Picture

So I saw this is on facebook and downloaded it! It made me chuckle. I would of preferred a working pancreas but this is what life gave me instead and hey if you can't have a laugh and a joke things just get abit too depressing!! So as CEO of a Diabetic Body I love it!!

Quite frankly my body wouldnt even miss my pancreas if it was removed completely, seeing as it hasnt produced insulin for the last 8 years and has never worked in its capacity to produce the required enzymes to digest food, hence the ridiculous amount of tablets I need with food. Does the pancreas even do anything else apart from those 2 jobs?????

What I've accomplished in the last week

Thats right, alot of jigsaw completing with a little bit of home baking (it was my first attempt at egg custard)

Some casual observations/musings

WHY, why does your entire body decide to hurt and ache when you have a period? Or is it just me (please don't let it just be me). Why do your boobs have to become so tender and sore? I dont really understand how they are related to your internal plumbing in that way. Then my stomach hurts so I want to curl up to make it better but then my back also hurts so you want to lay straight. How are you meant to get comfy like that???

Also why is it so expensive to buy the required products for the time of the month?? Seriously, you would think they could provide these things a little bit cheaper than they are. I am guilty of stocking up when I see them on a particularly good offer because they are just so expensive!!

Final thoughts and musings on this topic- why have they not developed packaging that is more discreet? I don't need the whole world and his wife to know that I am using their products, which lets face it if you are using public conveniences then they all know as noises seem to echo in there. Also I really don't need bright purple, blue, green or rainbow (or any other appropriate colour here really) packaging in my bag so that every time I go into my handbag for my purse anyone stood near by can clearly see them. The day one of these companies provides a discreet wrapper that doesnt rustle and rattle and is a more discreet colour I will become their biggest buyer!!

Anyway rant over...........

quick catch-up

Thursday I had a pretty quiet day after clinic. I went to my friends house and spent some time with her and my god-daughter. We spent some time outside which she loved and seems to calm her down when she gets grouchy!

Friday I travelled to my bfs ready to go to wales for the weekend.

My weekend was spent in Wales with my bfs family. We didn't really do alot. He spent a lot of time sorting out some of the stuff that he has in storage to bring down to his new house. We popped in and saw all of his siblings during the course of the weekend also.

Monday I went to cadbury world (see previous blog post).

Tuesday and wednesday was spent at my bfs house. He was at work during the day but we had the late afternoons and evenings together. They were both thoroughly enjoyable evenings. Tuesday we sat and did our own hobbies side by side on the living room floor (I was doing a jigsaw, he was doing his lego kits) and wednesday he helped with my jigsaw. We sat and talked at the same time and it just felt right. It was comfortable and content and felt like I could do that for years to come and still be happy.

Today I came back to my house ready for tomorrow. When I got back into town I went and got my phone upgrade-woohoo!! Then this afternoon I saw my god-daughter again. I got some free headphones with my upgrade that have a RRP of £150. I was never going to use them so I put them up for sale on a fb page and got £80 for them. This was quite cool considering they didn't cost me anything and I now have some spending money for my holiday in a few weeks time without having to worry about bills as well.

Tomorrow I am at the hospital for Part 1 of my annual assessment. Tomorrow is the day of tests and then in a months time I get an indepth review of all the results and how things are going. It's never pleasant but just one of those things I have to do.

Friday evening and saturday daytime I'm spending with my bf before coming home again to babysit my nieces sunday daytime for my brother.

Cadbury World

On monday we finally made it to cadbury world- woohoo!! We had talked about it being a place to visit a few months ago and this week we finally acted on it. I was really quite excited about it.

We got there about midday and had some lunch in the cafe. Our tickets for the 'main exhbition' were for 2.20pm (you most definitely need to book, we did and that was the earliest time slot we could get). So we did the other bits there first, which include the bournville experience and the essence tour.

At the end of the essence tour we got our first free chocolate sample- yay!!

During the main exhbition tour we got given a crunchie, a curly wurly and a dairy milk. We got our photos taken on the green screen (we pretending to be surfing on a giant dairy milk board), during the cadabra ride (which is quite cool we were in car with the reg plate Bean 10) and again when we got 'moulded in chocolate'. They were all pretty good photos but none that we felt were really worth the £6 price tag on them, so we just mainly did them for fun.

The shop was a little disappointing, although D managed to get some chocolate quite cheap that he likes. We thought about getting our nieces and nephews some souvenirs but there wasn't really anything great there or suitable that wouldn't cost us the same amount as our entry fee (in total there would of been 12 kids to buy for). So we didnt get them anything in the end but did also get a bag of chocolate misshapes ready for the birthday party at the end of the month instead. We also got to write our names in chocolate and below is a photo of mine:

escaped

:o) :o) :o) :o)

Oh yeah! managed to just get my lung function back into the 60s (63%) and escaped ivs and also a stay in hospital!!

Here's hoping I can now keep this stable. My weight stayed exactly the same, luckily the dietician wasn't around in clinic so I didn't have to face her. I have a feeling I may get put on extra supplements next time I do see her if weight doesn't improve any time soon, which it won't because I'm not eating snacks as I dont want to do extra insulin injections- its abit of a vicious cycle really.

The diabetic side of the clinic also went well. my hBa1c had improved since the last time I had been at clinic so they weren't worried about me. There is still scope for improvement on it, to bring it down to a number that a non-diabetic would have but they are happy that there is improvement.

I just need to continue to make a continued effort to check my blood sugar levels before meals (which I have a tendency to not do because I don't really like doing it). To aid this a few months ago I got a blood glucose monitor which I had been coveting for quite some time (which is highly sad) a contour usb.

It's relatively small and can be plugged into the computer to download the data off it and then I can make pretty graphs showing trends in my blood sugars more easily. Making it easier to see if things are staying steady or if there is problem areas in the day.

Last night I also discovered I could order free from the company some things to jazz the meter up abit to make it more personal from the standard stuff that comes in the box and a wall charger to charge it up (instead of it charging up through the computer). Most of these things I have now ordered, except a silicone skin for it. That I have to save the strip box lids for to prove that I'm using the machine before they give those out. Unfortunately for me, 2 of those boxes went in the bin last week, so it will be a month or 2 before I can get that. When I do have enough though I will be able to make my meter purple in colour (kind of ) instead of black.


I have realised whilst writing this blog when you are immersed in a world that involves medical equipment they become items in your life like you a mobile phone. You want the best there is or what you see as the best for your needs and not just second best because what you want isn't available. I have 1 of the best nebulisers currently available called the eflow which operates with sonic sound waves and is virtually silent. Yet I found one of the best drugs on the market for helping with the lung disease wasn't so compatible with this nebuliser and I went back to the old reliable nebuliser system for that drug which is old, noisy and takes anywhere between half an hour to an hour to do.  1 of my other drugs still goes through the eflow and is done in 5mins.

In terms of blood glucose monitors there are loads of them available, different sizes and all with different capabilities. For those who like to write down their results there are very simple machines which record your results and that is it. For the more geekier among us you can monitors which track trends and tell you when your outside of your ideal ranges at the touch of a button.

In the diabetic and CF world the drug companies are all about fitting into your lifestyle and getting your business anyway they can!