World Diabetes Day has come and gone. Whilst it was great and heart-warming to see my Facebook and Twitter feed light up in blue diabetes messages, it was heart-wrenching to see devastating news articles of deaths, bombings and violence worldwide.
Perhaps with so much negativity of late around the world but also in the diabetes community, I wasn’t very inspired this World Diabetes Day. In fact, I’ve been so focussed and entrenched in working on other things associated with diabetes that my own diabetes care has started to slip.
There are so many worthy campaigns to get behind this November. I’ve written about my favourite ones in previous posts (see this one and this one). While I am continuously sharing my story, I wish I could’ve done more this World Diabetes Day.
I loved the JDRF “T1D Looks Like Me” blue Facebook profile campaign. But it was one I struggled to get on board because I don’t think I accurately portray type 1 diabetes. I have diabetes. Yes, I don’t produce as much insulin as a person without diabetes. No, I don’t have any autoimmune markers. No, I am not insulin resistant. I feel like more discussion needs to be held around the grey areas of diabetes diagnosis. Not everyone neatly fits into a category. Although I suffer from a bit of an identity crisis, I like advocating for #TypeAll and the common goals that all people with diabetes share.
Typically I go all out for the Big Blue Test throughout November. But I haven’t been regularly hitting the gym or exercising, let alone testing my sugars. I’m deeply saddened and distressed by this because testing was second nature to me not so long ago and now, I’m lucky to test twice during the day. I’ve slapped on Dexcom, especially because I’ll be travelling soon. And I hope this would be a good starting point for me to get testing, even if it’s just for calibrating and double checking.
I feel like I’ve let the team down for not being more involved in World Diabetes Day this year. I feel burnt out. I feel defeated. But I’m slowly starting to crawl out of my hole. I’m sure I’ll be amazingly blown away and inspired again after IDF Young Leader in Diabetes Programme and the World Diabetes Congress coming up.
HangryPancreas 