Day 19: Diabetic Dinner Party

If I could invite 5 guests to my diabetic dinner party, they would have to be:

1)  Marc Bolan (Not diabetic but I just wanna' resurrect him...and we love to boogie!)

2)  Dr. Bernstein (I'd like to have a proper chat with him and find out more about his 'Diabetes Solution')

3)  Halle Berry (To be honest, I'd like to know why she ever thought it was appropriate as a role model to say "I'm really Type 1 though it is classified now as Type 2 because I am no longer insulin-dependent.  I was for a while but I've managed to wean myself off insulin, so now I like to put myself in the Type 2 category."  Sorry, but what-on-earth?!  Get the girl a new diabetes doctor or something)

4)  Jimmy Carr (We're going to need someone to make us laugh by telling inappropriate jokes after I've ranted at Halle Berry for an extensive period of time)

5)  Plato (Can't say I necessarily agree/believe in all of his theories, but a superbly interesting bloke nevertheless!  Plus, if I bring him back from the dead to attend my dinner party, he can let me know if there really is a 'world of the forms' or not!)

Day 18: Mind The Misprint

Alright, so the prompt for this post is to open any book to a random page, take the first sentence you read and write about it.  Basically, I don't want to.  The only book I currently have in the room I'm writing in is 'A Dummies Guide To: Living Gluten Free' so I'll give it a miss.  May I point out, however, that when I have my own place I will have books of some sort in every room.  It's not so easy when your stuff is split between two homes in two different cities, but it will happen.

Instead, this is a quote I came across awhile ago and it made me smile:

“Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.”

-  Mark Twain

Day 17: Lessons Learned The Hard Way

Lessons I've learned the hard way:

1)  You cannot cook rice in a sieve in the microwave - you will almost set fire to the house and Mum won't be happy.

2)   Being forgiven by others means very little if you will not forgive yourself.

3)  Do not dwell on negative things that happen to you or allow yourself to play the victim - it will only make you bitter.  You are in control of your own happiness.

4)  Inject your fast acting insulin after eating, just in case you accidentally drop 60g worth of carbohydrate on the floor.

5)  It's never good to forget that you've already injected 10u of fast acting insulin for a meal and end up injecting the same again an hour or so later - eating yet another 100g of carbohydrate to make up for the insulin overdose is not fun!

6)  Have high hopes and big dreams, but maintain low expectations.  That way if someone or something lets you down you haven't got far too fall, or if your expectations are exceeded you can be pleasantly surprised.

Day 16: Pinning Diabetes

Going to pin up 4 photos that say something about diabetes for me.  Messages that I think are important and ones that I hope will someday help us to pin diabetes down.

The first image hilights a problem.  No one wants to have diabetes, but it cannot be ignored!  The longer someone goes without being diagnosed and without proper diabetes treatment, the higher the risk of them becoming really ill, getting serious long term complications and even losing their life.

It's because of the reasons I have just mentioned that I think the symptoms of untreated diabetes should be emphasised more!  Surely the more aware people are of them, the more likely they are to go and get checked out if they experience them.

Basically, the next image just bugs me.  The guy who wrote this book is meant to be an MD, yet it's clear that he either can't be bothered to specify that there may be a possible cure for type 2 diabetes, or he actually reckons he's got a cure for type 1.  If he has then hallelujah, give me and every other diabetic this cure now!  Pfft...just annoying.

Thought I'd follow the last irritating image up with my poster design for National Hope For A Cure Day.  There isn't a cure yet (sorry to inform you of this "MD" Gabriel Cousens!) but the more we focus on it, the more we hope and wish for it, the sooner we'll be diabetes-free.

Day 15: I Got Style

I don't mind much where I write.  I first started blogging in my bedroom at my home in Nottingham, but my laptop broke a few months after creating Diabetic Dais which meant that I would seize the opportunity to write a post wherever and whenever it was possible.  Sixth form, my grandparent's house, even on my dad's touch screen phone at one point if I remember rightly.  I didn't really care how I did it, but I was enjoying writing so much that that was all that mattered.

I only find it difficult to write if I'm in an environment where I'm not comfortable, or if there's no background noise.  Being surrounded by silence just about triples the amount of time it takes me to complete a post.  I end up becoming frustrated because I get wrapped up in my own thoughts and start rearranging and focusing too much on my words, rather than just typing out what I really want to say.  So I play some tunes and away I go!

To be honest with you, I don't really know what my writing style is.  I like to mix things up a bit on this blog, writing about a range of different things and usually with a slightly different tone depending on what I'm writing about.  Obviously I wouldn't write about the worries so many diabetics face regarding serious complications in a jokey manner, just the same as I wouldn't write about something funny that's D-related in a way that sounds so serious, the last thing you'd do is laugh.

