Croatia and Other Diabetic Happenings

I haven't posted in quite some time! I do not write my blog to get "X" number of visitors per week. I only write when I have something to say! I like discussing things with people, but there has to be something to discuss. Several important diabetic things have happened. In addition, Per and I have been on vacation in Croatia, part of the old Yugoslavia. For those interested in reading a really good book about Yugoslavia and its history, I can recommend the book Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West. It is not a new book, and has been sort of considered the bible on the Yugoslavian past. Although some judge that the author was openly pro-Serb and that she viewed the Muslims as being racially inferior, I did NOT get this impression from reading her book! Maybe I missed something, but I interpreted her analysis to stress the complexity of the Yugoslavian history and how this complexity makes political solutions so very difficult, although NOT impossible. I appreciated the in depth analysis of how previous historical events continue to influence the ability of the different cultural groups from solving current problems. In a nutshell -it is so hard to forget the past! If you don't understand the past you cannot understand the present or what is possible in the future. I WISH my history teachers had taught me that....... And by the way, I wish my language teachers had taught me how only through learning several languages can you really get to know other peoples and cultures. Never to late to learn. Her book helped me feel the "spirit" of the different cultures living on this spot of dirt. To End a War by Richard Holbrooke, published in 1998, covers the diplomatic negotiations of the recent Balkan wars. I have not yet read this book, but it seems good. It is definitely more up-to-date, but as I said you have to understand the past to understand the possibilities for the future.

Right before we travelled I had an appointment with a new ophthalmologist in Leuven. I wanted to get a second opinion about the wet macular edema in my eyes. I have discussed this previously here. Well the good news is that she also agrees with my other ophthalmologist; I do NOT need treatment with Lucentis (ranibizumab)! Currently, I have no bleeding in my retinas. The liquid bubbles visible in the macula, discovered through ocular coherence topography tests (OCT), were most probably formed a long time ago when my diabetes was less well controlled, that is BEFORE I got my insulin pump. They do not disappear over night! As long as they do not get worse or move, there is no need for ranibizumab eye injections. I AM HAPPY! Since the two ophthalmologists are in agreement, I will continue with one one I had previously, it is so much simpler when I can be treated in Brussels! Nevertheless, I am SO glad I checked the whole thing up and got a second opinion. I can return to the second ophthalmologist if I ever want to. My eyes have improved/changed so much after improving my diabetes that I must change my glasses. The hospital in Leuven can do a careful analysis of the best lenses available - so I have one more appointment there.

I also got back the results of my last HbA1c. It had risen a bit - up from 5.2 to 5.4, but THAT IS FINE TOO! So I am doubly happy. If you have been following my blog a while, you know that I was concerned about having too LOW LDL cholesterol since some research ties very low levels to Parkinson's disease. I discussed this here. My endocrinologist that deals with matters other than diabetes didn't want me to stop taking statins(Lipitor 10mg) so we compromised and now I only take 1/2 of a 10mg pill per day, rather than a whole 10 mg pill per day. Before this reduction my LDL was only 15. HDL was 134, triglycerides were 44 and total cholesterol was 157. After this halving of Lipitor, my HDL was 85, triglycerides 51 and total cholesterol 126. Not very different numbers now - they are in fact lower! For some stupid reason they didn't do the LDL test!!!! I am kind of annoyed. My family doc doesn't understand why it wasn't done. Nobody seems to be able to give me an explanation...... Anyhow, it seems to me that if the total cholesterol is now 126, the LDL couldn't be bad after the pill reduction. I will discuss the matter with the endo and see if only half a pill should be continued. Am I boring you guys? I just generally feel the less medicine taken, the better off you are. Why does it always have to take so long to get straight answers? Dam, why did they skip the LDL? Also - I wish medicine had more answers. It doesn't seem like the Lipitor has any affect on me! My endo said that Lipitor was also good for other micro-cardiovascular reasons. What exactly does she mean by that. Is there a test for to evaluate the other micro-cardiovascular effects? I just don't KNOW if I should be taking any Lipitor at all?!! Previously, before I improved my diabetes with an insulin pump, I DEFINITELY needed Lipitor. I am always wondering - you have to keep a critical eye open to all advice given! That is what I think. Forever mistrustful........

