A Shout Out to My Home Team

I am a huge champion for peer support to help us live with type 1 diabetes. My type 1 diabetes friend in Clare and around the country have kept me positive and fighting for almost 10 years now. But, as it's Valentine’s Day and the month of his birthday, this post is a tribute to my home team. My husband has been my very biggest supporter and cheerleader for over 15 years. 

From that very first day, when he asked me for books on type 1 diabetes so that he could learn something about it, to every day I have to use the code words “low”, “hypo”, “help” or “I’m fine” (biggest codeword ever for I’m not fine). Thankfully, that’s not too often.

He came to my most recent hospital appointment so that he could learn to insert my Continuous Glucose Monitoring sensor for me. 

He shares research articles he finds in The New York Times- he actually brought my attention to the Bionic Pancreas first all of those years ago.

He does 90% of the cooking (yes I know how lucky I am) and is always considerate of my carbohydrate, mmm, sensitivity.

All of my best ideas get bounced off him and therefore improved by his input.

He is constantly reminding me of what I can do.

He volunteers with Diabetes Ireland on their national council, even though he does not have diabetes. He even got to meet President Higgins on his first official act as president, but that’s another story.

He makes me feel like there are two of us working hard to keep me healthy.

He is my Type 3 and my Valentine.

By the way, hun, I have a feeling I’m going to suck again this year for your birthday - sorry! #SpareaRose and post on a blog:-D 

You Never Know Where People with Diabetes will Pop Out From

You never know where one of our comrade in arms will pop out from. We are everywhere! You may not think it but we are. My neighbour across the road from me who I've know for at least 5 years, only told me at Christmas that he has type 1 diabetes!  And here's another one for you.

I have no qualms about saying that as an Irish housewife I love going through the Aldi Supermarket weekly ad magazine. Always looking for a bargain, I am. Or a nice surprise. Just in case you are not familiar with Aldi, they don’t just do groceries, they also do “nice” things.

And so there's that very bright smile jumping off the page at me. Yeah, the kid’s cute too. But I’m taking about Stacey Moloney, fellow person with type 1 diabetes.

I came across Stacey last year during the Irish Blog Awards. Stacey’s blog, Your Mindful Guide was one of the finalists in the Best Health & Wellness Blog category. She very generously allowed me to write a guest post on her blog to promote the Thriveabetes conference in 2015.

She attended Thriveabetes 2015 and we got to meet face to face, ever so briefly. And she wrote about her experience at it. See it here.

Stacey has lived with type 1 diabetes since she was 9 years old and was hospitalised for two weeks when she was diagnosed. She is now in her twenties and let me tell you she is living every minute of it. Diabetes is NOT holding her back.

The aim of her blog; Your Mindful Guide is to spread positivity, change the 'tree hugger' stigma attached to recycling and make it accessible, fun and trendy. Are you ready start your journey to becoming healthier in every sense of the word, mind, body, and soul?? Then you share the same passion as me. This is my life – to inspire and encourage you to live your life the best way possible and learn how to become more mindful.

As well as being owner of her own website and blog she is a marketing executive at WEEE Ireland, a non profit private company that promotes recycling electrical appliances, equipment and batteries, which is why there is such a nice photo of her in the Aldi catalog. Aldi Ireland are the WEEE Ireland Retail Battery Collector of the year 2015.

You really do not know where you will meet fellow people with diabetes but if you talk about your diabetes you might meet a friend.

Welcome to Blood Sugar Trampoline

A combination of my personal blog about living with type 1 diabetes in Ireland and sharing information I collect along the way. I feel that living with type 1 diabetes is sometimes like being on a trampoline, except you can never get off. It doesn't take long for us to get tired of all that bouncing. It's not any fun.

Here, we can bounce together, keep each other steady, and cheer each other on when we get tired and want to get off the trampoline.

Spare a Rose; Give a child with diabetes a chance

Imagine living in a country where you could not afford to buy insulin for your child with type 1 diabetes? 

I'm so lucky that I was born and live in Ireland. I can go to a chemist at any time and walk out with a month's supply of insulin, test strips and whatever else I need to live. Without paying a cent!

If I was born elsewhere that would not be the case. I would not be able to afford my insulin and I would not be here today.

