Forget diabetes - get some 'you' time.

As some of you may know, Jamie (my partner and long-suffering diabetes 'watchman' ) got engaged last year and have been planning our nuptials for a while. This weekend we decided to visit the venue where we were hoping to hold our ceremony and have all of our friends and family stay with us to enjoy our big day.

We packed up our stuff on Friday and bid the kids (cats) farewell. We hit the highway excited and keen to get on the move and headed west; Cornwall west.

Normally when I have a trip planned, diabetes is the number one priority. It is impossible for it not to be really - if I don't look after myself, things go wrong. Very wrong. I usually do at least 50% more tests, usually err on the side of caution and let myself run a little higher and usually bulk buy food like Armageddon is nigh! Remember how crazy everyone went when they thought the year 2000 meant every electrical item would fail meaning chaos would strike? Well you know how everyone started storing food underneath beds and in secret cupboards? Well that's how my bags look when I go away. Like the bag of a mad woman who is going to be living on a deserted island somewhere.

This weekend however, there was something else distracting me; The wedding. I did carry out the usual bulk-packing of medical equipment, making sure I had enough equipment to negotiate some sort of tropical disaster, and made sure I had packets of sugar stuffed in pockets and bags, but one thing was different about this weekend. It was almost as if once I hit the road I forgot I was diabetic.

It felt good.

Really good.

I must have only done about 3 or 4 blood tests all weekend! Now I'm not saying that was the 'best' decision in the world, and I certainly wouldn't go telling people to do the same. BUT, the fact that my trusty pump just carried on doing it's thing, making little clicking sounds now and then and delivering the insulin as I trust it to, meant I was able to just 'get on with things' and enjoy my weekend.

I can't be sure, but I didn't feel like at any point I went overly high or worryingly low. This can only be a guess as my blood tests would have confirmed it. But the freedom I have found with the pump is such a breath of fresh air.

Of course I didn't really feel like I wasn't diabetic, and of course I didn't ignore it all together. I did have one low on the evening we arrived after misjudging what I needed to bolus for dinner, but generally I felt just great!

That just never used to happen to me on injections. Injections meant highs lows, having to eat at certain times, waking up to inject even if I wanted a lie in and having to religiously weigh and measure every damn thing I eat.

This weekend I had a chance to just let the pump do what it is paid to do. Keep me alive.

And it did a damn fine job!