I Spy With My Little Eye...

....diabetics. Everywhere I turn.

It's National Diabetes Week this week. We wouldn't have a national diabetes week without diabetics, and I seem to have run into a lot of them this week. One of the best things about having diabetes (look at me go - saying there's good things involved with diabetes) is meeting other diabetics. Getting to know their stories. No two stories are the same.

Lately, I seem to be meeting them left, right and centre. It gives me such a buzz every time, knowing there's other people walking around with broken pancreases.

I was at Garden City the other day and had just sat down to my extremely fatty, carbohydrate loaded lunch - the kind of lunch that would give my endo a coronary just to see the number written down in the carb column. I had just bolused when I heard a distinctive 'beep' coming from the table next to me. There's no mistaking that beep - the beep of a glucometer, springing into action.

My head instantly snapped over towards the source of the sound, and I saw a girl probably just a bit older than me stashing her meter away in her bag. I think I kind of just sat there in a happy daze as she pulled out an insulin pen, dialed up the number and proceeded to give herself the good stuff. "Look! Another diabetic" I basically punched my fiance in the ribs getting him to spot the other diabetic. Her husband, or partner, or brother or whoever he was must have overhead me, or otherwise noticed me staring weirdly at his wife, partner sister or whoever she was to him.

I guess the smart part of me was a little slow off the mark, because I know its rude to stare when you're doing your diabetic business. So I declared myself: "I'm diabetic too! Sorry, I didn't mean to stare. Its nice to know you're not alone." He nodded at me, as she had already begun eating. "It's ok, she feels the same way too."

As I left, we exchanged a friendly, 'in the club' smile.


Yesterday, the first day of National Diabetes Week, I was standing in a line for some delicious crepes at the Abbey Medieval Festival. Wearing a deep blue Medieval Dress, my purple people eater pump, Vernon, was clipped onto the top of my dress...I didn't think it would be very ladlylike to go fishing about in my bra to bolus. Pumps must be some sort of beacon for other pumpers...next thing I knew I had another young lady in front of me saying she "liked my pump",  as she pointed out her own purple Medtronic pump.

As we stood and waited for our crepes we swapped diagnosis stories and dates. We found out we had gone onto pumps at nearly the same time. Eventually we got our crepes and parted ways to enjoy the festival - but not without first wishing each other good BGLs for the day.

After the festival I came home to a facebook message from someone I knew a long time ago, who had just been diagnosed with T1D recently. I hadn't spoken to this person in about 6 or 7 years, but wanted to ask me some advice after finding out through a mutual friend that I had had T1D as well for the past few years. And that's the thing with diabetics. We reach out to each other, constantly, and I have not met a diabetic yet who isn't happy to help.



For me, it isn't National Diabetes Week. I'll leave that to the Diabetes Organisations. For me, it's National Diabetics Week. I'm going to celebrate all the amazing people who live with diabetes every day of their lives.

The Cronut of all evil

I have blogged a few times about how ignorant comments made about diabetes or to a diabetic about their condition can make people with the condition feel.

Most things, whilst I can get upset, I can politely discuss with the offending person because I know a very large part of what they have said comes from misconceptions made worse by the very wrong public perception of diabetes.

Then there's The Paramount Coffee Project, who came in with fully loaded bazukas and blew all other ignoranases clean out of the competition. The fact that I am still cranky enough the next day to write this is testament to the anger that pulsed hard through my veins.

I opened up my facebook newsfeed yesterday to see a post from the Paramount Coffee Project being passed around in diabetic circles. They had erred harshly on the side of "how is being this horribly ignorant and rude even possible" with their post. They had created a secret menu item that was only available if you asked specifically for it - prior knowldedge only kinda deal. Which is a great marketing strategy. Unfortunatley their marketing genius obviously used up all his genius on the secret menu idea and had a severe case of brain fart when coming up with the title and marketing catch phrase of this secret item.

They called a ridiculously delish looking cronut topped with affogato and some other fancy thing I can't remember 'Diabetes'. Yes, Diabetes is what they named their dish. The cronut they had pictured was very soft and looked like heaven for your mouth . Diabetes does not look like this. Diabetes looks like fingers covered in red and black pinprick marks. Diabetes looks like an alien insulin pump canula stark white against pink flesh. Diabetes looks like bruises, blood and needle marks. It looks like dark circles under your eyes and worry lines on parents' faces.

