Diabetes Blog Week: Day Six - Snapshots of a T1 Life

Sorry I missed posting yesterday, on a favourite topic: exercise. If I hadn't been in transit, flying from Melbourne to LA, I would have commented about how exercise is so vital to overall health. Following my accident last year I couldn't ride my bike for six months. I couldn't swim (my shoulder was stuffed) or run, and I just hated walking. I got depressed and put on loads of weight. This impacted on my whole health, including my diabetes management. I started using tons of insulin and felt very unmotivated to test frequently. Being able to exercise again was the key to getting me out of my funk and getting my health and weight back on track.

I digress.

Today is all about sharing images of diabetes. This is a snapshot of life in my diabetes land from this year:

1). Always always always celebrate your 99s or 5.5s. Take a photo and share with the whole world your diabetes perfection! I also undertook to hand out 10 prizes to people attending HypoActive events who scored 5.5 during the event. It is a great and stupid thing to do.
2) I had two seizures this year, and twice an orange puppy like this was loaded up, but I came out of them before it was needed. Thank god. They still scare me shitless.

3) What could be better than a bunch of 99s and 5.5s? Seeing two fabulous type ones marry each other. Chelle was given away by her father, Trevor, also a type one. Awesome and tear jerking.

4) AcT1vate. Very proud of this achievement - we organised a weekend learning all about exercise and diabetes management for over 50 people with type one diabetes. I took the intermediate cycling class - we rode all over the Melbourne bike paths including the bike freeway under the Tulla Freeway to learn bunch moves - and when stopping to test Jenny pulled out a 5.5. I think this photo sums up the weekend and the great impacts it has had on so many.

5) MS MegaSwim was held in February and even though it was our fourth event, it was the first time I participated in it. Thankfully no one took any photos of me, and despite feeling not so bad in the water, my distance and swim speed were definitely things to work on in future. I loved how the gathering of belongings down at our team lane end was so very different to every other team in the event:

6) Run for the Kids - also the fourth time we have run a team in the event. Need to do more to help build our assistance for runners as it seems to have strong potential. But without any help it is hard for me to achieve. Luckily we have had some new vollies come on board so things will hopefully improve. This was the pump array from the 2010 participants:

7) Murray to Moyne Cycle Relay. Our eighth attempt at this annual relay, and our most successful on a number of fronts. One of the great initiatives was trialled was assigned vollies to collect blood glucose readings from riders wishing to ride further than one relay leg at a time. Blood would be collected while the riders were still on their bike, so we could minimise downtime between relay shifts and ensure we didn't lose too much time in the overall relay.

8)A view of my bedside table with an old Dex 4 container.

9) which holds all my used test strips.

10) Finally, a snap shot of the stuff I have carted to the US while I am here for the next five weeks. Spares, backups and what nots.