Count me in! I'm a new JJ fan...read on

Well, I hope everyone enjoyed the off-day. I hope the lumber stays hot, hot enough to scorch the palms of any Phillie pitchers who have the misfortune to be on the mound for the next three days. We try to make our streak 7, with Josh on the hill and DIRTY WATER echoing over the Fenway Park speaker system at game's end. And of our new pitcher, read on, from today's Globe....."Jason Johnson, the pitcher Cleveland sent to the Sox along with more than $1 million, should be a familiar name to anyone who attended the Boston Baseball Writers dinner in December 2001. Johnson received the Tony Conigliaro Award for overcoming adversity. The tall righthander, who was diagnosed with diabetes at age 11, began wearing an insulin pump on his hip at all times in 2001, except when he's pitching . . . "
Having to wear an insulin pump is no easy thing, and it also means that he is afflicted with Type 1 Diabetes, the bad kind. The kind when you body decides, for one reason or another, to stop making insulin altogether. Insulin, produced by the pancreas (sic), regulates the way the body processes sugar, allowing the absorbtion of it into the organs instead of passing out of the body, unused while in the bloodstream, and peed out. Deadly. 90-95% of people diagnosed with diabetes have type 2, or adult onset diabetes, where the body makes insulin, as it should, but because of poor eating, lack of excercise, or being overweight, the body loses its ability to effectively use that insulin for its important sugar-regulating function. Type 1 diabetes is more commonly known as juvenile diabetes. Cruel, so cruel to be a kid and be forced to stick your finger 5 times a day and take insulin injections 4 times a day. That's my typical day, but I was lucky. My Type 1 diabetes did not occur until well into adulthood. I excercise as much as I can, after lunch and after dinner, but will forever need those shots of insulin, and forever know what I put in my body as food, and the consequences of that. But it's gotten me in shape, really good shape. And I am happy. Sure, I'd love to go to Fenway more often than once or twice a season, but taking a blood sugar level every three innings while crammed and sweating, and then finding the proper meal, ain't easy. Hey, enough of this. Go get 'em tonight Josh. 7 and we're in heaven. And thanks for reading.