There's infinite amounts I can say about how naming a dessert 'Diabetes' is just plain wrong and should never have been suggested or followed through with in the first place. Comments were made about how there is no way they would ever call a dessert 'SIDS surprise' or 'Cancer Cake' (N.B. - I fully understand how serious these are - this is for example only) - because diabetes isn't recognised as being the serious disease that it absolutely is.

After the shock of the name, I read the description, which ended with the phrase 'So come in and ask for diabetes today'. This was the part for me, that made me wish all sorts of evil things on this establishment. NOBODY - I repeat NOBODY would EVER EVER EVER IN A HEARTBEAT ask for diabetes. NOBODY does this 'to themselves' willingly. I don't ask for needles, sleepless nights, hypos and hypers, fingerpricks in the blistering cold or anything else that settled into the spot where my defunct pancreas resides when diabetes wriggled it's way into my life.

Thankfully, the DOC was all over this. I think this post was averaging 3 tirades per minute about the seriousness of what they thought was a 'joke'. People posted links to tribunals to make official complaints, tagged Diabetes Australia and all sorts of fun things to help with the message that this was not even a little bit o.k.

Unfortunately for the establishment, this was all going on whilst the 'creative genius' behind it all slept soundly. The post was removed today and a belated apology issued. I don't know how many phone calls they recieved this morning. I feel sorry for the staff, who might have had to deal with eventuated threats from parents that they would bring their 5 year old with Type 1 in to the store so the workers could explain to him that some cronut he had never eaten was the reason why he has to inject insulin for the rest of his life. For Paramount's employees sake, I hope they left the phone off the hook today.


Power to the DOC (who I can see are still worked up over it this morning based on the posts and jokes being made about Paramount). I hope I never see anything this disgustingly ill-informed again in my life.

If These Walls Could Talk

I don't know how many other people watch the Big Bang Theory. Today the episode where Howard moves in with Bernadette played. They mentioned, “If these walls could talk”. Coincidentally the real estate showed potential renters through our house as we are leaving and moving to a bigger rental.

I happened to be getting a glass of water as one prospective tenant inspected the kitchen. Her eyes swept the cupboards, coming to rest on my bright yellow sharps container. It's not something you find sitting in among the canned veggies and cereal in your average Australian household. Nothing was said, but the stunned “OH MY GOSH, Do they do drugs?” look is preeeety hard to miss. I wonder what she thought my story was.

The walls know my story. If walls could talk, and she could listen, she would know my story. It's weird to think that diabetes ties in with where you live. A reminder that diabetes is woven into the fabric of my entire life, whether I think about it consciously or not. It's not necessarily a bad thing, its just there, all the time.

If my walls could talk: They'd complain that at odd hours of the night, light switches turn on and off, or the fridge light turns on, the illumination casting an eerie light over a weird girl who rapidly shovels food into her mouth, eyes still squeezed shut.

Maybe my walls would tell you that that girl uses a funny machine in the kitchen, but never in any other room. She carries it with her everywhere, but unless desperate, she always walks to the kitchen to use the machine that displays ever-changing numbers.

They'd probably tell you about all the times she had to wipe blood marks from them, and how much they despised having the sticky fluid dry onto them.

In agreeance with the floor, they'd muse about the strips that, even though they only get used in the kitchen, make their way all throughout the house. The floors and walls have a theory that these strips are building a colony and will one day take over the world.

The walls would whisper about how the girl often comes home and goes straight to bed. She is often woken by her phone and will complain of 'hypos' that made her go to bed.

If they could talk, they would gossip about how the girl is soooo disgusting and sometimes trash dives to retrieve food packages she threw away only moments before. And all she wants to do is read some numbers before throwing it away again.

I'm sure my walls would have many things to say about me, my diabetes, and how little use that bright yellow container actually gets because I always forget to clip my cannulas before throwing them away into the normal trash.

Food For Mortals

I didn't know this, but apparantely when you become diabetic, you don't need to eat anymore. We have no need to partake of any oral ingeston of any vitamins, minerals, proteins, good fats, or any other sort of nutrition at all. I think that all of my doctors must have neglected to tell me that I now absorb all these nutrients through magical diabetic sunrays or osmosis. Food is now something I have purely just to get fat.



