Shoot Up or Put Up

As a result of wildly popular demand, the next Shoot Up night out is scheduled for Saturday 13 February. Taking place in the heart of sunny Edinburgh, we plan to  eat food in a restaurant – to behave like civilised people [update: someone neglected to book a table in time - Valentine's weekend busy, who'da thought it? Duh! So forget the restaurant bit] – and then proceed to the pub – to behave like un-house-trained animals.

If the thought of sharing breathing space with a bunch of diabetics appeals to you (and I bet it does) then head over to our Facebook page for all the gory details:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=270821976326&ref=ts

As always, everyone welcome – this includes partners, non-diabetics, fans of the blog, stalkers, etc. See you there!

At the forefront of diabetes care

Well chaps, it’s that time of the month again – poll results time. Hurrah! As always, our highly scientific, balanced, bias-proof, carefully weighted survey has caught the mood – the Zeitgeist, if you will – of the diabetic community.

The majority of people answered our question “I know… a) everything about diabetes; or b) nothing about diabetes” with a). Therefore our beloved readers are either experts on diabetes, whose knowledge of chronic illness far exceeds that of the national average or they’re all pathological liars. The jury remains out.

This month, we’re quizzing you about your local health care provider – whether this is your local clinic, hospital, doctor, endocrinologist or whatever – and how good you think they are. You can give your answer to the question “My local healthcare provider is…” over on the right from the following range of possibilities:

• Faultlessly brilliant. I’m in awe
• On the whole not bad at all
• Neither good nor bad – health purgatory
• Needing a lot of improvement
• So bloody awful I may as well use a witch doctor

With regard to the last option, I have to confess I’ve never consulted a witch doctor about my diabetes. So if they are, in fact, absolutely marvellous at treating diabetes I apologise unreservedly to any witch doctor readers that might be offended by the disparaging tone of the option. Please don’t turn me into a frog.

...but who watches Big Brother?

Being modelled on a nightmarish Orwellian police state, here at your soaraway Shoot Up we monitor your every move on the site with incredible and intrusive detail. After all, there have to be some benefits to running a blog.

One of the metrics we can see is what people type into their favourite search engines to get here. Very frequently these search queries are in the form of questions such as “Do I have diabetes?” Unfortunately I can’t reply to these queries as I don’t know who typed them; so for the benefit of confused searchers, here are the answers to some of the genuine queries we’ve found on the logs:

Search query: I’m peeing a lot and tired, do I have diabetes?
Tim’s answer: Yes, yes you very well may do. Go to your friendly local sawbone and have it checked out. Oh, and welcome to the club!

Search query: I’ve got genital itching and tiredness
Tim’s answer: See above. Welcome to the club!

Search query: Can I be sacked from my job because I’m a diabetic?
Tim’s answer: Nope, diabetes is covered in the UK by The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA). You can read more about this legislation here on direct.gov.uk. You can, however, be sacked for surfing the web at work – so be careful!

Search query: Do the Brits like the NHS?
Tim’s answer: We bitch about it a lot – but in actual fact we’re secretly quite pleased to have healthcare that’s free at the point of entry.

Search query: Good places to shoot up?
Tim’s answer: Just find your nearest junkie-heroin den. That’s the best place to shoot up, man. You can score some good crack while you’re there too. Yay!

Search query: How to get funding for diabetic pump?
Tim’s answer: *sigh* if only there was an easy answer…

Search query: is dry biscuites [sic.] good for diabetics?
Tim’s answer: Unless three hundred boxes of them fall on you we’re generally fine with dry “biscuites”.

Search query: My hba1c was 6.5%
Tim’s answer: Now just stop bragging, you show off.

Search query: What happens if you accidentally put lantus in your pump
Tim’s answer: I’ve no idea – it’s probably not entirely good!

Search query: Accu-chek + [every possible product and word combination]
Tim’s answer: Hello Roche Diagnostics! Nice to see you take checking your brands on the Internet seriously. But, don’t worry, I’ve only said nice things about you. So far…

Search query: Syringe birthday cake
Tim’s answer: Wow! I want to come to that party!

Search query: insulin murder (and many variations of)
Tim’s answer: Don’t do it – you’ll never get away with it.

