daily injections of Lantus.

This is the NovoPen 3:

This is a AutoPen 24:

This is an extreme close up of the needle I use:

At the moment, I am meant to regularly test my blood sugar levels, which are meant to be between 4 and 8 mmol/L. I’m not sure how many times I am meant to test each day but I’m doing it around 5 times per day at the moment so I can gather a decent amount of statistics for my doctor at this early stage of things. I get the impression that people test only a couple of times a day.

To test my blood sugar level, I use a device to prick a finger then apply the blood sample to the electrode strips of the monitoring device. I can also measure ketones using the same device, same procedure but with different types of electrode strips. In case you’re wondering, this is a Optium Xceed made by Medisense.

Here’s a diagram of the testing process:

1. Open the testing kit and admire how well laid out everything is.
2. Tear open a package containing a sealed electrode
3. Put electrode in monitoring device
4. Put finger against the device and push the button that launches the spring loaded lancet into my finger
5. Apply blood to electrode
6. Wait 5 seconds for the device to return the result

Here’s another look at the electrode:

If I felt really nerdy, I could buy something that connects my monitor up to my PC and it’ll generate spreadsheets of my readings.

The pricking of my finger isn’t too bad. I find it less discomforting than injections. Often I find it frustrating because not enough blood comes out or it comes out too slowly. There isn’t any long term damage to my finger tips. However, I really ought to play guitar more now that my calouses have thickened!

Costs

Things are a lot cheaper than they could be. Thankfully in this country, we have excellent health care. Personal costs are driven down by the Pharmacetical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and the National Diabetes Services Scheme (NDSS) ie the government pays for it ie the taxpayers.

Needles are free. They come in boxes of a hundred.

PBS makes the cost of drugs in Australia really cheap. For approved drugs, they get the cost of down to $29.95 per prescription per drug… or something like that. A couple of days ago, when I got insulin, I was given the maximum amount of insulin at once: 5 boxes of NovoRapid and 5 boxes of Lantis. Each box contains 5 vials of insulin. Each vial contains 300 units (100 ml) of insulin.

Here’s some mathematics:

NovoRapid:
5 boxes x 5 vials/box x 300 units/vial 
= 7500 units

7500 units/ ( 3 meals/day x (2 + 12) units/meal) 
= 178.571 days

$29.95 / 178.571 days = $0.167/day


Lantus:
5 boxes x 5 vials/box x 300 units/vial
= 7500 units

7500 units/((2 + 15) units/day)
= 441.176 days

$29.95 / 441.176 days = $0.067/day

With the blood sugar level monitor, I need to pay for lancets (the thing that pricks my finger) and the electrode strips.

The lancets are $11 per box of 100. I’m meant to replace the lancet each time I use it but can’t be bothered and just replace them once a day.

If I recall correctly, the electrodes for BSL is $7 for a pack of 100. So that costs $0.35 per day for me.

I only need to test my ketone levels if my BSL is over 15 mmol/L. I think those strips are about $11 per pack of 100.

So I think I’m paying around $0.70 per day.

Dreams Lost

I really need to control the amount of sugar and carbohydrates I consume since they cause my BSL to rise. I’ve been told to try to restrict myself to 60 grams of carbohydrates per meal.

Thus, I can no longer gorge myself on entire boxes of Cheezels anymore.

One of my biggest regrets is that I never bought a jar and filled it with gourmet jelly beans.

I’m allowed to drink all the Diet Coke and Pepsi Max I want and eat lollies with artificial sweeteners… however, they do have the side-effect of diarrhea.

Benefits

Well, so far, there haven’t been many benefits. People are sympathetic. I get to bring sharp objects onboard planes and stewardesses bring me food long before everyone else!

In the long run, if I manage myself well and control my eating habits, I should loss weight and have the potential to live a longer life.

A couple of weeks ago at a Christmas party, I was talking to someone from Hillsong about musicians who get knighted.

She was commenting about how it wouldn’t be fair if only Bono got knighted but the rest of U2 didn’t. I thought that was a stupid comment. After all, what has Adam Clayton done (other than put up with all of Bono’s rants)?