At least that's the way non-diabetics can make it feel to me. I had a blood test on Saturday as my endo appointment was today. The collection lady was chatty and cheerful and my first impression was that I liked her and maybe I would always get my bloods done on a Saturday with her from now on. Unfortunately, my first impression was wrong. About halfway through the collection she took a closer look at what she was harvesting my blood for and out it popped:

"Oooooh this has your 3 monthly average (HbA1c) on it! Will it show that you've been a naughty diabetic?"

She was lucky there was a needle jabbing into my arm. Otherwise my fist might have (Who am I kidding might have? Would have. My fist WOULD have) met with her face.

Besides that fact that her job is purely to stick things into my veins and make me bleed into a little tube and not at all to question my diabetic habits, this is insulting. No wonder diabetics can have a pretty volatile relationship with food at points. The basic gist of it from everyone else is 'diabetic eating = bad. Starving = good'. Do not put anything into your mouth and you have done well.

I should have asked her if she had any alcohol last night, or EVER really and proclaimed she was bad.

EATING IS NOT BAD. That is all I have done that could possibly ever make me a 'bad' or 'naughty' diabetic. I test alot. I don't always write it down and I sort of went to my endo appointment empty handed, but I test so damn much that I could give my endo my ranges before and after each of my meals and what I needed help with. I take insulin for everything I eat. Sometimes it doesn't work out the way I wanted it to, but that's not for a lack of trying. The ONLY thing I could posibly have done to be a bad diabetic is to have provided my body with the nourishment it needs to sustain my life. I wasn't aware I had reached god status and no longer needed physical consumption of food.

And even if I didn't follow the testing and injecting regimen as closely as I do, I am still not BAD, and no diabetic is naughty for it and NOBODY has the right to make these judgments without knowing diddly-squat about us or what we have going on in our lives.

Diabetes Blog Week Day 5: Diabetes Life Hacks

Share the (non-medical) tips and tricks that help you in the day-to-day management of diabetes.  Tell us everything from clothing modifications, serving size/carb counting tricks to the tried and true Dexcom-in-a-glass trick or the “secret” to turning on a Medtronic pump’s backlight when not on the home-screen (scroll to the bottom of this post). Please remember to give non-medical advice only! (Thank you Rachel of Probably Rachel and Kelley of Below Seven for this topic suggestion.)


Diabetes Life Hacks? I probably don't have anything original that I haven't picked up from other blogs or D-forums/chat rooms.

I guess I struggle with remembering how diabetes devices affect my body - like lancing devices, set changes, etc. So whenever I need hacks these are the things I look for. 

For the 1st 6 months I was diagnosed I have a favoured finger that took the brunt of testing. Consequently that finger is now very calloused and require 1 1/2 whole lancing points above my other fingers to draw blood. Eventually I worked out a system where I assigned each finger to a meal or a specific testing reason. My thumbs are for my pre and post breakfast, index fingers for pre and post lunch and middle fingers for pre and post dinner/before bed. My ring finger (and the equivalent on the opposit hand) is for pre-driving checks and my pinkies, because they bleed much more readily are reserved for hypos. In doing this my fingers have a chance to heal and the callous on my favoured finger is slowly softening. 

As well as this, I change my lancet on pay day every fortnight, which is the same day I buy my strips and other diabetes supplies, so I am just able to start with everything fresh. Failing every fortnight if I buy supplies in bulk, I try for at least once a month


My next hack is to remember when I last did my set change as I always forget and will just wait for the insulin to run out. I calculated an average of how much insulin I use per day and I fill my insulin up with this exact amount for 3 days, plus approximately 6 - 7 units for prime/air bubbles. It also helps to curb overeating because I have to remember I have only given myself x amount per day, so if I pig out one day I take it easy the next to save premature set-change.


The other hacks I use most often are about remembering carb counts for things. When I package up sausages I will write on the outside in marker how many carbs are in the serve I just froze so Its not something I have to look up later. Or for cereal I find a small bowl, scoop, etc that is roughly the size of a serving and have attached to it a label with all the cereals I eat and how many carbs is in 1 scoop - so that way  I never have to weight it and can just quickly use the scoop to get out an exact amount of carb. I tend to cycle through about 3 different cereals so the scoop has all 3 written on it and I just move it from one box to the next. 

