Shoot Up or Put Up

A date to mark in your diaries, chaps! The next soaraway Shoot Up meet up will be in Edinburgh on 7th August at 2pm in the Famous Spiegeltent. All the gory details can be found here:

http://www.shootuporputup.co.uk/groups/shoot-up//forum/topic/shoot-up-meet-up-7th-august-2pm/

Come along – you know you want to!

Medtronic's Yoan and Shoot Up's Tim next to Lake Geneva

As I mentioned in an earlier post, this weekend I attended Medtronic’s first Internet forum in sunny Lausanne. This was my first in-person encounter with Big Pharma and while I would dearly love like to report that Medtronic are evil, cruel to infants and regularly drown puppies (especially as I know they will be reading this!) they did in fact seem to be very genuine and interested in what us mere patient-scum had to say.

As you’ll know from my wonderful updates on Shoot Up’s new twitter feed, I arrived on Friday and met up with Mike from everyone’s second favourite Spanish diabetes website and Yoan – everyone’s second favourite eMarketing Specialist from Medtronic – for a spot of lunch and a tour of sunny Lausanne. Yoan was very patient, given he had to put with Mike and I for an afternoon (Medtronic clearly don’t pay him enough to put up with that kind of crap) and he let me have a go on his fancy new iPad (possession of which demonstrates that he’s clearly paid far too much by Medtronic).

Anyway, we headed back to the hotel and met up with the rest of the delegates and Medtronic’s great and good for a spot of dinner. As usual with these sorts of things, the chat and discussion over a few glasses of wine was the best bit. It was very interesting to hear from our webby colleagues from around Europe and to have a chat / bitch (delete as applicable) about recalcitrant doctors, the availability of the latest equipment and all the other irritations of diabetes that appear to be all too common the world around. I did, however, feel slightly sorry for Justin – brand new to Medtronic and diabetes – who was given a very thorough and detailed crash course in the intricacies of living with a broken pancreas!

The next morning, after consuming a vast pile of carb-encrusted croissants, we headed off to Medtronic’s lair. While I was looking forward to being received in a hollowed out volcano or similar, we were driven to a fairly ordinary building on a non-descript Swiss light industrial estate. They did, however, have a turfed roof, which was exciting.

Tim and Mike from diabetesinspain.com exchange frank views

Anyway, getting into the meat and two veg of the forum, it quickly got interesting with details of the new equipment they’re developing and their plans for the future. We were, understandably, non-disclosure agreemented up to the max, so I can’t really tell you more than the fact that their next pump is nice and shiny. Going forward, they’re planning a whole bunch of incremental improvements across their range in an attempt to make life easier for us diabetics. Exciting though the equipment was, it was depressingly academic – due to the inevitable NHS waiting lists we probably won’t get our hands on any of this fancy new stuff until 2025 or so – a major and interesting feature of our discussions.

The day moved on with wide ranging conversations on what we patients thought of Medtronic and their products, what we liked about said company and products, what we hated about them, how they could better communicate with the diabetic masses and so on.

Either Medtronic staff are extremely good actors or they were very genuine and interested in what we patients had to say. They were very frank with us and quick to admit where they had been less than good. Given that all of the diabetic representatives in the forum have access to a large audience of potential customers, I thought that Medtronic were both refreshingly forward-thinking in soliciting our opinions as patients and also somewhat brave. As we all know, patients are very often at the bottom of the pile of priorities, so hats off to Medtronic for actually giving a toss and talking to us.

Finally, after much useful and informative discussion, the forum concluded with a tour of Medtronic’s facilities and we were privileged to have the first opportunity to see Medtronic’s brand new, 15,000sq ft state of the art puppy-drowning facility – now over 1,500 adorable, big brown-eyed Labrador puppies can be mercilessly drowned per day. Hurrah for Medtronic!

Lausanne, the day before yesterday

The Internet-enabled pancreatic horde will no doubt be thrilled to hear that everyone’s second favourite insulin pump manufacturer – Medtronic – is holding its first ever Annual Diabetes Internet Forum in sunny Lausanne this weekend. And I’m going.

According to the bumf I’ve received, the forum is designed to “collectively discuss and explore the internet communication opportunities as part of a patient’s quest to manage his/her diabetes mellitus”. I’ve never really thought of managing my diabetes as a “quest” before, but it sounds cool, no?

The event will also apparently provide information on “diabetes diagnosis and therapy…with regard to new technologies, products and applications”. They’re also going to try and find out what role the internet plays for Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes patients. In other words, Medtronic are interested in the Internet and want to pick the brains of people who make use of it (like us web site operators (I hate the term “blogger”). Presumably this is so they can use it more effectively. Which seems fair enough.

