Introducing myself...

Hey guys!

My name is Anna and I am many things. I am a daughter, a sister, a friend, a fiance, a full time worker, a wannabe surfer, an animal lover and a girl. I am also a Type 1 diabetic (insulin dependant, juvenile onset, the beast has many names). I have been a diabetic since I was 4 years old, diagnosed back in 1986 while I was living in Germany where I was born and lived for 7 years. I am too young to remember my life before diabetes, but I imagine it was a damn site different back then. I have been through every stage of adjustment with the condition. I was the child who didn't quite understand it, the teenager who resented and fought it, the adult who started taking it seriously and now I am the girl determined to make it my own, rather than letting it own me. I have learned to accept the condition (mainly because no matter how hard I tried, it never went away, to my deluded dismay), and I am now on a mission to find the way to manage it which suits me. I have been on daily injections ever since that number 4. Don't think I'm complaining, in fact, I have been diabetic for so many years, I can't imagine how it feels to just 'grab a bite' and chow down without first checking my sugars, anticipating the effect that 'bite' will have, calculating my dose and injecting, but that doesn't change the fact that for me, and many millions of others like me, it is a daily - no, hourly- challenge. When I met my fiance, he had to earn his degree at the University of Diabetes (there's one near you, if you choose to enroll). He had to learn what the warning signs of low and high blood sugar were. He had to learn how to carbohydrate count so that when he cooks dinner, he can advise me what to inject. He had to learn that when my sugars were high, I wasn't the greatest person to be around, and that when I was low, even if I said I didn't, I would need his help.

I have started this blog as there are so many millions of people out there who are like myself. They have a lot of questions, a lot of confusion, are mystified by the logicless condition and who have found the internet an ideal way of searching for answers. I am about to go on the insulin pump (next post) after many years of MDI (multiple daily injections) just not working out quite right for me. It's not for the want of trying, it seems to be in spite of it. Or so it feels on many occasions. The decision was not reached lightly, and has dominated many of my thoughts for months. But the decision has been made, and tomorrow is the day.

I am starting this blog as I want people to be able to read this and know that there are other people out there who are at times freaked out by the condition and who up until now, have never found the right combination. I hope that with the pump, will come better control, freedom and some of the answers I've asked for 23 years.

So join me on this journey if you like. I hope you enjoy and gain something from my ramblings.

Hope to catch you soon