Not over exciting hacks, but they help make diabetes care just that little bit easier for me.

Diabetes Blog Week Day 4: Mantras and More

Yesterday we opened up about how diabetes can bring us down. Today let’s share what gets us through a hard day.  Or more specifically, a hard diabetes day.  Is there something positive you tell yourself?  Are there mantras that you fall back on to get you through?  Is there something specific you do when your mood needs a boost?  Maybe we've done that and we can help others do it too? (Thanks to Meri of Our Diabetic Life for suggesting this topic.)

Dance Magic Dance! I am a shocking dancer. No sense of rhythm whatsoever. But when diabetes is kicking my ass, my lack of groovin' moves is the least of my worries. So when I'm having a hard diabetes day, I post a few gripes to the DOC, and when I have had understanding and suggestions a plenty thrown my way from amazing people all over the world, I go to groove town. I twerk in my kitchen like no-one can see me (except my bogan back-door neighbours really can see me).

Its not just the dancing that helps - I have a collection of songs that specifically relate to diabetes (at least in my head they do anyway). They're all mostly break-up songs and I sing them to my defunct pancreas. Except for that one random 'The Used' song "Together Burning Bright" which I reserve for when I've had enough hypos that my happy-making hormone is exhausted for the day. On particularly bad days I close all my windows and doors and warble along with Bert McCracken to how everything is going to be AOK at the end of my day:

"I think it's gonna be alright, now
I think it's gonna be okay
Just close your eyes
'Cause we are only sparks
But together burning bright"

Failing singing and dancing, the diabetic rap always makes me want to wrap my diabetes in a bear hug again, cos without diabetes, things like this wouldn't exist:

Dancing doesn't exactly solve diabetes problems...but it makes me happy and gives me energy, which bad diabetes days suck from me hard.

Diabetes Blog Week Day 1: Tell Me a Story

For the 2nd year now I am taking part in Diabetes Blog Week. Today we are supposed to be talking about the diabetes causes and issues that really get us fired up.However, I think I do this on all-to-regular basis and I'm just not in an advocate and cause mood, so I decided to go with the 'Tell me a Story' WildCard instead. 

Write a short story personifying a diabetes tool you use on a daily basis. A meter, syringe, pump, pill, etc. Give it a personality and a name and let it speak through you. What would it be happy about, upset about, mad about?  (Thank you Heather of Unexpected Blues for this topic.)


The dark is all around as I wait, crammed against many more of my kin. We all stand, patient, knowing that one day, we will see the light. One day it will be Bob's turn, or Mary's turn, or my turn.

Outside, I can hear a snap. I am rattled about in my prison. A grubby, pin-pricked finger reaches in. Is this is it? Is it my turn? I cannot bear to stay here, in the stifling blackness anymore. The finger passes me by. Now is my chance; I stick myself firmly onto the warm pink flesh.

Now. The light is everywhere, flooding me with warmth. I bask in the world around me as I am roughly shoved into the care of a higher intelligence. A little care, please. I am here to help, after all.

I tense with anticipation as I see the red shadow near. What I was made to do. Fulfilment. I drink in the deep iron flavour of the blood as the finger tries to steady beside me. I relay the flavour to my God, a very sweet tasting blood. My duty fulfilled.

Now. I am finished with the obligations, I can help no more. But I am not ready for this adventure to be over. The world outside my confinement is so big, so bright. As I am wrenched free of my god, I deftly twist and manage to fall. I drop a long, long way and strategically land on a tile in similar colour to my own body. Eyes lumber close, stupidly blinking. However I am a master of disguise. They will never find me. At the first opportunity, I see a dark passage and wriggle away underneath, somewhere I may rest to plan my forays into the world.

I am halfway there when a creature of too much hair sees me. It pounces and attacks, dragging me off to a corner as I fear for my life. It appears my end is not today, as the creature is frightened away by shoe-clodden feet. A foot passes by me and I quickly swing under the footfall of the 2nd step, gripping tightly to a shoelace as it lifts.

