20 'Non-diabetes' related things about me

1. Painting my toenails pink makes me happy
2. I love vegetables – in particular eggplant and zucchini
3. During a field hockey game I ran down the field the wrong way and scored a goal in the opponent’s net.
4. I accidently stole a pair of sunglasses I didn’t want from Wal-Mart...while I was paying for the pair I did want.
5. I like walking in the rain
6. Sometimes I love getting in a hot car. I sit there letting the intense heat tingle over my cheeks.
7. I’m pretty awesome at growing basil...but not much else.
8. I used to be totally addicted to watching the movie Clueless. I haven’t seen it for a few years now, but suddenly I have the urge again!
9. When I studied in America, people suddenly kept telling me I looked like Anne Hathaway... I think the phase may have passed now.
10. I love The Little Mermaid
11. I tried taking Hip Hop classes...I can safely say this is not one of my strongest skills!
12. I was a model in a country fashion show when I was 10. I’ve not done one again since!
13. I’m the first female in my immediate blood line to get a university degree
14. I made a club when I was 13, complete with agendas, committee members, a constitution, rules and aims. It was the Fairy Club.
15. I ran away from home when I was 12 for one hour. I sat in the dark of the night on our trampoline, but then it got too cold and wet.
16. My first job was at Wendy’s Ice Cream – definitely not diabetes related!...well not Type 1 anyway!
17. I love love songs
18. The smell of lilies reminds of the Princess store in the castle at Disneyland in 1991
19. I entered a radio station version of ‘The Bachelor’, and won
20. I have long toes.. my second toes are longer than my big ones!

I Love Disney!

20 'Diabetic' things about me

1. I love reading nutrition labels on food
2. I love exercising
3. I have always had a difficult time with morning blood sugars – they’re always so stubborn!
4. I have never told a potential employer I have diabetes before first being given the job
5. I can’t drink diet coke or coke zero after 2pm... I have a really weird night’s sleep otherwise!
6. I still can’t make my mind up about an insulin pump but think the OmniPod could be awesome...if it was affordable in Australia!
7. Alcohol affects me really quickly
8. I’m in my 16^th year of Diabetes and still learning everyday...and I find that exciting
9. Having diabetes if often a good conversation piece and a way of quickly getting to know someone
10. Jellybeans don’t count as an enjoyable treat/lolly to me anymore...unless of course I’m having a ravenous low
11. I have three blood meters!....yes i can be a bit of a worry wart!
12. I try not to have too much artificial sweeteners in my diet – instead I’ve been using Stevia or avoiding them totally
13. The Babysitters Club was the first movie I ever saw a Type 1 diabetic character in
14. I can’t stand watching the needle go in when I get my HbA1c done...and talk the entire time to distract myself.
15. A teacher yelled at me in class one day for ‘distracting everyone’. I was in one of those ‘on a mission’ trances trying to get to the lemonade which was kept in a cupboard at the back of the room for me. It was a relief teacher and my friends tried to explain but he still requested that one of my parents come in to see him. Mum made him apologise to me!
16. Winding roads tend to make my blood sugars high
17. I’m constantly ripping recipes out of magazines...but hardly ever make any of them!
18. The owner manager at the first place I ever applied for a job at thought that having Type 1 Diabetes must have meant that I was a ’sickly, weak and fragile child’
19. I am determined to get a better HbA1C this year
20. I want to use my journey with diabetes to make a difference

Apocalyptic Chances

So you know when you're watching a film about the end of the world, they're walking around the darkened streets muddied from a mix of dried blood, sweat and grime? Or film's set pre-1900, particularly the ones where life is tough on the land, and everyone struggles for their place in society? Yeah, they're the movies where I sometimes catch myself thinking, if they were real I'd probably never have made it past the opening act. Without insulin it wouldn't be a case of 'What would I do?', rather chances are it'd be a case of how long do I think I last and with what sort of quality of life?

Why am I thinking about this on a Monday morning some may ask? Well, living in the beautiful tropics means every year about this time we cop the full brunt of the wet season. Today we're certainly feeling it. It normally takes me 20-30minutes to get to work. Today it took me 45minutes to get just 20mks from my house and nowhere near my work, on account of having to take a detour due to flooding (under police instructions). So I am posting to you from my car in a shopping centre parking lot: taking salvation from the traffic jam and contemplating the situation. In reality, its no where near the end of the earth, but what if I'd forgotten my blood meter, insulin, or jellybeans right now? The shops don't open for about an hour at least, the traffic is in a stand still and there's no moving to anywhere useful.

Of course, I haven't forgotten any of these - or I probably wouldn't be calmly blogging from the backseat of my car, but it makes me realise how resourceful we become as diabetics. Because of I have diabetes, I have had to learn how to plan ahead, independent, pack for 'what if' situations and think on my feet. I feel confident that if I really needed something right now, it would come to me, because that's what diabetics do.

Now I'm just going to need to go find a bathroom somehow and try to avoid any potential zombies in the parking lot...I am getting a couple strange stares from people as they walk by to start work in the shopping centre!

