Sweet and Sour- The Type 1 Diabetes Rollercoaster

Today I saw an amazing mini documentary put up by the New York Times. It’s 12 minutes long but well worth that time. Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/26/opinion/midnight-three-six.html?_r=0 It follows a mother and daughter living with the daughter’s type 1 diabetes and gives a real view into the life of a t1 and their family. I should stress that- this is just ONE case, your diabetes may vary- I know mine does. It got me thinking about my own life, and my parents. The video seems to show the mother as still very much in control of her daughter’s diabetes, which is understandable as she was diagnosed at a young age and demonstrates some severe symptoms. I do everything in this clip myself, except the middle of the night checks where my dad comes in and wakes me up. But that doesn’t mean that my parents don’t have the same amount of concern. They had to let me be mostly independent from the time I was diagnosed for a few reasons. - I was a young teenager when I was diagnosed...

Today would be my first pump’s (Dobby's) fourth birthday. But I put him through an x-ray machine. So Severus carries on the tradition. Pumps come with a 4 year warranty, so if you’d like to throw me in a pool or destroy Severus in some other way, then you should have done it yesterday. Today you’ll foot the 8 grand bill for a new one :) A lot of health insurance companies don’t fund new pumps until 5 years have passed. I don’t yet know what my health insurance does but I could be walking around with a pump for another year that isn’t covered. ….yay. If I stay away from x-ray machines I should be fine though. Pump therapy is a great fit for me, and I threw together some stats with the help of calculators and google. - I was on MDI (4 daily injections) for a total of 251 days - Which means I had 1004 injections - I have been on the pump for 1461 days - Which means I’ve had around 487 set changes (needles to put in a new cannula) - So had I have remained on M...

It’s time for another open letter. http://instagram.com/jamieoliver/ Dear Jamie Oliver, Your campaign about ensuring kids have clean drinking water is great, however it's overshadowed by this image. I’m going to run on the assumption that you didn’t intend to cause offense and set back diabetes awareness by light-years. You did however choose to pose in front of a can labelled diabetes holding up packets of sugar. You said on twitter that that image was a background at any event. I'm fairly certain that wasn't an accidental backdrop. You made your choice to stand there- own it. I’m guessing you’re trying to “help” people avoid diabetes by advocating for less sugar in our diets. What you did was project a huge stereotype that I’m getting really tired of correcting. You, someone who is looked to for advice about balanced eating, have put forward the idea that diabetes is caused by sugar. It’s not. Type 1 is an autoimmune disease with both ...