[[0009]] Week 3 Overview

Well, I can safely say this week has been a lot kinder, thank goodness!!!

This weeks blood results chart.

I shall start with the weekly blood tests first, get the nitty gritty of the diabetes part out the way to explain the rest of the week!

The one big thing that I notice here is... WAY LESS HYPOS HALLELUJAH! There have been a couple but they have been a little simpler to deal with. And luckily for most of them, I had something at home for them (except last nights, where I had to resort to golden syrup on a spoon and some not so tasty out of fate mini marshmallows😫).

Week 2 was rife with hypos, but I received some tips from a diabetes group on FB about drinking something like milk before bed to help stop sugars dropping in the night, alas, only had hypo drink so I had a couple of sips of that and it helped with a couple of night time hypos (as you can see, I hypoed last night as nothing sugary for me to have before bed!!!). It's actually pay day tomorrow so I am planning on buying some milkshake powder and milk and plan on having either warm milk before bed or a milkshake, and hopefully that will help me stop having night hypos, so watch this space!

I have had a few more hi results but, these don't alarm me too much because the amount of his I am having nowadays is a lot less than last year, which is a massive relief. This means I am getting some kind of diabetic control back in my life. Its ridiculous as I have had the condition for 27 years and cannot remember a day without it but yet it has taken me all this time to get some kind of good results. Better late than never is what I keep telling myself, but... some damage has already been done, sadly. 

Me and my lil mini me.

All in all, it has actually been a pretty okay week. I got to spend a lot of time with my youngest sister Lola and her dad this weekend which has been absolutely lovely and has brought sooooo many smiles to my face! They recently moved to their new home which I am so honestly thrilled about, and I got the joy of making up some of their furniture (which is one of my super secret loves haha, give me flat pack any day friends!!!). It's just so amazing to see two lovely people so happy and just, omg, my face hurts from smiling so much. Plus OMGOSH Lola has some AMAZING toys that I so wish they made when I was younger, like this super cute modern little kids kitchen, which is all smart and silver and black and just WOW, love it! 

Honestly, my little sister Lola-Lollipop means the absolute WORLD to me. She asks questions about me having diabetes and I love explaining it all to her. This weekend I was telling her about all the cool food I can eat that I don't have to medicate for, as her dad bought us Peperamis to snack on and I learnt this week at work that they have no carbs in therefore, new snack I don't have to med for! SO AWESOME! Not only that, but, I love how smart and clever Lola is, and she honestly reminds me of me when I was a kid... heck, she even looks like I did when I was little which is so creepy scary cos we may have the same mom, but different dads! Love her so so so much and I am so so so so happy I got to spend the weekend helping her and her dad in there lovely and beautiful new home. It's so good to see her happy and smiling, and knowing she is happy and smiling makes me feel so super happy too 💓💛💚💙💜

Fortnite streaming shenanigans.

In other news, streaming is getting better and better! I had some salary sacrifice left over from work, so decided to use it to get me and Jakey McBooty a capture card for streaming and OMG it makes such a difference to our streams and I absolutely love it! We still aren't the most professional, but we are having so much fun with everything related to it and its helping me come closer to doing one of my three dreams, which is streaming Pokémon games! (And maybe Animal Crossing and Final Fantasy too!!!) I don't know when I am going to start streaming from my own channel as of yet as need to set up things with stream labs and work out streaming and audio from my switch but needless to say, this capture card is an absolute game changer and a half!!! Also got to stream with my lovely friend Pete and his daughter as well (who I have been informed is pretty damn good on Fortnite) and my brother hopped on as well... so much fun! Roll on future streaming days! 

We've been planning some illustrations as well as future things to stream as well, one being a couple night on Valentine's day with a lovely take out and drinks and potentially trying out Minecraft for the first time! Honestly, everything is so super exciting right now, I'm so happy!

Super Insulin Pen, the Super Hero of
Team Super Insulin.

Also this week, well, today actually, I applied to be a social media ambassador for my favourite charity, JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund). You'll see me talk about them quite a bit if I am honest, I love the work they do (and one of the taglines in the application thanks was "help make type one, type none!"and I love it. We fundraised for them for their Game2Give campaign last year in which we raised £200 for the charity, and we should be at least be doing that twice more this year as well (it's going to be awesome now we have a better streaming set up!!!). But no, it's something I have thought about doing for a while, what with writing this blog now, along with the fundraising in the past (altogether we've raised about £320ish altogether) and then my dissertation in which I made kid friendly leaflets explaining what T1D is and so on... using social media to help promote awareness for T1D research and finding a cure is something I just had to do. Which leads on to my second dream in which I would love to work more for Type 1 Diabetes, whether it remains social media and writing, to fundraising, talking to people and educating and so on... its something I need to do. Plus, once my health and medication is sorted out, I may look into becoming a community support ambassador for JDRF, attending events and liaising with others, raising more awareness and so forth. I'm so so happy I took this leap and I look forward to writing about future developments, and who knows, I might be able to get my diabetes illustrations to a bigger audience in the future! 

Bob and Betty,
the insulin producing
Beta cells of the pancreas.

My one last dream is to write a book of my life, or a screenplay, called "Ordinary World?"... maybe I will apply for that masters in creative writing and publishing... one step at a time though, I don't want to overwhelm myself!!!

So, next week doesn't look too bad... although I have my first ever appointment with the diabetes team at my local hospital on Tuesday which I am a little bit terrified about. I have not seen a diabetes team there in YEARS, for the sheer fact I hated going, hated how I was spoke to as a kid and just... I don't even know, I hated going. I have accepted it now though and for the sake of my future and mine and Jake's future, I do need to go. But I have so much I need to tell the doctor about... and not only that, this doctor doesn't know me like my nurses at my surgery do, he doesn't know my history and why my diabetes has been a trash show all these years... so for the love of all that is holy, I hope they understand because I don't want to be terrified of going again. I also know that I'll be doing one of my old favourite jobs on Friday at work, but I haven't done it since I went in to hospital last year, and I currently don't know how my foot or my nausea will cope with it... so... long story short, next week will either be absolutely fantastic, or horrible as hell.

As always, watch this space! And thank you to my new followers and for those who have read my blog! I noticed my more informative post about cold and diabetes has done really well, so I think I am going to try and do another informative post this week, maybe even explain how T1D happens with my old trusty illustrations!!!

Laters lovely people 💙 And thank you so much for sticking by me too.