Diabetes Musings

World Health Day

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Trying to raise diabetes awareness, while also providing an accurate representation of people with diabetes, is a fine balance.

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Diabetes is serious business. 350 million people are living with diabetes worldwide, and evidence suggests that this number is only growing. In 2012, diabetes was the direct cause of 1.5 million deaths. 80% of these deaths occurred in low or middle income countries, where access to basic healthcare and insulin is not equal. Many cases of diabetes are preventable or manageable. So, yes, I realise that it’s important to help raise awareness. I am all for raising awareness.

However, I also feel that it is equally important for our campaigns to accurately represent diabetes and the people living with it. Sadly, I feel that many campaigns have become too caught up in the scare tactics and the consequences of diabetes. As a person living with diabetes, these campaigns are a reflection on me, whether I like it or not. For the many people who are not affected by diabetes and don’t hear a lot about it, these campaigns are very impressionable. These campaigns can lead to misunderstandings and stigma.

I am more than the dark colours, the images of diabetes complications and sadness that is often portrayed in diabetes campaigns. I am a human being who is living with diabetes. I have always tried to portray through this blog how I live with diabetes, and not the other way around. Diabetes certainly hasn’t stopped me from finishing uni, travelling, working, using technology, enjoying good food, television shows, music and everything else that I wanted from life at age 17.

I can’t say that I would have a cause I feel so strongly about if it weren’t for my diabetes. I can’t say that I would be pursuing my love of writing through this blog if it weren’t for diabetes. Those are added bonuses.

Today marks World Health Day, and this year’s campaign has been dedicated to…wait for it…DIABETES.

The World Health Day website and fact sheets rightly trump the statistics and the seriousness of diabetes in the world.

The campaign posters, on the other hand, are bright and colourful and simple. They simply show the things that we people with diabetes….do. What a lot of healthy people already do, regardless. Eating. Attending checkups. Visiting the pharmacy. Being social, and being active.

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I don’t think I could possibly ask anything more of a diabetes campaign.

Want to do something meaningful today? Head onto social media, share a genuine account of life with diabetes, and hashtag it #diabetes. Mentally picture your post thwarting another one in the #diabetes feed about cures, reversing diabetes or cinnamon! Bliss!

Not Quite a Test Strip Dispenser…

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I feel like I’m seeing diabetes everywhere at the moment.

Like this test strip dispenser that actually turned out to be a broken clothes peg. The metal bit is shaded blue like a test strip, and the dark bit on the right could be the stripy bit that goes into the meter….

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And this bag of skittles, which almost seemed to be mocking me when I ripped open a new bag last week.

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Diabetes is everywhere. You just have to look hard enough…

The Other Side of the Fence

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It’s funny the things that spring to mind all these years later. Like my very first conversation about diabetes, that happened before I even knew what diabetes was.

Me, Dave and Matt were walking back to school after swimming class on a hot Summer afternoon. Swimming during Phys Ed periods were such a waste of time. We’d have to walk down to the pool, change into our bathers, jump into the pool for five seconds, get dressed and walk back to school in the space of 50 minutes. Not to mention how much I hated Phys Ed…

I must have been in Year 9 at the time. Possibly Year 10. I was half dazed, and half listening to Dave and Matt’s conversation as we slowly approached the school gates that day. Dave was a good friend, but I didn’t know Matt too well at the time. Then all of a sudden, Dave began talking to Matt about his diabetes. I quickly perked up out of my daze, shocked. I cut Dave off.

“Really? You have diabetes?” I asked Matt.

“For most of my life,” he replied.

I never would have guessed it. Not in a million years. Matt was so tall. And so athletic.

I don’t ever remember asking him about much about it throughout high school. I saw the miniature tubes that were attached to his stomach, and I just assumed that he had a little device that managed it for him. The device I today know to be an insulin pump. I heard him try to excuse himself from Maths class to get some sugar, although I’m certain sometimes it was just an excuse to get out of class. I never thought too much about the why.