Several of us OC people wanted to try putting "wasted" insulin on our sore finger tops to see if they would become healthier. This was discussed here. We decided we would discuss if we noticed any improvements by the end of March. My feeling is that the the improvement is only marginal. Yes, it helps a teeny bit, but not a lot. Since there are no disadvantages, I will continue to bathe my finger tops in the insulin that is wasted when I prime the infusion line. I am also using the insulin that I always carry around with me in case my pump doesn't function. This humalog cannot be used after it has been at room temperature for 28 days. It must be discarded - so I use this on my finger tops too. Kathy, Heidi, Cassandra and Mike, have your finger tops become less sore? Are you going to continue? What have you noticed?

I will not continue talking about ketones in this post, but I remain very curious about other people's experiences with them . Please TELL me if you learn anything about them. I am also interested in hearing of others who are sensitive to them, as Lili and I are! Maybe the twosome will increase to a threesome and...... who knows where it will end. For me it is comforting to know I am not all alone.

Lately there is so much talk about possible T1 diabetic cures...... I am sure you all know about Faustman's research , and now there is promising research on the possibility of using our own stem cells to cure T1! Other new research shows diabetes to be not only an immune disorder but also a neurological disorder. For my part I do not want to trade one illness for another. I feel that taking large amounts of immuno-repressive drugs is currently too dangerous. Also stem cells can go haywire and cause cancer. Neither am I terrible interested in a solution that only lasts a few years. Those are my opinions. What are yours?

I have heard of one other very interesting research study. This research showed that brain cell death occurs AFTER glucose is given to treat a hypo. It does not occur during the hypo! The glucose is somehow the culprit. I really do believe that over treating a hypo is BAD NEWS to our bodies. I know I am not the only one who has felt like a dish rag after being on a roller-coaster ride following a hypo! Sometimes it is just so dam hard not to overcompensate. This happened to me in Croatia. It is so hard to keep everything balanced on a trip. The food is different/unpredictable. Exercise cannot be correctly judged. Times are mixed up. BUT NO WAY AM I GOING TO GIVE UP TRAVELING! After the trip is almost the best because you have all these wonderful memories and your diabetes is again in balance.

So I have saved to the end of my post pictures and stories about Croatia. I like saving the best for the end. One says in French - "On garde la meilleure pour la bonne bouche!". I THINK that is how you say it! I wonder how many pictures I can paste into a blog posting????? Here goes - I will paste them in one at a time so that I can explain a bit about where the picture are taken. Some letters in the Croatian language have peculiar accent marks. I cannot figure out how to type them in - so I am flagrantly just skipping them. Lazy me! C with an accent over it sounds like ch. I was told that all letters are pronounced - how nice. Boy is that NOT true in French!


We started our trip by flying to Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. The trees were in bloom. Zagreb has an older, upper town and a newer, lower town. The older part was originally two separate medieval villages on two adjacent hilltops. Kaptol was the center of religious power. The other medieval village was called Gradec, now part of Gornji Grad. These two old towns were fortified by ramparts. The river Medvescak lies between the two old villages. Lots of fighting occurred between these two towns. There is a street called "Bridge of Blood" (Krvavi Most) explained by this bloddy past. In 1880 there was a very bad earthquake and many of the buildings were destroyed! Thus many of the buildings currently standing were built after this earthquake.The more modern, lower part of Zagreb is to the south of the older towns and is called Donji Grad. This part of the city was built after 1830. The buildings cluster around a U-shaped series of parks and squares. The below picture is taken in one of these parks. This park is called Strossmayero.

Further north, this park is called Zrinjevac, and it is filled with lines of plane trees. These trees were not yet green and their white trunks were a bit ghost-like! Bordering this park the beautiful building below was situated. Look at the beautiful blue painting!


