I’m going through a bit of a rough patch with my diabetes at the moment. I haven’t felt like writing too specifically about pump or blood glucose tethering issues, and I’m taking a bit of a back seat on social media. But that’s not to say that there hasn’t been a lot going on in the good ol’ DOC.
One thing that I am reminded of during this rough patch, is that I have excellent tools available to me in order to manage. I’m wearing a Libre sensor on my arm, which gives me the convenience of scanning as often as I need to. I have a $9,000 insulin pump attached to me, which allows me to set temporary basal rates to settle stubborn glucose levels, or conveniently bolus from the comfort of the couch. I also have plenty of spare insulin, glucose meters, skittles and test strips in reserve.
Not everyone in the world does.
T1International is currently running an appeal to provide insulin, syringes and glucose monitoring supplies to an estimated 2,000 Syrians who are in dire need. Just under $20 Australian dollars will provide a month’s supply of insulin, which I easily spent at Woolies yesterday alone. You can read more about the appeal here, and make a donation here.
If you’ve read a diabetes blog recently, there’s a good chance that you’ll see a comment from Rick at RADiabetes. Rick invests a lot of his time each week into reading the mass of diabetes blogs in our community, and curating the blog page at TuDiabetes which you should definitely check out here.
There’s a new diabetes forum/app from Beyond Type 1 for people to connect, share and inspire each other to not only live, but thrive with type 1 diabetes. I must admit I’m not too keen on another password to remember, but I am definitely feeling tempted to sign up after a peek at some of the forum activity from new and familiar faces. Check it out here!
There’s a new book which aims to help children better understand diabetes self care and the use of equipment. Diabetes veteran Yerachmiel Altman from New York began photographing stuffed animals taking shots, doing finger stick tests and using an insulin pump as a way to help a family dealing with a newly diagnosed six year old son. You can buy the book, I Can Help Take Care of Me here.
Helpline Live is a free service offered by the team of experts at Diabetes Queensland. If you’re a part of the Twitterverse, you can tweet a question under the hashtag #HelplineLive, and the team from Diabetes Queensland will get back to you with an answer. They’re live every Tuesday morning from 9-10am, but will answer your questions outside of those hours, too!
You might have heard of Jayne Lehmann before, but she is relatively new to me. Jayne is a self employed diabetes educator from South Australia who is actively connecting and learning from people with diabetes on social media. Her latest blog post explores the implications of the upcoming NDSS changes, which you can read here, and be sure to follow her on Twitter here.
Yesterday was officially the shortest day of the year, meaning we are well and truly in the depths of Winter. I’m reminded of this freezing yet glorious afternoon at Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra last July. Take me back!
Hope you’re keeping warm, and that your Wednesday is filled with stable glucose levels.
Rick Phillips
Thank for the kind mention Frank. The best advice I ever got about rough times with diabetes is that this too shall end. In 42 years it always has for me and I trust it will for you as well.
I referred your blog to the TUDiabetes.org blog page for the week of June 20, 2016.
Yerachmiel Altman (@Yerachml)
Great summary of a lot of different types of diabetes information. If I can help you (or anyone) please let me know. As the semi-literal walking history book of pumping it was a fascinating exercise in self control to set limits on content and depth for the children’s book.
Thank you (publicly) for the Uk glucose meter – already working on shots for mmol/l book!!
Great job you’re doing: Survival really depends on all of us helping each other. When I began working on the net (FTP: also in the old days) we never even dreamed of using it like this!!