Connecting people with diabetes
Find the time to decide where you want diabetes to be in your life – with diabetes not driving life but not being left behind.
Where is the right spot for your today right now for diabetes to sit?
Find the answer in some quiet time 
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
Waiting. I sometimes feel like I spend my whole life waiting. Waiting to grow up, to get my license, to leave school, leave home, leave town. Waiting to get out of bad relationships and in the the “right one”. Waiting to get married, to get pregnant, waiting for babies to be born. Waiting for kids to get up, get dressed, eat, brush their teeth, go to bed. Waiting in lines, on phones, at check outs, in car parks…. waiting for the weekend (so I can spend time with the kids), waiting for the weekdays ( so I can get rid of the kids and focus on work – what is that about?). Waiting for people on the phone, for the right help, for someone to help me. Waiting for browsers to refresh, for applications to work on my computer (or not), for the latest software, latest phone, latest social media app. Waiting to hear about whether our charity won a grant or not, if sponsors are back on board, or not, will we survive? Waiting for my kids to be toilet trained, sleep in their own beds, start school, finish school, get home safe. Waiting to go on holidays, waiting to get home again. Waiting for my blood glucose to go up, to go down, to settle down, waiting for a cure…….endless waiting.
People have said I am “impatient”. So what does that mean? That I am not good at waiting? Given the amount of waiting I do, I beg to differ.
While waiting for an application I was trying to edit my Facebook pages with to work today, over and over again, with multiple browsers open on multiple tasks all at once, it got me to thinking about waiting.
Is waiting just the fill in time between what we DO in life? Between where we are and where we want to be or go? Or is waiting the point of it all? Given the amount of waiting I do, should I be seeing the “waiting” as my life? Or perhaps this is my calling? Maybe I was BORN to wait? Given I was a waitress as a teenager and young adult and in fact quite enjoyed waiting on people, maybe this is the case.
Given I live with type 1 diabetes and spend hours and hours of my life waiting for results on blood glucose machines, waiting for my blood glucose to go up when low, go down when high, for my insulin pump to need changing, for doctor’s appointments, in doctor’s rooms, for the complications to set in, to get worse, for my diabetes to be quiet and GIVE ME A BREAK….I am thinking that perhaps, yes, waiting is what life is all about.
So here is my challenge. I am going to see waiting as an opportunity, not a pain in the arse. Instead of feeling rushed, stressed, impatient – each time I have to wait, for whatever it is – I am going to say “Waiting is my life. This is what it is all about. This is not the in between stuff, this is it” and I am going to damn well like it.
Oh, except the waiting for a cure bit – that bit I think I am a little bit over. 33 years is a very long time to wait and I am not sure anyone would stay in line for that long.
Happy waiting.
New year resolutions….what is that all about? Should we be making resolutions once a year, or making commitments to ourselves and others more often? How many of us stick to these resolutions? And do they fit with our values and beliefs about life?
Common resolutions include things like, “get healthier”, “lose weight”, “eat better”, “give up or cut down on alcohol”. Also popular are resolutions dealing with better money management / debt reduction. One problem with these is that they are often not specific enough, have no time frame, don’t relate to our values and we don’t really think them through.
The following shows how many of these resolutions are maintained as time goes on:
– past the first week: 75%
– past 2 weeks: 71%
– after one month: 64%
– after 6 months: 46%
When it comes to living with diabetes I am sure we make many “resolutions” “promises” and “plans” for how to better manage. The thing is, life is not lived in a bubble or the glow of a New Year’s Party. It is lived out here in the real world. Living life with diabetes needs to be about our life first and diabetes second, so that it can take its rightful place without taking over, or being neglected.
Sticking with healthy changes for our body, mind and wellbeing takes a lot of elements. One of the biggest is having support, being gentle on yourself and not throwing in the towel should you have a moment, a day, or a week, off track. You are the one in control of your life and you can come back to what is important to you, whenever you need or want.
Mindfulness can help as it enables us to be in tune with our thoughts and realise we are not ruled by these often unconscious moments, but can tune into them, stop them, change them and choose to ignore them. It also helps us to savour every moment of life, happy, unhappy, joyful, painful or other – and ensure we don’t waste a minute – which is in fact a great resolution.
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Ok so just back from a normal morning of getting up past the alarm, finding the 17 year old son was going to school late so I had to take the 11 year old instead of him, getting myself, the 11 year old and the 2 year old ready to go out the door, battling rush hour to get the 11 year old to school, pulling into the truck lane to get to the shops to do the weekly food shopping before the man coming to fix the air conditioner calls to say he is on the way ( as of course I have nothing to do in my day and can happily sit around waiting all day until he comes, coz they can’t give you a precise time they are coming – more fool me I forgot their lives are SOOO much busier than mine), and get to the shops, toddler in the trolley- check; green bags for shopping – check; shopping list – check….oh oh….blood glucose – yep you got it – check! Of course I am now hypo, standing in the aisle about to start shopping, toddler ready to go, people wondering why I have a little machine ( is it a pager??) and am pricking my finger at 9 am on a Friday morning in Foodland.
So a few lollies later and a little moment and I am off and running again. Now here is the thing, is it motherhood that makes me able to multi task like this? Yes I think it is. But I also think that diabetes actually grows our brains bigger. Now this is not based on any scientific research, papers from experts, or sitting through one of the many diabetes conferences I have attended since starting work in diabetes a decade ago. Nope, this is based on pure experience – of my life and observation of the many thousands of people with diabetes I have had the pleasure of talking to over the years.
Is it only me or does it seem people with diabetes fit a very large amount of additional thinking, considering, debating, deciding, correcting and worrying in our day, than those without diabetes? The above scenario is just one of hundreds that happen each and every day for a person with diabetes. I have also noticed that people with diabetes, in particular those who grow up with type 1 diabetes, are high achievers. It seems we get things done!
I think that having to consider so many things in every day, not being as carefree as others, thinking about your body and the impact of all the choices we make, as well as dealing with the roller coaster, the worries and fears, the hassles and sadness that can come along, make our brains open to so much more than people who don’t have to think about these things. We know our bodies and we know what it is like to feel like you have not got control of your body. A hypo is something you can not possibly understand unless you have experienced it….we can try to explain it, but I don’t believe it can ever be relayed properly how scary it can be during a hypo. This alone is an extra worry that can mess with your brain.
So if anyone ever says that diabetes can make your memory go, can lessen your capacity to do a task, or carry out a job, or be responsible for something – that is total rubbish. I guarantee you that when they woke up, ate without even thinking about the carb content of their breakfast, showered and cruised off for the day, their brain had done less than half what a person with diabetes would have done – and I rest my case. But I am saying this in a positive light – we get to have bigger brains! And you know what, what matters in life is that you have the gift of having a life – that a life well lived is all it is about, diabetes or not. So grab your blood glucose monitor, dial up your insulin pen, check the carbs in that piece of cake and feel proud that you are in fact growing your brain!