Not Prepared.

Usually, I am so on the ball when it comes to making sure I'm prepared for whatever diabetes-related situation may arise. Spare battery, check. Ketone meter (which also doubles as my back up glucose meter), check. Back up insulin, check. Needles, in case I have to manually inject, check. Glucose tabs, check. Spare cannula, check.

More often than not, I'm pretty on it! I'd much rather carry everything on me, knowing that if my best friend calls and wants to go for an impromptu dinner, I can. Or go to the pub after work with my colleagues. Being prepared means I can be spontaneous when it comes to those decisions.

Last Friday, however, I was only partly-prepared!

I noticed that my insulin cartridge was running low. Not a problem. I grabbed the vial of insulin from my bedside table before I left for work and put it in my bag. I knew I had enough insulin left in the pump to last until lunch. Lunch came round, I checked my blood sugar, and saw I had 3 units left, so I bolused that to cover some of my lunch (I do my very best not to waste insulin - it's precious stuff!). I took my insulin vial from my bag, and then looked into my diabetes bag for my spare insulin cartridge.

Except I didn't have a spare insulin cartridge. And I'd just bolused the last 3 units I had in my pump, something I wouldn't have done if I had checked for the pump cartridge first. Because that 3 units could have been my basal insulin until I got home, and just done an injection to cover lunch.

But, feeling like a bad-ass and using up the last of the insulin in my pump, I didn't check, and this afternoon saw me doing a few injections, something I hadn't done since I started on my insulin pump back in June of last year.

Going back to injections, albeit for only a few hours, felt strange. It's weird how something that was my normal for four years suddenly feels alien to me. It's also made me very aware of the fact that I'm not actually confident anymore when it comes to injections. I wasn't entirely certain how to calculate my basal rates for the time I was disconnected from my pump, and I also didn't know if my insulin to carb ratios would be affected, as the way the insulin is absorbed is different. 

Perhaps I'll go on a pump break in the near future. For me, it's important to feel confident with your method of insulin therapy. And when using an insulin pump, like I currently am, it's important for me to feel comfortable with both my pump and injections, in case my pump ever breaks. 

A lot of this disease is out of my control. But knowing, understanding and feeling confident with my insulin therapy is. 

Invisible.

I'd felt a bit funny during my last hour of work, but a blood sugar check told me I was at 5.2mmol/l. I still felt odd before I left so I checked again, and clocked in at 4.9. I went to the shop to grab a snack and then made my way home as normal.

It was when I got to the train station and I was fumbing around with my ticket that I realised something still wasn't right. I managed to get onto the platform, and I whipped out my meter yet again.

2.9mmol/l.

"Fuck," I thought.

One look at this number, and every hypo symptom hit me with full force: I was shaky, sweaty, my heartbeat was racing, my lips were tingling, and rummaging for food suddenly seemed difficult.

It was the kind of low where, if I were with family or friends, I would have told them, for my safety and comfort. The whole "I'm low, and although I probably won't pass out [passing out is a hypo symtom that I am lucky enough not to have experienced], I need you to know that I feel like I might" spiel. But I was travelling alone (on my very short commute home from work), panicking. It got to a point that I wondered why people weren't looking at me weirdly, because I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb. But no one seemed to have even noticed.

Source.

That's when I caught site of my reflection.

I did not look the way I felt, and it reminded me just how invisible this disease is.

Sometimes, I like that. I like that diabetes is something I can disclose as and when I want to.

Other times, I wish it wasn't. Like when I'm on a train, feeling like I might pass out, and not looking like there's anything wrong with me. 

The hypo passed, as it always does. I calmed down, and got home safely, thinking a little too much about this whole diabetes thing.

This disease, on occassion, terrifies me. It's not something I often openly admit because I worry that if I think about it too much, the weight of diabetes will become too much. Instead, I keep those fears locked away in a little box in my head, and try not focus on them. Fear has never been a great motivator for me, and, also, doing so often leaves me in a frame of mind I don't like being in.

But what has stuck with me was how "normal" I looked. That's scared me. Because the way I felt was not conveyed by my physical appearance. There are measures I take to make me feel safer. For instance, I disclose my diabetes. And I have the ICE App on my iPhone, stating that I'm type one diabetic, but you wouldn't necessarily think to look at a person's phone. 

What one might look for is a medic alert bracelet. Of course I own one...and wear one...or perhaps I've been meaning to buy one for a number of months (read: years) now. 

(Feel free to tell me off, I most definitely deserve it!)

I have now, however, ordered one (see picture above), and it should arrive within the next few days. I don't know how I've managed to go so long without one, and I am so lucky that I haven't found myself in a situation that required me to have one, but enough is enough. I've finally had that wake up call that has made me buy one, and buy one now.

I hope I never need it, but being reminded of, and terrified by, how invisible diabetes really is, I'd much rather wear one than not.

Vicki's Notebook Turns Two! (Well, Yesterday!)

Two years ago yesterday, I was sat in my little flat in Alcalá as I tapped away at my laptop writing my first blog post. I pressed publish, and wrote another. And another. And another. This one marks post 288, not a number I was ever expecting to reach (like with most things, I was kind of expecting this to be a short-lived hobby - I'm glad it isn't!)

Pressing "publish" was one of the weirdest things - I'm well aware of the fact that once something is on the internet, it's very hard to delete it. I took a risk, and, so far, it has been more than worth it. I'll always say it - this blog is my diabetes therapy. And as a result of it, friendships have formed, opportunities have arisen, and it has helped me find my voice.

I don't know where this blog will go in the future - life seems to be getting in the way of posting, and I often worry about how read-worthy my posts are (I'm not analytical and I'm not scientific, and I wonder if people really want to hear about my life. That, and there are so many other blogs I can list that talk about this whole "life with diabetes" thing with way more grace, elegance and poise than myself!) What I do know, however, is that I love having (and am proud of) this little corner of the internet, because (despite the lacking grace/elegance/poise) I feel a hundred times better when I've put pen to paper (fingers to keyboard?) and organised my thoughts. And that's what matters the most - if there's just one person out there that this blog helps, then that's just a massive bonus!

So, Happy (belated) Birthday, blog! Here's to another year of posting!

Source.

Zero.

So, this happened:

"It's oddly satisfying when the insulin left in my pump is at zero on cartridge change day"

Insulin isn't something I take for granted. I'm so extremely lucky to have access to it. All I have to do is go to the doctor, put in a repeat prescription, allow 48 hours for the doctor to process it and get it to the pharmacy and then pick it up. Same routine for my test strips, lancets, needles for my insulin pens.

And I don't have to pay, thanks to my medical exemption card.

But not all people are so lucky. For some, insulin is like liquid gold: unaffordable and inaccessible.

Insulin isn't a luxury, it's necessary to live.

The Spare a Rose campaign is live once again. The concept is SO simple: one rose costs about $5 (so, what £3.50 roughly?!). Buy your loved one one less rose this Valentines' Day, and donate that money to Spare a Rose. That money provides one months' worth of insulin through the IDF's Life for a Child programme. One month of life. Your loved one still get flowers (or whatever else you choose to buy them - I feel I should make it clear that this concept isn't exclusive to those who buy flowers!) and at the same time you help a child.

So let's share the love this Valentines Day, and help spread the word.

Spare a rose, save a child.