Great Expectations…..

I wrote a blog post a while ago about the Animas 2012 Sports and Exercise weekend and the huge benefits and effect that it had on me, and my view of my Diabetes. In fact, if it had not been for my attendance at that event, The Grumpy Pumper would not have existed. Don’t blame them too much please…..

So. I have been lucky enough, and feel very privileged to have been invited back to the 2013 event. This time as part of the Animas team. In fact, I will be one of the Animas Heroes for the weekend. Given the company that I will be keeping with the other Animas Heroes, I am left wondering what makes me worthy of such a name? The other guys have swum the English Channel, run across the Sahara Desert or completed amazing sporting events. I, in my opinion, ride a bike a bit.

Having spent a lot of time contemplating why I would be classed as a hero, or what constitutes one, I have realised that, for me, it’s a simple answer. If you are a Person with Diabetes, Child with Diabetes or care for someone with Diabetes, then you live Diabetes. But above all, day in, day out, you BEAT Diabetes. So if you want to look a true hero in the face, then look in the mirror. One will be looking straight back at you!!!

I have great expectations of this weekend, and know that I will not be disappointed. I’m looking forward to meeting new and inspiring people, along with some great friends that I made last year. I will never again underestimate the value of meeting other people with diabetes and will always actively seek to do so as often as possible.

The motivation has already started too. Thinking about meeting over 50 other Type 1’s makes me want to go there with flat line Blood Glucose levels within my ranges. But above all I want to help the delegates leave feeling as motivated as I did last year.

Well, not my usual style of blog I’m afraid. A bit more serious than usual. Sorry, normal service will be resumed shortly, where I will be moaning about “Type Zero’s” and generally taking life less seriously.

I have had some great feedback from a lot of people on past blog posts. I never look to give advice; just share what goes on in my Grumpy mind. It looks like this attitude has helped some people, which makes it all worthwhile. So I intend to blog more often, and am looking into ways to reach a wider audience.

So if you are one of those that like the Grumpy way then please remember my view.

If you’re still standing then you’re still winning!

And above all #NeverLetDiabetesBeatYou

By Appointment…..

The more I listen to people in the #doc, the more I see that PWD’s seem to be terrified by the thought of attending their appointments at Clinic or with their GP. I see comments like “Head Masters Office” and “Getting Told Off”. This saddens me. In fact it makes me #Grumpy!!

It’s YOUR appointment, not the Hospitals, GP’s or Consultant’s. YOUR’s! For you to get whatever it is you need from it to help you manage your Diabetes the way that you want to.

If I’m honest, I look forward to them! They help me to stay focused and motivated. I am lucky that I now have a great DSN that see’s things the way I do and is incredibly supportive. So I don’t have to get too arsey #Grumpy any more.

This is not always the case with other in my heath care team so have decided to share my approach to appointments. Please note, I’m not trying to advise other PDW’s, this is just how I do things.

Grumpy’s Guide to Appointments.

1. It is MY meeting! I don’t let anyone else run it or dictate the agenda.

2. I prepare for the meeting in advance. Write down what I want to talk about, and I don’t leave until I’m ready to and have covered everything I need to. I’ve never been thrown out of a meeting yet. Lots of other places, but not a Hospital…….

3. I try to change the language used in the meeting:
• Check BG not test. I can fail a test, but checking is just evaluation of its level.
• Meeting not appointment and I run the meeting (or at least I think I do).
• I don’t control my Diabetes, I manage it. It is therefore never out of control, nor do I have bad control. I managed it to the best of my ability every day. The level of effectiveness varies depending on many variables.

4. I am the expert in the day to day management of my Diabetes. My consultant is there to consult with, advise me, and, in my opinion, learn from my experience! Not to tell me off or judge.

5. Never take no for an answer. Be it Pump, CGM, meter type or number of strips I need. The answer no is unacceptable to me. I always use “Quality of Live” as a good case. No one can tell me what quality of life means to me, except me. So no one can argue with what I need to achieve the quality of life I need, nor can they measure it to see how it stacks up against some NICE guideline written by someone with a functioning pancreas.
I’m prepared to fight. I fight Diabetes every day. So why would I let one person saying no to me get in my way?