There were many large majestic buildings, of which many house museums, one called the Mimara Museum. I took a photo of an icon. Nobody said I couldn't! Later on in our trip we visited the beautiful island Korcula. There is a Icon Gallery there - but it was closed! Zagreb houses 20museums! We also visited the Gallery of Old Masters and the Gallery of Modern Art. I really liked the Mimara Museum. In 1972 Topic Mimara a businessman, painter, restorer and collector gave his collection to the city of Zagreb - that is how theis museum came into being. The icons were beautiful, but difficult to photograph because of the reflections. There were icons from Asia Minor, Palestine and of course Russia. They dated from the 6th to the 13th centuries. There were also impressive art pieces from Mesopotamia, Persia, Pre-Columbian America and the Middle and Far East. Also carpets from Morocco, Turkey and Persia were displayed. Here is one icon picture.


Later we continued our walk up to Gornji Grad and then Kaptol. We walked and walked and walked.......


There are lots of large statues. The Croatian sculptor Ivan Mestrovic has done many of them. There is an entire museum devoted to his work . Below is one statue in Kaptol. Above it on the wall is an old sun-clock that tells the time by using the shadow made by a stick on the wall.


There is a large square between the old town and the lower part of Zagreb. This square is called Bana Jelacica. There is large vegetable, fruit and flower market there. The red umbrellas were so pretty. There was also a flea market here. One thing I noticed was that although the markets offered lots of fresh vegetables, the grocery stores offered practically none. I am wondering if the infrastructure of Croatia is not yet up to supplying the stores with the fresh vegetables. Basically only cabbages, potatoes, tomatoes and a few other rudimentary vegetables were to be found in the stores. Several times when I had hypos we looked for ice cream in the grocery stores and could only find a few stray cones. Distribution of goods seems to be a problem! When I start having hypos early in the day I find that ice cream is good because it continues to raise my bg both immediately and several hours later! Once we returned to the same ice cream shop twice. They must of thought we were crazy. I had "cookies" ice cream. Delicious! What a treat!

Naive painting has been strong in Croatia for a long time. I was disappointed because the National Museum of Naive Art in Zagreb was closed for repairs. In this museum are found painter of the founders of this art type. There are painting by Ivan Generalic, Mirko Virius and the Hlebine school. Since this museum was closed, we decided to take a train to Koprivnic, about 1.5 hours by train from Zagreb. It was fun sitting in the old train wagons.... Then we were lucky to get a taxi to the Hlebine Gallery, 13km from the train station in Koprivnic. The first picture below is a naive painting in a hotel in Zagreb. This artist is still alive and is called Rabuzin. Several naive painter are gathered at Hlebine, and there is a museum there. Many naive paintings of the Hlebine school are done directly on the reverse side of the glass of the painting. Rabuzin paints on canvas. The second painting is a photo I took in the gallery at Hlebine. It is a typical Croatian naive painting. You begin to directly recognize them. I love the art form, but some , in my opinion, are too simplistic. Some are SO beautiful!

Then we flew to Dubrovnik which is on the Adriatic Sea. This town could be called the "white marble city". This medieval city is on a rocky spur jutting out into the sea. It is at the southern end of Dalmatia. You have to cross Bosnia-Herzegovina to get to Dubrovnik, since Bosnia-Herzegovina wanted to retain a bit of land on the coast. Therefore, Dalmatia is composed of two parts split by Bosnia-Herzegovina. Part of the White House and the Royal Palace in Stockholm is made from marble from the Dalmatian coast. There is beautiful white marble everywhere in Croatia.

Below you see boats moored around Dubrovnik's old town. You also see the expansion of the city on the mainland. I had to take a picture of the beautiful clear, green water of the Adriatic!

Here we are waiting for lunch on a square in Dubrovnik. Actually the air was cold, but the sun got very warm. At lunch we stripped off our sweaters and jackets and sunned - at least I did! It was very hard to find suitable food for me - so basically I had soup -mushroom soup, broccoli soup or asparagus soup. It is so weird what protein does to me. One night I had a small portion of sole grilled without fat. When I say a small portion I mean a portion less than 1/2 a deck of cards, and thinner too! My bg value increased all night. I just get so worried about taking an extended bolus for protein when I go to bed at night......... I never quite know what will happen.

