Living Well With Diabetes

I’m ashamed of how it has been since my last entry here. My only excuse is how busy life has become recently. But, a couple of events recently have prompted me to think that I should write and now I’m finally sitting down to do it.

Pat and I are in Portland, Oregon right now. About two months ago, we started thinking about a trip to Portland for a single reason — to visit Pat’s sister Susan. After we committed to the trip, all these other reasons to go to Portland fell into place as if to confirm that making the trip was the right thing to do.

The first other reason to visit Portland was an invitation from Jennifer Scarsi to participate in the Lights, Camera, Cure event in Portland this Saturday, July 21. Jennifer is the winner of the 2006 edition of the Bayer Dream Fund. I’m looking forward to going to this event, meeting 250 or so kids with diabetes, and talking about my 48-state bicycle tour and my year in the the spotlight as the winner of the 2005 Bayer Dream Fund.

Another reason to visit Portland came from Dick Sass and Jane Conner, CEO and CFO, respectively, of iSense Corporation in Wilsonville, Oregon (30 minutes south of Portland). I met these two very friendly and very fun people at the American Diabetes Association conference in Washington D.C. last June. Since then, we stayed in touch by email and as we were nearing Oregon during the bicycle tour last year, they invited us to come and visit the iSense facility. As it turned out, we weren’t able to make it as far west as Portland, so we had to decline their offer. They said no problem, but to let them know the next time we were in Portland. So, that’s what I did. I told them about our trip and without hesitation, they said they’d be happy to give us the “private tour” and take us to dinner during our stay.

These people were under no obligation to take any time out of their busy day to entertain us. But they did. And then some. I’m not used to getting the royal treatment, but they certainly gave that to us during our visit.

The first sign that this was going to be a memorable event occurred just after we arrived for our 3 PM tour. Dick and Jane both met us at the front door. We said hello and I introduced Pat. And then they showed us back out the front door. Jane wanted to show us the bike rack right next to the front door. The interesting thing about the bike rack is the shiny new engraved plaque above it that reads “Reserved for Peter Hoogenboom”. I tell you what, that was the coolest thing! And, of course, I had forgotten to bring my camera on this day.

But that wasn’t the end of the surprises. Dick and Jane gave us an hour-long personalized tour of their brand-new facility and they had planned a dedication of their new facility in conjunction with our visit. They had invited some other people to this dedication, including Chris Dudley, a 16-year veteran of the National Basketball Association for the Portland Trailblazers. He retired from the NBA in 2003 and now spends his time speaking, fund-raising, and educating on diabetes-related topics. Did I mention that Chris was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of 16?

Also invited to the dedication was Michael Fulop and his colleague Jaimee (whose last name I missed), Portland-based psychologists who specializes in diabetes management. Michael (who also has type 1 diabetes) is the founder of Rewarding Health and publisher of The Diabetes Game, a Teenager’s Guide to Living Well with Diabetes by Nora Coon. I scanned through the copy of the book that Michael gave me and Nora has some advice and insight that I wish I had had thirty years ago when I was first diagnosed.

After the dedication, Jane, Dick, and John Fitzgerald (also from iSense) took us out for dinner at Riccardo’s, a favorite restaurant of theirs in Oswego Lake. There we met Joe Kainz, a friend and member of the iSense board of directors. It was a great restaurant. We ate dinner outside on the patio and thoroughly enjoyed the company. Joe was so nice and he instantly felt like a good friend to us. We talked with Joe and the others about many things over dinner ranging from diabetes to the Chicago Cubs (Pat’s a big fan because she grew up in the Chicago area and Joe and his wife live there now).

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