Shoot Up or Put Up

Big pharma encouraging the pancreatically challenged to play football, whatever next? Christine Michael reports from the Diabetes Junior Cup 2010 :

Take 24 children and teenagers with type 1, bundle them on a flight to Geneva, expose them to two days of partying, blazing sunshine, competitive football and weird Swiss food, and what do you get?  Surprisingly, not one case of emergency medical repatriation – but a super-successful international tournament and (the bit you really won’t believe) a championship-winning performance from a GB soccer team.

Proof that what every great footballer needs is a slightly broken pancreas

The Diabetes Junior Cup is the brainchild of Medtronic, insulin-pump makers to the stars, who hosted over 230 young people with diabetes, from 15 European countries and the USA, at a weekend footie fest on the shores of Lake Geneva.

Great Britain fielded three teams – 22 boys and two girls, aged six to 17 – all selected by JDRF, the event’s partner charity in the UK, which has since denied that it’s offering consultancy services to Fabio Capello. They travelled with an entourage of family and medics in true Premiership style – which could be the shape of things to come for the four players who are already signed up to professional academies. 

The tournament had all the hallmarks of a top international affair – silky skills, saved penalties, hand-of-God goals, bizarre refereeing, etc etc –  except that sinking feeling of despair at the end.

That’s because the Great Britain Junior Team (aged 11 to 14) won their group, the Senior Team (15 to 17) were just beaten in the final by some giant Slovakians, and the Kids’ Team (aged six to nine, cute but ferocious as ferrets) came a creditable fourth in their group.

As if the football, the fireworks, the lake cruise, the barbecue and Medtronic’s furry mascot Lenny weren’t enough, the arrival of Olympic rowing hero Sir Steve Redgrave was a fantastic surprise. Chelsea fan Sir Steve (well, no one’s perfect) spent the day with the GB teams and told them that their diabetes needn’t stop them following their dreams as he had done.

A collection of pancreatically challenged sporting marvels, plus Sir Steve Redgrave

Sir Steve’s visit was a major highlight, but for many families the Diabetes Junior Cup was their first chance to meet other children with type 1 on the sports field instead of in the diabetes clinic. Either way, it was pretty cool

Don’t forget, there’s still time to submit your question for our interview with Sir Steve – just post it in the forum

Dearest darling GP,

I moved my healthcare to your business a couple of years ago because my previous GP was failing to deliver. He was medically mediocre and administratively hopeless. I like your surgery because you take in a lot of trainee GPs. Terrifying as this may first sound, they’re actually rather good – they’re young and enthusiastic, they haven’t heard it all before so they actually listen to what I say and when they don’t know something they run off and check with a grown up, rather than just making stuff up. I find all that quite endearing in a doctor.

Overall, you’ve been doing very well. Medically you’re performing. You developed a worrying interest in delivering my diabetes care but I managed to steer you away from that and we’ve agreed that you won’t meddle in things that you don’t really understand. We’re getting along just fine.

Administratively you’re above average in my experience, although my benchmark for good GP admin is pretty low. If I ask for a repeat prescription you normally manage to issue one within 48 hours. And most of the time it’s more or less correct. You also get extra brownie points for not accidentally giving my medical records to a little old lady to read whilst she was in the waiting room as one of your predecessors did.

It’s not all good though. We’ve been having a little issue for a while now. You understand that I need blood testing strips and you’re happy for me to have as many as I need. You’re not misinterpreting any silly PCT guidelines about rationing strips like some of your less bright colleagues. More brownie points there. Sadly, while your intentions are good, your delivery is a little random in this area. If I request blood test strips sometimes I get them, sometimes I don’t.

We’ve talked about this and you explain that the nasty PCT won’t let you put blood test strips on my repeat list in case I order too many, start selling them on the black market and the NHS isn’t left with enough money to buy biscuits with. I explain I’m happy for people to put sensible measures in place to manage budgets, but we still need a process that works. At the moment if I order blood test strips I sometimes get them and I sometimes don’t.

You say that I should ask my pharmacist to check my prescription when he collects it for me. I say it isn’t his job to double check your work. You say I should highlight when I’ve requested blood test strips. I say the list I sent in only had 5 things on it and blood test strips were in bold size 14 font and you still managed to miss it. Short of sending a singing telegram I don’t see what else I can do.

For the love of god this shouldn’t so difficult. Please put a process in place that means I get blood test strips when I ask for them. I’ve spent a couple of years training you to deliver my healthcare and you’ve been doing it well, I don’t want to have to start all over again with someone new.

