As world Diabetes Day draws to a close, I thought I’d try something a little different. This blog post was actually inspired by a Facebook friend of mine who to raise awareness of the condition, posts updates throughout the day to show people what it is like to manage Type 1 Diabetes.

I’m aware that I’m not the most consistant when it comes to posting (you only need to look at the sporadic nature of my blog posts to see that), but I’m trying something a little similar. I thought I’d attempt to write up a day in the life of a Type 1 Diabetic. So! Without further ado…

Morning

I woke up around 9 o clock and first things first, the do list:

Am I feeling sick? – No

Do I have a headache? – No

Is the room spinning? – No

What did my sugars look like through the night? – Scan my libre (a sensor I wear on my arm and swap every 14 days. It stores my blood sugar levels for up to 8 hours and allows me to see it plotted on a graph):

(Please excuse the post-pasta blood sugar mountain…)

Review the amount of insulin I took last night and realise I probably could have given myself more Rapid-acting insulin before bed, however, the amount of background insulin was probably okay

Am I hungry and wanting breakfast? – No, if I did this would mean I need to take rapid-acting insulin along with my morning background insulin

What are my plans for the day? – Laura and I are going for a walk. The exercise will mean I need less background insulin for this morning so I will take 5 units rather than my original thought of 6

First injection of the day taken!

I pack my diabetic “go bag” (needle heads, rapid-acting insulin, small pot to contain used needles, dextrose) Scan my libre before I drive and off we go!

As you can see from below, even though I took my long acting insulin, there’s a little dawn effect happening where your blood sugars rise as you wake up – annoying right?

Laura and I met up with a friend and went on a lovely morning walk with some lovely morning views!

Cute doggos also included

During the walk I scan my sensor at three different points and watched the gradual decline in my blood sugars. By the time we had finished it was 7.9 – pretty good considering you want to be between 5 and 9.

From there Laura and I went to grab some lunch!

Afternoon

This is where the carb counting get’s involved. Did you know that a Tesco meal deal Christmas sandwich contained 54 carbs? I did. Because I had one before and I have to look at the carbs regularly.

I injected 4 units of Insulin and went to town – I should have waited 20 minutes before eating, but Laura and I had bigger plans so I decided to forgo it.

Letting our childish sense of Christmas wonder overtake us, we got special Costa drinks. You forget that when you are spontaneous, you have to pay the price! No not the additional cost of adding gingerbread to your latte (although the addition is outrageous), but the awkward moment whre you stand on a public street corner and look shifty as anything attempting to inject an additional 2 units.

Holding my bag and injecting – Can somebody say multi-tasking?

As the day continues, I question every slight feeling of dizziness – am I tired from a general lack of sleep? Am I exhausted from the two-hour walk this morning? Am I cruising a sugar high from my latte?

Nope.

Well I guess this means I can have that cream donut without any guilt!

Evening

After riding out the low blood sugar, we then had an incredibly productive evening where we begin a Lord of the Rings Marathon! Starting with The Hobbit, of course. Now that I’ve scarfed the cream donut, my blood sugars are finally hitting a semblance of normalcy at 5.3.

Eh! Look at all that green!

When we decided to have dinner, the lasagne I had planned unfortunately needed to be changed to a bolognese. Now here’s the kicker – The lasagne is homemade and I had figured out just how much I needed to inject for it. Because of the change, I no longer know this and I’ve just done some guesswork. 6 units – now let’s see how this goes.

Hmm… well, let’s see what happens shall we?