I ride to freedom. The greens of the great outside await me. I drop off and into a pot plant. I plan to scale the heights of the washing line and spend my night in a comfortable looking sock. My adventure, the adventure of Harry, a test-strip who dared to dream, is just beginning.

Stigmatic

stigma

ˈstɪgmə/

noun

1. 1.

   a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person.

   "the stigma of mental disorder"
2. 
   

Chances are in your life that you have felt stigmatized. Maybe you just like the colour black, so everyone assumes your part of a dark goth vampire cult, and cross the street just in case you want to suck their blood with a quickly applied straw-stabbed-through the neck as they pass. Or maybe your smart, so you never got picked for the sports team, and the lack of being allowed to play is probably why you're not good at sports in the first place.

Diabetes also has a stigma. It's a stigma that can make it very hard to tell people around us that we have the disease, or let on how hard it really is. Before you knew anyone with diabetes, what did you know about the disease? Did you believe the pretty blonde lady on the T.V. spouting that diabetes only happened to fat, ugly people? Did you hear about your neighbors grand-daughter who was just diagnosed with diabetes and wonder how many family-sized packets of M & M's her mother tipped into her throat to cause it? Did you think that we are all lazy and unmotivated or that we don't care enough to take care of ourselves? Did you think that we are sickly and won't be able to hold down a job or have a future because of health concerns? Did you think we DESERVE it? Do you still think these things? 

The stigma of diabetes is real. It can stop people getting jobs and it can ruin relationships. Diabetes stigma can create social exclusions. It can make us feel bad about ourselves and maybe even begin to believe we deserve everything that's happening to us. Stigma can stop us from learning about diabetes enough to take proper care of the disease.

When I was first diagnosed, sitting cross legged on a crisp clean hospital bed, I asked for a pregnancy test. I hoped it was gestational diabetes. Unsurprisingly, the pregnancy test was negative and I did not have some sort of super GDM given my over 30 levels.

After I was told that no, there was no bean growing inside me, I WISHED for Type 1 Diabetes. I don't believe in a god, but I concentrated all my energy on willing my pancreas to be fully, 100% non-insulin productive. I was very much aware that Type 1 Diabetes was the one with needles, and that Type 2 diabetes had potential to be reversed, or at the very least I could diet control or have tablets every day instead of multiple daily shots of insulin straightaway.

Being that I hate needles, the wish to have Type 1 Diabetes is crazy, right? It's not if you're aware of the stigma. I knew about the diabetes stigma - and I did not want the stigma of diabetes, let alone Type 2 Diabetes - or the diabetes percieved to be made of an inability towards any sort of self-control. A Type 1 Diagnosis meant that I could interject that in uncomfortable situations - I could say "I have TYPE ONE Diabetes" or "autoimmune diabetes" and explain that it wasn't my fault. A Type 1 diagnosis meant I could say "Oh no, That's Type 2 Diabetes that get it from poor lifestyle".

Of course I don't feel this way and I never ended up throwing any Type 2 Diabetics under the bus (I hope we're all well aware that Type 2 is much more complex than 'I ate bad'. Genetics, anyone?). I explain the differences between the 2 when asked about my diabetes but never lay blame to anyone with diabetes. And these days I know that the stigma affects Type 1's just as much as Type 2's. I just happened to know that Type 1 was autoimmune beforehand due to a cousin having Type 1, and so I preferred to pick this stigma instead. 

The fact is, I was aware of the stigma even before diagnosis and I knew I didn't want to spend three quarters of my life defending my pancreases right to an early retirement and the shame it might cause me. No one should be made to feel this way. 

So get on board with the Diabetes Stigma Project and support! If you can't do that, then at the very least next time you hear someone saying something about diabetes, blast the bejesus out of them and set them straight damnit! (But don't wish diabetes on them or anyone they love because that's just not fair. Diabetes isn't fair to anyone).

Flu Shots! Get Your Free Flu Shots!

I make it sound fun, right? Like going to a circus. But instead of seeing acrobats contort into weird shapes, you get to have a cold metal object twisted into your arm. So I would say its only half as fun as the circus.

