It’s difficult to believe all the good things that have happened to me through BloodSugarTrampoline.com this year, and with all the other diabetes related stuff that I do. Sometimes I have to pinch myself.
Every year, when I write my Christmas cards, I include a letter with a bit of a summary of what our family has been up to. When your family lives on two continents it’s important to keep the connection in this way.
It was while I was writing this letter that I realise just how much has happened to me this year because of blogging and volunteering. Here is some of my favourite highlights from 2019;
MY 2019 HIGHLIGHTS
JANUARY
Serious Trampolining of Blood Sugars :-( which prevented a lot of sleep from happening: I wrote about it here.
FEBRUARY
Got Looping with #DIYAPS Read about it here.
MAY
Local Elections don’t sound very exciting but these ones coincided with an advocacy conference where the idea to connect with local county councillors to bring about improvements locally to our diabetes services was sown. I wrote about attending the Novo Nordisk European Diabetes Patient Advocacy Summit in Copenhagen, Denmark here and about what I learned.
This connection led to national media attention for our services in October.
JUNE
Attended Abbott dXLisbon where I connected with diabetes advocates from all over Europe
AUGUST
Went on holidays and closed the loop which hasn’t been opened since. You can read more about my DIY Artificial Pancreas System journey here.
OCTOBER
The fourth Thriveabetes took place bring the online community offline for one day with 270 people attending, amazing speakers to learn and find support from. You can read a summary from the event here.
Local Advocacy issue gets attention when councillors in Clare County Council supported a motion to write to the Minister for Health about diabetes services in the Midwest which lead to a number of radio interviews with Councillor Mary Howard, myself and some members of the Clare Diabetes Support group.
Here’s the interview from RTÉ Radio 1's Today with Sean O'Rourke show
Here’s the interview with Councillor Mary Howard on ClareFM
ClareFM’s Morning Focus interview with myself
I have no idea what 2020 has in store for me other than a trip to another new city and country for me: Stockholm, Sweden but I’m hopeful that it will contain an announcement relating to wider access to reimbursement for freestyle Libre, more specialist dietitians and nurses in the adult diabetes service in the midwest and hopefully a new career for me.
Thanks to all of you for your support, for continuing to read my posts and for all the messages and emails I’ve received from so many people living with diabetes in Ireland who, through this blog, found diabetes peer support.
I wish you all the very happiest of christmases filled with lots of in range glucose levels!