So, anyway, as your humble representative in Switzerland this weekend, please do let me know in the comments below whether you have an questions, comments or opinions you would like to have put to Medtronic.

To keep you informed of what’s going on at all times, I’ll be updating you all via the wonders of our new twitter feed (how very web 2.0), which you can find here or via the whatsit on the right hand side of this page. Though be warned – in Geneva I’m meeting up with Mike of Diabetes in Spain fame (and regular contributor here on your soaraway Shoot Up) so please excuse us if some of the comments later in the evening are less than coherent…

Links: Shoot Up on twitter

Everyone’s second favourite diabetes charity, Diabetes UK, has announced plans for this year’s Diabetes Week.

Diabetes Week is Diabetes UK’s annual UK-wide awareness and fundraising week which runs from 13 to 19 June 2010 and promises a roller-coaster ride of pancreas-related thrills and spills. DUK have said that this year will focus on dispelling some of the myths around diabetes and to raise awareness of the importance of healthy lifestyle for all. Which all seems pretty fair to me.

DUK are asking for feedback on some of the wonderful myths that the pancreatically-challenged hoards have heard over the years. Sadly I’ve never really heard anything particularly misguided (aside from the chap mentioned in this article: http://www.shootuporputup.co.uk/2009/07/indonesian-weightlifter-gives-diabetes-advice/).

I think that my lack of hearing myths may be because if the subject of diabetes does come up in my presence, then I’m usually one step away from explaining its intimate workings to all and sundry and great and tiresome length. I could bore for Scotland about diabetes and I suspect I frequently do. But I do try to stop short of getting out the PowerPoint presentation or drawing diagrams on a handy whiteboard. Most of the time. But, in any event, no one gets a chance around me to disseminate myths!

Anyway, should you want to get involved with Diabetes Week then you can contact the good people at DUK via their website here http://www.diabetes.org.uk/Get_involved/Diabetes-Week/

As I write this I’m still gently suffering from my hangover resulting from the Shoot Up night out yesterday. I have a sneaking suspicion that one of the glasses of merlot I consumed was off, hence feeling slightly off-key today. However, it’s nothing a gallon of water and two paracetamol won’t cure.

Anyway, self-inflicted misery aside, yet again we had a thoroughly good turnout of Edinburgh’s pancreatically-challenged hoards. While I carefully brought my camera with me I stupidly neglected to take a single photo, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that a good time was had by all.

Given that Edinburgh-based diabetics clearly enjoy a pint or two, I’m planning the next night out for sometime in late March / early April or thereabouts. So keep an eye on events calendar down there (*points down the right of your screen*) for times and dates!

Diabetics. And beer.

Tim:

I awoke this morning with a slight hangover, but still flush with the wild success of Shoot Up’s first ever meet up / piss up.

As advertised in those articles down the page, my esteemed co-writer Alison along with her husband Geoff ventured north of the border and braved the cold, rain and general misery to come and stay with us for the weekend and to help host Shoot Up’s planned sober, quiet and reflective meet up.

Fueled with a heady combination of mulled wine and tapas we arrived in Au Bar to really meet our first ever real-life real readers (to whom we’re not related). We quickly established that, contrary to popular belief, people you meet via the Internet are not all escaped serial killers and we settled down to a great evening of beer, wine and diabetes chat (there was also some extensive discussion about zombies, but that’s another story).

Swapping tips and experiences was extremely useful and I was really pleased to see how many lovely diabetics Edinburgh has! Hurrah! The next meet up is already being planned so watch this space!

Alison:

They came! Real people who read our blog out of choice rather than family obligation. And they were lovely. Intelligent, entertaining, fun people. We spent several happy hours drinking beer and meandering through life’s important topics – how great but chilly it is to ride the Christmas ferris wheel in the lovely city of Edinburgh; how just because Edinburgh apparently has the best diabetes care in Scotland the fact that it isn’t delivering against some of the guidelines means there’s plenty of room for improvement; how Tim has learnt to live with the fact that Katie has taken a bit of a shine to comedian Russell Howard; why our British readers seem much more reluctant than our American readers to comment on our blog;  and how to transpose music for an E flat tenor horn - at which point Tim and I were completely lost.

Pharmacist Simon thanked us diabetic types for being such a reliable income stream for professional drug pushers like him but despite much encouragement we couldn’t get him to reveal how many diabetic patients he needs to be able to afford a nice yacht.

