Sometimes you wonder

Why on earth your sugar levels are up to 17.6?





"Ai posteri l'ardua sentenza"

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Because there's nothing better to start the day

Nice to meet you, Pump

Yesterday I met for tea with someone that I don't know very well. Although we've been organising social events together at work, I can't say we are actual friends. As I was offered some apple & raisin homemade cake our conversation fell on Pump (my insulin pump). I had to explain why I am attached to Pump 24/7, and how miserable life was when I was on 5+ injections a day. "So -- she said, how long will you have to use it for then?" To which I replied: "Well, at least for the rest of my life". The other person struggled a bit in hearing this, bringing examples of older relatives with Type 2 diabetes being put on tablets and not being able to take care of themselves. "I can't improve, I don't produce insulin anymore".

Before Pump Diabetes was pretty much an invisible condition, whereas now it's there for other people to see. To be honest this doesn't bother me, I usually clip Pump on my waist and I don't care if people stare at it. But I find it funny that to make myself more comfortable with my condition I have to make other people less comfortable with it.

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And I'm back...

with the promise of a post ehm soon! How come blogger never notified me of any comment people left? I've just found them today by chance. If only I had known!

You can call me DR labradorknitter

I made it, I travelled to Manchester last night and I passed my viva, i.e. I discussed my doctoral thesis and now I am officially a dr! Well I have to say that it wasn't easy, it took about three hours for the examiners to go through my thesis chapters and I had to fight to defend my points. Diabetes wasn't much of an issue, as I deliberately decide to "run high". When I told this to my supervisor, he actually though that high bg sugars were a bit like caffeine. I guess he's not so much mistaken, as I don't feel sick around 12s, only "hyper", whereas sometimes before perceiving a hypo I feel sleepy, especially in the evening. I am really happy for achieving all this. I was diagnosed with diabetes during my last year of the PhD and I fought hard not to be taken over by it and not having to postpone it's conclusion. Today I can really say that I deserved this achievement, not because I sacrificed 4 years of my life to do it, but because I didn't let diabetes change my plans. Now you can certainly call me dr labradorknitter

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I'm back!

I wrote my last post about two months ago. Actually, for the last two months I have actually disappeared from any possible social network, from Facebook (who cares) to Diabetessupport (I miss it so much), using Twitter every so often but less and less. Well, this wasn't planned, but it just happened. A 190miles move down south from Manchester to Cambridge and a new (should I say first?) job immediately after my PhD have actually managed to kill me. I feel I am only starting to recover, but then, I have my thesis viva next week, so at the moment I am re-reading my thesis in the evenings. As if I could really focus.

I literally love my new job, it's what I have always wanted, working on something important and challenging (but that's for another blog post). On the downside, it's not in Cambridge, and I spend about two hours a day travelling. Plus, if at the start I thought I could simply work 9-5, well then I was very much mistaken, as I have already spent very many nights trying to finish the tasks I've been assigned. Somehow I hadn't foreseen that moving to a different research field would have been so hard...

And in the meantime, my D-me behaved so nicely, telling me in a nice way that it was time to start exercising again by spiking after lunch time. Which wasn't too bad, considered I over indulged, especially in August. Now it seems things are back on track, with me fighting against my hypos and my unsteady BG levels that strangely tend to be on the low side during the day, except after lunch, where they always fluctuate around 10s.

One of the best things I've done was to buy an iphone. Not for the stupid apps that -of course- I have installed, but for the most useful thing in the world: a diabetes diary. I have already mentioned I am so bad at keeping a diary, especially because the ones I have are so tiny you can't write a thing. No, I am really happy with this Diabetes diary. I am finally managing to write down my insulin, food, and BG levels. I also bought an app for blogging, hoping that this blog becomes more of a routine for me. Fingers crossed!

Only 4 days left now!

Just a quick post to say that I feel like I am going mad. I am planning to bind my thesis this thursday and submit it on friday. I cannot believe this is the end. Still I have a trillion of things to change in my thesis and I expect these days to be the worse ones. I'm finally going to see my physician on Friday. I really want to know my HbA1c, especially because I did my last one in March, and lots of things have changed in the last few months. Besides that, I hope my physician has someone to recommend me now that I am moving to Cambridge. I am scared of  just being followed by a GP. As a foreigner, I cannot get completely used to all this "GP power", and apparently things are going to be even worse.  My previous experiences with them weren't that great.  Actually, my current GP knows nothing about diabetes, and I am really looking forward to get a new one.
Well, next post will be after my submission. Wish me good luck!