Diabetes Blog Week – Day 3 – Memories

So Diabetes Blog Week continues. 

"Today we’re going to share our most memorable diabetes day. You can take this anywhere.... you or your loved one's diagnosis, a bad low, a bad high, a big success, any day that you’d like to share. (Thanks to Jasmine of Silver-Lined for this topic suggestion.)"

Memorable day? Remembering a single day from too many years is a challenge. So I'm going to pick two.

Firstly I'll go back to a day in my much younger years when my parents took me on a very long car journey to Woburn Abbey / Safari Park. The special event was the British Diabetic Association (aka BDA but now called Diabetes UK) Teddy Bears Picnic. I've no idea if this was an annual event but we only went once so in my mind it was one-off. There were a few highlights of the day including my parents being significantly concerned that the baboons in the animal park would go onto the roof of our car. The car survived and thankfully we did too :)

Also on the day was the chance to meet Gary Mabbutt. Gary might not transcend international boundaries but he was a hero to me. At the time there weren't many famous people with diabetes that I was aware of and here was a man who was playing football (soccer) at the highest level regularly whilst managing his BGs and not letting it hold him back. He even managed to score two goals in the 1991 FA Cup Final (sorry Gary!). #hero As a side note I know Gary has recently undergone surgery so I hope you're recovering OK if by any chance you read this.

Final event of the day (in my memory anyway) was the Teddy Bear Competition with prizes including one for the biggest bear. I'm not sure if my parents new but the teddy we'd chosen to take was George, my sister's rather large but incredibly cuddly teddy. Guaranteed winner I thought and standing in the showring with the other children and their poor attempts at 'large' I was confident of my winning position. But, NO, I was robbed!!! Another, smaller girl managed to persuade the judges with a cunning smile that she should win and she was duly presented with the prize. To say this under-10 was a little disappointed is putting it mildly. However moral victory was won a month later when Balance magazine arrived from the BDA with a picture of a smiling me on the front holding the, obviously largest, stuffed toy. A good day all round not spoiled by the unjust decision of the judges.

Day number two comes back to the original question. What's my most memorable day when remembering my diabetes? Well, it's yesterday. And tomorrow it will be today. We're doing this every day and each one throws up a different challenge with too many flipping variables to contend with to make it easy. Yesterday was fairly 'normal' with a waking BG of 6.4 mmol/l (115 mg/dl). Breakfast of cereal and a dual wave bolus gave me an OK pre-lunch of 3.6 (65). Lunch of a filled wrap, crisps and biscuits gave me an unexpected dip late afternoon that was treated with the always at hand Fruit Pastilles. Pre-evening meal I'd gone up to 10.6 (191) probably as a result of over-treating the low earlier. Final test of the day was 4.1 (74) which I was happy with as I still had few carbs on board and I'm not scared by that figure at that time of day. So that was yesterday and today is more of the same but different.

I hope you enjoyed reading this and I recommend others from the week by other people with diabetes from around the world which can be found by clicking the banner at the top of the page.

That's two days done. Only four to go :)