So there we have it – another lot of queries cleared up. If you have any more bung them in the comments below!

A generic picture, generically illustrating the results of a generic poll

Well chaps, it’s that time again – the much awaited results of our latest poll. This month we asked what the diabetic hoards thought were the best ways of managing Type One diabetes.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the number of clearly biased pumpers who read the site, the option “21st century – pump therapy” came out as top result by quite a long way. This was closely followed by “22nd century – stem cell splicing”. This obviously demonstrates that we diabetics are a progressive bunch who believe in a wonderful future where diabetes is a thing of the past, where we drive hover-cars and dress in figure-hugging silver space suits.

Personally, my view of the future is a horrifyingly dystopian and nightmarish prospect similar to that vividly portrayed by Orwell and Huxley. But then maybe I’m just having a bad day.

Moving down the rankings, next came “18th century – blood letting & leeches”, followed by “17th century – trepanning”.

I know desperate times call for desperate measures, but the application of leeches and drilling into your head to let out evil spirits comes before “20th century – multiple daily injections” in your rankings? Are you lot insane?!

I know I’m not the greatest fan of injecting myself five times a day – but that gruesomely puncturing your own skull with a mechanical borer comes before MDI in your treatment preferences is completely and utterly fruitcake. Honestly, I really think Alison and I need to really worry about Shoot Up’s demographic.

Quickly leaving these horrifying results behind us, there’s a new poll up now for your voting delight, so get clicking!

Those results in full:

1 = 21st century – pump therapy
2 = 22nd century – stem cell splicing
3 = 18th century – blood letting & leeches
4 = 17th century – trepanning
5 = 19th century – starvation & prayer
6 = 20th century – multiple daily injections

Tim:

The founders of Shoot Up exchange frank views

I suppose it had to happen sometime.

Sadly we couldn’t keep on corresponding exclusively via email and unfortunately the founder members of your soaraway Shoot Up had to actually meet in person one day.

So it was with great regret and a heavy heart that my wife Katie and I agreed to meet up in Edinburgh earlier this week with my esteemed co-writer and her husband Geoff for drinks, dinner and more drinks.

As is, of course, obligatory in the wonderful world of blogs we then decided we had to post about it and bore you all to death. After all you – our beloved readers – don’t give a flying toss about us; you just want breezy articles about the wonders of diabetes don’t you?

Anyway, a lovely time was had by all and both Alison and I demonstrated our diabetes prowess that qualifies us to write this blog by completely and utterly messing up our control. Between the main and desert courses, Alison managed an impromptu hypo and I successfully got my BG up to an impressive 14.9. Yay, go us!

Among many other things, the evening gave us an opportunity to discuss Shoot Up and how we plan to develop it in the coming months. World domination and the enslavement of the entire human race was mentioned more than once, so watch this space and watch your back! Rrraagh!

Alison:

Say cheeeeeeese!

I thought it was about time that I actually looked into the whites of the eyes of the man I met on the internet several months ago and have been trading insults with ever since. I really wanted to hate Tim because it would have made for a much more interesting post but sadly we got on like the proverbial burning house.

I’m happy to confirm that Tim’s account of the evening doesn’t stray too far from the truth, but there are just a few more things to note:

• I’m sure The Scottish Whisky Society does a marvellous range of drinks, but the whisky Tim was drinking really didn’t smell fit for human consumption. Let me put it this way, if they made drinkable insulin and it smelt like that, the diabetes community would be rioting in the streets to get it outlawed.
• I blame too much talking and not enough eating for a really irritating low that put a stop to a debate that was just heating up about artificial pancreases.
• Co-authors of blogs should be allowed to average their blood sugar readings between them – that would give Tim and I an impressive post meal reading of 8.5 (as opposed to the actual mess we both managed to make of it).
• Having been diagnosed back in the mists of time, it made me smile to see that (relative) new boy Tim changed his pen needle every time he injected. I managed that ’til I was about 11 and then got into bad habits that involved changing needles daily at the very most.
• Tim and Geoff got far too comfortable in their anoraks discussing tech, internet security and the Chinese taking over the world.
• And finally, Tim’s lovely wife Katie makes the coolest handbags

The main thing to come out of the evening though, apart from some very unflattering photos, has to be our shared desire to take over the world. Watch this space!

