New Kid On The DOC.

If you're on Twitter, towards the end of last week you may have noticed the addition of the "#OurD" hashtag on numerous tweets from members of the DOC. Well, on Friday, all was explained to us. There's a new kid on the DOC: Our Diabetes.

Taken directly from their website:

"Our Diabetes is a community led, community focused platform that enables people with diabetes to be empowered, educated and supported in their condition.

Our aims are to give people within the diabetes online community (#doc) a voice by hosting their own 'tweet' chats on a diabetes topic of their choice. As the diabetes community continues to grow and develop we recognise the need to bring people together to share resources, ideas, experiences and opinions.

Our Diabetes also strives to provide trusted health care information that will help you to understand more about your diabetes as well as highlight events, campaigns, current and future research and technologies.

We see success in connecting and communicating. We believe that connecting like minded people will allow them to reach resources and other platforms that can benefit them and their diabetes. By communicating we can share knowledge in a welcoming, safe and transparent environment."

So, every Tuesday, starting from October 15th 2013, between 8pm and 9pm (write date and time in your diary) there will be a new tweet-chat taking place using the hashtag "#OurD". Being a community-led organisation, if you will, if there's a topic you would like to discuss during this hour you can contact the lovely team behind this idea and give them your suggestions. You can even host if you want to! Just use the "Contact Us" link on their page and let them know when you would like to host.

Image taken from Our Diabetes.

To find out more about Our Diabetes:

Visit www.our-diabetes.org.uk
Follow @OurDiabetes on Twitter
Like Our Diabetes on Facebook

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!

"How Social Media Helps Us With Type 1 Diabetes."

I seem to have written a lot over the last few weeks about social media and the diabetes online community (DOC), how it helps me and why I use it. In keeping with this, I'm going to point you in the direction of another blog written by Kev, parent of a child with diabetes, called Circles of Blue. In particular, I'd like to send you to the post "How social media helps us with type 1 diabetes" where you will find a leaflet made by Kev himself showing how it has helped him and Amy and how to get involved yourself. 

So if you're an avid reader of blogs but never really comment, a lurker on forums but not too sure what to say or unsure how to use Twitter or Facebook, take a look at Kev's leaflet. Everything you need to know is written there. 

Then, if and when you're ready, get involved!

That sense of community within the DOC really is something.

Settling Back In.

I'm now officially a final year student! Three days in and I'm already shattered, have so much work to do and having doubts about how I'm gonna get through this semester. 

Yep.

Definitely a final year student. 

And we've not even started the dissertation yet. That's something I've got to look forward to next semester. 

However, in spite of the work load and tiredness, I'm so grateful for the routine I now have. I get up in the mornings and have a decent breakfast before leaving for campus. I walk to campus, I go to class, I have a break for lunch. I work on campus until 4 or 5 in the afternoon and then walk home. I spend time with my housemates, have dinner and am more than ready to enter the land of nod around 11pm. So my sleeping pattern is much better too.

Routine is good for me with regard to my diabetes management. I learnt that on my year abroad when everything started to slip. Trying to juggle diabetes management on top of everything else isn't exactly smooth-sailing at the moment, but the routine is helping me to spot patterns and work out what needs adjusting. I also have an appointment with my DSN in a couple of weeks, so I'll be able to sit down with her and figure things out. I'm by no means expecting perfection (because "perfect" and "diabetes" never go together) but I can't let my management slip this year as this last year of uni is so important. 

I want to graduate with a good degree classification, and I want to get on to the PGCE course at my current uni. 

That's the end goal here.

And I will do everything I can to make it happen. 

Final year: let's do this.     

Support For The Support Team.

It's no secret that there's a whole host of support available to people with diabetes. Forums, blogs, support groups, Facebook groups, the #doc hashtag on Twitter. But what about for those that support the people with diabetes? Well, turns out there's some support for them too!

At the DUK Big Event, during the "Emotional Issues: Coping with type one diabetes" talk, the concept of "support for the support team" came up, and in response to this a couple of Facebook groups were mentioned.

First, there's Diabetes Family, a group set up for the "5ps" of diabetes: people with diabetes, parents, partners, pals (siblings, friends, housemates etc) and professionals. Brilliant idea! I'm very aware of the fact that I have a huge amount of support, but it's so nice to know that for my family and friends, particularly my housemates, that there's also support for them, if they want it.