Lots of love

Alison

I’m back. Sorry it’s been a while, there’s been a lot going on and I have shamefully neglected the blog. I did have a lovely holiday though, sailing on the Turkish coast. As ever, I learnt a few new (and not so new) pearls of wisdom about holidays with diabetes: 

Lots of boats

• Diabetes junk and I will never get along. No matter how many times I travel, I still get irritated by the amount of diabetes junk I have to carry. It seems doubly irritating when I realise not only is my hand luggage weighed down by diabetes junk, but I’m also carrying round a redundant organ in the shape of a pancreas that isn’t pulling it’s weight  
• Insulin pumps survive a dunking in sea water perfectly well when you accidentally fall out of a dinghy whilst trying to get back onto your boat. A quick rinse in fresh water and it was good as new.  
• I get a bit scared when a storm blows up, we’re still an hour away from where we want to get to and the waves are crashing over the boat. At this point, as you head downstairs to pull out the life jackets and harnesses, it’s not ideal for the boat to plunge down a wave and bounce you across the boat, catching your pump tubing as you fly and ripping out your infusion set.   Once the husband was securely harnessed to the wheel I decided an hour without insulin would be preferable to trying to change an infusion set at sea in a gale. And no, the super quick infusion set removal didn’t hurt at all, but the bruise from crashing into the side of the boat was very impressive.  
• Sods law will always prevail. It’s 8am, we’re in a lovely little Turkish harbour. I’m in the cabin with my diabetes junk spread all over the place as I change my infusion set. The husband is on the loo. At that point I hear a lot of shouting as people try to tell us that some idiot has managed to pull up our anchor as they were leaving. Ten minutes later, all would have been fine. But no, all hell has to break loose when Captain Pugwash is on the loo and the crew is playing at being a pancreas.  
• Other sailors will always think your pump is some interesting boat gadget they’ve not seen before and will be hugely disappointed to learn it’s a life support system for the pancreatically challenged rather than a super dooper at sea navigation aid.  
• And finally, no matter how securely you clip the pump to your bikini bottoms, on a fortnight’s holiday on a boat you will catch the damn thing on a rope at least twice and kneecap yourself.  

 Other than that though, the diabetes was pretty plain sailing.

A scene one might, or might not, see on holiday

Tra la la la laaaa!

I’ve packed my bucket and spade and Katie and I are off on our holidays for a fortnight. Incredible though it might seem (not least to me) I won’t have any Internet access at all (pretty scary, eh, readers?)  So I’m going to leave you in the very capable hands of my esteemed co-writer Alison, forum moderator extraordinaire Mike and, of course, the woofy ball of fluff that is our resident newshound Neville.

I’ve locked the windows and left a note for the milkman, so it just remains to say behave yourselves, enjoy the forums and be nice to any new sign-ups. Unless they’re spammers. Toodle-ooo!!!

Tim’s only gone and blagged an interview with top diabetic super-athlete Sir Steve Redgrave for the blog! And you, yes you, can submit your questions to ask him! Click on the forum post below to ask your questions and Tim will use the best ones:

Linky-linky-loo to the forum post

Eager Shoot Up readers queue up to vote

It’s approximately mid-way through the month, so that means it’s poll results time (cue wild applause). Last month we asked the diabetic intermaweb community what aspects of the day-to-day ‘running’ of their diabetes caused the most hassle.

Top of list comes regular blood tests with 32% of the vote; perhaps unsurprising given checking 2 or 4 or 8 times a day (delete as applicable, depending on your diabetes negligence) is a pain in the, well, finger. Carb counting also scores highly, with us diabetics being forced to whip out our calculators and work out the carbohydrate content of our snacks before cramming double handfuls of syrup pudding down our gullets.

It’ll probably come as a surprise to non-diabetics (who seem to have an endless fascination with injections) but regularly shooting up scores relatively low with only 13% of the vote. Perhaps that’s because it doesn’t really hurt and is very quick and easy to do. Who knows?

However, I see that dealing with non-diabetics’ reaction to any of the above scored highly, coming third highest on the list. Now, I’ve never had the slightest problem with shooting up in public or people’s reactions, so I don’t really get the popularity of this option. But, as people who’ve met me will attest, I’m a quiet, shy, retiring person, so people probably just don’t notice me.

Coming, now, to this month’s poll, regular reader Terry has suggested that in this wintry economic climate us diabetic drains-on-the-NHS should pull together and help save money by advocating one of the following options. Give your opinion over on the poll down to the right!

• Reduce blood glucose testing
• Reduce Hb1Ac testing
• Reduce research funding
• Manage diet/exercise more effectively
• Multiple uses of needles and lancets
• Return to bottled insulin and hypodermics
• Summarily execute all T2s.

Last month’s results in full:

• Regular blood tests – 32%
• Carb counting – 21%
• Dealing with non-diabetics’ reaction to any of the above – 21%
• Regular injections (or cannula changes for pumpers)- 13%
• Clinic appointments – 5%
• Blood taking for clinic appointments – 3%

From: Diabetes UK

Children’s Charter petition is a Diabetes UK campaign to get children with diabetes high quality care and support. DUK asks you to sign their  petition to show your support for better emotional and medical care and improved support for children with diabetes.