Inspired by the marvel that was Saturday night’s Eurovision Song Contest, I was feeling a bit global so had a look at where visitors to the blog have been coming from over the last month. I knew we had a lot of Brits and Americans gracing our pages, but you’re coming from all over the world. Tim and I have rudely been writing purely in English so I feel now is a time to greet all our readers:

Good day chaps to the British (we came 5th in Eurovision, how amazing is that??)

• Hi y’all to the Americans
• Hello/Bonjour to the Canadians
• G’day to the Ozzies
• Hello to the New Zealanders (I feel I should know some colloquial greeting for our friends in NZ but my brain is sadly lacking)
• Bonjour to the Belgians, the French, the Swiss and the Luxembourgers (I had to google what you call someone from Luxembourg and to be honest there’s no clear cut answer so we’ll stick with this one until someone tells me otherwise)
• Hola to the Spanish, Mexicans, Brazillians and Venezuelans
• Guten Tag to the Germans
• Goedendag to the Dutch
• Buongiorno to the Italians
• Dobar dan to the Croatians (believe it or not I knew that one, but from here on in I’m reliant on dodgy internet translation sites so forgive me if I accidentally publish any obscenities)
• Goddag to the Danes
• Magandang araw to the Filipinos
• Selamat sore to the Indonesians
• Hallo to the South Africans
• God dag to the Norwegians and congratulations on winning Eurovision
• Xin chao buôi ngay to the Vietnamese
• And finally Dobrý den to the Slovakians

Its amazing to know you’re reading this all around the world and it’ll do Tim’s ego no end of good. If I’ve missed you off, humble apologies, leave us a comment to let us know.

I’ve talked before about the things I’ve learnt from the interweb  but that doesn’t explain why I blog.

I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I’d been inspired by the many American bloggers talking about type 1. And while diabetes is the same the world over, I was disappointed by the lack of British bloggers giving their view on life with diabetes in the UK.

This is the bit where I’m meant to talk about how I worked so hard to set up a site yadda, yadda, yadda but I’m afraid it’s not true. I’d thought about it, talked about it, doubted whether I’d be able to think up enough stuff to write about and never quite got round to it. Then I bumped into Tim online, another British type 1 who’d just started blogging and wanted a co-writer. I told the husband “darling, I’ve met a man on the interweb” and he gave me that “I’m not even going to ask” look and our blogging partnership was born.

But why do I do it? I’ve always talked about my diabetes, to people I meet, at conferences, at work. I don’t hide it. If I hide it away it feels like diabetes is just baggage that I drag around with me. If I talk about it there’s a purpose to having diabetes – I can share my experiences, help other people, learn from what they have to say.

At this point I feel I must disclose that since I got the pump this does go a bit too far at times. I have been found in a bar at a diabetes conference having a conversation with a male nurse along the lines of “I bet you can’t guess where I’ve hidden my pump” and “poke my thigh, see there’s my infusion set” all with the aim of educating people about the pump and how easy it is to hide!

Please believe me when I say that most of the time I manage to avoid such blatant exhibitionism, but I have always done some kind of voluntary work around diabetes – fundraising, lobbying, writing, public speaking – and I know that it makes me feel better. I stopped for a couple of years after I graduated because I had too many things going on but I really missed it. I seemed to be missing a reason for being diabetic.

So, it appears that blogging is my therapy and (excluding the occassional issue) I enjoy it, so I’ll carry on.

The CGMS was screaming away at 3am this morning. It woke the husband first who then woke me to discover I was low.

I was in usual “I’m fine, honestly I’m not hypo” mode while husband was trying to force juice down my neck. Even I have to admit, he and the CGMS were right.

I have two comments on this episode. Firstly, this is the first middle of the night low I’ve had for ages, I haven’t had one since I started blogging and it must be over a month before that. Secondly, while husband was fighting with slightly incoherent wife it appears I shouted several times “I’ve lost my blog, I can’t find it”. I thought blogging was meant to help, not pray on my subconscious mind and cause hypos!