6. If I’m not happy with what is said to me, I say so. Told last year when my HbA1c went up by 0.4% that my consultant was “disappointed”. So, to his face I asked why? He said “well, it’s gone up, and you’re on a pump”. I asked what the overall trend had been in the 3 years since starting on the pump. Reply “downward trend with a marked improvement”. My next question was “how many times has it gone up?”. Well….”Just this one-time” he said. I had two more questions. “so are you really that disappointed then?”. “Errrrm, well…no Mr Grumpy” (real name changed to protect the guilty innocent). “So you don’t fancy trying to take this off me because I’m not using it right then???” With a slight grin, he replies “no, I think you’re doing fine”.
None of this was done in a confrontational way, and I came out of the meeting feeling a lot more positive than if I’d have accepted the “disappointed” comment.

7. I always ask for help if I need it. Never say it’s going ok if I’m not happy with my management. Always tell them if I’m pissed off fed up with things, or have work stress etc. It all factors into my Diabetes Management. They are not just there to talk about my BG stats. It’s all about me 

Not sure how you view your clinic meetings, but that’s a brief glimpse into how I try to run mine.

#NeverLetDiabetesBeatYou

Bad Attitude….?

It’s been a while since my last blog. Why? Well, I can’t think of anything to blog for long enough about. So this one may be short…..

We have all probably had this one at some point. “Oh, I couldn’t have Diabetes! I could never inject myself!…..” When told this I have several choices of response:-

1. Explain the difference between the Type of Diabetes and how they can me managed. That not everyone has to inject, etc., etc., etc….

2. Tell them I didn’t get a choice, sigh, look at them in disgust and move on.

3. Say, “Well, I actually did have a choice and elected to inject”. When they reply “Oh really???”. I respond “Yes, it was that or DIE!!!!!” (This response is the one currently in use).

4. Kill Them. (Currently illegal, immoral, blah blah blah, so best just pretend in your head quietly).

So why share these random thoughts? Well for starters I can’t afford a therapist so this is the cheap version. Also, since joining Twitter as @Grumpy_Pumper I have been thinking about my attitude to my Diabetes. Some see to like it, some not so much. Which is fine. After all, we are all different. We all have our own way of dealing with our Diabetes, and we have two things to deal with.

1. The physical side, BG, HbA1c Hypo’s etc.

2. The mental side. Our attitude to our Diabetes. How we come to terms with it. How we live with it. Our relationship with it. And for me. How I fight it and win!!

So a bit about me. I have always been:

• Grumpy
• Stubborn
• A tad sarcastic
• A bad looser. A really really BAD looser!

And (again for me on a personal note) I think this is what makes me fight my diabetes and win on a daily basis. So these are some of my beliefs (fully understanding others may think they are total bollocks rubbish) about my Diabetes.

• The sole purpose of MY Diabetes is to Kill me! (I get that most people don’t like this, but it’s how I need to look at it. As a bad looser, I will fight it every day to stop it achieving its goal).

• I do not have bad Diabetes control. Given my view in the point above, if I don’t wake up dead, I successfully controlled my Diabetes from achieving its goal.

• I do not control my blood glucose levels. I manage them. I manage them to the greatest of my ability every day. It’s just some days (for many reasons) that ability differs.

• I will never give up! If someone invaded my life against my will, tried to take it over, control me every day until it killed me, I would fight to the death. This is no different.

• I will laugh at my Diabetes every day. It’s what keeps me sane. Well, less insane anyway.

• I do not fear my appointments (I am lucky and have a good team) they are there for me to get advice, not to be told. If I choose to try out that advise (or not to), it is my choice. It is MY Diabetes. Oh and if they do not like my HbA1c, then tough! They have to live with that number for about 20 min. I do 24 x7.

• If I manage to help just one other PDW deal with their Diabetes in a positive way, then it was worth it.

