My diabetic anniversary

Image credit

Today is my 4th diabetic anniversary: I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes four years ago today.

What’s funny is that I probably wouldn’t have remembered the date if a colleague hadn’t responded to the news of my diagnosis with, “Hectic. You’ll never forget this day as long as you live. The 12th October 2007 will always be burned into your memory.”

So now it is.

A diabetic anniversary is a funny thing. It’s not really a cause for cake and champagne, because even though I’ve now had four years with diabetes, I have many, many more to come. But it’s also not something that I think should go by unnoticed, because every day lived well with diabetes should be celebrated – every year even more so.

It’s been an interesting year for me and diabetes. Getting married, going on honeymoon (and taking malaria medication that my blood sugar did not like!), creating Sweet Life from scratch while still working full-time… There’s been a lot going on. And I must admit that while most of the time diabetes has a prominent place in my every days, sometimes I’ve let it slip to the side a little bit. I made a conscious decision about a year and a half ago that I would err on the side of going too high rather than too low: that very tight blood sugar control meant I was having horrible lows all the time, so slightly looser control would be better for me.

But I think there has to be a balance to that. Yes, I’m not aiming for 5-7mmol/l, but rather 7-9mmol/l (8 is my magic number!) But I also need to be sure to exercise every day, to make healthy food choices, to not let little snacks pass by without their dose of insulin.

So perhaps that’s what my diabetic anniversary is all about: making new diabetes resolutions for the year ahead.

Here are mine:

1. To be consciously aware of everything I eat.
2. To walk a little, every day.
3. To embrace diabetes as a part of my life, rather than something outside of it.

What are yours?

– Bridget McNulty