life Archives - Page 27 of 28 - Diabetes Counselling Online

Can dreams come true?

February 16, 2012 by Helen-Edwards 2 Comments

My wonderful friend and now partner in Diabetes Wellbeing Services, Lauren Botting and I, were always destined to join together in our diabetes journey. Walking separate diabetes paths for a number of years, we met a decade ago and had an instant connection around our passion and belief in the importance of mental health and wellbeing in diabetes care. It was at this point that the seed for “Diabetes Wellbeing Services” and its unique diabetes retreat programme was planted.

Around the same time, the world was starting to realise that diabetes was more than “just a bit of sugar”. The complex nature of diabetes and the relentless tasks associated with its management was starting to be recognised. An International study, the Diabetes Attitudes Wishes and Needs (DAWN) study, proved that wellbeing was the single most important thing to people living with diabetes and health care providers agreed – yet there was a huge gap in services addressing these aspects of care which remains to this day.

Lauren has been providing diabetes education in community for many years as a Registered Nurse and Credentialed Diabetes Educator, founding her own diabetes education services – “Diabetes Consultancy” and working with people across many GP surgeries in Adelaide for the past 8 years. People who know me, already know that I have lived with type 1 diabetes for 33 years and that I am a social worker with mental health qualifications. I founded a not for profit charity organisation, Diabetes Counselling Online www.diabetescounselling.com.au in 2001, which has been supporting people with diabetes across Australia for the past decade providing web based support and counselling.

Lauren and I started to make our dream a reality with the launching of Diabetes Wellbeing Services in late 2010 together, with the ultimate dream to create a “Diabetes Wellbeing Centre” to leave a legacy for people with diabetes to have a place to go where they can receive assistance for traditional and holistic care, together – including things like individual and group education programmes, counselling, workshops, networking with other people with diabetes, cooking and nutrition classes, exercise classes, art and music therapy, massage, yoga and meditation.

There is a tsunami of diabetes in the world and with double the rates of depression in diabetes, low mood and high distress for many people, Diabetes Wellbeing Services is unique in its approach. We have begun this journey with the development of “Diabetes Wellbeing Retreats” to provide a weekend away from everyday life in a peaceful environment, where people can take time out for themselves. The aim of a retreat is to learn strategies for improved mental health and wellbeing, alongside diabetes education and importantly, networking with other people with diabetes. This concept of “retreat ,relax and relate” uses Mindfulness as a core element. This assists with learning strategies on how to consider gentle changes in people’s lives. The networking is fantastic for each person and they can gain a sense of freedom from thought processes and isolation and reassess healthy options for lifestyle and peace of mind.

We now hope to grow the vision of a “Diabetes Wellbeing Centre” with the retreat programme being a first step on the road to our ultimate dream!

The first 2 Retreats for 2012 will be on 27-29 April and 22 – 24 June. More details at www.diabeteswellbeingservices.com.au

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Life is a process

February 13, 2012 by Helen-Edwards 1 Comment

I was thinking the other day about life simply being a process we go through. We all go through the same process,yet is is different. So really, life is a dichotomy – it is the same, but it is different. That is sort of cool and a little bit confusing. What is exactly the same, is that we will all be born. We will all grow up. And we will all die. That process is the same. The start is the same. The finish is the same. The journey is different.

So then I started to think, so maybe it is not a dichotomy. Maybe it is a mistake to see life as a process that is all the same. Maybe this process, which on one look seems the same, is different for each and every one of us. A unique experience which is totally our own. We can really only truly know our own experience and not that of anybody else. At the end of the day we are the person who will be with us through all of this process. We will never leave our own side, unless we become unable to connect with ourselves. Sadly, mental illness, greed, drugs and alcohol, can all lead us away from ourselves. And our mind can take over, so that we don”t even really understand or know ourselves.

The sad and tragic death of Whitney Houston this week shows us this is true. As do the countless deaths of those before her who have walked similar pathways in their process. Whitney’s final destination also reminded me that this process, this journey we are all on – the one that is the same but different – it is easy to think it will be far better if we are rich, famous, privileged. Clearly this is not the case.

The people you see that seem to have worked out what makes the process a little happier, a little warmer, a little more satisfying, a little easier to understand? They are the ones who are at peace with the process itself. The ones who understand there is nothing we can do to stop the process. There is nothing we can do to stop the sun rise and set each night. To stop the seasons changing, the wrinkles growing, the hair graying. They also understand that no amount of money, this thing we created, we decided upon but now stand in awe of, makes the process better. We humans act like we have no control over money – that money controls us. We run around going ” oh my gosh, look at those stock markets going down”; “look at the dollar!”; ” GFC – what to do, what to do?”. These people who have things worked out, seem to realise that accumulating wealth, fame and popularity do not make for a better process.