Image taken from Google Images.

The second is Life With A Diabetic, more aimed at partners/those people that are living with someone with diabetes. Again, genius idea! It's not a group I'm a part of as the person with diabetes, but I think it's so great that it's there. I also quite like that it's only aimed at the "significant others" that don't have diabetes; in the same way that I sometimes feel the need to go and vent somewhere that's "private", I'm sure they feel the same. It's a good idea to group together, don't get me wrong, but we also need our own little place in the DOC bubble to let rip.

So it's there, support for the support team, and I'm so glad it is! They "cheer" us on, keep us motivated, deal with the hypos and the hypers. It must be just as draining for them as it is for us. It's only right they have their own source of support too! 

Both of the Facebook groups mentioned in this post are "closed groups". Search for them on Facebook and send a request to join the group. Then, once the request has been accepted, you will be able to see all content within the group. Please adhere to any rules in place within the group(s) and chat away :-)   

Ready...Set...Go: #DUKBigEvent.

Oh, Diabetes UK, you know how to put on a great event!

The Saturday just gone (September 14th), I went to The Big Event hosted by, in case you haven't figured it out already, Diabetes UK (DUK). This post is long overdue, but here it is. I still don't think this will do the event justice, but I'm hoping it explains why I thought the day was full of awesome!

I went to the event with Lizzie and Louise; Lizzie, I knew beforehand, Louise, I didn't, but thanks to this amazing thing known as social media, I knew her in the online sense of the word. We registered, received our name badges and bag of goodies, and made our way into the main hall bit. Tea in hand, we made a quick plan of what talks we wanted to go to and headed to the first session, "What diabetes care to expect: Type 1."

This first session looked at the 15 Healthcare Essentials that DUK have said all people with diabetes should receive. Something that came up a lot during this session was the concept of "tailored healthcare plans" and the fact that "targets should be individual to each person" - yes, there are guidelines in place, particularly with the hba1c blood test, but it's important for healthcare professionals (HCPs) to remember that it's difficult for some patients to reach those targets: you are not your number. By adjusting them to match the individual, they're almost eliminating that sense of failure that they feel due to not meeting that magic 'a1c of 7% (53mmol/l). 

Photo courtesy of Louise.

The second session we chose to go to was "Insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitoring (CGM): basics." Obviously, pumps and CGM were covered, but they also spoke about the "Artificial Pancreas" and where that's going, which was pretty cool. I'm not all that great at science and the jargon that comes with it, so I'm not going to try to explain what it is on here for fear that I'll get it wrong, but if you click here and here you'll hopefully find better explanations than what I can provide!

Session three took place after lunch, and it was "Research and type one diabetes" which began with a brief history of diabetes-related research, kicking off with the discovery of insulin back in 1922 (thank you Banting and Best!) right up to present day where we have the "Artificial Pancreas" being trialled, as well as stem cell therapy and immuotherapies. Again, not being science-minded, I don't trust myself to relay information correctly, but if you click here you will be taken to the DUK website page where you can find information about all the current research projects going on and how to get involved in trials should you wish to.

The day ended with the session "Emotional issues: coping with type one diabetes." This was my favourite session, as I personally feel that this is overlooked by a lot of HCPs. People with diabetes are more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and it's important that we're aware of our triggers - we need to try to "recognise [stress] signals and know we need to take better care of ourselves." For me though, the key message from this talk was:

As the day drew to a close, a group of us made our way to a restaurant near the venue and sat down for an early dinner together and it was like we'd known each other for years. We spoke diabetes. We spoke about our lives in general. We laughed at the fact that Max had walked away with four new blood testing kits. Four. "They were handing them out for free!"
   
What struck me the most, however?! How sad I was to leave. Diabetes isn't exactly new to me anymore, but I am new to the whole actually having a support network in the form of other people with diabetes. But I wish I'd got more involved from the start, both online and off. I hate diabetes. I love the community. Community is good for my emotional health; it makes dealing with diabetes that little bit easier. In the words of Lizzie, "It's sad something like this [beta cells gone bad] brought us together, but I love it."

So thanks for having me, DUK. It was awesome, and I look forward to more events like it!

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.