I write my Diabetes UK blog a little differently.  I like to use humour quite a bit, usually in the forms of puns, sarcasm or strange similes and metaphors.  I'm a bit more consistent with the way that I write and prefer to portray a positive outlook on diabetes there.  In other words, I save the majority of my 'rants' (although I hope I don't do it too much) for Diabetic Dais.

I believe that there's an appropriate way to write each post and I write the way I do hoping that you're going to want to read it.  The last thing I want is for all of my fellow diabetics out there to rather go and consume 100g of pure sugar without bolusing even a single unit of insulin, than read another one of my posts!

Day 14: Diabetic Dream

The prompt for this post was to write about my dream day.  I know that this probably means imagining a day where everything you've ever wished for and aspired to comes true, all within a 24 hour period.  

In which case, my dream day would consist of me waking up with not a single hair on my head out of place, flawless skin, going to my place of work where I will have a job which makes me ecstatically happy, coming home to a beautiful house with my equally beautiful family and sitting down to an incredibly tasty meal and not having to give any injections because diabetes has been miraculously cured that day.  

Oh and of course I'd probably fly around the world a few times, marvelling at the landscapes I see and the people I meet.  I'd also do everything on my bucket list and spend quality time with all the people I love...and this will be possible because it's my dream day and I can do whatever I like in it.  Not only that, but there's no realistic concept of time in a dream so the possibilities are endless!

The truth is, I didn't really want to write about my dream day to begin with.  That's why it's a bit vague and starts to sound a little sarcastic I guess.  Instead I thought I'd share a dream I had about diabetes about a month or so ago...

I was in a large space, a bit like a conference or meeting room.  I was sat in a big circle, with loads of familiar faces although I could barely recall who the people actually were when I awoke.  

The only individual I definitely remember being there was my Diabetes Nurse.  For some reason everyone in the room was testing their blood sugars.  My Diabetes Nurse told us all that there was a diabetic in the room and we needed to identify who it was.  I remember thinking it was me, of course.  However, when we tested our blood and saw the results on the Glucometer's screen, she said that everyone in the room had diabetes except from me!

As you can imagine I was pretty confused, both in the dream and when I woke up.  I suppose there is one thing that both of my 'dreams' have in common though...being cured of type 1 diabetes is obviously quite high on up on my wish list.

Day 13: I love you

We're meant to be focusing on 10 things we couldn't live without, but as the lovely Vicki Gibbs mentioned in her Day 13 post, if we only talk about the things we physically could not survive without then you're just going to get a boring and pretty obvious list of daily essentials.  Food, water and diabetes supplies being the main ones of course.  It's for this reason that I'm going to list the things that I love the most because I figured that, without the things I love, life wouldn't really be worth living anyway.

10 things I love:

1.  My family.  We may not be the most conventional bunch, but I like that.  The most important thing is that we love each other, support each other and can trust each other with anything.  You are beautiful, wonderful people and I love you all dearly.  Thank you for making me, me.

2.  My lovely friends.  It doesn't matter how long I've known you for, I appreciate each and every one of you.  I'm not going to put your names on here because you know exactly who you are.  I adore you all and I feel blessed to have you in my life.

3.  Anthony Brown.  I don't have to write much here because I think you already know just how much you mean to me.  You have become such an important part of my life and you make me so happy!  You're caring, thoughtful, intelligent, funny, creative and so much more.  I know we joke about how we can read each other's minds because we usually know pretty much exactly what each other are thinking, but I think that's probably because we're so well suited.  I know we never planned to be with each other, or to fall for each other, but I'm so glad we did.

I love you lots!

4.  The Diabetic Online Community.  When I first started blogging as Diabetic Dais, I never expected to become a part of such a supportive and wonderful group of individuals.  I used to feel alone as a diabetic and that probably lead to me not taking much care of it when I was younger, but I don't feel that way anymore.  If I'm annoyed by the fact that I've woken up with high blood sugars, my head hurts and I feel as though no one understands, all I have to do is go on my laptop and suddenly I'm surrounded by so many people who completely identify with me.  DOC - you make me a better diabetic, so thank you!

5.  Reading.  My favourite book is The Time Traveller's Wife because it's beautifully written and you know it's a good book when you cry more reading it than you did when watching the film.  Apart from that, I love reading everything.  Fiction, non-fiction, blogs, newspapers...oh and, since doing the DAFNE programme, the nutritional information on the back of food packaging.

6.  Movies.  The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile being my personal faves.  Those and The Sound Of Music...but that goes without saying.

7.  My music collection.  'Easies' is my favourite Spotify playlist at the moment.  Oh and Ray LaMontagne's voice warms my heart.

8.  My Uke.  I've played the ukulele for a couple of years now, thanks to my dad's musical influence.  I love it...and before you start picturing George Formby cleaning windows, he actually played the Banjolele (just to clear things up!)

9.  Flowers.  Lots and lots of flowers.  Especially tulips (bet you thought I'd say Daisies, right?!)

10.  My cat, Millie...because she's gorgeous!