What does make for a better process? Waking up with a glimmer of sunlight falling through the closed blind across the bed and noticing the way it makes the dust dance across the room. Rolling over and putting your arms around someone you love. Putting the key in your front door after a long day at work, or time away and walking into home. Putting you warm feet onto a cold floor in the morning and feeling all your senses as you get out of bed. Hearing the birds singing to the morning sun as you put on the kettle and sitting sipping the warm, soothing drink, as you plan your day. Hearing the first notes of a song you love, turning it up loud and singing as loud as you can. Catching the smell of cut grass on a summery morning or that amazing smell of damp earth when the first fat drops of a summer storm start to fall.

It’s all the sounds, smells, sensations, sights, thoughts and feeling that bombard you as you start your day, start your tasks, start your process – no matter where you are in the world. It’s hearing about someone who has stumbled across a cure for cancer, or sailed around the world alone at the age of 16, or walked across the Antartic. It’s hearing your baby’s heartbeat for the first time, feeling them kick, meeting them and seeing their beautiful face. It’s watching your parent sink into dementia, that horrible part of the process that denies you and them so much, while you ache to have them back. It’s all the wonderful and all the painful and all the in between boredom, loss, grief and hope. That’s what makes the process. That’s what makes us the same but different. That’s what makes us human.

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Shut UP!

February 1, 2012 by Helen-Edwards 2 Comments

I am not a tightrope artist, yet I walk a tightrope every day. I am no juggler, yet I can juggle a million things all at the same time. I get dizzy easily and can not tolerate spinning around without feeling sick, yet I ride a roller coaster often. I am not a doctor, yet I can treat my ailments all by myself. Mathematician I am definitely not, yet I complete complex formulas multiple times a day. I am a very open and sharing person, yet I keep many things to myself that nobody else would understand. I am a person living with type 1 diabetes.

It may seem to people who don’t live with diabetes one of two things.

One, that it is an easy and simple thing to live with. “A bit of sugar”. A “just eat healthy, exercise and take your insulin and she’ll be right” kind of thing. A thing that once the initial diagnosis has passed and everyone else has got back on with their own lives, free from thinking about every morsel of food you put in your mouth, free from watching countdowns on beeping machines dozens of times a day to see if you can eat, exercise, sleep, breathe….that it is no longer an issue.

To the person living with it, it does not really ease into the background. Sure, it gets easier. Sure you learn a lot, about your body, your diabetes and yourself. You can get on with life and live a good life, a happy life, an adventurous life, an enviable kind of life. But, it is not simple. It is not easy. And it most certainly is not in the background. Getting on with life does not mean getting away from diabetes. It simply means you have worked out how to have a life that can have diabetes in it.

Or, two, it may seem that all the person with diabetes THINKS about, is diabetes. All they TALK about is diabetes. They are ALWAYS posting things on facebook and Twitter about DIABETES. Social Media has created a DOC (or diabetes online community for those not in the know) which connects people with diabetes across the world. People who don’t have diabetes may think “for god’s sake, is there nothing else in your LIFE?”. They may be turned off by the status updates asking friends and family to donate to one of the many diabetes charities (my own included). May feel horrified by the posts about children or young people who have died from their diabetes…..or may feel angry and say “serves you right” to the overweight person with type 2 diabetes as they “caused it themselves”…. ignorance gone mad.

Sadly there is a division between type 1 and type 2 diabetics on this front also, with misinformed type 1’ers blaming people with type 2 for causing all of our problems, for making the world think all diabetes is caused by eating to much sugar and that as a person with type 1 diabetes we did not cause our diabetes, we are somehow better and more deserving. This saddens me more than anything. Having worked in diabetes for over a decade I now understand the complexities behind why people get diabetes – all types – and the complexities behind overweight and obesity (which by the way is not always a cause of type 2 diabetes, it is just one risk factor).

And I can tell you now it is NEVER anybody’s fault they get diabetes. And there should be no blame.

Sometimes I do feel like people around me don’t have any real idea about what my life is like with diabetes. Sometimes I do feel like all I see, hear, talk and think about is diabetes. It is my life, my work and my passion. I did not ask to get this disease. I do not have to like it. But I can sure as hell harness it to become something that matters in my life and do something that matters because of it.

And if you don’t like hearing about it, log off.

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I think I found the "G-Spot"!

January 19, 2012 by Helen-Edwards Leave a Comment

So apparently the quest for the “G-spot” continues.

An article today at “Australian Doctor” http://www.australiandoctor.com.au/news/no-proof-of-female-g-spot- states that the female G-spot remains a “mythical location”, after an extensive literature trawl failed to definitively prove its existence.

Well folks, I can tell you I have found my “G-spot” and it is not really where you would think!

The G-spot for me and many other women, especially those of us who have children is “GUILT”.

Big, shiny, in your face, bring it on GUILT. Forget the big “O” and meet – the big “G”.

This G-spot” unlike the one described above in the Australian Doctor article, is easy to find…..

Just look at the face of any woman who has just had to say “no” to her child, about anything.

