Sometimes, when I Google my name to try and find a past story, I stumble across a piece I had long since forgotten about. Recently, I encountered the opposite situation. I was trying to list all of the stories I’ve done on diabetes in the last decade, and I couldn’t find a piece I knew for certain that I’d written: a response to a question from a Good Times reader about whether it was normal for a person taking insulin for diabetes to experience fatigue and mood swings. (For the record, the count was at least 23, including health news items.)
No sign of it anywhere on the master list of published stories my better half convinced me to create some time ago. (I resisted mightily, but turns out he was right — it’s been very useful, since I can locate past stories by searching for a key word. Sshh, don’t tell him.)
Since I try to send a PDF of a story and a thank-you to interviewees soon after publication, I searched my emails and discovered — to my chagrin — that in this case, I hadn’t done so.
Had it even been published? After some detective work — looking at the date on the manuscript file, and through my list of publications looking for a gap in the series of reader’s question columns — I narrowed down a probable publication date: April 2018. Oddly though, I had copies of all of the rest of the stories I’d written for the same issue.
My editor confirmed yes, indeed, the piece had been published exactly when I’d suspected, and sent me a PDF.
If you’re curious about whether there might be a relationship between diabetes and/or insulin and mood swings, you can read more here: Is it normal for a person who has diabetes and takes insulin to have mood swings and low energy?
I feel terrible that it took me two years to finally thank the two interviewees and send them copies, since I feel it’s the least I can do in return for the time and expertise these individuals were generous enough to share.
So I owe both my profuse apologies and belated thanks to the two people I spoke to for this story:
- Shelley Jones, a registered nurse and certified diabetes educator in Salisbury, NB, and co-chair of Diabetes Canada’s professional section.
- Dr. Agron Alija, a London, ON, family physician who works with clinical educators from St. Joseph’s Healthcare London.
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