A Little More Here, A Little Less There

I have a little update today because I have been taking a bit of a break from madly posting on the blog or social media when it comes to diabetes, for a few reasons. One is that I have been incredibly unwell since coming back from ADEA/ADS at the end of August. This started with a severe flare of my gastroparesis and restriction of my diet to manage this, followed by 2 viruses, followed by an eye injury, followed by that injury not really healing properly and now flaring with recurrent small erosions and a trip back to the specialist, followed by the worst night ever with my diabetes in 38 years on Thursday last week, and consequent exhaustion – all of this in just 7 weeks….. As well as this I am giving my all, 110% to diabetes with my PhD. I am spending much of my days immersed in my research, working hard to try and make pregnancy a better and easier journey for women with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. And as well as this, I am running my sustainable homewares business, and the most important of all – caring for my family.

This all adds up to a hell of a lot.

Sometimes when you own health is not great, you need to be a little more inward than outwards. Thursday night was a very scary experience for me, after 2 insulin pump site changes in an hour due to persistent high BGL’s, followed by a massive fast crashing of my levels, which did not respond to usual glucose and required lots and lots of glucose, and some bread. This of course resulted in a spike at 1am, that was 22mmol and rising…and then I got up to manage this on the sofa. After a bolus, an hour later I was again crashing into a low…and was filling up on glucose…..I was terrified and alone in the night and exhausted. By 4am I staggered into bed. By 5am I was again rising to about 17 mmol. I became terrified about dropping and so took only small boluses. During the day I got down to about 11 mmol at one stage but then started to rise and by lunch was 22mmol and still rising…I ended up in tears, walking around the backyard trying to help drop my levels as boluses were not helping…in the end I called my Endo who suggested increasing the basal rate for a while and by the afternoon I was down to 14 mmol…but that was as far as it would go. I was dripping in small boluses but it was not helping so after a suggestion by Mum in the evening, changed out the insulin in my pump. I went to bed on 12 mmol and woke in the night to a lovely 7mmol and seemingly my nightmare was over. It has really knocked me about, my body as well as my mind and confidence. And I am left questioning the CGM as for me, fast arrows just freak me out and may not be the best match.

I have been giving myself to the diabetes online community, indeed being one of the pioneers of this, and the first in Australia to be online providing free counselling and creating community for people with diabetes, since 2001. It was an amazing journey with many ups and downs, and I do not regret a minute of it, even the very hard parts. There are many many people now across the world supporting each other in the diabetes online community, and it is very wonderful. For me, the time of spending 110% of my life giving free advice and support are over, with my research being the thing I can offer to the diabetes world. I have also rebuilt a little community here with the blog, and the Facebook page and groups. I love connecting with you all, but at times, I may be a tad quieter than usual on social media and the blog. This does not mean I have forgotten you, or stopped caring – it just means I need to be a little more here, and a little less there. It is so lovely to see you all connected and supporting each other, as the online diabetes community is about far more than one person, together we are stronger.

Helen xx