This dog can’t argue with that and looks forward to seeing whether an Internet petition will add any weight to DUK’s campaign.

See also:

• http://www.diabetes.org.uk/childrenscharter (for the petition itself)
• http://www.diabetes.org.uk/Documents/campaigning/Childrens Charter/Report (for further details of the charter)

A cure for diabetes is found!

Just imagine if there was a cure for diabetes tomorrow. Say if some mad scientist came up with a magic serum that restored one’s beta cells to full production and health within a day or two. (One imagines said scientist working from some sort of dark, gloomy castle, surrounded by angry storm clouds and frightened villagers, but I digress). That would be pretty cool, no?

I don’t think any of us would doubt that it would be rather nice; but wouldn’t it be rather odd too?

I don’t know about you, but I’m utterly programmed to do diabetes now. At about 7.30pm every evening a little mental alarm goes off in my head to bung in my lantus. Without relying on watches, clocks or alarms, I rarely miss lantus time by more than half an hour nowadays.

I also automatically guesstimate the carbohydrate content of everything on plate from about 50 yards. I can’t help it. I even do it with other people’s food – telling friends that they would need to put in about 9 units for what’s on their plate. Well, that’s what they would need to if, in fact, they were actually diabetic.

The list goes on, I find it bordering on impossible to leave the house without checking I’ve got my kit – finger pricker, insulin and a plentiful supply of fruit pastilles. If I go out without a man bag containing all said kit I feel positively naked.

So I wonder if our mad scientist friend did come up with a magic serum whether we diabetics would need to be gradually weaned off the diabetic way of life and back into normality. The shock of not having to do all these things might just be too great. Perhaps we would have to  spend the first few months injecting saline instead of insulin – much in the way that ex-smokers can buy those stupid looking faux cigarettes, giving them the feeling of clutching something cigarette shaped.

Who knows? But if such a serum was invented I wouldn’t be too worried kicking the diabetes habit – I’d be busy fighting my way to the front of the line!

From: Evening Times

The family of a six-year-old girl has won the fight for a life-changing diabetes treatment after being told by health chiefs it was too costly to administer.

Health campaigners say Scotland is way behind other countries in its adoption of the pump, despite having one of the highest levels of Type 1 diabetes in the western world. Currently more than 500 people with Type 1 diabetes in Scotland use insulin pumps compared to a possible figure of around 3,000.

This dog thinks it’s a shame that something as simple as getting a pump makes news as it’s so difficult to do. Growl!

Original article: http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/editor-s-picks/rebekah-wins-pump-fight-1.1046368

La fée verte

I was idly rummaging through my old notes, leaflets and booklets that I was given by the DSN when I was first diagnosed. I did because I wanted a) clear some space in my drawers; and b) remind myself how many bad habits I’ve picked up in the last five years.

One booklet in particular did leap out at me. And that was a useful guide produced by the Royal Infirmary which gave the carbohydrate contents of various meals one might encounter out on the high street. After flicking through it again, I was reminded that there are 83g of carbs in a McBigMac, 45g in a McMuffin and 99g in a KFC Family Bucket (whatever that might be).

However, this led me onto thinking that while somewhat useful, it doesn’t really help the posh diabetic. Those within the pancreatically-challenged masses who dine on fine food and eat in exclusive restaurants. So, dear reader, I’ve done some research and calculated the carb contents of some fabulous meals for poshos:

Pheasant & port

Like most right-minded Englishmen, I like to start each morning with a good, sturdy breakfast and like nothing better than a roasted pheasant, a large glass of port and a copy of the poems of Blake propped up against the tea pot. Sets you up for a day on the rugger pitch (in winter) or an afternoon in flannels listening to great, English sound of willow against leather (in summer). Ruddy marvelous!

Carb content: 15g (depending on amount of port)

Narwhal & absinthe

Of course, some of our readers will tend towards the more bohemian echelons of upper society; so I have included this classic dish of narwhal steak, washed down with a soupçon of la fée verte. Best enjoyed with close friends at a left-bank bacchanalian feast, you won’t even be able to even feel your legs after the first course, so taste is fairly academic.

Carb content: 22g

Ortolan

Finally, a particular favourite of mine – Ortolan. Illegal in most countries (even France, for heaven’s sake), an ortolan is a small bird which is drowned in brandy and then roasted whole. Pausing only to cover your head in a large, linen napkin (to hide your shame and gluttony from God) you consume the bird whole, biting through bones, beak and sinew. An added bonus is when said bones pierce your cheeks, mingling your own blood with the bird’s flavours. The best bit is, of course, when you bite through to the lungs and stomach, which burst and release the delicious brandy within. Best enjoyed with one of the better clarets. Yummy!

Carb content: 97g

So there you have it; please feel free to add your upper class eating favourites in the comments below. Bon appétit!