Basically, I think I’ve watched all of the Rocky films way to many times. And there is one quote from Rocky Balboa that I think of in relation to my Diabetes:-

“The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!”

Anyway, not a very short blog in the end was it? #NeverLetDiabetesBeatYou

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Unexpected Benefits

Below is a piece that I wrote in October 2012 that was published the Animas (and the Johnson & Johnson) company intranet as a “patient story” for World Diabetes Day.

In it I mention the Sports & Exercise Weekend that I was fortunate enough to attend. Hopefully it gets across how good the weekend was and the huge difference that it has made to me. Not just with controlling my Blood Sugar levels but with my attitude to my Diabetes in general.

This year’s event is on 10th, 11th & 12th May. If you are interested in attending you should email sportsday@its.jnj.com for more details and to register their place.
The link to last year’s video is here (see if you can spot The Grumpy Pumper): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WQL4pt22kw&feature=youtu.be

So, This is the Article I wrote…

Diagnosed at the age of 25 (18 years ago) I thought that having Type 1 Diabetes meant not eating certain foods, and that is was simply controlled by taking a blood test and then injecting an amount of insulin to correct my blood sugar. Well at a high level of course I was right. Unfortunately, the fine detail of carb counting, insulin to carb ratio, insulin sensitivity, injection sites, exercise……(the list goes on) was missing. To be honest, it continued to be missing to varying degrees for the next 15 years. Until the 8th of September 2009 to exact. Why? That’s the day I started on my Insulin Pump. Having to learn about so many of the factors of Diabetes control that I’d not really considered before made me more aware of them, but it was the ability to make small changes to the pump setting and see the effects within a day or two that really raised my interest in my own blood sugar control again, and enabled me to vastly improve my day to day control and my Hba1c percentages. Well for a while anyway (I get bored easily).

In May of 2012 I attended the Exercise and Sports Weekend held by Animas in the UK. I thought that it might help a bit with my control and with my attempts to get fit. To be honest that was probably one of the biggest underestimations of my live! It was fantastic!!
Within the first hour I had learnt how my body worked differently to non diabetics during exercise, and I could see straight away that this weekend was going to make a difference. And it did. The workshops were the education that I’d needed 18years ago, and the difference in my control during exercise was massive. Daily control was back on track. And it (apart from the odd bad day) has stayed that way. So why haven’t I got bored this time? Well that’s easy. It’s down to the people that I met that weekend. The benefit that I hadn’t considered. Meeting over 50 Type 1 diabetics. Listening to some of the amazing things that they have achieved and with great blood sugar control (climbing Kilimanjaro, Completing Iron Man events). Not just that though. Talking about their life living with diabetes, comparing notes and stories. This has continued and grown since that weekend via social networking. I can now talk to Diabetics around the globe, ask for advice and give it if needed. Sounds dramatic but that weekend has changed my life as a diabetic for the better.

“It’s Just a Small Prick”

Well, hard to believe as it may be. I have not always been the Grumpy Pumper.  Wasn’t difficult to choose the name of course for obvious reasons. As well as being a Diabetic, I also have Dyslexia. So I considered “The Dyslexic Diabetic” but not the easiest to spell if you’re Dyslexic. Thank DOG for spell checkers………

 

So I expect the best place to start with this whole blogging thing would be the thrilling, heart wrenching story of my diagnosis. Although given the title of this instalment, it’s more likely to resemble a Carry On film (Carry On Pumping). If you’re under 35 years old you may have to Google those films!

 

Anyway. Diagnosed Type 1 on 26^th of August 1994 Anyone that has just read that date and thought “that’s before I was born” best log out of your computer and take that smug look of your face. You are late for school!! (Oh, by the way, I ramble and go off at tangents, just like that quite often). When I say diagnosed, I mean by those Doctor medical type people. I already knew that I got it. How did I know? Well it runs in my family. To be fair, it’s more of a mandatory requirement. If you don’t get it, you get cast out of the family and deported to Suffolk (I’m from Norfolk by the way. High Six!). Had the usual symptoms, Thirsty, Tired and Weight Loss. I went down to ten and a half stone by the time I was admitted to Hospital. Being six feet two tall, that a little bit too thin…..