Thanks to Tim and Katie for their wonderful hospitality – anyone who has a warm pair of slippers and a glass of port waiting for us after a long journey gets 5 stars from me!

I suspect further Edinburgh meet ups will be on the horizon, but we’re also pondering heading south to sunny Liverpool for the next meet up – could we tempt you to that?

Just a reminder (as if you would have forgotten!) that your soaraway Shoot Up is having a pub night out this Saturday 28th November. We will be in Au Bar (101 Shandwick Place, Edinburgh, EH2 4SD – map here) from 7pm onwards.

I’ll be there with my esteemed co-writer, our respective spouses, my pharmacist (for some reason) and a whole bunch of other members of the pancreatically-challenged hoards. What could possibly be more fun?

All are very welcome to come along, chat about all things diabetes and drink high-carb beer! For identification purposes there are pictures of Alison and me here – but we’ll be the table easily identifiable by the people sitting at it injecting stuff. If you need any further details feel free to drop me an email at tim@shootuporputup.co.uk. See you there! (And just because you’re in another country or continent is no excuse for non-attendance…)

Well chaps, it’s that time of year again – World Diabetes Day. It’s like a diabetic Christmas, Yom Kippur and Eid-ul-Fitr all rolled into one. If you don’t already know everything about it you can check out the WDD site here.

My esteemed co-writer has already mentioned some things you might want to do; but I for one, being a huge and active supporter of diabetes causes *cough* will be spending the day tinkering in the garage, going to do nice birthday-related things with my wife and then traipsing to the pub to drink wine with our friends in the evening. Go me – diabetes campaigner supreme!

Last Saturday at 9.30am (which, as any normal person will realise, is far too early for a Saturday morning) I arrived at Napier University for the famed annual LDRG diabetes conference.

I was slightly the worse for wear after a work-colleague’s retirement do the night before (I’m certain one of the glasses of champagne I quaffed was off) but things got better after a few cups of vile coffee and meeting cheery folks Aileen, Mary et al from IPAG Scotland – everyone’s favourite Scottish insulin pump support group.

The day progressed with some incredibly dull PowerPoint presentations of facts and figures relating to diabetes in the Lothians, which was wrist-slashingly fascinating. But things improved with some useful workshops – I went to one about putting health records online, which was presented by a GP who’s done just that and put all his patient’s record securely on the Internet. This allows the lucky blighters within his catchment area to be able to order repeat prescriptions, get test results and book appointments and so on from the comfort of their Internet-enabled whatever. Said GP has plans to convince the Scottish Government to roll this out throughout Scotland – and it would be great if he succeeds.

This was then followed by a session of chatting to the meter and pump reps over coffee in the foyer. So you’ll all be pleased to hear (unless, of course, your one of the reps I spoke to) that I’ve got a whole new load of meters to review – first impressions are not promising, so that’s something to look forward to!

This was followed by a buffet which wasn’t actually as vile as I thought it would be and an interesting workshop with a Q&A session on insulin through which we learnt a few tit-bits.  The afternoon went on with another useful workshop on insulin pump therapy, which just made me curse the NHS Gods that won’t give me a pump until hell freezes over (something which often happens in a Scottish winter. I say “hell” I really mean “Glasgow”).

Anyway, a good time was had by all and there was a lot of useful information but, as always, chatting with the rest of the pancreatically-challenged hoards was the best bit. Roll on the Shoot Up meet up at the end of the month!

Doesn’t time fly? In a couple of weeks its World Diabetes Day again.

There’s lots of good work going on around the world and it’s nice to see the major UK diabetes charities joining forces to work together to raise awareness of diabetes on 14th November – Diabetes UK ; JDRF;  Diabetes Research & Wellness Foundation ;  Insulin Dependent Diabetes Trust ;  INPUT; and the UK Children with Diabetes Advocacy Group .

How can you get involved?

• Join thousands of others pledging to Get Serious about diabetes.
• Leave a message for Gordon Brown asking the UK Government to increase research funding for type 1 diabetes.
• Turn something blue. Last year in the UK alone we managed to light up more than 25 buildings with blue light on 14th November. This year we’re aiming for more. If you have a suitable specimen locally that you think would look rather fetching in blue, here’s some guidance on how to encourage it’s owners to support WDD.  
• Go blue online. On a more local level, why not turn your Facebook, Twitter or Myspace profile blue on 14th November to support WDD. For the technically inept like me, here’s how to do it.
• Go viral. Finally why not help to create the world’s longest viral highlighting the life long nature of diabetes.

I’ll be spending World Diabetes Day talking to parents of kids who’ve been recently diagnosed with diabetes. What’ll you be doing to mark our day?