Five For Friday: Pick-Me-Ups.

It's been a long week, so today I'm sharing a selection of (my favourite) pick-me-up blog posts.

1. I think this is one of the first blog posts I came across, not long after I was diagnosed with diabetes. Little did I know I'd end up becoming friends with the person who wrote it. Daisy becomes "a fully qualified self injector of insulin".

2. Jen (Young, Fun and Type 1) documents completing her Big Challenge - a London to Paris bike ride followed by a Bupa Half Marathon, all in aid of Diabetes UK. Amazing! 

3. For "No D Day" last year, Elizabeth wrote about music, and the moments in her life that certain songs are attached to. I love music, and always interested in finding out what other people listen to. 

4. "Recognize your inner superhero" - words brilliantly strung together by Stephen at Happy Medium.

5. Finally, the very recently written poem posted by Kerri at Six Until Me called "If I Were Ever..." It put a huge smile on my face.

Have a good weekend!

Five For Friday: HCPs Write Blogs Too!

Following on from a post I wrote last week about HCPs communicating with patients online, this Friday, I've decided I want to tell you a bit about some blogs written by health care professionals. I love reading blogs by HCPs: they offer a completely different perspective on things. Here are the ones I read. If you have any other favourites, please let me know!

1. Sugar and spice...wish all things were nice - Partha Kar.
NHS consultant in diabetes.

2. NHS Norwich CCG - Jonathon Fagge.
Chief Executive Officer for the Norwich Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).

3. AnnieCoops - Annie Cooper.
Nurse and fellow person with diabetes.

4. We Nurses Blog.
A blog brought to you by the #wenurses online community.

5. Diabetic Doc - Shara Bialo.
A paediatric endocrinologist in the States who also has type one diabetes. 

Five For Friday: So Cheered Up.

Tonight at Brownies we're making "Cheer Up Boxes". In short, each girl is going to make and decorate their own "cheer up box" and then write about something nice about each other girl in the group. At the end, each girl will be given the nice things written about them to put in their "cheer up box" to take home. Awesome, right?!

In keeping with this positivity, five things I like about having diabetes, because if I focus too much on the bad stuff, the burden of this crappy condition will eat me alive:

1. The DOC - I love it! It's "open" 24/7, 365 days a year, and there's always someone there to listen, and I've been lucky enough to meet some of them off line too. 

2. The fact that I'm very aware of my health - I watch what I eat, I work out regularly, things which, if I'm honest, I wouldn't worry about so much if it weren't for my diabetes diagnosis. 

3. Being able to organise my diabetes supplies when I pick up a new prescription from my GP.

4. When I empty the make up bag I use to carry my diabetes stuff in at the end of the day and see the pile of test strips I've used - okay, it sucks that I checked my blood sugar however many times, but it also leaves me feeling like I was really on the ball that day.

5. The fact that there's a badge from Brownies on my blanket for diabetes awareness.

Five For Friday: Random.

A very random list-of five for you this week.

1. The Spare A Rose campaign is live and kicking once again, and the blog posts I've read about it are brilliant (see Kerri, Scott, George, Kim to name but a few) so go check them out! And donate, of course!

2. As long as I log the rest of my blood sugars for today, I've managed one week of my month of logging. Success!

3. After Brownies tonight, I'll be heading back to Kent for the weekend for a number of reasons: 1) It's my godson's birthday next weekend, but this is the closest weekend to it that I could go home. 2) I also want to see the godson's lovely Mum, E.Hales. 3) And my family of course. 4) I have an interview for a grad scheme in London on Monday - much easier to get to from Kent. 5) I'm going to see Rent Monday night. Busy, busy, busy. Can't wait though!

4. Post-gym hypos are the worst. They pretty much defeat the purpose of even going to the gym in the first place.

5. I've offered to help out the Our Diabetes group with a few admin-type tasks. I'm not the most computer-literate of people, so I'm not sure how things will go, but I'm happy to be part of the team nonetheless!  

Five For Friday: Eye, Eye.

My Twitter feed is currently filled with people sharing information about the Google Smart Contact Lens (link below), so I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon and share it too, along with a few other links! 