Rotary Today and Tomorrow

Today I went to the Rotary D9550 Zone Assembly, a gathering of Rotarians aimed to better current practises in our district and strategise to increase membership now and into the future. It was a fairly interesting day all in all, but anyone born post 1965 was most definitely under represented! That alone should have been a question for the agenda. While I am proud to be a Rotarian, and it is something that has long been on my list of aspirations, I am currently at a cross roads, unsure of how I should proceed. Rotary is a huge commitment, both financially and time wise. Which if I was confident was being spent well, I would be more than happy to continue giving. I joined Rotary for three main reasons, in order they are:

1. To give back to the people who gave me one of the greatest opportunities of my life: a year as an exchange student
2. To join a community cause. to give back to my community: globally and locally
3. To network with the business community and like minded people.

Over the last year my partner and I have been a part of a couple great projects through our club, but weighed against our enthusiasm, willingness, monetary input, time cost and desire to make a deep and lasting difference - I definitely can not say we feel it is the right fit for us. I so desperately want Rotary to be our cause. My partner and I so desperately just want to give back by helping the community from the ground level. Further to this, we have many reasons why we need to be efficient in how we give. I, like so many others, have plenty going on in my life: just managing type 1 diabetes can be more than enough to take on some days! So you can understand why I need to be wise about anything extra I take on, no matter now much I want it, no matter how good my intentions.

The idea of e-clubs has been suggested and I'm going to doing some investigating...but again this wasn't really what I was hoping to put in or get out of Rotary.

If anyone has any ideas/comments on how they give back to the community while balancing a busy life, I'd love to hear them!

Know the Score

Quite excited and feeling new energy Yesterday I took the first big steps towards becoming a volunteer for Diabetes Queensland as part of their 'Know the Score' program. As a volunteer I will be able to deliver Diabetes QLD's message to groups of people interested in understanding the risks of being diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. Better still, we will be offering general information on how to prevent or defer the onset of the disease. Although Type 1 is clearly quite different from Type 2, I am eager to broaden my mind and use my general knowledge of diabetes for a valuable purpose.

One of the best outcomes of today though, was meeting some fantastic new people and inparticular two women, one with type 1 herself, the other a manager at my local diabetes centre. They advised me of a type 1 group that meets every so often in my town, and the next one is on in April! Looking forward to see who else goes as its been quite difficult to connect with my fellow local Type 1's since taking on Run for Type 1 and this blog. (If you've got any great ideas for connecting with your local Type 1 population please let me know!). They will also be a great help for getting the word out about the run. There's still heaps of spots to fill and money to be raised! - 11 weeks to go!

April's Mission

Just a quick post to say I have decided to participate in a new activity this April: The Health Activist Writer's Month Challenge hosted by WEGO Health. I will be attempting to write a post a day for all 30 days. You can join me in writing every day about health too, it should be alot of fun and I'd love to see what you have to say about each of the topics, too. All you have to do to join is sign up here: http://info.wegohealth.com/HAWMC2012 and you'll be able to start posting once April rolls around. Looking forward to writing with you!

Wonder in the everyday

Nine years ago I boarded a plane in Sydney bound for LA. I'd been selected as a Rotary Exchange Student and was jetting off to big ol' Texas. Funnily enough, I sat next to an American man from my home town who worked at the university that (I was yet to know this) I would end up completing two degrees at. He studied bees which I find to be an incredible wonder of nature. Growing up in the country, we had to study 'Agriculture' at school and I remember having a study module entirely dedicated to bees - I absolutely loved it - top of the class! Why am I telling you this? Because I can't help but spend a moment or two...or much much more, contemplating life wonders like coincidence and deja vu.

Riding the edge to burn out

It seems a bit early in the process but I think I've been suffering a bit of 'burn out' in the last two weeks - so I hope I haven't lost any of you in my absence! Trying to blog everyday seems a bit ambitious, and perhaps even an overload, so I'm  scaling back my aims for now and will try to shoot for around twice a week instead! Its amazing how we push ourselves day to day and then it just takes that one extra commitment, that one piece of bad news, that one metaphorical punch from left field, and suddenly we realise how close to our edge we've been riding - pushing the limit. Sometimes this really frustrates me and it takes a couple days just to get my head around that in fact, I do have a limit (really seem to struggle remembering this!) and that all those sayings about redefining your limits/pushing through & breaking your limits, sometimes just can't apply to a Type 1 Diabetic - we need our down time, we have to have time out to breathe. Re-level with ourselves.

The whole concept of stress is also of major annoyance to me, luckily so much so, its laughable. Does any one else ever find that once they realise they're a bit stressed, they start stressing that they're stressed? This happens to me because I suddenly remember how much stress can impact my blood sugars (high!) and start some silly cycle of sticky high numbers which could potentially create a ripple effect lasting more than just the time it takes to solve the original issue at hand. I think this might also be about the same time a non-diabetic might reach for the chocolate ice cream, greasy food or midnight red bull... several examples of a 'no go' zone for me! The sensible substitutes - a square of dark chocolate, salad or a decaf coffee would probably just enable further frustration to join the festering stress levels. My best answer? A run, gym workout, walk on the beach - deep breaths and physical movement. Clears the head and my blood sugar seems to love it too. (Now all I have to do it make sure I don't stay at work too long!...prioritise, priority number 1 being my body)