Back to the daily grind

By | 16 September, 2011
Tim on holiday

Tim on holiday and rowing (very, very badly) on the River Avon

Panic over! I’m back! The mighty wheels of diabetes blogging can slowly start turning again now that I’m back from my holiday and I can safely fire up WordPress and pollute the Internet with putrescent drivel about diabetes.

As we all know, holidays can sometimes be difficult with the ‘betes. Odd meals at odd times, different schedules, more booze, larger meals, smaller meals, more exercise, less exercise and so on and so on. This article could therefore be a long moan about things that went wrong and how my diabetes ruined my holiday.

But – I’m very sorry to report – it’s not. I rarely gave it a thought. Diabetes blogs rarely have enough moaning and I’m sorry to not add to that worthy canon with a dismal diatribe of despond (I will, however, not hesitate to add to the canon of awful alliteration).

This was actually my first holiday with the pump and I’ve had nearly nine months to master it. I think it’s the mastering-it thing that’s the important bit. After all, pumps or any kit are just lumps of very expensive plastic if you can’t work the damned things and tailor them to your needs.

Anyway, the pump helped me to get my balance just right. For example, I was really pleased when Katie and I went out for a pub lunch made up of baguette, chips and cider (we’re just so classy!) followed by an eight mile section of the Cotswold Way path.

On injections this would have been a nightmare. Great reservoirs of Lantus would have been swimming about trying to do their worst and injections would have been a metaphoric and literal pain. But with the careful(ish) use of temporary basals, duals wave boluses and so on I started at a happy 6ish and ended on a happy 7ish. Good work!

This merry pattern carried on through the whole holiday, with only one minor hypo in the entire fortnight; which is considerably better than I manage the rest of the time. Even when we met up with my esteemed co-writer Alison and her hubby Geoff for dinner (they happened to be long-weekending near us) my blood glucose behaved itself. Avid readers will recall that whenever Alison and I meet up one or other of us will have a catastrophic hypo or embarrassing hyper. This is why we try to not meet up very often.

So was all this good control down to great technology and wonderful training from my DSNs, helping me to manage my ‘betes? That may have been a contributory factor. But, as always with diabetes, I think a great chunk of it came down to a big, fat dollup of luck!

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About Tim

Diagnosed with Type One when he was 28, Tim founded Shoot Up in 2009. For the diabetes geeks, he wears a Medtronic 640G insulin pump filled with Humalog and uses Abbott's Libre flash glucose monitor.

17 thoughts on “Back to the daily grind

  1. Mike

    @tim Welcome home, glad you had a great break away. How was it being back in the west country? πŸ™‚

    Reply
  2. Tim Post author

    Very nice, thanks Mike. One highlight was going to a country show (at Morton-in-Marsh) and actually seeing a real-life, genuine giant vegetable competition. What fun!

    Reply
  3. Tim Post author

    Does *every* Shoot Up reader come from the south west? I wasn’t that far from Annette and Charlie as well apparently.

    Reply
  4. Megs

    It would appear we do. I’m a Cotswolds girl myself. Just gazing out on my honey coloured dry stone wall…..

    Reply
  5. Tim Post author

    We should have some sort of Shoot Up meet up. For my convenience we could hold it in Edinburgh and all the West Country folk, who are conveniently in one place, could travel up. A plan made up of pure fried gold, eh?

    Reply
  6. lizz

    I’m from the South West. In between Bristol n Bath n Wells. I’m up fer it. Even if I have to meet Tim. In that shirt.

    Reply
  7. Annette A

    I remain to be convinced that Warwickshire is in the south west…or that the shirt is anything other than hideous…
    On a totally off topic note, SUoPU is in balance… (p.14, if anyone’s interested) and is apparently Alison’s…so that begs the question, ‘What has Tim been doing all these years…’? πŸ™‚

    Reply
  8. Tim Post author

    When compared to Edinburgh, Warwickshire is in the south west. It’s all a matter of perspective. Much like my shirt.

    Ohh, we are in Balance – I’d missed that. How mildly exciting. But obviously to DUK I don’t exist. *sob*

    Reply
  9. Annette A

    Well if we’re going to be picky, its actually South South East. πŸ˜›
    Your shirt, in perspective, would work better. (ie, a long way away.)
    You are, in fact, the non-existential blogger.

    Reply
  10. Cecile

    Tim’s id was oh-so-timid –
    He always kept it well hid,
    Feeding it dirt
    He says is shirt:
    “This flowerpot’s my limit.”

    Reply
  11. Cecile

    A peek at this article has made me feel a bit like a trollish cow (not cowardly troll, ’cause I do fare under my own name), so…much-maligned Dictator, here’s some balm:

    Tim’s decked out in such a nice shirt –
    How could we then dare to assert
    That it’s not appealing?
    I’ll stop my Cecile-ing:
    “What spiffing, smart, in-the-swim nerd!”

    Reply
  12. Tim Post author

    Ahh, thanks Cecile – that makes me feel a lot better about all this Internet bullying I’ve been subject to!

    Reply
  13. Annette A

    Awww. Well, if it makes you feel better, I just read @katie‘s interview in that sewing magazine (whatever it was. I didnt buy it, just stood in the shop and read it) and it was very good. Even the bit mentioning you was quite nice πŸ˜‰

    Reply

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