Late to My Own Blog!

Hey everyone, Dia dhaoibh!

Change terrifies me.

Lack of certainty terrifies me.

This blog and blogging on an official platform terrifies me.

This all makes me a terrible candidate to both deal with type 1 diabetes and blog about it!

So if you've decided to come along, I hope you'll enjoy laughing and crying with me as I share the madness that comes with carrying out the duties of my pancreas daily (with continued disdain for what it demands of me) while trying to appear sane. I hope you'll also enjoy growing with me as I learn to blog in this format, share my story, my learnings, and my life with my sidekick: type 1 diabetes (or my sworn enemy - it changes role a lot as you'll see).

Disclaimer: I didn't apply for the pancreas job so I won't dwell on not being a good fit for the role. I'm at a beginner level of blogging so I'm looking forward to getting better at that, but I'm a better fit for that than I am for diabetes so that's already a win!

Living with type 1 diabetes is wild; it's not the presence of anything but the absence of something! It is the absence of the extremely important hormone that is insulin! Imagine not having any other hormone in the body and having to quantify and dose exactly how much of it you need throughout every single day and night. The fun (or not fun) thing about insulin is that the amount of it required is so specific and perfectly dosed when it's secreted by the body for the amount of glucose consumed to be converted into energy... no biggie, glucose is just the main source of energy for your brain, organs, muscle and nervous system to function. The equation for breathing is casually glucose + oxygen ---energy released---> C02 and water ...

So you know it is only always absolutely essential that the insulin doses I calculate be as accurate as possible every single time it's required, like every single time I eat anything.. or anytime my blood sugar level is high and I need to take a correction dose to bring my blood sugar level back down. No pressure. It's not like my breathing (i.e. staying alive ah ah ah ah) consistently depends on me and my ability to math every minute of the day.. oh wait... it's just like that! (Just so we're clear on my maths ability, I got a C2 in my final year exams at school and in my four years of studying an undergraduate in international business I avoided any subject that required calculations).

We people living with diabetes truly "work to live"!

I have moved to this roomier space here to share more about my working to live with diabetes!

If you don't come visit me here I'll come find you in your inbox!

Why am I sharing my story and why this week?

Two reasons:

1. This week is empathy week!

2. Because the fabulous Renza Scibilia said to, right here!

Now she did not say specifically to me to share.. and she did say only to share if we want to... but I do want to, so I am!

Because when people share their stories of the highs, the lows, and the crazy things that are so unique to living with diabetes, it makes me feel a little bit less alone with it.. a little bit high (in a good mood way, not the blood sugar way, and not the other way), and a lot less low! And not less crazy.. but not alone in feeling crazy!

Also, I love writing, I'm not very fast at it which is why I'm late to my own blog today (it is now Tuesday). But I love it. I started sharing about living with type 1 diabetes in December 2020 (see my first post here). Not much has changed about I feel about diabetes, to quote myself

"Type one diabetes is hard work. It has taken me a long time to fully embrace that and permit myself to say that it is hard work. I find type one diabetes unpredictable, exhausting, requiring consistent looking backwards, forwards and forecasting, very overwhelming and lonely."

But, while my feels about the nature of the condition itself haven't really changed, since I started writing about living, or being, with type 1 diabetes, everything about my life has changed. It has strengthened me, it has strengthened my relationships, it has connected me to so many incredible new friends, it has exposed me to so many opportunities; in a nutshell, it has helped me to find my passion, my purpose and my people.

Sharing about living with diabetes has helped me to slow down and take my time to find the right words at a given time to best articulate how I feel about living with type 1 diabetes at different points and moments.

Sharing about living with diabetes in a written format means that when people want to learn about diabetes they can do so without any urgency to respond. They can either take their time to digest the information and respond if they feel they can in their own time, and if they can't or don't have the right thing to say - there is the beautiful trusty heart emoji which is so much more preferable to the in-the-moment automatic responses that comes from a place of wanting to console and sympathise, but instead often minimise and negate the experience such as "there's worse" or "at least it's manageable". Have you ever felt better after sharing a terrible experience and someone says "it could be worse"?

Sharing about living with diabetes has connected me to people across the world who just get it and I have found friends for life.

Other people sharing their experiences of living with diabetes gave me permission to share mine. A huge hope of mine is that this blog will help others to give themselves permission to share theirs and so on. (I promise this isn't a pyramid scheme).

I didn't know how heavily I had been masking my diabetes until I wasn't.

I didn't know how heavily I had been masking my diabetes until I gave myself time to find my own words about living with a condition that demands so much, living in a world that asks us to pretend that it doesn't; in a world that says that we're somehow failing if we're defined by this thing that literally defines our every next move; that we're failing if we're stopped by this thing that literally begs us to stop to rest and recover. In my experience of diabetes, I don't find it manageable, my every move is defined by it and I will continue to let it stop me and slow me down so I can rest and recover from the effects of it - but those are just my words! Find yours (you'll soon learn that you already have them, but the noise outside has been drowning them out).

As Renza beautifully said: It's Your Diabetes, It's your story, it's your lived experience, share if you want, only if you want"