Or who has just had to leave her screaming child with wet cheeks and hoarse cry echoing down the hall as she click clacks off to work. Who is enjoying her day at work, getting involved in creating something, talking to adults, being congratulated on her skills and intelligence, who stops suddenly as she remembers that wet little face this morning as she closed the child care gates with the big red sign on it stating “we have 5 cases of gastro reported today”……and finds the G-spot.

Who is spending the day home with her kids, but feels that dreaded “G-spot” at her back, reminding her she has a lot of work to get done, what about the deadline for that report next week?”Oh I forgot to call so and so back” “what will they think of me?” – instead of enjoying her time off with the kids. Cue – Guilt.

Or who has just secretly eaten a block of chocolate when she has promised herself she can diet, grasping on to hold handfuls of fat from around her waist as she eats it, just to remind herself she does not deserve this treat and will just get fatter (a CLASSIC way to find the G-spot).

Look at any woman who has just told her boyfriend, husband, lover – it is over, or who has finally slipped away for a night with the girls, or who knows her best friend is sleeping with someone else – but is too loyal to say anything to her friend’s husband. …..

Look at the face of the woman who has just thrown away her child’s drawings from primary school as she just can not find space to STORE it all, who has been secretly slipping her teenage son money so he has something to go out with but has not told her husband, who lets her child fall asleep in front of television, eat crap, lie around in the holidays instead of get involved in every activity on offer, who doesn’t go to their friend’s dinner parties preferring to curl up on the couch, whose house is not as new, as clean, as shiny, or as organised as her friends or the ones they show on those toilet cleaner ads on tv.

OR take a look at the woman who just does not feel in the mood to get into trying to find that other seemingly unfindable “G-spot” these researchers are so interested in when her husband comes up behind her with expectant eyes at the end of the night, when the kids are finally asleep and all she wants to do is drift awaaaayyyyy….

Yep, I have certainly found my “G-spot”.

Throw in living with type 1 diabetes and the old “G” goes crazy!

There is guilt from:

eating too much carbohydrate
not eating enough carbohydrate
doing too much exercise
not doing enough exercise
being too fat
being too thin
not changing my finger pricker EVERY time I test (ummm what person with type 1 diabetes DOES that?)
not washing my fingers before I test (what person with type 1 diabetes DOES that?)
the results I get on that Blood Glucose Machine (especially if I am at a Diabetes event – try working with people in diabetes! It can really suck when you have it yourself and they are always asking you what the result was!!)
not changing my insulin pump site every 2 days
not exercising
not getting the insulin ratio right (who DOES that?)
will I give my kids this bloody disease one day……….

So next time you are looking for the G-spot – try looking at her face and you just may get it.

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It’s ok Mummy, remember I’m a Doctor

January 18, 2012 by Helen-Edwards Leave a Comment

Out of the mouths of babes. That really is true.

I have come to realise this after having 3 lovely boys. Now aged 18 years old, 12 years old and 3 years old they have brought me joy, tears, sadness, happiness, laughter, cuddles, sticky fingers (and floors), frustration, awe, imagination, pleasure and immense love.

Having children at all these different stage of life at the same time, I am on a magical journey where there are fairies, monsters, imaginary worlds with dinosaurs and robots, tantrums and undying love, whilst at the same time I am flung back into my own teenage years working out what to do in life, dealing with the challenges and problems of becoming a grown up – although I must say as a woman, working out how my son’s minds tick can sometimes be a challenge in itself!

Living with type 1 diabetes for 33 years and being told at the age of 12 that I would “probably never have children” and that IF I did they would probably be too large, too deformed, too troubled to survive, it is simply a miracle to me that I sit here amongst the total chaos of these 3 beautiful young people that I actually grew inside this “diabetic” body of mine.

This morning, whilst sitting for a cuddle my 3 year old Maxwell said “oh Mummy, sorry I hurt you”. “How?” I asked. “I just hurt your diabetes” he said. Scratching my head I thought about what he meant and realised he had leant on my Insulin Pump in my nightie pocket. “Oh, you leant on my pump?” I asked. “Yes” he said ” I hurt your diabetes”. I told him it was fine and he turned with big eyes and said ” Mummy, you have a hurt in your tummy and the Doctor needs to fix it”. How the hell does he know the pancreas is in the tummy? Or maybe it is because my tummy resembles a car accident victim with all the bruises, pump bumps and spots…..”Oh the Doctor can’t fix Mummy’s diabetes” I explained.

He turned to me again with those big baby blues, hopped off my knee and stood up with finger in the air…”Oh but Mummy, REMEMBER I got a Doctor Kit and I can fix you!” Running quickly to his Doctor Kit (asking for help as it is a bit hard for a very small Doctor to open his Doctor’s case) he proceeded to try and fix my diabetes, running X-ray machines across my tummy, looking in my eyes and ears and even doing a “blood test” with the toy thermometer as it has a clicky bit he thinks it is a finger pricker.

Jeez…maybe he will be the one to find a cure?

Or maybe he will just be one hell of a caring man.

Either way I love him. Thanks for fixing me Max.

Max and James in the sand — Maxwell and James have a sand hug

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