 

So knowing that I had Diabetes, why did I not go straight to the Doctor? Two main reasons:

1. I have delusions of Immortality (commonly known as being a bloke)
2. My brain was still Type Zero (I will discuss this terrible, embarrassing disorder at length in the future, but for the full medical definition please visit http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Type%20Zero) and I didn’t understand the implications of having Diabetes yet.

 

The incident that pushed me to see a doctor was that I was so tired that I dropped off to sleep at the wheel whilst driving home from work one day. Just for a second or two, and without incident fortunately. So booked appointment for the Friday. He took a blood sample. He also took the piss a urine sample and told me to come back in a week for the results. At 18:30 that evening he was ringing my home telling me to go back the next day. Uncharacteristically, I did what I was told. The Doc had a very concerned look on his face after he told me the news (that I already knew) and asked several times if I understood. I assured him that I was fine and not worried as I knew exactly what it meant to have Diabetes and how it was treated. Of course, 18 years on, I now know that I was talking total boll0%cks and knew slightly less than nothing!

 

Having been told that I had a bed waiting at the local hospital and to go home and pack a bag, I did what every newly diagnosed Diabetic should do. I went to the nearest shop, bought and ate three Mars bars. Well, I was off to hospital, and was going to have to stop being a chocaholic. What would you have done??

 

First blood glucose test in Hospital was 26 mmol (the mars bars may have tweaked it up a tad). They fasted me for a day and then started me on insulin (Mixtard if anyone can remember that). So having a very childish sense of humour, I of course couldn’t resist the puerile comment back, when the nurse came to give me my first ever injection. “Don’t worry Mr Grumpy, (names have been changed to protect the guilty) “its just a small prick”. My response was received with polite smile and a swift jab of the syringe. From then on, I did my own injections, never bothered me. After all, I’m a tough guy! Had the visits from Dietician, DSN, got the leaflets and carb lists etc.

 

I left hospital after 5 days to embark on my new and exciting life as a Type 1. Full equipped with my 2 injections a day of Mixtard, a cool blood meter that would test your blood in just 2 min’s (remembering to clean the lens on it regularly), a diet with fixed carb loads for each meal and my target blood glucose range. Everything I needed for good control. This was going to be a piece of cake fruit (with 10g carb in it)………………………….

Grumpy’s First Grumble

So. I’ve decided to give this whole blogging thing a go. Not a clue what I’m doing, so let’s see how it works out…..

 

Introduction:

• I have Type 1 Diabetes. It’s what I have, NOT who I am.
• I’m on an insulin pump. NO that does NOT mean that I have it worse than others, that it’s a more serious type than other types of Diabetes or that I will die the second I disconnect it!
• I’m cynical
• I’m sarcastic
• Oh, and I’m GRUMPY!!

 

Why blog?

• All the “kids” are doing it and I feel left out!
• I get GRUMPY about people who make assumptions regarding my condition (Diabetes, not all the others) and I want to gently educate them about the facts (more about these people soon. Much much more…..).
• I want to help other people with Diabetes if I can.

 

Disclaimer:

• All my views are my own (God help you if you think the same as me. Get medical help quick!)
• I sometimes work With Animas UK & Ireland. This blog does not represent their views
• I am not selling or recommending any products from any manufactures
• I‘ve probably got other things I should add here and will when I think of them.

 

Summary:

• I’m using an Animas Vibe Insulin Pump – Other Pumps are available
• I use an iBGstar Blood Glucose Meter – Other Meters are available
• I’m have Type 1 Diabetes – Other Types are available
• I’m Grumpy – Other emotions are out of the question!!

 

If you think you may find this entertaining, educational, or informative then please come back to check if I actually write something worth reading.

 

You can also follow me on Twitter @grumpy_pumper if you want to, or are just desperate to look like you have friends (that’s what I do).