I don’t know how long it took me to realise after my diagnosis of type 1 diabetes that what people were telling me about the cure being found in five years was total tripe! But I did! Not only that but I actually gave up all hope of it. Not in a bad way, I just got on living my life with diabetes and tried new treatments and didn’t spend much time thinking about a cure. That is until I heard Aaron Kowalski speak at the Friends for Life UK conference in 2014. This talk was the most EXCITING and positive that I attended at this conference and I came away with a solid belief that the next best thing to a cure (either the Artificial Pancreas or Beta Cell encapsulation) is probably more than 5 years away but it's close.

By the way, there is a Friends for Life UK conference happening this October and I believe there are less than 100 tickets left which can be booked here. Find out more from their Facebook page.

Anyway, back to a diabetes cure and what if there was, some day, a cure? What would I do first?

I’ve struggled with an answer to this because there are so many things I could do, like eat a whole chocolate cake in one day but I feel like I really wouldn't truly feel happy after the first slice. but what would I do first and most enjoy?

Then it came to me in a dream a couple of weeks ago and I remembered to write it down. I was on a very long, leisurely and invigorating walk. It was somewhere beautiful like the Burren, the view was spectacular. I was carefree and felt weightless. I was not one bit worried about my glucose levels at all. I didn't have my glucose meter or supply of glucose with me - my rucksack so light. It was a good dream! It was a dream that made me feel happy when I woke up.

It was a dream where I didn't feel lost if I woke up tomorrow morning and my type 1 diabetes was gone. I've been doing diabetes over half of my life and a lot of what I do is habit. I do glucose checks without thinking. Not only that but my blogging, advocating, reviewing educational material for pharma companies & event organising takes up so much of my life and I love doing it. So what would do instead? I suppose the answer is anything. And whatever I wanted.

Now I was on a roll and I thought about what it would be like to eat when I was hungry I may even enjoy food again. Be enthusiastic about delicious food instead of seeing meals as math problems.

Or What would it be like to go to the beach and not worry about sand getting into my medical devices or trying to keep test strips and insulin cool? What would it be like to go through airport security like a person without diabetes-oh wait that actually happened :-) see here. What would it be like just do something spontaneous?

What would it be like to have all that space in my brain that's currently occupied by diabetes related decisions?

What would it feel like to not know what my glucose so levels were every minute of the day, but still know that they were normal???

Well now I've opened the can of worms I can't seem to stop.