Yesterday, I donated money that I had set aside to Spare A Rose and give a child with diabetes a chance at life for a year.

Spare a Rose, Save a Child is the brainchild of the Diabetes Online Community in North America. The idea being to take the typical “dozen roses,” so popular on Valentine’s Day, and just buy 11, save just one rose and donate to spare the life of a child. 

The Spare a Rose, Save a Child campaign is directed at raising awareness and funds for the Life for a Child program, which is an International Diabetes Federation program aiming to take “contributions from donors go to established diabetes centres enabling them to provide the ongoing clinical care and diabetes education these children need to stay alive.” 

The idea was to take the typical “dozen roses,” so popular on Valentine’s Day, and save just one rose to spare the life of a child. “Spare a Rose, Save a Child” is simple: buy one less rose this Valentine’s Day and share the value of that flower with a child with diabetes in the developing world. Your loved one at home still gets flowers and you both show some love to someone across the world who needs it. From Kerri Sparling, Sixuntilme

Please join me! Donate here.

Diabetes Complications are Not a Sign of Failure

The complications of diabetes are real and people are living with them. People are also living in fear of them. Myself included. I am actively trying to overcome this fear because if I do end up with complications I don't want to feel like it is the end of my life. Or that I failed to manage my diabetes well enough. And I certainly don't want to be made to feel that it's my fault.

I don't believe just because I am doing everything in my power to manage my diabetes that I will be spared. I believe that if I have type 1 diabetes I still have the risk of developing complications. I strive to keep that percentage of risk low but it will never be zero.

I will not stop trying!

Image from http://www.coolnsmart.com/failure_quotes/

So, when a friend of mine, who has lived more than 50 years with type 1 diabetes and who lives with a number of the complications of diabetes, comes to our T1D meet ups and people imply she didn't take of herself, I get a little "upset"!

My friend has survived taking care of her diabetes when there was no such thing as a glucose meter! Imagine never know what your blood sugar was?!?

She has survived during a time when the phrase "carb counting" might as well have been a foreign language in Ireland. It didn't exist!

We also did not have Rapid Acting Insulins until the late 1990's. So, even if we did practice carb counting, it wouldn't have been much good to us. Sure, we could do a certain amount of carb counting on the insulins we took only twice a day but we couldn't fine tune it like we can today.

We also did not know that the tighter your diabetes control, the less likely you were to be at risk of getting diabetes complications. This research was only published in 1993 as the DCCT Trials.

93 years ago we died! Today, we have so many tools, technology and instant access to research that people with type 1 diabetes, who have been told for decades what they can't do are breaking all of those barriers.

So I ask you? Is surviving 50 years with type 1 diabetes and living with complications really not taking care of yourself?

My friends who live with diabetes complications may even say themselves, that they didn't do as much as they should have to take care of their diabetes. And I say you did the very best that you, and everybody else, knew how.

I am so lucky and proud to have friends like Deniabetic, who are helping me overcome my fears.

The Great "Sugar" Confusion

I thought I knew a lot about food and in particular carbohydrates and sugar. However, I attended a diabetes support group recently that sent my head spinning in confusion.  You see, I always thought that the word "carbohydrate" referred to the group of foods that have the most influence on blood sugars and that "sugary" foods would be part of that group. So when a gentleman remarked that white bread was full of sugar my head slowly exploded.

Inside my head I was asking so many questions; - do you mean sugar as in table sugar and that it's an ingredient of bread? - or do you mean in comparison to wheat/brown bread? - are you talking about carbohydrate and not sugar? - are people confusing those two words? - when dietitians talk about sugar; are they talking about sugary foods, table sugar or a subgroup of carbohydrates?

I started second guessing my knowledge and I couldn't respond to the comment which was then followed with other remarks about other foods, such as bananas that are also full of "sugar". Help! But of course none of us had the knowledge to sort all of this confusion out.

So off I went to Google university to try and figure out my confusion and find out once and for all what the word "sugar" actually means. I'm still not very wise but my opinion is that the word is being used in all sorts of contexts and that most of the other general public are confused too.

There's sugar as in table sugar, complex sugar or carb which is a type of carb (obviously) and the other one which is simple sugar/carb, sugars as in my blood sugars.

We have invited a dietitian to our next support group meeting and I think it's going to make for a very interesting evening and hopefully be enlightening.