On the other hand, Mick Jagger was knighted for “services to popular music”. Yet, Keith Richards didn’t get one.

Anyway, Bono got knighted. I just wanted to comment about how right I was again in a public forum.

A LOT of things have happened to me recently. However, I can’t be bothered writing about them right now.

Yesterday, at the airport, I bought one of these toast stamps. I’m really looking forward to using one of these. It was $5 well spent. I wonder what Jesus would think of this.

Last week, my Barneys small group ended. Most small groups at Barneys stop during summer but there usually is a larger group (20+ people) who meet. So I joined C’s Hillsong small group. (I can’t be bothered encoding people’s names)

The people are pretty nice and I got invited to a Christmas party. In some ways, I think Anglicans have a lot to learn from Hillsong’s social program. People are less cliquey. 

 On the other hand, I really don’t appreciate being asked for money for Hillsong’s television ministry. I still put in $5 to not look bad.

In times like these, churches actually need security personnel.

With our church, we ask people who are regular members to look out for disturbances and very rarely do these occur. I can only think of people being disruptive twice and in both cases, it was resolved by an experienced member of the church briefly leaving activities to talk to the disruptive person.

Anyway, we still do have members acting as security. Here are two tales relating to regular members and horseplay.

• Guy #1 and Guy #2 arrive early for their service. Guy #1 had his new stylish Bible case and was showing it to Guy #2. Guy #2 observes how heavy is feels and suggests that has a secondary purpose - that it can be swung like a handbag and used as a form of self-defence. Guy #2 takes a swing at Guy #1 but hopelessly misses because it doesn’t swing that well. Security #1, who is a member of an earlier congregation’s security, comes up and mumbles something about his “patch” and proceeds to earnestly chastise Guy #1. Guy #1 and Guy #2 take it outside where Guy #1 proceeds to beat Guy #2’s head into a pulp. OK… that last sentence was a joke! In all fairness to Security #1, he was from a different congregation and it’s probably been a year or so since Guy #2 spoke to him.
• A husband and wife are playfully pretending to beat each other up. Security #2 pretends to be shocked and says “Spousal abuse is not funny”. Everyone has a good laugh.

How to fight loneliness
Smile all the time
Shine your teeth to meaningless
And sharpen them with lies

Just smile all the time
Just smile all the time
Just smile all the time
Just smile all the time
Wilco, Summerteeth, How to Fight Loneliness

A few months ago, I put this song on a compilation CD for someone leaving Australia. The strange thing is that I never really listened to the lyrics as deepyly as I did last night. Jeff Tweedy really is a lyrical genius but this song is more suited to a person who is overseas for a few months than a person who having an intense period of loneliness on a Friday night.

Last night was really lonely. Absolutely everything fell through. I cancelled my belated-birthday drinks celebration because virtually nobody was available or interested in coming on the advice of friend who wanted to go to a Hillsong dinner, I didn’t go to that Hillsong dinner because that friend became ill and it was too late to go to the gym.

In the past, I’d fight loneliness by going to the gym or going to The Rugby Place and drink alone while watching whatever video tape they had running on the big screen… or simply stay at home and play computer games until dawn.

Instead, I was bored out of mind and decided to go to bed… at 8:35 pm. This was the second time in four weeks that I’ve gone to bed before 9 pm (the last time was on 5 November after cycling 90 km against gale force winds for the MS Society’s Sydney to Gong bike ride). It was a weird experience. Do you know how your dreams are affected by the sounds around you? I left my window open and in my sleep, I kept hearing the sirens of Sydney. I dreamt I was on Glebe Point Road, that it was nearly pitch black at night and that I kept peering around buildings to try to see the police chasing cars.

I ended up getting up after 5 1/2 hours at 2 am. Around this time, I thought of two other ways to fight loneliness: buying the complete series of the original Battlestar Galactica and maybe reading the Bible.

In the end, I continued watching Pinky and the Brain Vol 1, playing computer games and typing these thoughts. I went back to bed at 6 pm and had a dream about a unicorn (not really).

I can’t be bothered writing much right now and am busy. However, he’s an interesting and positive article regarding various denominations’ agreement about global climate change and stewardship of the Earth: article.