But no, seriously, I'm gonna advocate the flu shot here. I have had one faithfully for the last three years. And not only because I don't want to sound like a hypocrite when I mention it to our patients at work. Originally I only started getting them because after I was diagnosed with diabetes, they were free. Having been a student for 4 years previously, if there is free stuff, you take it. Regardless of how useful it may be. Although I do see now how that mind-set could probably lead to some hoarding issues later in life *cough*10 surplus meters *wheeze**hack*.

Now I get them because I actually believe they help. For the past 2 years, it has been my fiance who brings home the colds and other seasonal illness goodies with the bacon. Even though I'm the one who works at a medical centre. So I can only assume flu jabs are good for things besides dead arms.

So if you haven't already, guys seriously, take advantage of the 1 free thing this disease gives you, and overrun your GPs with requests for free flu shots. Given the effect of illness on our blood sugars, go get the sucker-punch to the arm and save yourself a few highs, some ketones here and there and a vomit-induced low or 2.

Just don't let the untrained nurse give it to you. I don't know who taught my girl how to give shots, but she somehow got confused between keeping the needle still and wreathing it around in my tricep like she was in death throes with an arm-shaped croc. I had to laugh when  after she was told by my GP that I had type 1 diabetes, she felt the need to tell me not to panic if it came up with a red dot and/or bruise. It's OK love, I got needle spots sorted.

While your at it - push your needlephobic husband or wife into the nurses room and lock it behind you so they can get their flu shot too. Don't mind the terrified screams and frantic scrabbling sounds coming from behind the door...its just a needle after all. In 3 days time they'll have forgotten it ever happened and be happy that they are saving themselves and others around them from fluey badness.

EXPOsing Diabetes - Redlands Event

This past Saturday I took myself for a harrowing drive down to Sheldon College in Redlands. By harrowing I mean I drove for 20 minutes with a frozen GPS and a steadily-shining fuel light reminding me that I shouldn't stray too far from civilization.

Eventually I found my way to Sheldon College - with 15km of my reserve fuel left to spare - and gambled over to the registration desk for EXPOsing diabetes.

EXPOsing diabetes events are 1 day information exhibitions run by Diabetes Queensland for Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetics. I think I read that more than 300 attendants came along for the day - with about 30 odd of us being Type 1's. The seminars were separated for each type which meant that the programs were tailored to each specific type and their particular program needs.

The Type 1 program that I attended was fantastic. Each speaker addressed us in warm, friendly tones and allowed us to ask plenty of questions; although doubtless this was easier for the Type 1 group as we were a much smaller group than the Type 2 group.

The lectures were informative and I learnt something new from every one of them, and began to consider things about my Type 1 that I hadn't before - like I might be asking for an inclusion to go to an exercise physiologist in my next care plan, as exercise is something I have always struggled with with my Type 1. The seminar on diabetes and driving, given the recent law changes was exceedingly helpful in dispelling some diabetes and driving rumors and myths - and to clarify what was the real deal. That HbA1c under 9% your doctors keep threatening you with is in actual fact just a guideline and not a hard and fast rule - but was put in places for obvious reasons such as the fact that you may be experiencing more tiredness and an inability concentrate with a higher HbA1c.

I was also really happy with the inclusion of the seminar that dealt with more of the mental health side of type 1 diabetes. However that's a blog for another day.

I was honored to sit among Type 1 Diabetics who had had the disease much longer than I have - including 2 Kellion medal recipients. I think I was actually hands down the youngest person in attendance - which didn't phase me. The ladies that I sat with ranged in age from (I think) late 20's to 70's...but the thing about a disease like diabetes is that it can create mutual understanding and friendships between vastly different age groups. The attendance of willing participants proved that you have the capacity to learn and better understand the disease you live with at any age!

Overall I commend Diabetes Queensland on the institution of the EXPOsing Diabetes programs and would recommend anyone who can to attend one - even if you think you know everything there is to know, I gaurantee you you will walk away with at least 1 piece of knowledge about living with diabetes that you didn't have before.

They also have stalls set up by meter, pump and other such companies for you to check out the available products and chat to about if you're thinking about say, moving onto a pump. As an added bonus for me at the event I walked away with a free pump skin from Medtronic Diabetes. I'm happy as pie (I can only assume that being as delicious as they are, that pies are happy). My pump looks vibrant and pretty and I have a renewed interest in mushing buttons to record everything that happens every second of my life (as you are expected to do when you have diabetes).