After lunch we walked outside the main touristic areas of Dubrovnik. It was so pretty to see the wash hanging out to dry. You saw this everywhere. There was a "white wash" and there a "blue wash" of jeans and dark T-shirts......

You see how shiny the stones have become in this old city. So beautiful!

The next day we took a boat to the island Miljet, much of which has been made into a national park. Here we looked for sandy beaches....... We read that they were to be found on this island! Don't look for sandy beaches in Croatia. Practically all beaches are very beautiful, white rocks. These rocks are very sharp and difficult to walk on. Swimming seems to be done primarily in swimming pools! Forget sand beaches! We also later checked out the town Graduc on the mainland. It is said to have the longest sand beach in the eastern Adriatic. Compared to the sand beaches in France or Nantucket in the US, it was NOTHING.

On this island we rented a teeny "jeep". You can see what the roads are like. They were very primitive everywhere in Croatia, not just on the islands. It is very difficult to make the roads because the land is so very steep and rocky!

But what views........

After leaving Dubrovnik and Miljet, we drove north along the coast in a rented car. The roads were steep and extremely primitive. There were LOTS of road works. The going was very SLOW! Below is the defensive walls built in the 14th and the 15th century around the town fo Ston on the Peljesac Peninsula. There are more than three miles of walls from Veliki Ston, the town center, up to St. Michael's Mount and down again to Mali Ston. After the Chinese Wall, it is the longest in the world. There have been salt pans here since the time of the Romans. Ston was formerly called Stagnum. The first defensive walls were built prior to 1000 AD. Several earthquakes have destroyed parts of the wall, the latest in 1996.

We took a ferry from the Peljesac Peninsula to the beautiful island Korcula, where we spent one night. The ferry ride back to the peninsula was quite rough due to a storm. See the picture below. Kind os scary on a little boad........

Then we continued our drive to another island called Hvar, which was s an art colony before the war. Below is a picture of Hvar. Our dinner on this island was THE BEST we had in Croatia. I cannot say it was easy for me to get food, but here I had a beautiful fresh salad and two servings of asparagus soup. Per had a delicious beef steak! A really good restaurant! On a side note, let me mention that Chinese restaurants, which usually are so willing to adjust their dishes, are practically non existant in Croatia. We found two that were TERRIBLE! I ordered shrimp and mushrooms - but they used shrimp covered in batter, the kind you should deep fry, and cooked them in a sauce. OMG! The mushrooms were non-existant - all I could see were green peas and carrots! The second time we found a Chinese restaurant we were in Split. We went there in advance and asked if I could order a dish of just bean sprout and mushrooms. They said this was no problem. On the way there, later that evening, my bg started to rise so I took my meal bolus on the way to the restaurant. Big mistake! They served me carrots and peas tith maybe a few teeny pieces of sliced mushrooms. I saw no bean sprouts. So I got mad and told them to just forget it! They could remove the dish! Per ate his dinner, and then we left. Since I had already taken my meal bolus this turned into a BAD hypo. I ended up eating WAY to much in a McDonalds because Per thought I was going to pass out. He fed me a hamburger, a vanilla milkshake and a donut. What was he thinking?!!!!! WeHAVE talked about this since then...... Although I was really mad that night after all that food and feeling so TERRIBLE no matter all the extra boluses I took, I DO understand that Per was just so scared of my plopping off..... Nevertheless, why didn't he just give me coke? Anyway, below is the picture of Hvar. The lovely restaurant is not visible!

We were really sick of driving along the twisty, steep roads, so instead we took a ferry directly to Split, further north on the coast. To return by car back over Hvar would have taken twice the time. We looked around Split, which has many majestic Roman ruins, and then drove on to Trogir, a little further north along the coast. In 1997 Trogir was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is definitely a jewel of the Dalmatian coast. Below are two picture taken on Trogir.

Then we flew back to Zagreb and home! What a trip. I am no expert, but I think I have presented the facts correctly. I hope so, but forgive me if I have goofed up some bits of info! I just had to tell you about this marvelous trip - but it is also nice to be home and to be able to more easily manage my D! Maybe I should have pasted in more pictures but this took FOREVER to put together! I will soon be commenting on blogs again - I am just so busy sorting things out after the trip!