Tweet Share Picture the scene: Saturday of a sunny Bank Holiday weekend, paddle in one hand, sandwich in another and trying to work out how to get to my insulin. The insulin is located in my diabetes bag which is in my back pack which is in a waterproof barrel just out of reach behind me in the canoe. Although the sun is shining and the water looks clear, I am sure is cold.
Rewind. How did I get here?
The week before May Bank Holiday was hectic at work with multiple late nighters and a couple of early mornings. So, by Friday evening, I was happy to remind my international colleagues I would not be available three days, switch off my computer and leave it all behind. Late Friday evening, we arrived at a cottage less than 30 minutes from the canoe and had a good night’s sleep without an alarm to wake us up. Bliss.
Saturday morning was leisurely apart from packing for the canoeing: as we’d never done it before, we didn’t know how wet we’d get so we packed full waterproofs and change of clothes. We were prepared for most eventualities, including being dosed up on hay fever drugs.
As we were ready to leave, I typed the postcode for the canoe into the sat nav and realised the “less than 30 miles” were “less than 30 miles” of windy country roads: the type of roads that would take an hour to drive. Oh well, lunch would have to be sandwiches rather than a pub lunch: we could cope. So we set off.
Tweet Share We’re pleased to share another video by infamous diabetes blogger, Jen Grieves. This time she wanted to show us what it’s like to go out of an evening, enjoying a few drinks whilst manager her Type 1 diabetes.
Over to Jen…
Read more about what Jen has to say about her evening out on her blog site: MissJenGrieves.com
How do you cope with your diabetes on a night out? Let us know in the comments.
Tweet Share We’re taking our Type 1 Essentials campaign to the House of Commons on June 5 and we want you to join us. We’re looking for children with Type 1 diabetes and their families who would like to travel to Westminster to meet their MP and talk about the issues you face when it comes to your diabetes.
Tweet Share Tom turned 14 yesterday and was keen to show how mature he’s getting. On Friday night, we asked him if he was getting excited. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘At school today I forgot it was my birthday four times.’ Of course, the fact he’d noticed that showed us just how excited he was.
Another clear sign that he’s still prone to birthday excitement was the fact that his blood sugars started to drop. Admittedly, he’d had double PE on Friday and youth theatre after school, but even taking that into account it was obvious that his blood sugars had gone a bit wonky. Jacqui was the first to pick up on it.
‘That’ll be excitement,’ she said, knowingly. ‘If you remember, he always tends to go a bit hypo on his birthday.’ I hadn’t remembered that fact, but then again, I’m used to playing the uninitiated Luke to Jacqui’s wise Yoda.
Apparently excitement and stress more typically lead to hyperglycaemia, but they’re more likely to make Tom’s blood sugars plummet. He was low in the evening, and when I checked him before I went to bed, he was barely above a hypo. I set a temporary basal rate of zero for an hour on his insulin pump to let his glucose gently rise, but even so he was hypo when he woke up the next morning.
Tweet Share As I am now in my tenth year of diabetes, I have been thinking back about changes that have happened to me in that time. I previously wrote about changes in my lifestyle such as needing to carry a handbag all the time. This time, I have been thinking about changes to my body.
For example, I have more grey hair and more wrinkles than I had before diabetes. Since being diagnosed, I have never experienced the request to prove my age when buying alcohol: only before diabetes was I able to explain to bar staff in USA that I needed a drink more than I needed a compliment after pointing out that I was over 30.
OK, so not only have I had diabetes for nearly ten years, I am also ten years older so perhaps some of the changes are down to my age. And maybe all the changes I have noticed are down to age only. But have you noticed how some of the symptoms of getting old are the same as the complication of diabetes?
For example, I recently starting dressmaking again after many years absence (I have not designed my diabetes friendly dress with hidden injection pocket yet). Dressmaking is a little more “delicate” than my other hobbies such as climbing or baking.
Picture the scene: Saturday of a sunny Bank Holiday weekend, paddle in one hand, sandwich in another and trying to work out how to get to my insulin. The insulin is located in my diabetes bag which is in my back pack which is in a waterproof barrel just out of reach behind me in the canoe. Although the sun is shining and the water looks clear, I am sure is cold.