1. "Google unveils smart contact lenses that lets diabetics measure their glucose levels" - it's pretty awesome how it would work! Technology's amazing!

2. Last weekend, there were a lot of tweets in my feed with the hashtag "#MedtronicDAF". I read around and found out it was a Diabetes Advocacy Forum put on by Medtronic and Bayer. It sounded like a brilliant weekend, and there are various write-ups written by Kerri, Kim, Karen, Kelly (all the Ks!), Christel and George to list but a few!

3. As I started typing this post, David wrote a blog post about his diabetes diagnosis and the positive impact the nurses had. A very good read.

4. The first Monday of February is Diabetes Art Day. It is "a web-based initiative for the Diabetes Online Community to "tell a story" about life with diabetes through creative visual expression...you're encouraged to break out of your linguistic comfort zone, bust out some art materials, and make a piece of artwork."

5. My Diabetes Secret has been going for a while now, and I can't stop checking it out. So many resonate for me, some 100% break my heart, but I'm so glad that there is this "safe place" for people.        

Five For Friday: I Will.

New Year's is traditionally a time for resolutions. Except, I've never been all that great when it comes to keeping resolutions. I always start off really well, but by the end of January, if not sooner, I've already broken them. Instead, this year I've decided to make an "I Will..." list. Here are five things off my somewhat lengthy list of things I will (hopefully) accomplish in 2014.

1. I will run a 10km - last year I started going to the gym. This year, I'm challenging myself to run a 10km for a diabetes charity.

2. I will graduate with a 2:1 - gonna up my game this coming semester to make sure I graduate with a 2:1 this July. 

3. I will read more books - I miss reading for fun! I need to set aside some time to read, even if it's just for 20 minutes before bed. My aim is 12 novels. One a month. Totally do-able! If you have any recommended reads, do let me know!

4. I will find balance - I'm not sure if balance can be found between uni studies, gym, family, friends, planning for life after graduation, volunteering, diabetes and a bunch of other stuff, but I'm determined to try!

5. I will work with my diabetes - I'm now approaching four years with diabetes, and I think it's about time I learnt to work with my diabetes instead of against it. For me, this means remembering that I am not my number (hba1c number and current blood glucose reading number), listening to my body and taking the right steps to manage my diabetes. 

Five For Friday: All I Want For Christmas...

...is yooooooouuuuuuuuu!

Just kidding. Unless you're Michael Bublé. Or DiNozzo from NCIS. Or Booth from Bones.

I digress.

Five things on my Christmas list this year:

1. Ideally, this Christmas, I would love The Cure. Think I've left it a bit too late to ask for that though.  10 years, right?!

2. Failing the cure, if Saint Nick could put a good word in at the diabetes clinic and secure me some insulin pump funding when I go for pump assessment clinic in January. Consider it a belated Christmas gift for this year and a crazy early one for Christmas 2014, plus graduation and my birthday all rolled into one!

3. Friends tv box set: it is still my absolute favourite tv show. I can find a quote from that show for every situation. It's brilliant.

4. Socks! You can never have too many pairs of socks, and I swear a pair goes missing every time they go through the wash!

5. I mentioned the cure, right?!   

Five For Friday: Test Strip Advocacy.

Not too long ago, I found out the number of test strips I could order had been restricted. I text my diabetic wing-woman, Lizzie, in a panic and took to the DOC for advice on this. The response I got was incredible! I put forward my case for needing more test strips to my GP and, fortunately, I got the outcome I wanted. Test strip restrictions is something a lot of people are facing when they shouldn't be. So this week, five tips I received from the DOC regarding test strip advocacy!

1. As much as it sucks to book an appointment to see a GP when you're not actually ill, arrange to see one to discuss the cut, and explain why you need more than the stipulated amount. Sometimes, GPs offer telephone consultations. That's what I did.

2. People with type one diabetes shouldn't be hit with test strip restrictions! There's even a letter from the Department of Health, that should have circulated all GP practises, that you can shove under their noses!

3. Diabetes UK have put together an advocacy pack for people struggling with test strip cuts. It has information for both type one and type two diabetics, and has a wealth of information you can throw at your GP service!