Never in a million years did I imagine what he had to go through in order to manage his condition.

Never in a million years did I imagine that this is what I would be going through only a few years later, in order to manage my condition.

Those 17 years before I was diagnosed have given me a unique gift. They allow me to see diabetes from both sides of the fence.

There’s the side of the fence where I sit today. The side that I climbed into at age 17, where diabetes lives and breathes each and every day.

Then there’s the side of the fence where I played as a child, innocent and happy and free. The side where I didn’t know anything about diabetes. The side of the fence that was so high that I could never see anything that went in hand with managing diabetes.

It’s the side of the fence that I try to remember well when others who care about me ask about my life on this side of the fence.

It’s the side of the fence I hope I will be able to jump back into when diabetes is cured someday.

Exactly The Same

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Back in April 2010, I was a freshman uni student adjusting to newfound adult life outside of school. I can remember spending much of my two week Easter break feeling overwhelmed by a couple of 2,000 word university papers that were conveniently due the first week back after break.

It’s safe to say that I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about Easter that year. I had no idea that it would be the last time that I would be able to consume a whole Easter egg with no consequences. Or stuff my face full at Easter get togethers without having to keep a close eye on my blood sugar levels hours into the night.

Looking back on that last Easter without diabetes, I don’t really have any major regrets. Because six years later, I can’t really say that too much has changed.

I’m still making an early start on Easter eggs, and trying to hide them from everyone else at home.

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I’ve still got a stash of Cadbury chocolate chip hot cross buns in the freezer that have become a convenient source of breakfast or lunch when I’m in a hurry.

  I still haven’t decided what I’m going to cook for Easter lunch, in my usual last minute fashion.

I’ll still have Fish and Chips for lunch on Good Friday, and go to Church at 3 o’clock in the afternoon.

I’ll probably still eat more than I need to, because hey, it’s Easter. Raffaello cupcakes, anyone?

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I’ll probably still receive a good haul of Easter eggs to spread out over my desk, despite how old I am.

And I’ll probably still scab up some bargain Creme Eggs and Malteaster bunnies at the shops on Tuesday, even though I don’t need anymore chocolate.

When I think about Easter, I certainly don’t think about the insulin injections, the finger pricks, the carb counting, the correcting, the bolusses, the highs or the hypos that have come into play since 2010.

I fondly think of all the things that have stayed exactly the same.

I hope you have a very happy, safe and relaxing Easter long weekend.

Thanks for continuing to read Type 1 Writes this year and for being ever so kind and supportive. If you enjoy reading this blog as much as I do writing it, please do share it with those around you. 

Diabetes, Like a Boss

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“How’s it going? All right? Up or down?”

This was the question posed to me over the weekend, by one of my well meaning great Aunts. Her husband, who is my great uncle, lives with type 2.

“I need to have insulin injections for most of the foods that I eat,” I began to explain. “Every food is different…”

I began to stumble here, thinking of examples that I could use to explain this. Bread? Pasta? Juice? I hate this question, because there’s never an easy answer.

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I looked at the empty chocolate wrapper I was folding in my hands, and then over to the spread on the table.

All of a sudden, the words just came to me. They flowed, ever so easily.

“The dried fruit will bring my blood sugars up quite quickly, whereas the chocolate will bring my blood sugars up a lot slower” I said, using some of the famous old Italian hand gestures. “But the nuts won’t have much of an effect on my levels at all.”

“So, with the chocolate I might take an injection after the meal, whereas with the fruit I would have an injection straight away. Over time, I’ve gotten a pretty good idea of what different foods that I eat will do to my levels.”

I struggle to explain my diabetes to others. It’s so complicated. There are so many different factors. I often find myself lost for words whenever people ask me.

Yet I surprised myself in that moment, where the words came to me ever so easily. I managed to explain diabetes, like a boss. In that moment, I felt like I owned my diabetes and not the other way round.

And it felt so damn good. Happy hump day!