I can’t believe that my first post of 2020 is in February!!! WOW! The first couple of weeks of January I did nothing blog, website or diabetes related and it was wonderful but I did miss writing.
Then there was a general election called, a conference event, advocacy group meeting and speaking event to prepare for, not to mention lots of thinking about “what next?” for Thriveabetes, and taking some personal time to figure out what’s next for me. So, February is my first blog post!
There hasn’t been much going on with my diabetes these days, so I haven’t written about living with diabetes in a while. The lows are not as low and have been less frequent. The same with the highs. Physical activity is still problematic but not the “glucose-scoffing” challenge it used to be and I’ve been able to take my eye off the ball a lot without any consequences but with LOTS of additional sleep!
This reason I’m in this place of diabetes calm is because my DIYAPS is working away in the background automagically adjusting my insulin levels to keep me in range. I wrote about my journey to Closed Looping here not so long ago.
All the Needles
My mind is not filled with daily diabetes decision making and problem solving and has been replaced with how much I dislike insulin pumps set changes every three days, how much I dislike having my glucose sensor offline while it has to do a warm up every week and how much I dislike the new sensor insertion. The reason I dislike all of those things are because they hurt, not all the time but they do, and I feel so blind when my sensor is offline. I’ve always disliked these things but my brain was filled with so many daily diabetes decisions to make and problems to solve that I would only give it a thought just before I did it.
So what do I have planned for 2020?
Camino
The biggest highlight for me is going to be My Camino Challenge in September for Diabetes Ireland. I haven’t undertaken a fundraising challenge in a good few years so it’ll be good to shake a few buckets again.
DIAG
The Diabetes Ireland Advocacy group is a group of about ten people with diabetes facilitated by Kieran O’Leary, Diabetes Ireland CEO and we are focused on what needs to be done next to improve our health service for us. It was set up almost a year ago and we have had a couple of small achievements in that short time. More on this to come.
DICE
Myself and another person with diabetes have been invited to speak at Diabetes Ireland’s Professional Conference on 21 February. It’s only the second time that I’ve presented to health professionals so I’m glad I have a partner in crime.
Education
While I was looking at job opportunities that I might be interested in these last few months I very quickly realized that a third level degree would be very beneficial. So I’ve submitted my CAO application and will hopefully be accepted as a mature student in UL this coming September.
Thriveabetes
As for what’s next for Thriveabetes? That is still being discussed and explored but we are looking at doing a scaled down version closer to home at the end of the year.
There are a couple of other projects and events coming up in the year but one I will mention is the T1D Rise of the Machines Belfast on the 16 May. Dana Lewis is speaking which is always a pleasure and it’s focused solely on the benefits of diabetes technology and what’s new. Registration opened last Saturday, 1st February here
So the dust is officially blown off this blog and more posts are in the works. ;-)