4. Get in touch with your local CCG (Clinical Commissioning Group), and they can overrule whatever your GP has said. They have the power!

5. Make some noise about it! Write to your local MP, your GP service, get on social media and kick up a fuss. This is our health we're talking about! 

Five For Friday: There's An App For That!

Apps! Until a few months back, I didn't really know where to start when it came to apps. There's, quite literally, an app for everything: health, education, restaurants, coffee shops, social media. It's crazy, and somewhat overwhelming! Here's a list of my top five apps at the moment.

1. mySugr. I've already written a blog post on this app. I love it. There's something about that little green monster mocking me that really motivates me to log my blood sugars, carbohydrates, doses and activity levels. An app that motivates me enough to do all that has got to be good'un, surely?! 

2. Sleep Cycle. I wake up so much happier with the Sleep Cycle alarm as I'm not being jolted out of sleep. Instead, with Sleep Cycle, the alarm wakes you up within 30 minutes of the set alarm. It somehow knows when I'm in a light stage of sleep and the alarm will then go off to wake me up. It can also track what stage of sleep you're in, and it seems to be pretty accurate. For instance, when I wake up to do a 3am sugar check, the graph presenting that night's sleep has me at the "awake" stage at 3am. 

3. Carbs & Cals. Carbohydrate counting is not my forté. I read labels, or I can weigh my food so I know exactly how much I'm eating. But I can't guess confidently. It's something I need to practice, I'm just not really sure how to. This is where Carbs & Cals comes in. You search for a food, you match the portion size on your plate to the portion size in the picture and, voila, it gives you a rough estimate of the carb content. Brilliant!

4. WhatsApp. This app allows me to text my friends abroad free of charge. I can text my friends here in the UK too, but for texting abroad, it's awesome! It works over the 3G or wifi network, which is what makes it free to send messages/pictures/videos.

5. Minion Rush. I just love this game. That's all there is to it.    

Five For Friday: The Freshers Edition.

I still don't know if it's "Friday Five" or "Five For Friday", but I'm sticking with the latter! This week is all about Freshers Week. 

1.   It's when everyone's back at uni! You get to catch up with your housemates, people on your course, everyone! It's basically a massive reunion.

2.   However, said massive reunion usually involves alcohol, and not technically being freshers anymore, we still have to go to class the next day. Not fun! 

3.   Speaking of not fun, Freshers Flu. It's a real thing. You can't avoid it. It plays havoc with my blood sugar levels. It's just sucky all round. 

4.   There are loads of events on at the uni...except tickets go on sale earlier to freshers, so it's slim pickings for the rest of us. And again, there's the issue of actually having classes.

5.   Freshers Fair. This is amazing and I had to miss it because of a meeting! You basically walk round and get tons of free stuff. Vouchers for takeaway restaurants, pens, pencils, notebooks. I'm sure one year they were handing out free pizza too! Excellent!

Five For Friday.

Or is it called "The Friday Five"?! Genuinely don't know! Moving on: five things I've got to look forward to over the next week, in the order of which they will occur:

1.   Brownies! I'm a Girlguiding volunteer, and after a year out because of my year abroad, I finally get to go back permanently, starting tonight. I've got the uniform out and my "Little Owl" name badge ready.

2.   Diabetes UK's Big Event takes place tomorrow, and I can't wait: a) I get to see Lizzie. b) I get to meet a few other members of the DOC that I've got to know over the last few months. c) Who doesn't love a good diabetes-educational-conference-type day?! Just me...okay...

3.   Seeing a friend to celebrate her new job, and gloat a little about how I was right and that something better would come her way. I know that sounds horrible, but it's not often I'm right with her!

4.   Seeing Jones and E.Hales and hanging with my Godson before uni takes over my life. We'll drink tea, eat food, play with the kid's toys and probably have an afternoon nap around the same time he does. Sounds like a good day, no?!

5.   Seeing my best friend, Nem, and her family to celebrate Liz-Loz (one of her younger sisters) finishing her 11+ exams. This means an afternoon and evening of being called "Auntie Micky" and giving her my undivided attention, but I wouldn't have it any other way.