There’s something special about being able to celebrate* two milestones in my life on the same day. February 24 not only marks 46 years since I came into this world, but also 37 years of conquering an illness that could easily have seen it end if not for an awe-inspiring medical discovery in 1922.
The last year has seen a lot of changes for me in all aspects of my life. I was appointed as the Finance Director for the charity I’ve worked for over the last 3 and a half years or so, which has stretched me in ways I couldn’t have imagined, but has also been more fulfilling than I could have hoped. Working within the social care sector during a time of financial crisis following 2+ years of pandemic has been challenging, but the things I’ve learned and the friendships I’ve built at work have bolstered me during what could easily have been some mentally exhausting moments.
Both children – well, I say children, but really now one adult and one in their late teens – have started to explore and venture out onto the next steps in their lives and I’ve had to learn to balance wanting to solve all of their problems myself with allowing them to make their own mistakes and find their way through those challenges as best they can with our support as needed.
And my 37th year with T1D has seen another new technological development for me. Seven years ago I spoke about my introduction to the Freestyle Libre, the flash glucose monitoring system which turned me into the bionic woman and transformed the way I tested my blood glucose levels. Seven years on, my whole T1D life has been revolutionised once again as I’m now the proud owner of a “hybrid closed-loop system” or artificial pancreas, to use the vernacular, which allows my insulin pump to speak to the CGM (continuous glucose monitoring) I wear and adjust the steady administration of insulin to adapt to my changing blood sugars, activities and food intakes.
When that diagnosis happened on my 9th birthday, I’m not sure any of my family could have imagined the changes and developments that would happen to mean that I could spend a little less time focused on getting through each day with T1D in one piece and a little more on enjoying all that life has to offer.
Today will be a quiet day with family, enjoying time with my most favourite people in the world and loving the life I’m able to live with a new constant companion, my insulin pump, to help manage the one that’s been there for almost as long as I can remember. It is time to celebrate both of today’s occasions and I will certainly be raising a glass and a cupcake to do so.
*I thought long and hard about whether celebrate was the right word here or not. Should I have said that I “mark” these landmark points in my life rather than “celebrate” them, but I decided not. I do celebrate 37 years of living with T1D, of surviving all that it has thrown at me over the years and that is something to be proud of and that’s worth celebrating in style.
100 years to the day that the very first dose of insulin was administered at Toronto General Hospital to a 14 year old boy called 
Having discovered an effective treatment for diabetes, 
rather than at my desk. It doesn’t seem possible that today marks 35 years of living with what I previously described as my 
surgery to hopefully head off any further complications at the pass and so had it just before Christmas. It wasn’t the ideal time given the risks of heading into hospital during a pandemic, but the precautions taken were excellent and all went well. It did leave me with very blurred vision and sore eyes over the Christmas and New Year period, but I think I rocked the “sunglasses in December” look in style.
I’m surrounded by reminders of this amazing organisation wherever I look, from the screen saver on my phone to the calendar on my desk at work and it’s reflected every time I hear G or M, or sometimes both, bursting into a song from their time away at camp.
I am a huge fan of celebrating birthdays in style and you will often find the birthday cards in our house hanging around for a good 2 or 3 weeks past the notable date itself. Unlike my husband, and possibly much to his disappointment, I 
We decided to travel with 
Our trip was understandably dominated by our sightseeing plans and we did pretty much everything we wanted with a few added extras thrown in for good measure along the way. I’d be hard-pushed to narrow down my favourite part as everything we did was gloriously marvellous in their own unique ways. Mike loved seeing the architecture of the city, from the splendour of the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building, to the stunning beauty of the interior of Grand Central Station and the sheer engineering magnitude of the Statue of Liberty. One of Mike’s favourite parts was, without doubt, our Sunday spent on Ellis Island, where he was able to track down the immigration paperwork for when his mother and her family moved from Jamaica to Canada by way of NYC in the late 1940s.
I loved our wander through Central Park, both in the blazing sunshine and then again in the snow as we made our way to the 
When I wrote this blog last week, it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever sat down to write. Life has a way of throwing a curveball when you least expect it and these last 2 weeks have been no exception. My words captured my emotions at their most raw, at their most honest, when the fear of what could be had me tightly in its grip. 
2016 has marked 2 significant milestones in my life, both of them linked by 1 common factor: Type 1 Diabetes. Back in February I celebrated my 39th birthday and my 
For those with already well-developed retinopathy, laser eye treatment can be given to prevent those new vessels growing further and reduce the chance of new vessels growing too.
The 18 years since that fateful day have been filled with twice yearly eye examinations at our local eye hospital, regular eye checks, cataract surgery, prism lenses to reduce double vision and the resulting headaches, and the ever-present nagging fear that despite the continuing ability of my right eye to confound the experts by being startlingly healthy in comparison, things could change without warning at any moment. I am still able to drive, though my licence now has to be renewed every 3 years following a specific eye test to ensure that the loss of vision in my left eye won’t impact my ability to drive safely and I can still be independent in the things that I do. I have travelled, got married, had children and continue to build my career as an accountant and my eyesight hasn’t stopped me doing any of those things. My night vision is poor, my depth perception almost non-existent and my colour perception drives the rest of the family mad, but I am fortunate that I can still see.
, when what they really mean is that such events have saddened or upset them rather than the total immobilisation that comes when you struggle with depression on a daily basis. I am not devaluing the emotions they may be experiencing when those things happen, but are they really akin to the overwhelming nature of depression? I think not.
I did eventually come to terms with my diagnosis, though sadly my determination to get my T1D control back on an even keel brought with it an unexpected complication with my eyes, which in turn has led to even more serious implications than I could ever have imagined when I was 13 and feeling very much on my own in a battle against the rest of the outside world.
That strong support network of family and friends who are constantly surrounding me is invaluable and the knowledge of what is really important – M and G – keeps me getting out from under the duvet every morning and making my way through each day.
is that he doesn’t feel ashamed or embarrassed by the times when he’s not able to cope emotionally, or mentally, or even physically with the pressures that his diagnoses will have on his life, and that he learns to openly acknowledge them; and that he realises that he’s not on his own in that regard.
7 years to diagnosis 